The Globe and Mail’s Report on Business section today included a six-page special report on the huge deals of 2007, and the financial and legal firms that made them happen. After the non-stop mergers and acquisitions of 2007, and the plentiful work that came with it, 2008 is looking painfully slow. If this sounds familiar, you may remember the cover story of our premiere issue covered this territory before.
The ROB provides a handy chart that runs down the rankings, noting the legal advisers who helped make the magic happen for BCE, Alcan, Thomson, and others. Most of the usual suspects get a shout-out, including Goodmans and Stikeman Elliott, who sat across the the table as the Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan bought BCE for $47 billion; McCarthy Tétrault, Ogilvy Renault, and Fasken Martineau, who handled the sale of Alcan to Rio Tinto for $44 billion; and Torys, who helped Thomson Corp. buy Reuters. 2007 was quite the year, it seems, but it looks like the party’s over.