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News > International
U.S. M&As set record
December 29, 2000: 4:21 p.m. ET

The year's deals top $1.84T; Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley vie for No. 1
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NEW YORK (CNNfn) - Despite a dramatic slowdown during the last two months, U.S. merger activity set yet another record during 2000, while Goldman Sachs & Co. and Morgan Stanley Dean Witter once again jostled to claim the title of being the world's top financial adviser.

Accounting for mergers closed through Dec. 29, U.S. companies sealed acquisitions valued in excess of $1.84 trillion during 2000, an increase of nearly 18 percent from the approximately $1.56 trillion worth of deals completed last year, according to preliminary data released by Thompson Financial Securities Data Friday.

Worldwide, merger activity totaled roughly $3.48 trillion, up slightly from the $3.31 trillion posted last year, Thompson said.


Check out financial adviser rankings on CNNfn.com's Deals and Debuts page


When it came to naming the world's top financial advisor, however, the answer was less clear cut.

Based on deals closed during the year, Goldman Sachs maintained its position as the clear winner even though its numbers lagged its 1999 results, according to Thompson data.

For the year, Goldman Sachs served as an adviser on 423 completed deals valued at nearly $1.28 trillion as of Dec. 29. That was down slightly from the 430 deals the company worked on during 1999, which were valued in excess of $1.48 trillion.

However, it was still enough to best the No. 2 finisher, Morgan Stanley, which sealed deals valued at nearly $1.13 trillion and in the process leapfrogged over last year's second-highest adviser, Merrill Lynch & Co., which tumbled to fourth.


Click here for a preview of the M&A climate for 2001


Morgan Stanley's tally could climb even higher if America Online's (AOL: Research, Estimates) $83.9 billion purchase of Time Warner Inc. (TWX: Research, Estimates) can somehow be completed by year's end.

Finishing third was Switzerland's Credit Suisse First Boston, which agreed to purchase U.S. firm Donaldson, Lufkin & Jenrette for $13 billion in August in an effort to establish itself as a top-tier financial adviser. CSFB advised on completed deals worth $939 million during 2000, an increase of 33 percent above its totals from last year.

Notching the biggest jump on the chart was Wasserstein Perella Group, which improved on last year's 15th place finish by closing the year 8th, having completed deals worth $373 million.

Morgan makes claim at top prize

But while Goldman finished atop rankings for advisers of completed deals, cross-town rival Morgan Stanley Dean Witter & Co. clearly finished first among advisers of announced deals during the year.

The U.S. investment bank is set to clinch the top slot among merger and acquisition advisers for such deals, having worked on deals announced, but not necessarily completed, valued in excess of $1 trillion this year, according to preliminary data released Friday by Computasoft Research, the compiler of capital markets data.

That ranked the company well ahead of Goldman Sachs, which had an M&A tally of $891 billion, and Credit Suisse First Boston with $825 billion.

Morgan Stanley's successes during the year included the $115 billion merger of drug makers SmithKline Beecham PLC (SB-) and Glaxo Wellcome PLC (GSK). It also advised France Telecom SA (PFTE) on its $31 billion acquisition of mobile phone operator Orange from Vodafone Group PLC (VOD) and its purchase of European data network company Equant (PEQU).

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The deals pushed Morgan Stanley (MWD: Research, Estimates), the second-biggest retail stockbroker in the United States, up from third place last year, overtaking Goldman Sachs (GS: Research, Estimates) and Merrill Lynch & Co. 

Merrill Lynch (MER: Research, Estimates) tumbled from the worldwide No. 2 slot a year ago to fifth in 2000, while in Europe last year's third place crumbled to eighth, according to the Computasoft Research/CommScan data.

Ranking tables are important to investment banks as a means of advertising their strength to potential clients. 

CSFB leapt ahead of Merrill to the No. 3 slot among global advisers. The firm is a unit of Swiss banking company CS Group. 

According to the preliminary figures, Goldman Sachs slipped to second place in M&A advice this year. But separate figures from Capital Data, a joint venture between Euromoney Publications and Computasoft, placed Goldman top in the international league for equity sales, a list that includes both initial and secondary share offerings.

Goldman sold shares in 105 deals amounting to $33.2 billion worldwide. In these rankings, Merrill Lynch was No. 2 with a tally of $28.5 billion, and Morgan Stanley came in third with $25.6 billion.  

--CNNfn.com's London bureau contributed to this story. graphic

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Most stock quote data provided by BATS. Market indices are shown in real time, except for the DJIA, which is delayed by two minutes. All times are ET. Disclaimer. Morningstar: © 2018 Morningstar, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Factset: FactSet Research Systems Inc. 2018. All rights reserved. Chicago Mercantile Association: Certain market data is the property of Chicago Mercantile Exchange Inc. and its licensors. All rights reserved. Dow Jones: The Dow Jones branded indices are proprietary to and are calculated, distributed and marketed by DJI Opco, a subsidiary of S&P Dow Jones Indices LLC and have been licensed for use to S&P Opco, LLC and CNN. Standard & Poor's and S&P are registered trademarks of Standard & Poor's Financial Services LLC and Dow Jones is a registered trademark of Dow Jones Trademark Holdings LLC. All content of the Dow Jones branded indices © S&P Dow Jones Indices LLC 2018 and/or its affiliates.