(Australia) – Salomon Smith Barney has ranked first in advisers on Australian and New Zealand M&A activity in this year’s first half, a huge jump from 14th place last year.According to Bloomberg analysis, Salomons was followed by Macquarie Bank, UBS Warburg, Deutsche, JPMorgan and ABN Amro in terms of deal value for the period, advising on some US$7.3 billion worth of transactions.