Goldman Sachs was the leading financial adviser globally for mergers and acquisitions (M&A) in 2019 in the automotive sector, according to GlobalData.

The American investment bank advised on nine deals worth a total USD11.9bn.

GlobalData has published a top ten league table of financial advisers ranked according to the value of announced M&A deals globally. If the value remains the same for multiple advisers, deal volume is given weightage.

Lazard trailed Goldman Sachs with nine deals worth USD9.4bn. With four deals valued at USD9.0bn, JP Morgan stood at third position.

GlobalData financial deals analyst Ravi Tokala said: "The slow trend in M&A activities in the automotive sector continued in 2019, witnessing a major drop in overall deal value as compared with the same period last year. ZF Friedrichshafen's acquisition of Wabco Holdings for USD7.4bn was instrumental in determining the rankings in the automotive sector. The top four financial and legal advisers were involved in this transaction."

The automotive sector witnessed a 34.03% drop in deal value USD58.2bn in 2018 to USD38.4bn in 2019. Deal volume, however, witnessed a 33.65% surge from 425 to 568.

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Goldman Sachs, which topped the automotive league table of M&A financial advisers, also ranked first in GlobalData's recently released global league table of top 20 M&A financial advisers.

Law firm Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton led the chart of top 10 legal advisers in 2019. The company advised on four deals worth USD7.9bn. Although Latham & Watkins and Clifford Chance advised on deals worth USD7.7bn, the former gained an edge in terms of volume. Latham & Watkins provided legal services to five deals while Clifford Chance worked on three deals.

In the global league table of top M&A 20 legal advisers, Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton was at fourth position. Latham & Watkins stood at sixth position while Clifford Chance stood at sixteenth position.

Notes

GlobalData's league tables are based on the real-time tracking of thousands of company websites, advisory firm websites and other reliable sources available on the secondary domain. A dedicated team of analysts monitors all these sources to gather in-depth details for each deal, including adviser names.

To ensure further robustness to the data, the company also seeks submissions from leading advisers, through adviser submission forms on GlobalData's website.

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