The Legal 500

Firms in this table have shown their ability to act on a number of London-led deals over £50m in any given year, and are ranked according to the number and quality of those deals along with client feedback. US firms with small UK-law practices that often work on deals of this size but which also rely on their extensive international networks are ranked at the foot of the table.

Eversheds LLP, with a 40-partner team, is regularly among the leading firms by volume of completed UK M&A deals. In 2008 its average deal value was £33m, with its advice to Bodycote on the £417m sale of an international testing division to CDR Tabasco (advised by Debevoise & Plimpton LLP) stands out. Mark Spinner is the London contact.

Hammonds LLP garners very positive client feedback; ‘value for money’ is a common refrain, as is ‘excellent service and quick response times’, and it is noted as a ‘market leader in client care and no-nonsense drafting’. Standout partners in London are Mark Robson, David Hull, Nick Allen, James McKay, Robert Bray and Giles Distin.

Osborne Clarke is a strong mid-market performer, completing 65 deals nationally in 2008 at an average of £49m each. One of these was acting for The Carphone Warehouse on its Class 1 joint venture with US-based Best Buy (advised by Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer LLP), a deal that any firm in the higher-value table would have been happy to undertake. London head Adrian Bott led on this deal.

Pinsent Masons LLP worked on 227 deals in 2008 at an average of £47m. FTSE 250 clients are a focus, as are the insurance, construction, energy, waste and healthcare sectors. Advising the management of Angel Trains on its £3.6bn sale was a particular achievement. Clients commend the team for its ‘proactivity’, with Jon Harris and Gareth Edwards recommended.

The UK M&A team at Dechert LLP completed around 20 transactions in 2008, and is noted for the ‘exceptional quality of its lawyers and services’. Private equity and hedge funds are an area of emphasis.

Clients ‘highly recommend’ Stephen Horvath, head of a 16-partner, US and UK law practice at Dewey & LeBoeuf. Its staple diet of cross-border transactions, often in the insurance, energy and telecoms sectors, also has a strong Russian flavour. Lynn McCaw is also recommended.

2008 was a year of frustration for McDermott Will & Emery UK LLP’s four English M&A partners, with many deals failing to reach completion. The firm did win two instructions for Honeywell, however, and completed a £53m UK acquisition for Luxottica. Hugh Nineham is European practice head.

A 20-partner Nabarro LLP team completed 23 UK M&A transactions at an average of £25m each in 2008, ranging from £5m to €250m. One of the most complex was advising Premier Recruitment, one of three bidders for listed company Imprint, which was sold for £45m. Iain Newman and Glyn Taylor are recommended.

Olswang is distinguished by its strength in depth, with 24 partners in its team. The media sector is a central focus, accounting for a significant number of the 65 deals that the firm completed in 2008 (averaging £22m). Stephen Hermer, David Roberts and Simon Morgan are well known.

One of the highest-profile deals completed by Reed Smith’s London arm in 2008 was McDonalds’ £350m sale of a 33% interest in Pret a Manger (advised by Macfarlanes LLP), although it also worked on two valued at over £1bn. The ‘easy to work with’ David Boutcher and Philip Taylor are the lead partners, and Michael Young is ‘adept at dealing with difficult individuals’.

Taylor Wessing LLP has 26 partners with M&A expertise, typically acting on deals in the sub £500m-bracket. Inward investment was a growing theme throughout 2008 as sterling declined, with David Kent’s work for US-based Esterline Technologies on its £115m acquisition of Racal Acoustics a key example here. M&A in the private equity sector is another strength, with Greenhill Capital using the firm for the first time in 2008.

Stuart Young heads an eight-partner London corporate team at Wragge & Co LLP, which is part of a national practice that completed 20 deals totalling £500m in 2008. Automotive, food, energy and healthcare are areas of focus.

Keith Snedden’s six-partner corporate team at Barlow Lyde & Gilbert LLP welcomed Simon Gamblin from Covington & Burling LLP in 2008. Corporate clients are a focal area, although one of the team’s most significant wins of the year was for a leading European investment bank.

Neil Blundell and Mark Pinder are the co-heads of Bird & Bird LLP’s 16-partner corporate group, which is active on mid-market and upper mid-market cross-border deals for clients such as EADS, Northrop Grumman, Sun Microsystems and Symantec. Advising Hellman & Freidman Capital Partners on the European aspects of its US$2.4 billion acquisition of Getty Images stands out.

Transport and media are key sectors for the 13-partner corporate team at Field Fisher Waterhouse LLP, with clients including the BBC, although the firm is perhaps best known for its international practices; Russia and the CIS in particular is a source of work. Andrew Blankfield heads the group.

Advising Cygnet on the £340m acquisition of a holding company was the largest of 30 deals completed by LG’s 18-partner corporate team in 2008. Most of the rest were in the sub-£50m bracket, often with an international element; Sunil Kakkad completed a string of India-related deals. Practice head Chris Tite is also recommended.

Acting for Swiss banking group EFG International on the acquisition of London-based Marble Bar Asset Management in 2008 was a standout transaction for Lewis Silkin LLP’s ‘highly regarded’ corporate practice, which is most often seen on media-sector deals. Jo Evans enjoys one of the best reputations of any practitioner in this section, and Nigel Edwards is also recommended.

The ‘dynamic’ team at Mishcon de Reya acted on seven deals £50m-plus deals in 2008, often with a property sector emphasis. Helical Bar and Quotient Bioscience are active clients. Jonathan Berman, Nick Davis and Richard Tyler are the leading contacts.

Reynolds Porter Chamberlain LLP’s impressive corporate client base came to the fore in 2008 with Swedish conglomerate SCA instructing the firm on the £100m disposal of a cardboard business, and HMV Waterstone choosing it for its acquisition of 14 stores from Zavvi. Tim Anderson heads the team, which has recently been strengthened by the arrival of the ‘well-rounded and thoughtful’ David Wallis from Dechert LLP.

The Gulf region is an increasing source of work for Sharon White’s M&A team at Stephenson Harwood. Bahrain-based Seera Investment Bank was a new client in 2008, instructing the firm on the acquisition of BWA Water Additives. Tony Edwards and Peter Bradley are also recommended.

Both client and peers are fulsome in their praise of Jennie Gubbins’ ten-partner practice at Trowers & Hamlins LLP, which worked on 28 deals in 2008 averaging approximately £50m. Natural resources, the Middle East, AIM and public sector transactions are all strengths.

Defying the prevailing market conditions, Clyde & Co LLP succeeded in ramping up its deal volume in 2008, completing an impressive 40 transactions, ranging in value up to £150m. Sector strengths include financial services, natural resources, transportation and food and drinks. The firm ‘provides a first-class service 99% of the time, which can’t be said of other firms’. Philip Rogers and Tim Matthews are recommended.

Private equity boutique Dickson Minto WS continues to enjoy an excellent reputation for private equity transactions. For US matters it has an alliance with Willkie Farr & Gallagher LLP.

Dundas & Wilson LLP is, in the words of one client, the firm that ‘thinks before shooting and uses a silencer when it does’. Eight corporate partners have done well at leveraging off the firm’s Scottish client base, and in 2008 advised a Scottish bank on a top-tier transaction worth almost £1bn. Other deals were in the sub-£50m bracket. Nadim Meer, Simon Sale and Douglas Land win praise.

Four of Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher LLP’s seven London M&A partners are UK qualified. Deals in 2008 included the US$147m sale of Bulgaria’s Sofia City Centre Mall, in which James Barabas and Wayne McArdle advised seller Equest Balkan Properties.

High-value M&A deals and joint ventures in the international shipping, trade and energy sectors are a consistent theme for Holman Fenwick Willan LLP, but the firm is ‘excellent on all fronts’. Alistair Mackie and Samantha Roberts win most feedback, with the latter noted for her ‘excellent personal skills’.

International deals up to £100m remain the sweet spot for Kevin Dean’s 16-partner UK corporate group at K&L Gates. Clients declare themselves ‘well satisfied’ with its service, highlighting ‘impressive bench strength’. Jeremy Davis is a ‘good communicator’.

Morrison & Foerster (UK) LLP’s six-partner corporate group is best known for technology and healthcare sector work and, increasingly, natural resources. Paul Claydon heads the team, which includes James Gubbins and Natalie Diep. One of its largest recent deals was Claydon’s advice to Acambis on its £276m recommended takeover by Sanofi-Aventis.

Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe’s ‘top-rate’ London M&A capability has grown fast in the last two years and can now call on the skills of five UK-qualified and three US-qualified partners. The practice attains ‘the highest possible standard on all counts and is a pleasure to work’. The arrival of Hilary Winter in early 2008 has added public company expertise, and clients attest that Dean Poster is ‘one of the best lawyers we have ever encountered’.

Central and Eastern Europe and Russia remain a leading source of deals for Salans, which is a leader in those regions and regularly acts on multimillion-pound transactions. Deal sizes on UK-only deals tend to be smaller, often for AIM-listed companies. Paul Salmon heads a nine-partner team.

Jan Mellmann heads Watson, Farley & Williams LLP’s international M&A practice, which includes eight London partners. It undertakes a number of lower mid-market deals every year, although deal values in core firmwide sectors such as shipping are frequently much larger.

UK-qualified corporate partners Steve Blakeley, Fred Heller and Douglas Glass feature at Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld. Energy and natural resources, telecoms and investment funds are areas in which the firm is strong.

Arnold & Porter (UK) LLP’s self-defined focus is on areas where law, policy and business overlap, which typically means deals in the tech, pharma and financial regulatory sectors; UK-qualified partner Jeremy Willcocks has pioneered this approach and will now be aided by two new arrivals: US-qualified Carl Liederman and US and UK-qualified Paula Levitan. In 2008 the firm completed deals ranging from £15m to £365m.

Emerging markets is Chadbourne & Parke MNP’s niche. It has four UK-qualified partners with M&A expertise, but their focus is on applying UK law techniques on transactions overseas, particularly in Russia, CIS, Turkey and the Middle East. Gazprom, PepsiCo and Norilsk Nickel are representative clients.

‘An excellent law firm which provides the highest levels of service to its clients’, Steptoe & Johnson advised on 20 deals totalling over £1bn in 2008, with emerging markets a growing theme. Michael Thompson is the recommended contact.

Derek Jones is the sole English M&A partner at Baker Botts (UK) LLP, providing UK law support on the global firm’s international, typically energy-sector deals.

Sub-£50m, UK-sourced transactions are the core diet for the two-partner team at Bingham McCutchen (London) LLP, though some of its deals are much larger. Vance Chapman impressed in 2008, acting for the exit of US fund Gottex's investment in a windfarm project, through its sale to Vattenfall (advised by Norton Rose LLP). Investment funds are a key focus area.

Mark Taylor is the leading UK-law M&A partner at Dorsey & Whitney. In addition to undertaking larger transactions for US clients such as Dana and Dover corporations, the team acts on a number of UK-only deals in the sub-£50m bracket.

A ‘very good negotiator and genuine solution-finder’, Jerry Walter is the sole UK-qualified M&A partner at Fried, Frank, Harris, Shriver & Jacobson (London) LLP, which impresses clients with its ‘tailor-made approach’. Financial institutions doing global deals comprise a large part of the client base.

Stuart Harray is the only UK-qualified M&A partner at Milbank, Tweed, Hadley & McCloy LLP, and works in tandem with US-qualified Tom Siebens. They predominantly act for financial institutions on high-value M&A.

Private equity is a focus for O’Melveny & Myers LLP, with UK-qualified partners Justin Stock and Paul Loynes both active.

Ronan O’Sullivan is the sole UK-qualified M&A partner at Paul, Hastings, Janofsky & Walker (Europe) LLP. A wider corporate practice has been built from a standing start in 2005, with a particular emphasis on property and telecoms clients.

Corporate partner Joe Pillman is the contact for M&A at Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr LLP. Technology and life science deals of all values are a theme.