The firm advised on 21 deals, just ahead of Macdonald Henderson, which took second place with 20. Bellwether Green came third – rising from seventeenth – with 16 deals and was followed by Brodies in fourth place with 13. Pinsent Masons and DWF had 12 deals apiece.

The largest transaction agreed in Scotland was Spanish energy group Repsol’s £1.7 billion cash acquisition of the remaining 49 per cent stake in Repsol Sinopec Resources UK, its Aberdeen-based joint venture with China Petroleum and Chemical Corp (Sinopec) – one of a number of high value transactions in the UK oil and gas sector last year.

The second largest transaction in 2023 was announced in quarter four, the £1.4bn investor buy-out by US private equity house Kohlberg Kravis Roberts of Glasgow’s Smart Metering Systems, a deal that will see the gas infrastructure firm delist from AIM following completion.

The report states: “There was diminished activity across most of our key metrics year on year, with the total number of UK transactions, at 6,426, representing a decline of 12 per cent from the 7,304 deals announced in 2022.

“That said, there were some areas of growth, as deal makers took an increasingly creative and pragmatic approach to navigating risk; we recorded an upturn in minority stake transactions, demergers and joint ventures along with – still – consistently strong buy-out activity. We also saw inward investment volume hold steady year on year, and the value of inward deals increase by around 10 per cent, to £55.5bn.

“Meanwhile, although outward investment declined last year in terms of deal count – after having reached record levels in 2022 (to 463 transactions, from 686 in 2022) – the total value of outbound deals rose to £39.3bn, up from £28.7bn.

“Overall though, the higher interest rate environment meant the slowdown in activity at the top end of the market continued, with a 27 per cent decline in the number of large-cap transactions and the ‘mega’ deal, £1bn plus segment down by 24 per cent year on year (to 36, from 47 in 2022).

“This meant that the total value of UK M&A in 2023 reached just £194bn, down by 21 per cent from 2022 and the lowest recorded value on Experian record since 2003.”