Goldman Sachs, the US investment bank, has slipped to sixth place in the tables for advising US technology companies on takeovers this year.
Morgan Stanley and Credit Suisse First Boston, which have both invested heavily in their technology banking teams, hold the leading positions for deals in the technology and internet sectors announced since the beginning of this year, according to figures compiled by Thomson Financial Securities Data.
Goldman, top in the technology sector last year, has been overtaken in the first seven months of this year after failing to cash in on recent big deals.
These include the $41bn merger of JDS Uniphase and SDL as well as the multi-billion dollar mergers of Verisign with Network Solutions and Lycos with Terra Networks.
Goldman, which listed on the US stock market last year, has two reasons to take heart from this year's figures, however. One is that the total value of deals in the technology sector - at more than $262bn so far this year - is lower than at the same time last year - a bumper one. Goldman has also held its top ranking overall for mergers and acquisitions advice, largely because of a strong performance in advising telecommunications companies.
If telecoms deals such as the Deutsche Telekom's $50bn bid for Voicesteam or France Telecom's takeover of Global One are included in the technology group, Goldman has advised on deals worth $140bn in the year to date, benefiting from its involvement in America Online's takeover of Time Warner and Vivendi's takeover of Seagram this year.
However, Thomson Financial's figures confirm Morgan Stanley and CSFB as the banks of choice for software and internet companies. Morgan Stanley advised on 45 mergers worth more than $73bn in the technology sector, excluding telecoms. Goldman advised 32 deals worth $47bn in the same year-to-date period.
CSFB, which lured Frank Quattrone from Deutsche Bank two years ago in an effort to win technology deals, came second to Morgan Stanley for all technology mergers but advised on more pure internet deals. The bank's technology team advised on 24 internet-based deals worth $62bn.
Chase, the commercial banking group, has seen last year's acquisition of Hambrecht and Quist, the investment banking boutique pay off by jumping from 12th place to third in the internet investment banking tables compiled by the research group.
The number of announced transactions slipped about 12%, to just over 5,000, from more than 5,660 deals in the year-earlier period. However, the AOL/Time Warner deal pushed the value up 5% to more than $894bn. Without this blockbuster deal, M&A volume fell 23%.
