Advising on deals worth approximately $585 billion, Morgan Stanley (NYSE:MS) took over the No. 1 spot from JP Morgan (NYSE:JPM), and also beat out investment bank rival Goldman Sachs (NYSE:GS) in mergers and acquisitions deals for 2009. JP Morgan held the No. 1 spot for 2008.
Morgan Stanley moved up from its 2008 7th place finish.
Goldman Sachs also jumped over former No. 1 JP Morgan with $548 billion in mergers and acquisitions advisement in 2009, with JP Morgan dropping to the No. 3 slot for the year on the league tables.
Of course a lot of this was connected to the takeover of the failed investment bank Lehman Brothers, which Barclays Capital brought under its umbrella. The overall deals advised by Barclay Capital came to $247 billion in 2009.
“With overall deal value and volume ending the year 27% down on the previous year, 2009 was not a good year for M&A,” said Mergermarket. Still, the final three months of the year gave hope that things may turn around in 2010, as it was the best quarter since the third quarter of 2008.
During the final 2009 quarter mergers and acquisitions deals surged to about 2,500, with a value of $627 billion. That was a 90 percent increase over the previous quarter, and 35 percent more than the same period the year before.
While all of this is interesting, there are still far too many variables to imply any type of sustainable economic turnaround in 2010, no matter what some of the isolated data from a variety of sectors may say. Too many financial and regular financial news outlets are grasping at economic data straws to build a case that simply isn’t there yet.
No matter how you look at it, 2010 will continue to be a tough economic year, although in the mergers and acquisitions area there should be some improvement.
