They don't quite have the sparkle of Hollywood's Oscars. No glamorous actresses turn up in risqué dresses. There are no crass speeches. But, in their five years of existence, Euromoney's Awards for Excellence have become, in a way, the Oscars of the financial world.
A word of explanation is due on why we believe the awards are important.
For users of the financial markets - particularly more infrequent users - each transaction is of vital importance. This is true whether the deal is an acquisition, an IPO, a first bond issue for an emerging country, an infrastructure project, even a plain-vanilla capital raising. Get it wrong, and your company's (or country's) future can be jeopardized.
But, for users, the financial markets often appear hard to understand and tricky. Bankers do not make the process easier by talking in a marketing speak that often obfuscates the truth. Users find it hard to differentiate between hype and real capability. Choosing a lead manager (or adviser, or arranger) for the first time can be a baffling experience.
It was this thought process that led us to institute the Awards for Excellence in 1992. The intention was to identify systematically which banks showed genuine excellence in which areas of the business. We believed our own experience - and an exhaustive research process - would enable us to discriminate between the excellent, the mediocre and the bogus in a way many users would be unable to.
We can't say we've always got the right answers. But, by always being conservative in our picks (and avoiding the temptation to choose a racier, but less reliable, firm for the sake of a more newsworthy story), we believe we have been wrong very rarely.
What has changed over five years? The vicissitudes of the markets have tended to throw up one clear winner among the investment banks each year. In 1993 it was Goldman Sachs; in 1995 Merrill Lynch. This year, Morgan Stanley has taken a disproportionate number of awards. Among the commercial banks, Citibank has always won a lot of awards, partly because it has a strong presence so many countries.
The increasing consolidation of the industry is also plain. Our short-lists for each category have got shorter each year. In many businesses now, just two banks comprise the top tier. In mergers and acquisitions, for instance, Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs stand way above their rivals. In only a few areas - usually those undergoing major change - is this not true. Examples are project finance, Euro-MTNs and derivatives.
The growing importance of emerging markets has forced us to expand the number of countries in which we give awards. Countries such as Peru, Romania or Vietnam are becoming part of the global marketplace. If anything, we should probably look at more such countries. We don't yet make awards in countries such as Ukraine, Bangladesh or Uruguay. We ignore central Asia. We plan to remedy that next year.
Compiled and written by Katharine Morton |