BofA Securities faced tough competition to retain the award for Latin America’s best investment bank. Deal flow in international capital markets transactions was disappointing and local markets absorbed a larger proportion of financing than normal; a trend that played to strong local franchises rather than the US firm. Nevertheless, BofA’s strength – especially in the Andean region, where the bank won best investment bank awards in Chile, Colombia and Peru – saw it fend off the local challenge.
Crucially, BofA’s impressive breadth isn’t just geographical. The bank claims high market shares across both debt and equity capital markets – where it is particularly impressive at winning the larger, more important transactions. And, while it wasn’t BofA’s strongest year in M&A, the bank can point to a more than respectable portfolio of big cross-border transactions.
In total, BofA led 26 M&A transactions, 24 ECM deals and 44 DCM issues in 2023 – in addition to its suite of trading, transaction and treasury services.
BofA’s investment banking team in the region is led by Augusto Urmeneta, president of Bank of America for Latin America and head of Latin American global corporate and investment banking. According to Dealogic data, the team comfortably generated the most investment banking fees during 2023, with a 10.3% market share – 1.5 percentage points ahead of the second-place bank.
Its domination of ECM fees was particularly impressive, claiming 17.7% of all equity capital markets fees from the region, which was 5.3 percentage points ahead of second place. The bank was global coordinator on both Mexican issuer Vesta’s IPO and follow-ons. BofA was also lead left global coordinator on deals for Banco de Credito e Inversiones in Chile and was sole bookrunner on three of XP’s four block trades.
In DCM the bank demonstrated both scale and skill. This was exemplified by its role as sole global coordinator and sole bookunner in the inaugural issuance from the Metropolitan Municipality of Lima in its global NS1.2 billion ($314 million), 20-year transaction. As well as being a first for the city of Lima the deal was also the first international issue that is governed by Peruvian law and issued by a Peruvian securitization trust.
BofA also led Chile to the market in three different transactions in May, July and October 2023. And in a year that was marked by a strong private market theme the bank’s deal for Abra Group – a $1.4 billion private placement financing and liability management programme – stood out in this category.
BofA’s impressive breadth isn’t just geographical. The bank claims high market shares across both debt and equity capital markets
BofA’s geographical range also really came to the forefront in 2023, with a broad range of deals in all areas of Latin America. In Brazil the bank led deals for the sovereign, as well as BRF, Banco do Brasil, Minerva, Natura and JBS. While its strength in the Andean region saw it take issuers such as CAF, Hunt Oil Company, Ocensa and Alicorp to the international markets. In the southern cone, BofA won mandates from the sovereign of Uruguay, Codelco, CMPC and SQM. In central America and the Caribbean the bank lead on deals for Liberty, Cabei, Proamerica and fundraising for the sovereigns of Panama, Costa Rica and Jamaica.
