Yet another league table

Voting is now well under way for this week’s web poll (it can be found on the home page) with Freshfields and Linklaters battling it out for the official legalweek.com crown as the King of European M&A. As I write, Linklaters has edged marginally ahead (42%) after Freshfields (39%) took an early lead. Clifford Chance (18%) is currently trailing — but no doubt there will be a surge of voting when New York opens for business…

The standings currently provide what many would regard as a fairly accurate reflection of the true picture of Europe’s top M&A advisers, give or a take a few overzealous voters at Silk Street. In fact, Mergermarket’s third quarter rankings (see story) show Freshfields edging ahead of its rivals by value, although in volume terms it advised on precisely the same number of deals as Linklaters (189). CC, meanwhile, can comfort itself with the knowledge that five years ago it would not have been on the radar, even if the firm’s City public M&A team still has some way to go before it can really challenge the other two firms on its home ground.

And just in case anybody is preparing to scoff at the methodology, they should remember that it correctly predicted the outcome of the Linklaters senior partner elections…which is more than can be said of most General Election pollsters.

john.malpas@legalweek.com