Good evening,

It only takes one large headline-grabbing deal to push an investment bank to the top of the league tables and this year it’s all about AirTrunk’s $24 billion mega sale.

As of Wednesday, Macquarie Capital and Goldman Sachs had the No.1 and No.2 mergers and acquisitions team in Australia after advising the data centre giant on the year’s biggest M&A deal, netting its founder Robin Khuda a $1 billion-plus payday. In fact, every bank in the top four – RBC Capital Markets and Deutsche Bank – had some role in the deal advising AirTrunk or the winning bidder Blackstone, pushing last quarter’s table-topper UBS down the ranks.

Morgan Stanley and Citi were also on the AirTrunk deal but were not included due to delays in processing.

For Macquarie, the quarter was also about the $3 billion Queensland Airports race as Kim Jackson and Atlassian billionaire Scott Farquhar emerged victorious alongside global investor KKR. Goldman advised Veritiv on its acquisition of Orora’s North American packaging and distribution business.

In equity capital markets, Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan took first and second spots respectively.

Read the full story tomorrow and more on the Street Talk page.

• Mystery investor revealed in Macquarie, Aware‘s $6 billion tilt for TPG fibre
• Navis Capital’s Device Tech stocks up M&A war chest
• New York, New York: Regal head of trading strikes out on his own
• Barrenjoey nabs CLSA operative to head up global sales

• SPC heads back to theASX for the first time in two decades
• Paladin’s $1.5 billion uranium deal slowed by national security probe
• Private equity firm battles for control of world’s biggest zinc smelter, Financial Times reports
• Chinese kitchenware firm Carote rose 64 per cent at its listing debut in Hong Kong, Bloomberg reports
• Macquarie is mulling the sale of its offshore wind development arm Corio Generation, Bloomberg reports

Australian shares slipped on Wednesday in choppy trading as a sharp rally in energy due to heightened fears of a broader war in the Middle East helped offset losses in technology and consumer stocks.

Click here for the latest equity market wrap.