By Greg Hazley
Joele Frank, Wilkinson Brimmer Katcher and Abernathy MacGregor Group were the top PR firms in the U.S. M&A sector for the first three quarters of 2010 as ranked by value of deals and quantity of transactions, respectively, according to mergermarket.
Source: mergermarket |
Joele Frank counseled 59 deals totaling $99.6 billion during that period, including advising CenturyLink in its April $22B acquisition of Qwest Communications, and working the nearly $9 billion acquisition of Allegheny Energy by FirstEnergy Corp. in February.
Abernathy MacGregor Group, meanwhile, worked 73 deals so far this year, ahead of Kekst and Company (70), Joele Frank (59), FD (58) and Brunswick Group (47). All five of those top firms by volume posted double-digit increases from the same period of 2009, including a 32-deal increase for AMG and increase of 23 and 20, respectively, for Joele Frank and Brunswick. Deal count is up more than 25% this year over ’09, according to mergermarket.
Despite those gains, U.S. M&A activity by value is down 1.6% from 2009 levels, the research company said, and U.S. share in global activity fell from 43% last year to 33.9% this year.
Sard Verbinnen & Company worked 46 deals worth $66.8 billion during the period, landing it fourth in the value ranking. The firm was also PR counsel to MetLife in its $15.5B bid for American Life Insurance Company, the second largest deal of the year behind the CenturyLink bid. Kekst repped American Life in the March deal.
Globally, Brunswick is leading M&A firm through three quarters by value ($224B) and No. 2 in deal count (131). FD leads global firms by deal count with 156 through Q3.
Global M&A totaled more than $1.4 trillion through Q3 of 2010, up 25% from the same period of 2009. Deal count was up 18% at 8,102.
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