AZB & Partners’ private equity (PE) practice again won it the top place in the half-yearly league table of data provider Venture Intelligence, making the firm the half-yearly league leader in this space for the third consecutive year.
AZB’s 23 PE transactions were almost double the number of transactions at more than twice the aggregate deal value of its closest rival Shardul Amarchand Mangaldas (SAM) and, like last year, broke the $2bn mark.
The league table this quarter contained twice as many law firms as in quarter 1.
AZB trends
AZB advised on PE deals worth $2,446m (across 23 qualifying deals), followed by SAM ($1,219m across 12 deals), Khaitan & Co ($827m across 10 deals) and J Sagar Associates (JSA) ($823m across 9 deals) were the frontrunners of 2015’s half-yearly table, reported Venture Intelligence.
AZB had managed to do one-third of its 23 qualifying deals by the first quarter (Q1) of 2015, with its $150m TPG Capital infusion into Manipal Health Enterprises as the biggest of eight PE transactions aggregating $389.4m, which put the firm at the top of the Q1 table.
The league-leader went on to act on the $383m Apax Partners PE in Shriram City Union Finance, in April, and this became its biggest deal this half year, according to the release.
SAM, Khaitan & JSA
SAM advised on the $50m OCP Asia infusion into DQ International and the $70m investment by IDFC Alternatives into OTPC India.
Khaitan acted on the $150m investment by Temasek and Advent International into Crompton Greaves Consumer Electricals and the $22m investment by TPG Growth, TR Capital and IDG Ventures India into Lenskart.com.
JSA acted on the $114m investment by Temasek into Medanta Medicity and the $10m investment by SAIF, Fidelity Growth Partners, Helion Ventures into Toppr.
Market trends
It was a better year for the PE space, as reflected in the table since last year. The top ten firms did 125 transactions aggregating a deal value of $7.3bn, whereas last year they did 109 deals aggregating $4.5bn, indicating bigger sized deals.
The erstwhile Amarchand Mangaldas, which split this year into SAM and Cyril Amarchand Mangaldas on 6 May, came in at the fifth rung of the table with six more deals than in the first quarter of this year.
Cyril Amarchand Mangaldas does not appear to have submitted deals to the rankings.
Indus Law which had jumped to third place last year slipped back into sixth even though its deal count and value was significantly higher than last year (27, $402m in 2015; 15, $300m in 2014). Last year’s second-ranker ALMT was in 26th place this year.
New entrants to the league this year were Veritas Legal, Verist Law, Altum Law and LegaLogic Consulting.
| Rank | Company Name | #of Deals | Amount $M |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | AZB & Partners | 23 | 2445.65 |
| 2 | Shardul Amarchand Mangaldas | 12 | 1218.50 |
| 3 | Khaitan & Co. | 10 | 827.25 |
| 4 | J Sagar Associates | 9 | 822.55 |
| 5 | Amarchand & Mangaldas | 8 | 641.30 |
| 6 | Indus Law | 27 | 402.85 |
| 7 | S&R Associates | 6 | 265.34 |
| 8 | BMR Legal | 14 | 264.63 |
| 9 | Tatva Legal | 10 | 235.72 |
| 10 | Economic Laws Practice | 6 | 219.25 |
| 11 | Samvad Partners | 11 | 179.80 |
| 12 | Desai & Diwanji | 1 | 178.00 |
| 13 | Gunderson Dettmer | 1 | 150.00 |
| 13 | Morgan Lewis | 1 | 150.00 |
| 14 | ARA Law | 8 | 83.15 |
| 15 | Wadia Ghandy & Co. | 1 | 80.00 |
| 16 | Link Legal | 1 | 70.00 |
| 17 | Veritas Legal | 5 | 62.25 |
| 18 | Themis Law Associates | 2 | 50.00 |
| 19 | Linklaters | 1 | 46.40 |
| 20 | Madun Guajdhur | 1 | 46.00 |
| 20 | Wilson Sonsini | 1 | 46.00 |
| 21 | Agram Legal | 2 | 31.00 |
| 22 | Nishith Desai Associates | 2 | 29.50 |
| 23 | Rajani Singhania & Partners | 3 | 27.45 |
| 24 | Trilegal | 5 | 26.00 |
| 25 | Luthra & Luthra | 1 | 25.00 |
| 25 | Sullivan & Cromwell | 1 | 25.00 |
| 25 | HSA Advocates | 1 | 25.00 |
| 26 | ALMT Legal | 9 | 15.30 |
| 27 | Impact Law Advisors | 16 | 13.82 |
| 28 | Verist Law | 3 | 6.00 |
| 29 | Patanjali Associates | 1 | 4.10 |
| 30 | DSK Legal | 1 | 4.00 |
| 31 | Altum Law | 1 | 2.00 |
| 31 | LegaLogic Consulting | 1 | 2.00 |
Comments
FYI, VI we have in Q1 decided to potentially regularly report the PE league tables. Mergermarket we have only ever reported the M&A rankings.
We always request bespoke mergermarket rankings of Indian firms rather than the data in their standard press release (which is below, FYI:
[img]http://i.imgur.com/hGMrZNp.png[/img]
We're still waiting for them to supply the full data.
Please stop making excuses and if possible, publish the story. I, as a reader, find it interesting and I fail to understand your reservations. Anyway, trust you to act responsibly and publish a report which many will find interesting.
Honestly guys, you can create a username super easy on LI and you can post directly without moderation and no one can steal it and you can pick a Gjam as your avatar and all that.
It's fun :)
Kian, cookie please?
Bombay ahahahhahahaahahhahahaha
The table lists Amarchand & Mangaldas at no. 5 and SAM separately. Is the no. 5 entity CAM?
And does in general (to all the more wise people out there) SAM look like it is going bigger guns than CAM?
My feeling on AM and SAM is that only AMSS Delhi used to send information to VI before the split.
They supplied a lot of AMSS deals before the split (including a backlog after Q1), and then after the breakup SAM sent their own deals.
CAM maybe didn't send them any deals...
League tables are very imprecise, particularly something like VI which traditionally hasn't had so much traction.
We're still considering whether we should carry this more regularly - it does provide an interesting insight, but still trying to figure out how credible it is as an index of law firm busyness....
We've tried mailing you twice the League Table Criteria for Lawfirms, but the email has bounced back. Pls send us an alternate email id (e.g. gmail) to send you the criteria.
Thanks
Kian