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Wachtell Lipton Rosen & Katz, Kirkland & Ellis and Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom are once again among the top five M&A legal advisers by announced deal value, according to data on the first half of 2019 compiled by Refinitiv, which reported a slowdown in global deals even as U.S. M&A hit all-time high.

Wachtell, which finished 2018 ranked eighth by deal value, shot up to number one so far in 2019 with an estimated $446 billion in M&A work.

Kirkland comes in at number two—a big jump from the firm's 2018 full-year ranking of 16th place. The mega-firm had announced deals worth $378 billion in the first half of 2019. Rounding out the top five were Davis Polk & Wardwell at number three, Skadden at number four and Simpson Thacher & Bartlett at number five.

In terms of completed deals in the first half, Skadden came in at No. 1 with $258 billion, followed by Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton with $213 billion and White & Case at $197 billion. Sullivan & Cromwell and Fried Frank Harris Shriver & Jacobson rounded out the top five.

The greatest volume of deals announced through the first half belonged to Kirkland by a wide margin, however. The firm landed a role in 309 deals (completing 247), well outpacing second place Goodwin Procter (226) and third place Jones Day (222). Kirkland's 247 deals completed also lead the way, but the margin was thinner as Jones Day closed 217 and Goodwin 215. DLA Piper (194) and Latham & Watkins (163) were fourth and fifth, respectively.

Although Wachtell advised on close to 22% of the global deals (by deal size) and 35% of deals in the Americas, the firm doesn't rank in the top 25 in number of deals conducted.

Dealmaking in the Americas mirrored the global results when it comes to the firms involved. Wachtell, Kirkland, Davis Polk, Skadden and Simpson Thatcher remained in their same spots from the global rankings in terms of deal value announced. Although the global M&A market is down year over year, the Americas market is actually up 14% from the same point last year, with $1 trillion in deals announced. About 95% of those were done in the United States.

Globally, the first two quarters produced $2 trillion in deals, down 12% from the same period in 2018. A big reason behind that reduction was a paucity of mega-deals in the Europe, Middle East and Africa and Asia/Pacific regions.

EMEA saw a 74% increase in the number of deals done (to 8,080) but a 50% reduction in the overall deal value, down to $476 billion. The Asia/Pacific region was fairly consistent with the number of deals done year over year (a small 3% reduction), but like EMEA saw a large drop in the value of those deals, down 31% from 2018 levels.

Health care, tech and energy were the driving industries in M&A work thus far, with health care taking the lead with over $360 billion in deals, including two big ones: Bristol-Myers Squibb's acquisition of Celgene for $93 billion and Abbvie's merger with Allergan for $83 billion.

Other points of interest include:

• Cross-border M&A deals declined 45% from their 2018 levels and matched a five-year low
• Mega-deals (those over $5 billion) constituted 50% of the $2 trillion in overall deal totals so far in 2019, the largest percentage since record keeping began in 1980
• Ten of the 12 largest individual deals were conducted in the U.S., excluding only Saudi Arabian Oil acquiring SABIC (Saudi Arabia) and shareholders buying back Alcon (Switzerland), helping to drive what Refinitiv called the strongest first half for U.S. deal making in at least four decades
• Private equity made up 13% of all first half deals in 2019, the best PE has done since before the financial crisis

The data from Refinitiv (formerly a Thompson Reuters company) tracks but doesn't exactly match the M&A legal advisory league tables released this week by Bloomberg, which found the Wachtell and Kirkland advised on the greatest volume of deals in the first half of 2019. Skadden, Latham & Watkins and Simpson Thacher rounded out Bloomberg's top five.

In other M&A news…

Performance Food Group Company/Reinhart Food Service

Big news in Big Food! Performance Food Group Co. has entered into a definitive agreement to purchase Reinhart Food Service from Reyes Holdings for $2 billion. Reinhart, the second largest food service provider in the United States, has annual sales of roughly $6 billion. Founded in 1972 and headquartered in Rosemont, Illinois, it has over 5,600 employees and over 42,000 customers serviced through 26 distribution centers across the U.S.

Skadden for Performance Food Group Co./ Winston & Strawn, Neal, Gerber & Eisenberg and Arnold & Porter Kaye Scholer for Reinhart.

L Catterton/Del Frisco's Restaurant Group

A lot going on in the food industry lately. Or maybe Deal Watch is just hungry. L Catterton, a global consumer-focused private equity group, as agreed to purchase Del Frisco's Restaurant Group for $650 million. Del Frisco's stockholders will receive $8.00 per share, representing a premium of approximately 21% to the 30-day volume weighted average price ended June 21, 2019. Del Frisco's, known for their Del Frisco's Grille and Del Frisco's Double Eagle Steakhouse brands, is expected to receive operation assistance from L Catterton, which has invested in over 30 concept restaurants globally.

Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher for L Catterton/Kirkland & Ellis for Del Frisco's Restaurant Group

Applied Material Inc./Kokusai Electric

No food in this deal. Just chips. California-based Applied Materials, which produces machines involved in the early stages of turning wafers of silicon into computer chips, has agreed to purchase Japan's Kokusai Electric for $2.2 billion in a deal that is expected to receive some regulatory scrutiny in Japan. Kokusai, which focuses on processing many wafers in parallel, particularly for memory wafers for computing chips, had $1.5 billion in revenue in 2018. It will operate as a unit of Applied Materials' semiconductor products group and will continue to be based in Tokyo, according to a company statement.

Hogan Lovells and Cleary Gottlieb for Applied Materials/Simpson Thacher for Kokusai Electric

Brookfield Asset Management and GIC/Genesee & Wyoming

Canadian Brookfield Asset Management and Singaporean sovereign wealth fund GIC have come together to purchase U.S. freight rail owner Genesee & Wyoming for $6.4 billion in cash. The total value of the deal, inclusive of debt, is $8.4 billion. Brookfield and GIC's bid of $112 per share is a 12% premium to Genesee's closing price June 30th. Genesee, which had revenue of $2.3 billion in 2018 and owns 120 short-line railroads, does most of its business in North America, although it does have small European and Australian operations. Brookfield made another large leveraged buyout last year when it agreed to purchase Johnson Controls International's power solutions business for $13 billion.

White & Case, McCarthy Tétrault, Gilbert + Tobin, Steptoe & Johnson, and Torys for Brookfield Infrastructure and Sidley Austin for GIC/Simpson Thacher, Addleshaw Goodard, Allens, Clark Hill, Macfarlanes and Stikeman Elliott for Genesee & Wyoming. Wachtell Lipton for G&W's board of directors

Blackstone Group/Merlin Entertainment

Blackstone Group, the New York-based private equity firm, has agreed to purchase Britain's Merlin Entertainment in a deal worth $7.5 billion. Merlin, which is the second-largest operator of attractions in the world after Disney, owns Madame Tussaud's as well as Legoland. Lego is still a private company controlled by the Kirk Kristiansen family. Kirstiansen sold a majority stake to the Legoland parks to Merlin back in 2005.

Kirkland & Ellis for Blackstone Group/Slaughter and May for Merlin Entertainment

Deal Watch is The American Lawyer's (mostly) weekly roundup of big-ticket and transformative deals and the law firms that guide them. Have a transaction you'd like us to consider? Email us at [email protected].

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