London bankers dominate top M&A deal rankings for Europe
Even with Brexit and pandemic disruption, London bankers came out top in a busy year of dealmaking.
A ranking of Europe’s top investment bankers by MergerLinks reveals nine of the top 10 bankers by number of deals are based in the capital.
Europe’s top investment banker in 2020 was Credit Suisse banker Max Mesny who advised on two deals worth nearly $40bn, followed by his colleague Joe Hannon who secured three deals wirth $33.8bn.
Centerview’s Richard Girling came in third with two deals valued at $32.7bn and Zaoui & Co co-founders Michael and Yoel Zaoui secured two deals worth $31.2bn.
After a slow start to the year, in which activity came to a near standstill amid pandemic uncertainty, M&A bounced back after a surge in mega deals.
And the tide of activity seen in the latter half of 2020 is set to continue well into 2021 as private equity firms look to deploy their dry powder.
But the banking industry has a lot of catching up to when it comes to gender diversity. Women were highly underrepresented in this year’s ranking with just two women appearing in the top 50.
Karen Cook, Goldman Sachs’ chair of investment banking secured three deals worth $10.4bn while Celia Murray of JP Morgan secured three deals worth $7.7bn.