Missouri Lawyers Media Missouri legal news and public notices
Bryan Cave slid off a ranking of the top 20 legal advisers for mid-market deals despite working on $1.24 billion worth of the mergers and acquisitions in 2009.
The St. Louis firm worked on 18 U.S. mid-market deals, according to mergermarket’s League Tables of Legal Advisers. Mergermarket, a New York-based mergers and acquisitions information service, defines mid-market deals as those in the $10 million to $250 million range.
Bryan Cave landed the No. 36 spot by value of the deals on the rankings. The firm had ranked 18th on mergermarket’s tables for U.S. mid-market deals in the first three quarters of 2009.
Latham & Watkins topped the mid-market deal table, with 57 deals valued at $5.2 billion.
The tables, which also include deals in other parts of the world, are based on transactions announced from Jan. 1 to Dec. 31.
Overall, the values of 2009 deals were down by 7 percent, and the volume of deals dropped 25 percent from 2008. Comparisons with 2007 are probably better indicators because of the turmoil in 2008, mergermarket said in a press release. Deal value and volume were both down by almost half in 2009 compared with 2007.
Bryan Cave, which had $503 million in revenue in 2008, is the largest law firm in Missouri, according to Missouri Lawyers Weekly’s MOney 20 rankings of the state’s largest firms.
