FORTUNE — Experience wins out. It was supposed to be a rebound year for M&A, but the soft global economy, euro fears, and antitrust issues put a lot of deals on ice. Two sectors — energy and technology — picked up steam, though, and a few dealmakers stood out. —Anne VanderMey
ENERGY
Hugh “Skip” McGee III
Head of global investment banking, Barclays Capital
A Texan who has worked in energy M&A for 24 years, mostly at Lehman, McGee closed 10 such transactions in 2011, and he helped oversee the firm’s 150 deals so far this year. His biggest coup? Advising Kinder Morgan (KMP) on its $37.9 billion acquisition of El Paso — the second-largest deal of 2011 — and providing Kinder with a $13.3 billion loan to help seal the deal. As McGee told the New York Times, the loan showed that Barclays now has the “big-boy checkbook” to go along with its “big-boy M&A business.”
TECH
Frank Quattrone
Co-founder and CEO, Qatalyst Partners
After his stint taking companies like Netscape public during the dotcom boom — and another few years on the sidelines because of a prolonged court battle — Quattrone’s semi-eponymous new firm, Qatalyst, has become the go-to broker for tech M&A. In 2011, according to Dealogic, Qatalyst did eight deals worth more than $1 billion and two at more than $10 billion: Google’s (GOOG) buyout of Motorola Mobility and Hewlett-Packard’s (HPQ) purchase of Autonomy. Only Goldman Sachs (GS) did a higher volume of big tech deals in 2011. It may not be long until the upstart firm “qatches” Goldman too.
The best and worst of Wall Street 2011
This article is from the December 26, 2011 issue of Fortune.
