RPT-IPO VIEW-Merrill Lynch tops '07 list of U.S. IPO bookrunners

(Repeating item that initially moved on Friday)

By Lilla Zuill

WARWICK, Bermuda, Dec 30 (Reuters) - Merrill Lynch MER.N has bumped Goldman Sachs (GS.N) from the No. 1 spot on an annual ranking of U.S. IPO bookrunners.

Goldman, placing first last year, is now in third place for 2007, while Merrill narrowly beat Morgan Stanley (MS.N) for the top honor.

The rankings, which exclude "blank check" and real estate investment trust offerings and were compiled by data tracker Dealogic, measure deal value divided among bookrunners. [ID:nN27438983]

Merrill placed first based on its involvement in 47 deals, or about 14 percent of all IPOs on the Nasdaq or New York Stock Exchange this year, for a total of $7.23 billion, according to Dealogic.

Merrill and other top underwriters have done well as IPO activity surged. Total new issues in the United States stood at 234 for 2007, an 18 percent jump over the prior year, and making it the busiest year for new issues since 2000, according to research firm Renaissance Capital's IPOhome.com.

In 2006, Goldman earned top spot after being bookrunner on 35 deals, including the year's largest IPO, MasterCard's (MA.N) $2.4 billion deal.

Morgan Stanley earned second place as bookrunner on 49 IPOs, worth a proportionate $7.22 billion.

Morgan Stanley's share of the U.S. IPO market was about equal with Merrill's at 14 percent. Morgan Stanley, along with Citigroup (C.N), led the year's biggest deal, Blackstone Group's $4.1 billion IPO in June.

Goldman secured third place by being bookrunner on 36 U.S. IPOs for a value of just over $5 billion.

After Goldman, JP Morgan (JPM.N) ranked fourth in the 2007 U.S. IPO bookrunner rankings, followed by Lehman Bros LEH.N, Credit Suisse (CSGN.VX), UBS (UBSN.VX), Citigroup, Deutsche Bank (DBKGn.DE) and Banc of America (BAC.N).

The bookrunner rankings paint a picture of which banks attracted the biggest deals in 2007, and consequently the highest fees. In addition to fees earned on each deal, over-allotment options for up to 15 percent of the total float can also prove lucrative for underwriters.

But clients shopping for a bookrunner to handle their next deal will be drilling down to look at a number of factors, said Scott Sweet, managing director of research firm IPOboutique.com.

"They would likely choose based on analyst coverage in that area, prior underwriting (history), and performance," he said.

Based on performance, a handful of 2007's best deals were managed by underwriters too small to make it into the "Top Ten" bookrunners list.