Linklaters partner Alex Woodward

Linklaters corporate partner Alex Woodward has topped a ranking showing the profession's most prolific UK M&A advisers in 2018.

Data from Mergermarket shows Woodward played roles on 11 takeovers of UK companies worth a total of more than £7bn in 2018, putting him ahead of Kirkland & Ellis partner Gavin Gordon, Squire Patton Boggs' James McKay, and Charles Russell Speechly's Malcolm MacDougall, who each worked on 10 deals during the year.

Woodward – who qualified in 2004 and made partner in 2012 – was named among Legal Week's rising stars of the dealmaking world in 2015.

This year, he picked up big-ticket deals for private equity firm and key Linklaters client HgCapital, leading on the firm's investment in software consultancy company The Access Group, and £1.3bn buyout of software company Iris.

He was also involved in Jacobs Holding's £2bn acquisition of Cognita Schools from private equity giant KKR and Bregal Investments, as well as Brait's acquisitions of New Look for £1.9bn and Virgin Active for £1.3bn.

Gordon, meanwhile, advised as Kirkland acted for private equity house Pamplona on its sale of European pet food manufacturer Partner in Pet Food to Cinven, and advised on HIG Capital and General Atlantic's sale of their investment in fintech company FNZ.

Earlier this year, Squire Patton Boggs' McKay advised longtime client Grafton Group on its purchase of DIY company Leyland SDM, as MacDougall worked on five deals for software and outsourcing company Civica Group, as well as on deals for private capital groups BGF Ventures and FPE Capital.

MacDougall expects to maintain this healthy flow of work going into 2019, with 15 deals in his team's pipeline "despite the Brexit headwinds", saying that the private M&A and lower mid-markets are in rude health.

"These deals typically involve high-growth companies that aren't as affected by the macro situation," he said. "For these companies, if you put a tariff on their product or service, people would still want to buy it."

Not all deals in the Mergermarket research included a disclosed deal value. For the ones that did, Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer's Julian Long topped the rankings for advising on highest combined value, after working on transactions worth a total £70bn.

Slaughter and May's Roland Turnill advised on five deals totalling £29bn, while Herbert Smith Freehills' Mike Flockhart worked on seven deals in 2018 with a cumulative value of £26bn.

The research looked at deals with a value of more than $5m announced between 1 January and 17 December 2018. To be included in Mergermarket's data, deals must involve either a bidder, target or seller based in the UK. For deals involving minority stakes below 30%, the deal value must be in excess of $100m.