Amarchand Mangaldas maintained its standing as India’s clear M&A leader by far, topping data provider Mergermarket’s annual chart for the third year in a row, aggregating almost double the deal value docketed by runners up AZB & Partners and not slipping off the top rank in any quarter of 2014.

Amarchand, which is likely to break into two firms 1 April, closed the biggest deals but they were marginally fewer in number than second-ranking AZB – the firm that led the rankings in terms of deal volume. AZB topped the volume table for the second year in a row after replacing three-time leader Desai & Diwanji last year.

Luthra & Luthra made a comeback into the league this year while 2013 high rankers DSK Legal and Kochhar & Co slipped off the rankings.

S&R Associates, PH Bathiya & Associates and Crawford Bayley were the other Indian law firms in the top 10 global firms which closed the biggest Indian M&As. Platinum Partners, Vaish Associates and J Sagar Associates were in the top 15.

Trilegal, Khaitan & Co, Desai & Diwanji and Induslaw were also among the 13 top Indian advisors on the biggest Indian M&As

Values

Amarchand closed 42 deals worth $14.9bn, up from its 38 deals worth $10bn in 2013 but still not able to bounce back up to its 2012 high of $20bn from 39 deals.

The firm’s biggest M&As this year was the $3.9bn Sun Pharma-Ranbaxy deal, which also managed to get Luthra the third rank by value and put Crawford Bayley and PH Bathiya amongst the toppers. The Sun Pharma deal – the biggest deal of 2014 – also helped the pharma sector replace construction M&A as the most active sector of 2014 with a market share of 15.7 per cent, according to mergermarket.

Other giant M&As by Amarchand this year were the $2.6bn ING Vysya-Kotak Mahindra deal, the $1.6bn Himachal Baspa-JPVL deal and the $1.5bn Vodafone-Piramal deal.

AZB & Partners was involved in two more deals than Amarchand yet aggregated only $7.9bn. Luthra’s 15 deals were worth $5.3bn.

Platinum Partners was in the league on the strength of its only reported deal this year – the 3.14bn United Spirits-Diageo merger.

Volumes

45 more deals were reported since last year with AZB, Amarchand and JSA trumping Desai & Diwanji – the firm that used to be the regular deal count-leader until 2013.

JSA raked in 38 M&As - more than double the number of deals it closed in 2013 but Khaitan’s deal count score of 24 was three M&As lesser than last year.

Overall M&A activity

India’s M&A activity was on a rebound in 2014 after 2013 became the lowest valued year since 2007, according to Mergermarket.

Not only were there more deals, there were bigger deals for Indian firms in 2014. The sum of 14 deals valued above $500m touched $19.5bn - the highest number on record and up 86.3 per cent by value compared to 2013’s combined total (six deals worth $10.5bn). As a result, the average deal size in 2014 increased 31.4 per cent from 2013 ($116m) to $153m.

The Pharma sector was the most active, followed by the technology sector and private equity in 2014. The value of exits hit a three-year high and increased 8.4% above 2013 with deals worth $1.8bn. The Technology sector was also the most active in exit activity in 2014 with deals worth $627m, accounting for a 34.3 per cent market share by value.

Ranking by value

Ranking by volume