The third quarter was by far dominated by one of the largest deals in history: Verizon Communications’ $130 billion deal to take full control of its enormous wireless unit by buying out its partner, Vodafone. That deal catapulted the telecommunications sector to being the leading industry for deals this year.
In a sense, that could be the deal that begets other deals. Vodafone will be flush with cash to reinvest in its own businesses and to buy competitors in Europe and emerging markets.
For the first nine months of the year, Goldman Sachs claimed the top spot among financial advisers, having worked on 285 deals worldwide worth nearly $517 billion.
Among law firms, Wachtell Lipton Rosen & Katz led with 53 mergers worth a total of $277.5 billion. Both Goldman and Wachtell were advisers on the Verizon-Vodafone deal.
