Last month I attended the inaugural “Dealmakers of the Year Awards” at Scott’s restaurant in London. The event, hosted by IntraLinks with the support of the Mergermarket Group, celebrated the achievements of M&A practitioners who have excelled in their field during the past 12 months in spite the financial crisis and its dramatic effect on global M&A deal volumes.

Short listing for the event was undertaken independently by mergermarket using the mergermarket.com M&A deals database which tracks transactions where the value is greater than €5m. Financial advisors and lawyers qualified on the basis of advice given on transactions to UK-based corporations, targets, vendors and acquirers. Selection was based on both the total volume and value of deals advised on.