City & Corporate: FD commands table via trio of major acquisitions

This was nearly double the value of deals posted to top the chart in May by Tulchan Communications.

FD was propelled to the top after acting for the bidders in three acquisitions: Borealis Infrastructure Management consortium on the £3.2bn takeover of National Grid Transco's south of England and Scotland gas networks; AP Moller-Maersk's £1.5bn acquisition of Royal P&O Nedlloyd from Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Company; and Cheung Kong Infrastructure Holdings' £1.4bn purchase, with United Utilities, of the National Grid's north of England gas network.

The agency also benefited from advising PartyGaming on its listing, which raised £906.7m.

Brunswick rose to third place after advising Peninsular and Oriental on the P&O Nedlloyd deal, as well as Intercontinental Hotels for its £1bn sale of 73 UK hotels to LRG Acquisition.

Tulchan Communications slipped to fourth, despite acting for P&O Nedlloyd and Kwik-Fit, in its £800m acquisition by PAI Partners from CVC Capital Partners and Ford Motor Company.

Hering Schuppener Consulting was a new entrant by virtue of its work for CVC in a separate £996m buyout of Ruhrgas Industries.

DEAL WATCH - JUNE 2005 RANKING

Ranking Financial PR Company No of Deal Value

Deals pounds m

1 Financial Dynamics 30 11,702

2 Citigate 18 6,311

3 Brunswick 22 4,276

4 Tulchan Communications 12 3,986

5 The Hogarth Partnership 8 2,827

6 GCG Hudson Sandler 6 1,337

7 The Maitland Consultancy 16 1,267

8 Smithfield 5 1,009

9 Hering Schuppener Consulting 1 996

10 Gavin Anderson 6 882

Source: ZEPHYR published by Bureau van Dijk