The year is just getting started but already it appears that big deals are back.
This month alone, law firm announcements of multibillion-dollar mergers and acquisitions have been pouring into our inboxes. After a year in which deal value was painfully low, with 2023 results hitting their lowest point in a decade and deal volume also down, a surge in deal activity is great for corporate law firms.
But evidence suggests this could be just a surge and nothing more—like a transient sudden rise of voltage in an electrical circuit. It may not last. Regulatory, geopolitical, and economic challenges have not gone away. (More on that in a minute.)
For now, law firms hailing from all over the map welcome the recent deal wave.
Three top-ranked firms in the Global 200—Goodwin Procter, Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom, and Jones Day—are advising on a $16.5 billion pharmaceuticals deal that will see the holding company of Novo Nordisk acquire American pharmaceutical manufacturer Catalent.
DLA Piper, Covington & Burling, Nagashima Ohno & Tsunematsu, King & Wood Mallesons, and Reed Smith all have roles in a deal in which Japanese semiconductor supplier Renesas Electronics Corporation plans to acquire Australia-listed Altium Limited for nearly $6 billion.
Six firms—U.S.-founded Paul Hastings, White & Case, and Simpson Thacher, and France-based Gide Loyrette Nouel, Bredin Prat, and Volt Associés—are guiding a private equity-led consortium’s bid to acquire Euronext Paris-listed French digital music company Believe, a deal valued at €1.52 billion.
And there are more. Morrison & Foerster is advising Tokyo-listed homebuilder Sekisui on its $4.9 billion acquisition of American homebuilder MDC Holdings, which is represented by Paul Weiss Rifkind Wharton & Garrison and Brownstein Hyatt. Also in the housing sector, Linklaters, Slaughter and May, and Eversheds Sutherland have landed roles on a £2.5 billion combination between two house-building giants in the U.K., Barratt and Redrow. Meanwhile, the world’s two largest firms by revenue, Kirkland & Ellis and Latham & Watkins, are advising on a £910 million deal in which investment firm Carlyle has agreed to sell video game developer Jagex to CVC Capital Partners and Haveli Investments. And Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer and Hogan Lovells are advising on supermarket chain Tesco’s sale of its banking operations to Barclays for £600 million.
One of this month’s notable law firm achievements on the deal front came when Jones Day, Allen & Overy, and DLA Piper secured merger control clearance from the European Union for the $1.4 billion merger between Korean Airlines and Asiana Airlines. This was no small feat, as the EU is considered to have one of the world’s toughest competition and antitrust authorities. And this took place at a time when airline mergers have struggled to get past global regulators. (Note the U.S. Department of Justice’s recent move to block JetBlue Airways’ $3.8 billion purchase of Spirit Airlines.)
All these giant transactions, which have been few and far between for far too long, are good news for law firms counting on an uptick in transactional activity to help them achieve continued growth. It also could allow Big Law to ease off on the layoffs of associates and staff it has imposed in recent months.
But law firms shouldn’t celebrate so fast...
