Best bank - Bank of America
Best debt house - Citigroup
Best M&A house - Goldman Sachs
Best equity house - Morgan Stanley
Bank of America wins the best US bank award for the second year running. It has maintained the solid track record that has characterized almost all its businesses since 2000. This has helped turn it around from the merger-mania mess it was in at the end of the 1990s. It boasts a formidable treasury services operation, the largest retail franchise in the US, deep relationships with corporates of all sizes, and a number-two ranked syndicated loans business.
Its investment banking arm, Banc of America Securities, has largely maintained the gains made in previous years even as the amount of business fell in the past year. It has been a major underwriter of convertibles in the US, is a top-five underwriter of corporate debt, and had a good year in asset-backed securities underwriting.
BoA is one of the most profitable companies in the US, has a loyal following among institutional investors, and is a proactive risk manager: as just one example, last year it employed an innovative use of credit derivatives to hedge some of its exposure to unsecured credit-card debt.