the london stock exchange: coveted by us exchange nasdaqAllen & Overy (A&O), Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer and Gleiss Lutz have all secured lead roles on multi-billion pound bids as Europe’s M&A market this week surged to record levels.

The firms all took on major instructions as research showed that the first two months of the year have broken previous records for European M&A, ranked by deal value.