Who's on top of the league tables?

December 22, 2009 | By Jim Kim

So, who really ruled the mergers and acquisitions tables in 2009? Well, you might guess Goldman Sachs (GS) or Morgan Stanley (MS), and you would be right; but who really won? The New York Times reports you could look at it in several ways. Thomson Reuters figures Morgan Stanley will top Goldman Sachs in the table for announced deals for the first time since 1996. But Dealogic has named Goldman Sachs the winner, "apparently by counting some deals that Thomson Reuters has excluded and vice versa."

So I guess both can lay legitimate claim to the title. It's not a great year for bragging rights. Global deals hit a five-year low of $2 trillion, down 32 percent from the $2.9 trillion last year and 53 percent from the $4.2 trillion in 2007, according to Thomson Reuters. But the volume of deals in the United States exceeded Europe for the first time in three years. Most are expecting a rebound in 2010.

For more:
- here's the article