CMS leads in M&A – numerous top positions in leading international rankings

CMS’s extremely strong performance in M&A legal services in the first half of 2019 has just been rewarded with excellent valuations and rankings from various market observers. Bloomberg, Thomson Reuters and Mergermarket see CMS as one of the top M&A legal advisors – on a global level and especially in CEE and Austria.

In their half-yearly reports, the three market observers also agree that M&A activities have significantly declined in some sectors. However, CMS is so far ahead in the rankings in terms of the number of legally supported M&A transactions in this market – even though it is weaker than last year – because CMS M&A teams repeatedly think beyond their role as legal advisors and score highly for concentrating on the industry sector context of each M&A deal.

Largest leap forward in Austrian ranking

For CMS Austria, the ranking for the first half of the year reflects a particularly gratifying trend. In Mergermarket’s Global & Regional M&A Report, CMS ranks second in terms of the number of transactions handled in Austria. “This ranking provides motivation for the second half of the year,” says Peter Huber, Partner and Head of Corporate Transactions at CMS Vienna. “We have expanded our M&A team in recent months for good reason."

CMS as Number 1 in CEE, DACH and the whole of Europe

As in 2018, CMS is at the top of the Mergermarket rankings for the CEE and DACH regions. “For us and our ten offices in Southeastern and Eastern Europe, M&A is of particular importance,” says Gregor Famira, partner and coordinator of the firm’s CEE activities, who has been active in CEE for 20 years.

“The CEE ranking shows that we have been able to increase the number of transactions compared to many other firms. The structure of our regional M&A team allows us to provide truly seamless cross-border services, which makes us more efficient.”

In Thomson Reuters’ Global Mergers & Acquisitions Review, which stresses the lowest level of M&A activity in Europe in six years, CMS also leads the rankings for Europe as a whole. The Global M&A Market Review by Bloomberg can also be used for further global ranking. Here too, CMS’s position improved from eight to six.

Pictures of Peter Huber and Gregor Famira for use free of charge are available here:

Peter Huber
Gregor Famira