Warburg leads the advice field

Hongkong and Shanghai Bank's takeover of Midland proved the one bright light in an otherwise gloomy year for the City's financial advisers, with the top three places in Acquisitions Monthly's 1992 league table for UK public takeovers being filled by merchant banks involved in the Hongkong deal.

SG Warburg topped the table ranked by value of transactions after advising on six takeovers worth a total of pounds 7.65bn. It advised Midland on the Hongkong deal, together with Samuel Montagu, which came third in the takeover table. Schroders, second, looked after the interests of HSBC.

Samuel Montagu advised on nine deals worth pounds 4.09bn and Schroders five valued at pounds 3.84bn.

Warburg was also in the thick of things in the merger between its client, Reed International, and Elsevier of the Netherlands. In this deal the table credited Warburg with pounds 3.11bn, the value of Reed's market capitalisation. The merchant banking group also advised Steetley against the hostile pounds 613m bid from Redland and helped Morland in its defence against the unwelcome pounds 104m offer from Greene King.

Despite topping the takeovers table, Warburg's half-year figures in November fell 40 per cent to pounds 15.2m, reflecting the weakness of UK mergers and acquisitions activity. The value of public bids completed in 1992 fell to pounds 7.5bn compared with pounds 10bn in 1991 and a record pounds 55bn in 1989.

Almost 200 corporate financiers and their support staff lost their jobs this year.

The overall number of buyouts and buy-ins changed little in 1992, but the value of transactions rose 12 per cent to pounds 3.2bn. There was a marked recovery in transactions in the last quarter, according to the University of Nottingham's Centre for Management Buy-out Research.