Kekst and Company and Brunswick Group continued to lead U.S. M&A PR advisors in the third quarter by number of deals and value, respectively, according to mergermarket.
Publicis-owned Kekst counseled 76 U.S. transactions through Q3, ahead of Sard Verbinnen & Co. (73), Joele Frank, Wilkinson Brimmer Katcher (70), Brunswick (65) and FTI Consulting (63).
Measured by value, Brunswick was involved in U.S. transactions worth more than $195.6B, edging Sard ($140.8B), Abernathy MacGregor Group ($136.1B), Kekst ($112.4B) and Joele Frank ($107.8B).
Five of the year’s largest global M&A deals so far in 2011 took place in Q3, including Express Scripps’ $33.4B move on Medco Health Solutions in July (Brunswick and Abernathy MacGregor Group, respectively), Nippon Steel’s $22.5B acquisition of Sumitomo Metal (N/A), United Technologies’ $17.9B deal for Goodrich Corp. (Joele Frank, Wilkinson Brimmer Katcher), BHP Billiton’s (Brunswick) $14.8B pitch for Petrohawk Energy.
Globally, Brunswick remained atop the deal advising charts by value ($245.5B) and FTI held its lead for the number of transactions in which it played a role (177).
Making strong gains in the U.S. rankings were Blueshirt Group, which climbed from No. 24 by deal count in 2010 to No. 13 in Q3 2011 with 14 transactions, and BackBay Communications, which vaulted from No. 70 in 2010 to No. 20 in 2011 with 10 deals.