Desai & Diwanji has advised on the most M&A mandates in the first half of the 2011 calendar year, with AZB & Partners having advised on far fewer deals than last year but still topping the mergermarket league table by value of transactions closely followed by Talwar Thakore Associates.

Desai & Diwanji clocked up 22 deals between 1 January and 30 June 2010 with a total value of $1.99bn.

By total values, however, Desai & Diwanji came only sixth out of the Indian firms (see table left).

AZB & Partners was still the dominant player in the large deal stakes, where it advised on 20 deals with a mean size of more than $500m, amounting to more than $11bn. On the other hand, over the same period last year AZB registered almost twice as many deals (38) and total values that were at $16bn.

Talwar Thakore Associates and its best friend Linklaters led the field on the other hand with only three deals each totalling almost $8bn – an average deal value of more than $2.6bn.

Domestic firms by Value: H1 2011 M&A (Ranks)	Firm	Deal Values ($bn)	Deal Count
1	AZB & Partners	11	20
2	Talwar Thakore & Associates	7.85	3
3	Khaitan & Co	3.73	16
4	J Sagar Associates (JSA)	2.63	5
5	Amarchand Mangaldas	2.47	5
6	Desai & Diwanji	1.99	22
7	S&R Associates	1.23	2
…	Trilegal	0.434	6
…	Tatva Legal	0.127	4
…	ALMT Legal	0.127	3
…	Majmudar & Co	0.068	3

The firms were helped by the $7.2bn BP Reliance joint venture in the first quarter, which also made up the majority of AZB’s and Allen & Overy’s deal values.

Int’l firms by Value: H1 2011 M&A (Rank)	Firm	Deal Values ($bn)
1	Linklaters	7.85
2	Allen & Overy	7.2
2	Vinson & Elkins	7.2
4	Herbert Smith/Gleiss Lutz/Stibbe	5
5	Kirkland & Ellis	2.41
6	Ashurst	1.55
7	Simpson Thacher & Bartlett	1.29
8	Hogan Lovells	1.24

Khaitan & Co improved its position of fifth last year and in 2011 to-date is third-ranked both by value and volumes with 16 deals and an average deal size of $233m – around half that of AZB.

J Sagar Associates (JSA) too saw more deals counted in the mergermarket ranking in 2011 than in 2010, with 5 deals of an average of $526m each, putting it in fourth and fifth respectively by value and volume.

Amarchand, which was second last year by volume with 14 deals, dropped to five deals worth an average of $494m each. By overall value this took it to fifth and by value it nestled in at sixth.

Trilegal’s deals tallies and values remained almost unchanged from last year.

Among the international firms, Linklaters and Allen & Overy won in the magic circle with more than $7bn of deals each. Vinson Elkins too scored $7.2bn and Herbert Smith came in with $5bn.

Total Asia-Pacific M&A activity had increase by almost 7 per cent in the first half of 2011 compared to 2010.

H1 2011 M&A by Volume (Firm)	H1 2011 Deal Count	H2 2011 Values ($bn)	2011 Avg Deal Value ($m)	H1 2010 Deal Count
Desai & Diwanji	22	1.99	90	22
AZB & Partners	20	11.05	553	37
Khaitan & Co	16	3.73	233	8
Trilegal	6	0.434	72	9
J Sagar Associates (JSA)	5	2.63	526	4
Amarchand Mangaldas	5	2.47	494	15
PH Bathiya & Associates	4	0.168	42	1
Tatva Legal	4	0.127	32	9
Talwar Thakore & Associates	3	7.85	2617	2
Linklaters	3	7.83	2610	3
Kirkland & Ellis	3	2.41	803	2
ALMT Legal	3	0.127	42	2
Majmudar & Co	3	0.068	23	1
Ashurst	2	1.55	775	-
Simpson Thacher & Bartlett	2	1.29	645	2

Source: mergermarket

Methodology: mergermarket included announced transactions over $5m in value from 1 January to 30 June 2010. Deals with undisclosed values were included if the target’s turnover exceeded $10m. Deals where a stake of less than 30 per cent is acquired were only included if the value exceeded $100m.

Click here to read about the mergermarket M&A league tables for the 2011 first quarter and the 2010 full-year round-up.