Best emerging markets equity house:
Credit Suisse
| Also shortlisted: Citi Goldman Sachs |
| View more 2014 awards |
For all the bearish sentiment towards Credit Suisse’s investment banking operations, amid the revenue challenges facing its FICC platform, it’s high time to bestow credit on the firm’s highly impressive and under-appreciated strengths in emerging market equities. In recent years, Credit Suisse at a group level has made a concerted effort to diversify its revenues away from an over-reliance on fixed income, bolstered by a strong issuance and advisory franchise globally.
However, Credit Suisse has, for years, been endowed with a strong emerging-market equity capital markets franchise, largely prioritizing this business even as it downsized operations elsewhere, and amid stubbornly strong competition in key markets in Latin America and Asia, where Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan, UBS, Morgan Stanley and Citi also jockey for position.
What’s more, Credit Suisse has never been over-reliant on Middle Eastern equity income, a strength considering that, over the review period, there were few IPOs in the region.
The firm has demonstrated creativity, bespoke solutions, repeat business and long-term relationships in its equity offering, from IPOs, follow-ons, rights issues, block trades to convertibles, in a challenging year for deal flow amid risk aversion and EM equity market volatility.