Herbert Smith deals merger ace as it joins top five firms

Herbert Smith's merger with German firm Gleiss Lutz has pushed the firm into the top five UK City dealmakers, in a year which saw the value of deals slump almost 75% to 708 billion.However, Linklaters stayed at the summit of deals involving UK companies, according to the second annual table compiled by the Sunday Times and mergers and acquisitions Web site Zephus, with 142 deals worth 124 billion.Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer (118 deals at 110 billion) was second, followed by Slaughter and May (110 deals at 88 billion), US firm Sullivan & Cromwell (29 deals at 77 billion) and Herbert Smith Gleiss Lutz (82 deals at 77 billion).

Herbert Smith did not feature last year.Barbara Stephenson, a corporate partner with Norton Rose, which dropped from the table after coming eighth last year, predicted that an end to conflict in Israel and Afghanistan would bring big increases in merger activity in the second quarter of this year, with the UK leading the Western economies out of recession.Jeremy Fleming