Herbert Smith Freehills and Watson Farley & Williams were the top mergers and acquisitions (M&A) legal advisers in the power sector in 2021 by value and volume, respectively. Herbert Smith Freehills advised on 22 deals worth US$35.1 billion and Watson Farley & Williams advised on 43 deals worth US$1.9 billion, according to GlobalData, a leading data and analytics company.

GlobalData’s recent report, ‘Global and Power M&A Report Legal Adviser League Tables 2021’, reveals that a total of 2,506 Power M&A deals were announced during the period where deal value increased by 46.1% from US$260.6 billion during 2020 to US$380.8 billion during 2021. The top Power M&A deals announced in 2021 included the acquisitions of Suez by Veolia Environnement SA (US$23.1 billion) and Western Power Distribution by National Grid (US$10.8 billion).

Aurojyoti Bose, Lead Analyst at GlobalData, comments: “In volume terms the top five legal advisers all managed to advise on at least 30 deals each during 2021 with two advisors, Watson Farley & Williams and White & Case securing more than 40 deals each. Although their deal volumes were high, both companies advised on a relatively lesser number of lower-value deals than other companies and so White & Case occupied the tenth position by value while Watson Farley & Williams didn’t feature in the top 10 value chart.”

Securing big-ticket deals was pivotal in Herbert Smith Freehills achieving the top spot by value in 2021. The company advised on five deals worth over US$1 billion each, including two mega deals valued at more than US$10 billion each.

Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom occupied the second position in terms of value with 19 deals worth $32.2 billion followed by Weil Gotshal & Manges at number 3 with 10 deals worth $31.2 billion. Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton were fourth with 13 deals worth $29.5 billion and Davis Polk & Wardwell were in fifth place with six deals worth $27.8 billion.

Bose added, “Ranking by deal volume revealed some interesting insights with Cuatrecasas and Kirkland & Ellis building their presence in the M&A legal advisers space during 2021 with Cuatrecasas achieving a 200% growth rate in the number of deals managed from nine in 2020 to 27 in 2021. Kirkland & Ellis also achieved a high growth rate in deal numbers moving from 17 deals in 2020 to 37 in 2021, a growth rate of 117%.”