Best bank - Banque de Tunisie
Best local partner - Union Tunisienne de Banques
Best debt house - Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein and Merrill Lynch
Best M&A house - Rothschild
Banque de Tunisie, though not the largest bank in Tunisia, is the best bank again this year. Its profitability and clean loan portfolio stand out. It is widely held by corporates to be the most professional bank and its management and skills are highly regarded.
Tunisia's offshore banks are small in comparison to their onshore cousins but tend to be the only ones to participate in big syndicated loan deals. Union Tunisienne de Banques, awarded best local partner, is the only Tunisian bank to have acted as a mandated arranger on any such deal. It did so for the first time in 2002 for Société Tunisienne d'Electricité et du Gaz. Historically, UTB has been involved in more Tunisian deals than any other bank, about half of all deals since 1980.
Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein and Merrill Lynch were co-bookrunners for both the sovereign's bond issues over the past year. They managed e330 million-worth of bonds in February 2002. Merrill Lynch had been the sole bookrunner for the central bank's last three deals, two yen and one US dollar transactions.