Deal Street Quarterly: First Quarter, 2014

In continuation of our goal of keeping you connected to the Indian legal market, Bar & Bench brings you Deal Street Quarterly, a compilation of Mergers & Acquisitions and Private Equity transactions involving Indian law firms. The deals include M&A/PE transactions that have been reported for the first quarter of 2014..M&A/PE deals totaled Rs. 41,388 crore ($6.7 billion) in Q1 2014 with 71 deals. The biggest deal in this quarter was Vodafone’s $1.48 billion repurchase of 11% stake in its Indian arm Vodafone India from Piramal Enterprises advised by S&R Associates and Amarchand Mangaldas..Although S&R and Amarchand advised on the biggest deal of the quarter but AZB & Partners topped the legal advisor table both by value and deal count followed by Amarchand Mangaldas..Rankings by Deal Count.With 71 reported deals in Q1 2014, AZB & Partners tops the legal advisor table with 25 deals collectively valued at $2.9 billion followed by Amarchand Mangaldas with 10 deals valued at $2.7 billion though a huge gap in the number of deals but almost closes in terms of value..J. Sagar Associates and Khaitan & Co are right behind Amarchand Mangaldas with 9 deals each followed by Luthra & Luthra with 6 deals..Trilegal, ELP and Tatva Legal are ranked 6th, 7th and 8th respectively with 5 deals each. Going down the order S&R Associates and Indus Law bagged 4 deals each. The other firms to make it the table include Nishith Desai, K Law, ALMT Legal, Samvad Partners and HSA Advocates with 3 deals each..Rankings by Deal Value.AZB & Partners tops the legal advisor table by value with 25 deals valued at $2.9 billion closely followed by Amarchand Mangaldas with 10 deals valued at $2.7 billion..S&R Associates makes it to third position with 4 deals valued at $1.7 billion followed by Luthra & Luthra with 6 deals valued at $771 million. Despite a number of high profile exits from the firm, it would appear that Luthra & Luthra has managed to do quite well for itself in the first quarter..Trilegal ($704 million), J. Sagar Associates ($689 million) and Vaish Associates ($616 million) are right behind Luthra..The other firms to make it to the legal advisor table by value include Khaitan & Co, Nishith Desai, Crawford Bayley, K Law, Indus Law, ALMT Legal, Wadia Ghandy and Tatva Legal..Full report available below: