Magic Circle M&A Laggards?

The always-informative, occasionally juicy New York Times DealBook, written by the tireless and uber-connected Andrew Ross Sorkin, had a year-end wrapup yesterday of 2011 global M&A activity, including a table listing the top 15 law firms (more below), but here are the highlights.

By dollar volume, the first half of the year approached its highest levels since the onset of the financial crisis, but the second half fell 19% year on year.

People think 2012 will be more promising, with unprecedented levels of cash on corporate balance sheets and–a huge if–providing Europe “doesn’t go off the rails,” a long-term positive outlook.  Indeed, while the outlook in the Americas remains generally positive, “Europe is still a mess,” said David A. DeNunzio, vice chairman of Credit Suisse’s mergers and acquisitions group. “People thought there would be more divestiture activity as companies try to get more liquid, but that hasn’t happened yet.”

Meanwhile, in a historic reversal of capital flows, Brazilian and Chinese companies are looking to acquire established brands in developed markets.

Overall?  My favorite quote capturing the zeitgeist is from James Woolery, JPMorgan Chase’s co-head of North America M&A:  “We have fragile momentum.”

Now, to that law firm table.   Here’s what the NYT presents, the breakdown by value of deals:

And this isn’t terribly surprising, is it?  The usual suspects are in the top ranks, and if you’re a law student intent on plunging into deal work (or a lateral partner, for that matter), you now have your roadmap of places to go calling on.

But I thought two other slices of the data would be interesting.  Let’s sort it by number of deals, for starters:

Quite a different picture, say what?  Instead of the Murderers’ Row of S&C et al., we now have Jones Day at the top and Wachtell and Cravath bringing up the absolute rear.  When was the last time you saw a ranking putting those firms in that order?

So the last change we have to ring on this is, of course, to sort by average value of the deals:

Now that’s more like it–more of a return to reality as we know it (or as we conventionally think of it, anyway).

Who’s King of the Hill on this measure?  Who else?  Wouldn’t you be shocked were it otherwise?  Cravath also comes out very nicely, as do the remaining New York Elite.  The big surprise to me?  The Magic Circle firms bringing up the rear.

I find this totally unexpected:  Freshfields, Linklaters, and Allen & Overy all rank below Latham in calendar year 2011 average deal size, none of them breaking the billion-dollar club.

So I ask you, dear readers, what’s going on here?  Let your voice be heard!