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What sources do you guys use to determine the top M&A firms.

For example, Chambers has its ranking.

http://www.chambersandpartners.com/1278 ... torial/5/1

Bloomberg also release its ranking.

http://www.bloomberg.com/professional/c ... Tables.pdf

The biggest discrepancy I see at the top between Chambers and Bloomberg is that FF is top on Bloomberg Global(#10) and US(#8) announced deals surpassing STB (Global #11) (US #13), while significantly lower on Chambers National (FF: Elite Band 4, STB: Elite Band 1)

Anyone care to chime in?

Thanks.

I assume chambers takes a more long term view of how firms have performed in M&A market rather than just one half of one year snapshot.

Look at deal count though, 36 v. 59. Indicates that FF had some huge deals but I would guess not likely that they can continue having a high volume with such low deal count.

Look at ranks last year, 23 v 6. Can't just look a 6 months as indicative of anything.

Though Vault is mostly worthless, I think most would agree that the top 6 firms on Vault more or less track the top 6 firms in M&A (i.e. WLRK, CSM, S&C, DPW, STB, Skadden). I think Cleary is probably the strongest after that group. After those 7 firms, I think it becomes a lot more difficult to reach any sort of consensus, so you're probably better off just asking about specific firms.

Out of that group, I know Simpson's focused a lot on private M&A work, but does the rest do pretty similar stuff when it comes to M&A? Wondering how the type of M&A work at Cravath or Skadden would compare to what one would find at DPW's M&A, for example. Might be a silly question but heading to one of those firms and just curious.

Anonymous User wrote:Out of that group, I know Simpson's focused a lot on private M&A work, but does the rest do pretty similar stuff when it comes to M&A? Wondering how the type of M&A work at Cravath or Skadden would compare to what one would find at DPW's M&A, for example. Might be a silly question but heading to one of those firms and just curious.

They're generally all pretty similar, and on any given large transaction one of them is likely to be across the table from the other. DPW is a little different in that its M&A group is smaller and M&A probably accounts for a relatively lower share of DPW's corporate business (compared cap markets and finance) but they still work on big deals.

Anonymous User wrote:What sources do you guys use to determine the top M&A firms.

For example, Chambers has its ranking.

http://www.chambersandpartners.com/1278 ... torial/5/1

Bloomberg also release its ranking.

http://www.bloomberg.com/professional/c ... Tables.pdf

The biggest discrepancy I see at the top between Chambers and Bloomberg is that FF is top on Bloomberg Global(#10) and US(#8) announced deals surpassing STB (Global #11) (US #13), while significantly lower on Chambers National (FF: Elite Band 4, STB: Elite Band 1)

Anyone care to chime in?

Thanks.

Given Fried Frank's reputation in both Chambers and Bloomberg, why does Fried Frank get so disrespected? I get that they aren't a full service firm in the way that V10s where virtually every practice group is chambers ranked, but in the main groups (M&A, general lit., PE, RE.....) Fried Frank is ranked pretty well. Why doesn't FF get any love

Anonymous User wrote:

Anonymous User wrote:What sources do you guys use to determine the top M&A firms.

For example, Chambers has its ranking.

http://www.chambersandpartners.com/1278 ... torial/5/1

Bloomberg also release its ranking.

http://www.bloomberg.com/professional/c ... Tables.pdf

The biggest discrepancy I see at the top between Chambers and Bloomberg is that FF is top on Bloomberg Global(#10) and US(#8) announced deals surpassing STB (Global #11) (US #13), while significantly lower on Chambers National (FF: Elite Band 4, STB: Elite Band 1)

Anyone care to chime in?

Thanks.

Given Fried Frank's reputation in both Chambers and Bloomberg, why does Fried Frank get so disrespected? I get that they aren't a full service firm in the way that V10s where virtually every practice group is chambers ranked, but in the main groups (M&A, general lit., PE, RE.....) Fried Frank is ranked pretty well. Why doesn't FF get any love

Also would like to know.

Bloomberg isn't rankings, it's just deal flow quantity right?