A good year for M&A deals has seen Sweden’s independents miss out on some of the big instructions, but the Government’s sell-off of prized assets has benefited the country’s top firms. James Illman reports
The Swedish legal market has been buoyed by high levels of M&A activity in the last 12 months. Europe-wide tables produced by mergermarket for Legal Week go a long way to illustrate this Nordic deal feast. Stockholm’s Mannheimer Swartling topped the league of all independent firms operating in the European Union member states, completing 110 deals worth a total of A12.6bn (£8.9bn) in the 12 months to September 2007. Another Swedish giant, Vinge, came second having closed 89 deals with a value of A23.41bn (£16.78bn).
