A law firm is only ever as good as the collection of its partners. And (nearly) all top transactional partners will be quick to tell you that they are only as good as their team. The analysis that follows is therefore a recognition not just of individual partners’ rainmaking and execution abilities, but also a testament to leadership and teamwork from everyone involved.

We have compiled the 20 busiest corporate partners at Indian law firms according to the number of deals they have led on (depending on which partner was mentioned first in a press release or deal report). Deal values are used as tie-breakers.

But beyond just celebrating the individuals, this also gives a fantastic insight into what makes the top law firms tick.

1. AZB & Partners Mumbai-based partner Ashwath Rau topped the total deal counts this year, with 27 deals worth more than $11bn, of which he led on 25.

“If you look at it from my perspective, 2018 was my busiest year ever,” says Rau, in retrospect. “I’ve never had a busier year in 20 years of practice. The closest I came was 2007, in the previous financial cycle [when still at Cyril Amarchand Mangaldas].”

Rau notes that the total internal tally, including undisclosed or otherwise not reported deals, stands at around double that, above 50 (other high-deal-volume partners too have cited similar figures, ranging from our league tables under-reporting between 25% to 50% of deal volumes).

The secret to executing so many deals is having a solid team and, according to Rau, also lots of senior colleagues. He says he also works with partners outside his group – “the partner configuration is much larger” than just his immediate team. That said, the core team in his partnership leverage pyramid consists of around 44 lawyers, including six partners, who are involved in many of his mandates.

Rau’s list of marquee deals includes such blockbusters as Disney’s buy of Fox, which had a significant (though not disclosable) India element, and four mandates for Reliance Industries alone: its $2.4bn East-West Pipeline sale to Brookfield, its $740m insolvency buy of Alok Industries, a $180m buy of an AI education platform Embibe, and a $75m purchase of a US IoT company Radisys. Also: for Schneider Electric on its $2.1bn buy of an L&T business, and the $1bn Radiant Life Care merger with Life Healthcare. The list is longer, but we’ll name check some of his other clients: Larsen & Toubro, Max India, Aditya Birla Capital, plus super-PE-funds Apax, KKR and Bain Capital.

Perhaps counter-intuitively, one of the most (in)famously busy deal makers in the Indian M&A market, AZB Mumbai managing partner Zia Mody, only has three reported deals against her name in our league table.

We understand that she would have been actively leading in several public market M&A deals and has been peripherally involved in many others, though in her role as managing partner she is usually not credited as leading on deals or taking deal ‘credit’, if attending one meeting on a deal, for instance.

2. Shardul Amarchand Mangaldas (SAM) partner and M&A national practice head Raghubir Menon, based in Mumbai, has led on at least 16 corporate deals in 2018-19. His aggregate deal values, including Walmart’s little Flipkart purchase, stands at $36bn.

There was also the mandate for Bandhan Bank in the $3bn Gruh Finance acquisition, three deals for Paytm parent company One97 Communications, two investments for Amazon, and regular big-ticket work for funds clients such as Blackstone, Goldman Sachs, Temasek, General Atlantic and Sistema.

Like Rau, he has a big team of around 19 other fee-earners, including three salaried partners.

3. Themis Associates Mumbai-based partner Siddharth Manchanda has 15 deals, of which 14 are VC-investment related. Themis is well-known for having started out with a close relationship to Sequoia (and 15 out of 16 of Sequoia’s publicly disclosed deals still had Themis advising it). But only six of Manchanda’s mandates are for Sequoia Capital, with the rest spread across funds such as Unilever Ventures, Kalaari Capital and at least five mandates for young companies taking investments.

4. AZB’s second partner (out of four) in the top 20 is Delhi’s Gautam Saha, against whom we have tallied 13 corporate transactions that he led on. For many years now, Saha has more or less been the Bharti telecoms conglomerate’s main M&A man, reaping the $14.6bn Indus Towers deal in the last year. His other regular corporate clients included Cisco Systems, American Tower Corporation in the telecoms space (which bought $400m of tower rights from Tata Teleservices), as well as a large number of marquee funds such as Goldman Sachs and Nokia Growth Partners, and he also led on the only reported Sequoia deal not handled by Themis in our league tables (its $110m Series C in CarDekho). He also counts a wide roster of country’s development banks and International Finance Corporation (IFC) as his regular clients, assisting them on investments and financings.

5. Link Legal India Law Services (LLILS) Delhi deal maker Manish Gupta had led on 13 deals worth $1.6bn, including for a number of funds – most regularly, Lightspeed India Partners on three deals; tech company Sharechat; and Chinese Apple-competitor Xiaomi on its India investments. Leveraging LLILS’ projects focus, he also acted for GMR Airports on the huge $1.16bn stake sale to a trio of investors.

6. SAM National Capital Region (NCR)-based senior partner Amit Khansaheb has 13 deals he led on. Khansaheb counts a variety of companies as his top clients, including darling start-up Byju, which had retained SAM on at least three funding rounds totalling nearly $600m in 2018-19. A future M&A mandate from Byju at unicorn valuations seems quite a likely outlook for Khansaheb.

7. SAM Bangalore-based partner Siddharth Nair (whom we had first reported had resigned from the firm on 30 April 2019 [Update: his resignation since seems to have gone on hold]) had acted on 13 recorded deals, of which he led on 12. Apart from having been the man in the city on Walmart’s Big Bangalore Acquisition, he has primarily worked on VC-related mandates. For funds, his closest public clients are Norwest Venture Partners (in four deals) and Westbridge Capital (in two), while on the sexy start-up side he counts Norwest-backed Swiggy as a client (which did one $210m round and another giant $1bn fundraise), as well as food delivery start-up Faasos (which did three sub-$20m rounds of fundraising).

8. AZB’s Bangalore-based Srinath Dasari, meanwhile, comes in 8th in terms of busy-ness, with 12 deals valued at $420m, of which 10 are M&A for companies such as Wipro (on its $117m buy of the India operations of outsourcer Alight Solutions), Krishna Institute of Medical Sciences (which took $130m of investor cash) and Mahindra CIE Automotive on its $126m acquisition of Aurangabad Electricals; he acted for funds in investments on two of his deals.

9. L&L Mumbai partner Bikash Jhawar, had worked on at least 11 deals and led on 10. In particular in the last year, he has been leading the charge at the firm on insolvency work, bumping up his total deal values to more than $11bn. He led on both of JSW Steel’s successful buys of Bhushan Power ($2.8bn) and the smaller Vardhman Industries ($21m), and for the resolution professional on the $1.16bn Ultratech buy of Binani Cement. He was also on the large L&L team helping the ArcelorMittal-Nippon Steel consortium that bought Essar Steel for $7bn. Besides insolvencies, his more vanilla corporate clients of the year included Adani Transmission (on a $33m power transmission business buy) and Laptev Finance (which completed a $124m acquisition)

10. L&L Mumbai’s Amit Shetye (who will be joining US fund Global Infrastructure Partners (GIP) in-house in the coming months, as we had first reported) has led on at least 10 deals, with a strong focus on VC funds. Apart from his close relationship with GIP, he advised Lighthouse Funds on at least six rounds, ranging from $14m to $36m. On the corporate side, he also advised Medall Healthcare when it was bought for $212m by Nasdaq-listed Alpha Capital Corp, and Capital Foods – the maker of Ching’s Secret instant noodles – when it was bought for $54m by General Atlantic.

11. Out of Platinum Partners’ 13 deals in the 2018-19 fiscal, Mumbai-based partner Ankit Majmudar was present on 10 and led on nine of them. He advised Mumbai BPO Intelenet on its sale to French outsourcer Teleperformance for $1bn from Blackstone. He has also acted for Kedaara Capital on its joint buy of Vishal Mega Mart for $709m, and its sale of India’s largest PET manufacturer, Manjushree Technopack, for $326m.

12. Veritas Legal Mumbai-based founder Abhijit Joshi (who was a senior partner at AZB before going independent in 2014) has led on nine corporate deals in 2018-19, including advising Leela hotels on its $576m sale to Brookfield, as well as venture funds Partners Group and Kedaara Capital. He also advised Aditya Birla in its $590m sale of Birla More supermarkets to Samara Capital and Amazon.

13. AZB’s Mumbai-based partner Sai Krishna Bharathan led on nine deals with total values of $690m. The three largest of these were Kiran Energy Solar Power’s acquisition by Hinduja Power for $143m, Brazilian mining giant Gerdau’s sale of a subsidiary, which was valued at $120m in India, and IIFL’s wealth fund on a $110m fundraise.

14. Jerome Merchant + Partners Mumbai-based Vishnu Jerome (another former AZB partner) was involved in 10 of the firm’s 19 deals. He has been the go-to adviser for VH Capital on three of its deals (ranging from $19m to $100m), advised tech start-up Tapzo on its $40m sale to Amazon, and Centum Financial on its $114m buy of Larsen & Toubro’s supply chain business. Jerome also got the nod from General Electric Company to advise on the India leg of a Chinese electric motors maker.

15. Samvad Partners’ partner Neela Badami advised on 10 deals, primarily in the start-up and VC space, making her a formidable presence in Bangalore, where she is based. Her clients that transacted in 2018-19 include food delivery company Foodpanda that bought Holachef, Blackbuck Logistics, which got $27m from Sequoia, as well as mattress maker Wakefit Innovations, and car trading company Truebil. On the funds side, she has worked on at least two deals for the Omidyar Network.

16. Desai & Diwanji Mumbai partner Siddharth Mody has had a busy year leading on at least nine deals, of which eight have been VC-investment-related. Regular clients included Fosun, which was involved in five of his deals (with the biggest disclosed one being a $30m Series C round by Fosun, Ventureast and Endiya in digital lender Kissht), as well as Future Retail, Kalaari Capital, Omnivore Partners and start-up Lightbox.

17. Cyril Amarchand Mangaldas (CAM) eponymous managing partner Cyril Shroff needs no introduction. Despite spending considerable time on management, he led on eight deals, which include many of CAM’s biggest. Hindustan Unilever turned to Shroff in its $3.8bn buy of GSK’s India Horlicks business; he advised Fortis Healthcare on its $1.1bn sale to IHH-Healthcare Berhad; and Heinz India on its $626m sale to Zydus Wellness. Reliance Industries’ telecoms upstart Jio also called on him when it bought a majority stake in Hathaway Cable & Datacom for $399m. And Adani Ports - a client whose promoters are literally part of the Shroff family now, by marriage - entrusted him with a $275m port purchase.

18. The practice of L&L’s Sundeep Dudeja has a strong slant towards advising healthcare corporates. He led for Fortis Healthcare on its $653m buy of Singapore’s RHT Health Trust, and advised Apollo Hospitals on a $75m investment round and its restructuring. He counts Amansa Capital and Steadview Capital his regular funds clients, and when a consortium invested $1bn in Star Health, he acted for Madison Capital. He was also one of the many partners involved in several of L&L’s large insolvency mandates, bumping up his total deal values to $17bn. He was involved in at least 11 deals, of which he led on eight.

19. The second partner from VC-start-up powerhouse Samvad is Ashwini Vittalachar, who led on eight deals worth $908m. Six of those were in the VC space with marquee clients such as Delhivery (currently on its $413m Series F) and Zomato (which had at least three deals it had instructed Vittalachar in over the time period). She also advises PolicyBazaar that got $238m from Softbank. On the VC side, she counts Fundamentum as a regular client.

20. Veritas Legal’s second deal maker in the top 20, partner Nandish Vyas, racked up 10 deals with values of $1.8bn, of which he was the firm’s lead partner on eight. His regular clients include the fund TPG, for which he acted in three deals, and he also advised Prabhat Dairy on its $237m slump sale Tirumala Milk.

Top 100 Corporate Dealmakers of the Year

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