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By Nicola Leske
Feb 20 (Reuters) - WhatsApp? Not Goldman Sachs.
The world's top deal adviser for nine of the past 10 years,Goldman Sachs Group Inc has been notably absent on 2014'slargest mergers and acquisitions, including Facebook's $19billion deal to purchase mobile messaging service WhatsApp.
Normally the go-to-banker for big deals, Goldman has missedout on the top five transactions in the young year, according toThomson Reuters data. Facebook Inc relied on boutiqueinvestment firm Allen & Co to help with its offer to buy startupWhatsApp, which in turn chose Morgan Stanley.
The deal, announced on Wednesday, will earn the two banks upto $85 million in estimated fees, according to Freeman & Co LLC,a mergers and acquisitions advisory firm which researches thefinancial services industry.
Typically, Goldman Sachs starts out slowly and still land atthe top of the league tables by the end of the year. One bigtransaction can heavily sway bankers' rankings.
But Goldman has advised on only four of the top 20 dealsannounced this year so far, excluding CharterCommunications' attempt to buy Time Warner Cable.
Bankers also risk missing out on more big deals as companiesopt to use a small number of advisers, partly to reduce thechance of leaks and as chief executives lead the charge innegotiating deals themselves.
Goldman, which declined to comment on the deal data, backedCharter in what would have been the biggest deal of the year,but last week Comcast Corp agreed to buy Time WarnerCable for $45 billion.
If regulators approve the deal, other banks will share up to$143 million in fees the deal is estimated to generate, amongthem Goldman's biggest rivals JPMorgan Chase & Co and MorganStanley, according to Freeman & Co LLC.
Goldman Sachs was also absent from a number of other largedeals this year - Suntory Holding's acquisition of BeamInc for $13.6 billion and Actavis Plc's purchase of Forest Laboratories Inc for $25 billion.
That now puts Goldman Sachs in ninth place in the covetedleague tables for financial advisors, according to ThomsonReuters data.
Goldman Sachs has held the top position for the past tenyears with the exception of 2009, when it landed the number twospot behind Morgan Stanley.
Morgan also beat Goldman in the high-profile assignment toadvise Facebook on its initial public offering, which is notpart of deal league tables. Goldman later worked with TwitterInc on its IPO.
Last year, Goldman's role in Verizon Communication's $130 billion buyout of Vodafone Group's 45 percent stakein their joint venture easily catapulted it to the top rank. Thebank had advised Vodafone.
Facebook's founder and Chief Executive Mark Zuckerbergproposed the tie-up to WhatsApp's founder Jan Koum over dinneron Feb. 9, and the two sealed the deal 10 days later.
When it came to hammering out the details around Time WarnerCable, the two chief executives, Comcast's Brian Roberts andTime Warner Cable's Rob Marcus along with their respective CFOs,negotiated key points of the deal by phone as well as in-personmeetings, without relying much on advisers.
For the largest deal last year, all it took in the end was aworkout session in the gym followed by a breakfast, whenVerizon's CEO Lowell McAdam and Vodafone's Vittorio Colao agreedon a price that concluded in the mega deal.
