Khaitan & Co overtook Amarchand Mangaldas in data provider mergermarket’s half-yearly (H1) M&A charts by value, with the first quarter of Amarchand functioning as the split firms of Cyril Amarchand Mangaldas (CAM) and Shardul Amarchand Mangaldas (SAM). AZB & Partners maintained its deal volume lead which it has claimed for two consecutive years.

Khaitan & Co overtook erstwhile firm Amarchand Mangaldas in data provider mergermarket’s half-yearly (H1) M&A charts by value, with the first quarter of Amarchand functioning as the split firms of Cyril Amarchand Mangaldas (CAM) and Shardul Amarchand Mangaldas (SAM).

AZB & Partners maintained its deal volume lead which it has claimed for two consecutive years.

Amarchand, which led mergermarket’s league-rankings for three consecutive years, and then again in Q1 2015 – the last quarter when it existed as a single firm – slipped in total deal value from $5.24bn to $4.8bn this quarter, even though according to Mergermarket, the firm’s deal count increased from 11 M&As in Q1 2015 to 15 M&As by half-year.

SAM and CAM was created on 11 May, which is understood to have been 19 days before the deadline to submit deals to Mergermarket and only SAM found a place in these half-year rankings20th spot.

Khaitan, which wasn’t even in the top 10 firms by value in H1 2013 and ranked eighth in H1 2014, despite consistently making the top five in the H1 league tables by volume each year, acted on the $2.16bn Vedanta-Cairn merger – one of three Indian M&As that crossed the billion dollar mark this year.

Amarchand’s Mumbai office, which is now CAM, advised on the third-largest Indian M&A so far this year – the $1.16bn Aditya Birla Nuvo sale to Pantaloons – before the firm split into Cyril Amarchand Mangaldas (CAM) and Shardul Amarchand Mangaldas (SAM).

No domestic legal advisers were listed in India’s biggest M&A – the $2.5bn Johnson Controls acquisition of Indian Hitachi subsidiaries.

Smaller pies

The top 13 Indian law firms by value aggregated $20.8bn in deal value – a major slip from H1 2014’s $30.4bn and H1 2013’s $30bn total deal value.

Khaitan did 22 deals for a total deal value of $4.8bn.

Amarchand’s 15 deals totalled only $4bn in value. In the first half of 2014, Crawford Bayley alone (which was ranked fourth) had advised on two deals worth $4.46bn.

AZB did twice as many deals this year as it did in H1 2014 but for only a marginal increase in total value ($3.6bn, 34 in 2015; $2.7bn, 17 in 2014).

Luthra & Luthra’s 11 deals totalled $1.04bn, as compared to eight M&As in H1 2014 aggregating $4.7bn.

Volume-wise

There were marginally more deals to go around for the top 18 firms by deal count than in H1 2014 (167 in 2015; 159 in 2014).

League-leader AZB’s biggest M&A so far this year was a $400m stake sale by ANI Technologies.

Khaitan & Co did the second-largest number of deals, followed by Amarchand, Desai & Diwanji, J Sagar Associates (JSA), Luthra, BMR Legal and Trilegal – the only firms with deal counts in double-digits.

BMR Legal was a new entrant in the volume table while Tatva Legal, which found a place in the Q1 2015 table, slipped off.

Foreign firms

Davis Polk and Wardwell was the foreign law firm that advised on the biggest Indian M&As, out of 16 foreign firms which found a place in the rankings. Davis Polk advised on two deals aggregating to $2.7bn.

Volume

H1 2015	Company Name	H1 2015 Value (US$m)	H1 2015 Deal count	H1 2014 Deal count	Deal count Change
1	AZB & Partners	3,610	34	22	12
2	Khaitan & Co	4,809	22	15	7
3	Amarchand & Mangaldas	4,034	15	25	-10
4	Desai & Diwanji	571	14	19	-5
5	J Sagar Associates	1,028	12	18	-6
6	Luthra & Luthra Law Offices	1,042	11	9	2
7	BMR Legal	1,024	8	4	4
8	Trilegal	759	8	11	-3
9	Nishith Desai Associates	185	8	2	6
10	S&R Associates	771	6	4	2
11	Krishnamurthy & Co	386	6	4	2
12	P. H. Bathiya & Associates	767	5	9	-4
13	Tatva Legal	218	5	3	2
14	Shardul Amarchand Mangaldas	357	4	-	-
15	Majmudar & Partners	26	3	2	1
16	Vaish Associates	842	2	3	-1
17	Crawford Bayley & Co	349	2	1	1
18	DSK Legal	215	2	8	-6

Value

H1 2015	Company Name	H1 2015 Value (US$m)	H1 2015 Deal count	H1 2014 Value (US$m)	% Val. Change
1	Khaitan & Co	4,809	22	1,416	239.6%
2	Amarchand & Mangaldas	4,034	15	8,520	-52.7%
3	AZB & Partners	3,610	34	2,545	41.8%
4	Luthra & Luthra Law Offices	1,042	11	4,736	-78.0%
5	J Sagar Associates	1,028	12	1,262	-18.5%
6	BMR Legal	1,024	8	96	966.7%
7	Vaish Associates	842	2	782	7.7%
8	S&R Associates	771	6	4,838	-84.1%
9	P. H. Bathiya & Associates	767	5	3,968	-80.7%
10	Trilegal	759	8	1,347	-43.7%
11	Cyril Amarchand Mangaldas	580	1	-	-
11	Samvad Partners	580	1	26	2130.8%
12	Desai & Diwanji	571	14	666	-14.3%
13	Krishnamurthy & Co	386	6	169	128.4%

Foreign firms by value

		Company Name
H1 2015	H1 2014		H1 2015Value (US$m)	H1 2015 Deal count	H1 Value (US$m)	% Val. Change
4	2	Davis Polk & Wardwell	2,738	2	6,034	-54.6%
5=	-	Gomez-Acebo & Pombo Abogados	2,500	1	-	-
5=	-	Lee and Li Attorneys at Law	2,500	1	-	-
5=	72	Morrison & Foerster	2,500	1	9	27677.8%
5=	90	Orrick Herrington & Sutcliffe	2,500	1	0	-
9	14	Sullivan & Cromwell	2,158	1	2,516	-14.2%
10	9	Weil Gotshal & Manges	1,194	2	3,968	-69.9%
14	50	DLA Piper	878	3	83	957.8%
15	25	Linklaters	878	2	433	102.8%
16	-	Covington & Burling	850	2	-	-
21	-	Cravath, Swaine & Moore	750	1	-	-
22	-	Allen & Gledhill	664	2	-	-
23	71	Kirkland & Ellis	583	3	10	5730.0%
24	-	WongPartnership	580	2	-	-
25=	-	Hogan Lovells International	580	1	-	-
29	15	Herbert Smith Freehills	391	4	1,608	-75.7%