When Royal Bank of Scotland succeeded in its bid for NatWest earlier in the year, the end of independence for the struggling UK bank was not the only outcome. It was also testimony that Goldman Sachs was the premier M&A house in Europe. Add this to its dominance of the US market for the previous five years, and its strength in Asia, and Goldman is the obvious choice for best M&A house of the year.
Goldman was involved in 45% of all major deals globally, compared with Morgan Stanley's 34%.
It was top in Asia with 70%, top in Europe with 49.4%, and top in the US with a 40.3% share. It has slipped up in Asia so far this year, being involved in just 10.7% of deals, which places it seventh, and it is just behind Morgan Stanley in Europe (having worked on 39.7% of deals, just under 2% behind its great rival).
So successful has Goldman been that it has at times found itself in too many deals, which has sometimes led to embarrassment. Last year, for example, it was accused of conflict of interest by advisory client Mannesmann while helping Vodafone mount a hostile takeover for Mannesmann: a claim the courts dismissed.