Australian dealmaking is heating up.

And Australia’s Big 3 firms still have a chokehold on the Mergermarket leaderboard — HSF Kramer, Allens and KWM.

Herbert Smith Freehills Kramer topped value charts with over $60bn in deals, according to Mergermarket. That’s a 117% jump from last year.

Hot on its heels was Allens, surging from 4th to 2nd with $50bn+ in deal value — a whopping 342% lift.

Allens’ alliance partner Linklaters claimed third place with over $40bn in deal value.

The common thread for their rise? Abu Dhabi’s National Oil Company’s $36bn bid for Santos.

King & Wood Mallesons took the fourth spot with $28.8bn in value while Ashurst rounded out the top five ($15.6bn), just ahead of Gilbert + Tobin ($12.9bn).

Clayton Utz made a jump too, from 20th to 8th, off the back of its role advising VOC Group on selling its 25% stake in Rhodes Ridge to Mitsui for US$3.2bn.

KWM took the #1 spot on deal count, advising on 53 transactions, up 17 last year.

Allens and MinterEllison tied for second (37 each), followed by HSF Kramer and Hamilton Locke (34 each).

Thomson Geer tumbled from 1^st to 7^th, while HWL Ebsworth and Baker McKenzie made gains.

Here’s how the firms stack up: