Goldman widens gap in deal rankings, notching up $119 billion in one week

LONDON (Reuters) - U.S. investment bank Goldman Sachs (GS.N) has opened up a $100 billion (68.3 billion pounds) lead in this year’s worldwide M&A league table after grabbing advisory roles on the top four deals in this week's bumper week for takeovers.

Deals this week, the busiest so far this year, were worth $140 billion, lifting year-to-date M&A activity to almost $1 trillion, according to Thomson Reuters data. That is up 25 percent from a year ago and the strongest start to a year since 2007.

Goldman advised on deals worth $119 billion that were announced this week. It worked for Mylan (MYL.O) on its offer for Perrigo (PRGO.N), BG Group (BG.L) in its takeover by Shell (RDSa.L), TNT Express (TNTE.AS) in its $4.3 billion bid from Fedex (FDX.N) and Permira Advisers and the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board in its proposed $4.5 billion buyout of Informatica Corp (INFA.O).

Goldman has advised on 99 deals worth $305.8 billion so far this year. Bank of America Merrill Lynch (BAC.N) has moved up into second spot with deals worth $207.2 billion and JPMorgan (JPM.N) slipped to third with $188.8 billion of deals, Thomson Reuters data show.

Advisory boutique firm Robey Warshaw has jumped to eighth spot in the M&A league tables after also working with BG Group.

(Reporting by Steve Slater; Editing by Elaine Hardcastle)