The top 10 City firm managed to edge up its number of listed clients to 77 to finish eighth in the UK rankings, while the rest of the top 15 firms saw their number of stock market clients drop.
Norton Rose remained top of the table with 127 listed clients — two down from the last quarter — according to the corporate adviser rankings for the year to 9 November.
Slaughters came second with 100 quoted clients — down from 114 last quarter. Ashurst and Eversheds are the only other firms to hold more than 100 listed clients, although both saw their numbers drop slightly to 107.
The changes in market share will be seen as evidence of top firms’ increasing focus on the
Herbert Smith corporate partner Ben Ward said: “The bedrock of our practice is our listed corporate clients. It is not about only paying attention to your biggest clients and the major deals — you also have to look after the FTSE 249 client.”
Slaughters has held its place as adviser to the most FTSE 100 and 250 companies, despite several high-profile takeovers that have seen it lose listed clients including Boots and Corus. The firm is retained as adviser to 35 of the FTSE 250 and 28 of the FTSE 100, representing no change at the 250 level but a gain of one FTSE 100 client.
Slaughters head of M&A Stephen Cooke commented: “In the short term there are always minor changes as clients are reclassified and move in and out of the rankings. I am not aware of any changes in the big FTSE clients in the last quarter, but we have definitely had a lot of wins at the 350 level.”
He added: “We are always on the sell side because we have so many listed clients but we always manage to replace them.”
The gap between Slaughters and second-placed Ashurst at the FTSE 250 level has grown from two to four, with Ashurst having 31 FTSE 250 clients, down from 33 last quarter. Linklaters came second in the FTSE 100 rankings with 21 clients but leads the way by market cap of FTSE 100 clients, advising companies worth a combined £616bn. The same tables see Herbert Smith edge ahead of Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer by market cap into fourth place.
Ashurst has the most small cap and fledgling clients with 39, while a gain of six clients sees Olswang re-enter the tables for the first time since November 2006. Norton Rose also tops the table by number of Alternative Investment Market clients, with 64, ahead of DLA Piper, Eversheds, Pinsent Masons and Halliwells respectively.