A&L Goodbody - No. 1 Irish Law Firm for M&A deals in 2012
February, 2013 - Dublin, Ireland
A&L Goodbody has been ranked Ireland’s top law firm for Mergers and Acquisitions for 2012, according to each of the leading international research publications - Mergermarket, Bloomberg, CorpFin and Thomson Reuters*.
According to Mergermarket, A&L Goodbody advised on a total of 25 M&A transactions in 2012, including all of the announced transactions with a value of more than €500m. The combined value of the transactions the firm advised on was in excess of €16bn. These included acting for Eaton Corporation on its acquisition of Cooper Industries – the 4th largest deal globally in 2012; Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation on its acquisition of RBS aerospace the biggest ever global sale of an aircraft leasing business; Jazz Pharmaceuticals on the proposed acquisition of EUSA Pharma and Ryanair on its bid for Aer Lingus. Other significant transactions included advising the senior lenders of eircom on its acquisition of the company; Apollo on the acquisition of MBNA’s Irish credit card business; Elan in respect of the spin-off and related IPO of its early stage R&D business, Prothena, into a new Irish incorporated, Nasdaq listed public company; Pallas Foods on its acquisition of Crossgar Foodservice; Permanent tsb on the sale of its automobile finance portfolio and Bloomberg on its acquisition of PolarLake Limited.
Mark Ward, Head of Mergers & Acquisitions at A&L Goodbody said: “2012 saw solid levels of activity in the Irish M&A market with some very high value deals. We are very pleased to again be ranked at the very top of our market, by all of the leading international publications. 2012 saw an increase in the number of deals from the international market and the most active sectors being Financial Services, Pharma/Healthcare, Food/Agri and ICT”.
*Thomson Reuters data compiled based on transactions with an Irish aspect announced in 2012.
