M&A Monopoly
Bloomberg said on Jan. 5 that Morgan Stanley managed eight financial advisory deals, worth US$41.68848 billion in total, in Korea last year.
The deals covered the merger between SK and SK C&C (US$26.7 billion) as the largest one on last year’s M&A league table, that between Cheil Industries and Samsung C&T (US$10.9 billion) and the acquisition of Homeplus by MBK Partners (US$6.1 billion). In addition, Morgan Stanley took part in Softbank’s investment in Coupang (US$10. billion) and MBK’s sale of China Network System (US$2.3 billion).
Goldman Sachs, in the meantime, climbed 12 notches from a year ago to second (US$41.139 billion, eight contracts) by providing advice for the two merger deals with Morgan Stanley, the sale of Universal Studio Japan by MBK (US$1.5 billion), etc. Credit Suisse followed by acting as an advisory in six M&A deals worth US$39.5 billion. The fourth and fifth places went to PricewaterhouseCoopers (US$37.3 billion, 42 deals) and Citigroup (US$36.1 billion, six deals). NH Investment & Securities took the seventh place (US$29.3 billion) and Samsung Securities ranked eighth (US$15 billion).
Kim & Chang retained its top spot in legal advice regarding M&A for the second consecutive year. Specifically, the law firm coordinated 92 M&A deals worth US$68.6 billion last year. It was followed by Bae, Kim & Lee LLC (US$38.7 billion, 59 cases) and Lee & Ko (US$30.5 billion, 81 cases).