The number of deals was almost 50 per cent of 2019’s levels and represented a decline of 66 per cent on 2018. The total value of deals fell from the £9.5bn recorded in 2019.

CMS led the 2020 legal adviser rankings by volume, having worked on 21 deals throughout the year, just edging Addleshaw Goddard into second place with 20 deals. Pinsent Masons took third place with 10 deals, while Burness Paull came fourth with nine. Fifth place went to Gateley, with eight deals. Harper Macleod placed sixth with five deals to its name.

Slaughter and May topped the podium for the highest value of deals advised on, at £777 million, with CMS in second place on £661m and DLA Piper in third, having advised on deals totalling £320m.

Sullivan & Cromwell placed fourth with the value of its deals standing at £313m. Pinsents rounded off the top five with a figure of £123m. Scottish heavyweights Brodies and Shepherd and Wedderburn placed ninth and tenth with respective figures of £45m and £30m.

The impact of the virus was most apparent in the volume of small cap deals recorded, down 79 per cent on the previous year. The mid-market appeared slightly more resilient, recording a decline in both volume and value of 23 per cent, while large deals fared better, with a 15 per cent fall in volume, from 13 deals in 2019 to 11 in 2020. Whilst 2019 saw two mega deals, deals above the £1bn threshold were noticeably absent in 2020.

As lockdown restrictions are once again extended, and Scotland, like the rest of the UK, is subject to tough Covid rules and the impact of Brexit, the outlook for Scotland’s M&A market remains challenging, the report states. Scotland accounted for 1.4 per cent of all UK deal value and 4.69 per cent of deal volume.

As for M&A activity in the UK as whole, the report found that the market is slowly recovering, after a sharp shock in the immediate aftermath of the Covid-19 pandemic. 

Experian recorded a total of 5,867 transactions involving a UK-based firm in 2020, which represented a decline of 15 per cent on the 6,894 deals carried out in 2019 and the lowest figure since 2012; second quarter deal-making was at its lowest ebb since the first quarter of 2009 at the height of the financial crisis. 

“The report states: Although annual volume is significantly down on previous years, the direction of travel looks positive – the number of deals announced in Q4 was around 42 per cent higher than Q2 - and it does seem clear that we’re now seeing increasing numbers of companies again look to growth by acquisition. Meanwhile, a flurry of big-ticket deal making at the end of the year – with over £120bn worth of acquisitions carried out in the last two months alone – pushed the overall value of UK deals for 2020 to £356bn, up by 79 per cent on a year on year basis.”