Goldman Sachs Group has won almost a third of the GCC advisory business so far in 2007, which promises to be a record year for mergers and acquisitions in the region, data provider Dealogic said.

The world's largest investment bank by profit and market value was adviser on eight M&A deals worth about 31 per cent of the $60 billion in transactions announced this year, according to Dealogic.

Citigroup, the largest US bank, was second with almost 27 per cent followed by Lehman Brother Holdings with just over 22 per cent. UBS was the top European bank on the list, in fourth place with 17.5 per cent.

Foreign banks have been scrambling to cash in on a surge in M&A spending by investors in the world's top oil exporting region, who are scouring the globe to invest windfall revenues from a tripling in international oil prices since 2001.

Gulf investors spent more than $76 billion on foreign mergers and acquisition in the past five years, almost 90 per cent of that in 2005 and 2006 as oil prices rallied to record high in July.

They look set to break the 2005 record of $35 billion this year, according to Dealogic, which put total foreign M&A spending so far this year at just over $33 billion.

Saudi Basic Industries Corp's $11.6 billion purchase last month of General Electric's plastics business is the largest ever made by GCC investors, topping Dubai Port World's takeover of British rival P&O for 3.9 billion pounds ($7.77 billion) in a deal agreed in 2005.
 
 Spending on acquisitions of Gulf assets is also surging this year, the Dealogic data showed.

Investors spent more than $20 billion buying assets in the six Gulf oil producers in 2007, a nine-fold increase from the year-earlier period and the highest on record, according to the data.

The three largest deals were together worth almost $18 billion and in each case the buyer was a GCC investor.
   
Dubai Holding's $7.5 billion deal in March to increase its stake in Emaar Properties topped the list.

Occidental Petroleum's purchase in May of Anadarko Petroleum's Qatar assets for $350 million was, at number five on the list, the largest by a foreign acquirer.Reuters