While deal rankings can move around dramatically each quarter, it is still embarrassing for Wall Street's premier bank to have fallen inthe pecking order. League tables are closely followed by bankers who compete hard for lucrative assignments advising companies on mergers and acquisitions.
Goldman, advised on $71 billion worth of US deals in the first quarter, far less than JPMorgan Chase & Co's chart-topping $170 billion, and even beneath much smaller banks such as Rothschild, Evercore Partners Inc and Lazard Ltd. It is Goldman's lowest quarterly ranking since Thomson Reuters began tracking U.S. M&A deals in 1990. The drop is mainly because the firm did not advise on two mega deals: AT&T Inc's $39 billion deal for T-Mobile USA and the $59 billion restructuring of insurer American International Group Inc.
"The numbers are an example of the lumpiness of the business, particularly when you get the mega-deals," said Michael Holland, chairman of New York-based money manager Holland & Co. Goldman Sachs, which typically stars in the top three in these tables, missed out on the T-Mobile USA deal because it had been advising Sprint Nextel Corp, a source familiar with the matter previously told Reuters. Sprint also held talks to merge with T-Mobile. The drop in ranking comes after a torrid year for the firm, with its reputation hit by a $550 million settlement over charges it marketed a subprime mortgage product fraudulently.
Globally, Goldman ranked fourth, behind Morgan Stanley, JPMorgan and Bank of America. Observers said that it was hard to tell from one quarter's table if Goldman's M&A practice had been hurt by the firm's reputational damage over the past year.
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