Goldman Sachs is Number One! (Maybe.)

December 17, 2010, 2:35 PM ET

Liz Moyer of Dow Jones Newswires writes:

Goldman Sachs Group is poised to retake the lead among advisers on global merger and acquisition transactions, while a surge from big European banks knocked Citigroup Inc. out of its fourth-place spot.

Every holiday season, the jostling begins over who has the bragging rights for the top spots on the M&A league tables — a ranking of the banks responsible for shepherding the most deals of the year. Bankers suddenly become M.I.T. number crunchers, scouring the data for misplaced deal credits that might catapult them or their banks a spot or two in the closely watched annual M&A rankings.

Preliminary data from Thomson Reuters puts Goldman in first place among global merger advisers this year, ahead of Morgan Stanley, which ranked first in 2009, and JPMorgan Chase. Goldman also tops the rankings of advisers in U.S. merger transactions this year, according to Thomson Reuters. Citigroup was the biggest loser in global and U.S. merger advisory, falling to eighth and 10th, respectively.

The rankings equally weight advisers even if they are on the same deal and play less critical roles.

Announced mergers totaled $2.2 trillion so far this year, up from $1.9 trillion last year and the most active year since the 2008 credit crisis put a chill on deal making. However, for the fourth quarter volumes were down 17% to $180 billion.

http://blogs.wsj.com/deals/2010/12/17/goldman-sachs-is-number-one-maybe/?mod=crnews