Citi
In July, FinanceAsia recognised Citi as the best foreign commercial bank in nine countries in the region û a sure sign of dominating the industry. We havenÆt changed our minds in six months.
The bank has undoubtedly achieved the most, both in the field of commercial banking and investment banking over the past year. Citi has a presence in over 17 countries and employs over 10,000 in its markets and banking businesses. Its sales and trading staff of 1,200 provide liquidity and solutions to one of the region's broadest array of clients.
On the investment banking side, landmark deals in 2007 included advising Asian clients such as Doosan, Acer and Wipro on major overseas acquisitions. Indeed, Citi leads the announced M&A league tables in both South Korea and Taiwan, countries where it is willing to put its balance sheet to work.
On the primary side, Citi led on sovereign deals for Pakistan, the Philippines and Indonesia but it also has corporate relationships that span the region. The firm is embedded in Asia's financial markets, and collects, holds, invests and disburses currency, documents, stocks and bonds for clients - handling 400,000 transactions valued at $40 billion in the Asia-Pacific region every day.
Citi is also becoming a growing force in wealth management in the region, helped by its well-entrenched branch network, history of operating in the region and relationships forged via years of providing commercial and investment banking services.
In the past 12 months it has launched prime brokerage services in Singapore, expanded commercial banking operations in Indonesia and has begun offering securities and fund services in Vietnam. In Taiwan it announced the completion of the acquisition of Bank of Overseas Chinese, which will help it grow its customer base across the country, most notably in the SME space. This is more proof that the firm continues to position itself to profit from the continued rise of Asia on the global front.
CitiÆs recent announcement that an Asian would lead the charge as global CEO is perhaps the strongest signal the bank can send that it believes in the region, its people and its potential.
BEST INVESTMENT BANK
UBS
UBS proved this year that Asia is more than a two-bank region when it comes to well-rounded, high-quality investment banking. During the past five years this award has gone to either Goldman Sachs or Morgan Stanley. But this year we were struck by how well UBS gauged what would drive investment banking deal flow during the year.
Making this decision wasnÆt easy because in some sense each of the contenders has excelled in what the banks set out to do û but UBS stands out as a key player in two emerging themes of 2007: the booming equities market in greater China and the rise of outbound M&A across the region. And by giving UBS this award we are recognising both the importance of those trends and the fact that UBS spotted them and was well-placed, in terms of allocating resources and capabilities, to act on them.
Another check for UBS is that its team didnÆt limit itself to the low-hanging fruit in China. It was on key deals out of Korea, and Southeast Asia, and was especially early to see the India outbound M&A story. It was willing to back Indian companies that did not have a track record of such deals behind them but had high-flying ambitions.
The firm was not only very active in equities, completing 74 offerings during the time under review, it was also on key IPOs in China because it made the right calls. UBS received authorisation to underwrite domestic Chinese equity offerings in February when its investment in Beijing Securities was finalised, which enabled it to price PetroChinaÆs $8.9 billion A-share IPO. It was also joint global coordinator and bookrunner on Country GardenÆs $1.9 billion IPO and Fosun InternationalÆs $1.48 billion IPO, both in Hong Kong.
Sure, that momentum has come with some criticism regarding execution û but any company so eager and aggressive to make its mark will always encounter such problems. Overall, we feel that the slip-ups do not counterbalance the targeted aggression the bank has shown.
The Swiss firm has dominated M&A league tables for most of the year û with a broad geographical spread of mandates. It completed 33 transactions in the period under review.
And across both debt and equity, UBS has a number of firsts to its credit. On the debt capital markets front, UBS û like its competitors û largely focused on better fee pools, but also acknowledged the need to have a strong DCM team to be considered a well-rounded bank; and thus it completed deals in six of 11 markets in the region.
This year, making a mark in China mattered; but it shouldnÆt, and for UBS didnÆt, come at the expense of the rest of the business. Recognising outbound regional M&A trends put the bank at the cutting edge of the industry and showing up on such a wide spread of deals meant it was a firm that no one could ignore, including us.
MOMENTUM HOUSE OF THE YEAR
Lehman Brothers
This year, Lehman Brothers executed major transactions for clients in China. It was joint bookrunner on SinopecÆs convertible bond, which was the largest international CB by an Asian issuer and joint bookrunner for China Citic BankÆs concurrent IPO in Hong Kong and Shanghai. Demonstrating its commitment to the region, the firm established an office in Shanghai in January and is now one of the top providers of US dollar assets into ChinaÆs foreign reserves.
Lehman is also establishing a presence in the fixed income space. It was one of few players to bring high-yield issuers to market during the difficult summer months when it successfully raised money for both Mobile-8 and Davomas.
In India, it was the senior lead manger on DLFÆs $2.2 billion IPO, which was the largest-ever IPO in India. In addition, it has built up its India franchise through a neat ômake and buyö strategy. It has also been on a hiring spree û its team now includes 140 people, which is head and shoulders above last year. As its own bankers said in the pitch meeting: ôThis time last year we were at a standing start in India.ö
Indeed, hiring is a key part of Lehman brotherÆs efforts to build momentum and it believes the firmÆs strong culture is one of the reasons it has been attracting top-notch bankers. The firm has brought on board more managing directors in 2007 than in 2004-06 combined. The headcount in Asia has jumped from 1,520 in 2005 to 2,700 this year. Now just because you hire doesnÆt ensure success but it does show that people want to work for Lehman Brothers in Asia and that they recognise its growing importance in the region.
BEST M&A HOUSE
UBS
UBS consistently maintained a top three position on completed M&A deals during the year, no easy achievement as Asian M&A finally came of age and a number of blockbuster transactions closed.
Other aspirants for this award took pot shots at some of their competitors on grounds that positions in the league tables were derived from delivering fairness opinions or ôaccidentalö inclusion on deals or by virtue of providing financing. But even this criticism could not, with any degree of truth, be levelled against UBS; the Swiss bank had a genuine advisory role on some of the yearÆs leading transactions. And some of the transactions it advised on were landscape-defining deals for the region.
UBS had a stellar year in India, a highly active M&A market in 2007 measured in terms of both total number and aggregate size of deals. UBSÆs India coverage team this year deserves kudos for both identifying and being part of this activity. And UBS leads by a comfortable margin in India - that too, despite the fact that it played no role on Tata SteelÆs takeover of Corus. To UBSÆs credit it still won advisory mandates for a number of India outbound deals that followed. UBS also advised Vodafone on the Hutchison India acquisition, the largest India inbound deal this year.
We concede that it may have played to the advantage of UBS that neither Goldman Sachs nor Morgan Stanley was fully operational in the country, having changed their India coverage model over the recent past. But India alone could not account for this position. UBS is also number one in Hong Kong and has closed deals in Singapore and South Korea, countries which continued to see M&A deal flow this year.
Weaknesses in UBSÆs M&A coverage this year were China and Malaysia. But China has been primarily an equities story this year. M&A was peripheral to success in China and few advisers have a significant roster of closed deals. And Malaysia was dominated by local banks so UBS did not lose significant ground to its competitors.
2007 may well be remembered as the year Asian companies emerged on to the global arena and it is already apparent that we have only skimmed the surface of this particular wave. And thus, 2008 could be a completely different story in terms of which investment bank dominates M&A advisory. But with this award, we recognise that UBS set the gold standard for 2007.
For more house awards, please go to the next page...
¬ Haymarket Media Limited. All rights reserved.
