Hong Kong

Australia I China I Hong Kong I India I Indonesia I Japan I Malaysia I Mongolia I Pakistan I Philippines I Singapore I Taiwan I Thailand

HSBC wins the best bank in Hong Kong award again and it is hard to see the bank ever relinquishing the title, given its complete dominance of the market. It is the largest bank in Hong Kong by far, with the largest branch network and a product range to cover every kind of customer, from retail, consumer to commercial and corporate. The bank reported pretax profit for 2005 of $5.8 billion, a return on average assets of 1.44%, a cost-income ratio of 41.2%, a return on equity of 37% and a capital adequacy ratio of 12.4%.

UBS wins the best equity house in Hong Kong because of a strong performance in what was a quiet domestic market. The IPO of the Hong Kong’s government’s LINK Reit, at $2.8 billion, was by far the largest domestic equity offering and UBS’s participation cemented its place at the top of the league table, with $1.2