Ogier tops offshore table for European M&A firms

Ogier has been named the top offshore European M&A firm – and within the top ten of all European law firms – after advising on a series of major transactions worth $86 billion in the first half of 2018.

Figures released by Mergermarket reviewing merger and acquisition activity in the first six months of the year put Ogier in tenth place out of all European firms – ahead of any other offshore firm, and alongside some of the largest global law firms.

Ogier has also been ranked in tenth place in the Japanese league table for M&A work, sixth in the Irish table and tenth in the European and Japanese tables, covering M&A and PE legal advisory work.

The figures published by Mergermarket show record quarter one activity with the late 2017 deal surge being sustained into 2018 by pressure from investors, the push for innovation, and the general rise in PE activity which has rebounded to pre-financial crash highs.

Simon Dinning, Ogier's Global Head of Corporate, noted that the surge in activity is covering a range of asset classes.

He said: "Deal flow has continued to be extremely strong in the first part of 2018 with big ticket M&A deals, often now conducted by scheme of arrangement, keeping the team very busy. At the moment it is difficult to pick sector trends as the current deal flow is diverse from events businesses, through pharma, hotels and leisure and natural resources. Real estate also remains a very significant assets class particularly in the Jersey market.

"We are currently seeing both trade and PE buyers looking at a variety of international assets and PE interest in particular remains strong when looking at local fiduciary businesses as potential targets.
"Ogier has the strength in depth to deal with a number of large scale transactions at one time, blending teams from across the business and utilising our cutting edge processes and tech where possible. We are also able to sit side by side with onshore counsel with many of our lawyers also having significant onshore experience to complement our offshore expertise."