The American Lawyer has published its "Corporate Scorecard
2003" ranking the top firms in a broad range of transactional categories
from IPO’s (you guessed it—dead) to bankruptcy (also counter-intuitively
quiet) to municipal bond issuance ("who are these guys?"). They
provide a narrative summary as well as the full rankings.
Common wisdom has it that the small uptick of M&A deals at the end of
the year is precursor to far more robust activity in 2004. While
I’m generally averse to forecasting major trends from minor data points,
I actually am optimistic that this is the correct point of view. Why?
Primarily because most of corporate America will have cleared out its Sarbanes-Oxley
underbrush and will be able to look outward and ahead rather than inward
and back.
Weekly Thank You
Its time for my weekly thank you for those who have helped with the weblog this week. Israel Encinosa helped with editing; Chan Stroman provided a listing of UChicago weblogs; Paul Goyette provided a listing of chicago weblogs; Adam Charnes,