Morgan Stanley led the Asia Pacific league tables of mergers and acquisitions advisors, by the total value of deals, as part of a broader trend of U.S. bank dominance in the area year-to-date.
Morgan Stanley advised on 24 deals worth $25.3 billion in the first half of 2020, the highest total value amongst all financial advisers in the same period, according to GlobalData. J.P. Morgan ranked second at $24.4 billion from 14 deals followed by Deloitte at $16.5 billion from 13 deals.
In contrast, other players pursued a significantly high number of deals but at limited values only. Ernest & Young, for example, led M&A advisors by deal volume at 32 in the first half of the year but with only a total value of $2.7 billion.
«Interestingly, advisers such as Quant Group and ANZ also featured in the list of top 10 advisors by value, despite advising on one deal each,» said Aurojyoti Bose, financial deals analyst at GlobalData, underlining the varying sizes of deal value.
U.S. Dominance
In the first half of 2020, the number of deals in Asia Pacific grew over 11 percent year-on-year from 5,640 to 6,278 with a total value of $266.4 billion.
Morgan Stanley and J.P. Morgan alone represented nearly one-fifth of the total regional deal value in the period. And U.S. bank dominance was not limited to Asia alone. Of the over $1 trillion raised from the 24,698 deals in the period worldwide, American lenders accounted for over 65 percent of deal value and occupied the top five positions in the global league table. Goldman Sachs led the M&A top ranks with 113 deals valued at a total of $205.9 billion.
«Deal activity remained subdued during H1 2020 on the back of volatile market conditions due to COVID-19 outbreak,» GlobalData said, referring to the 15 percent and 45 percent decrease in the number of deals and total deal value, respectively.
