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Citi |
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Morgan Stanley |
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Bank of America Merrill Lynch |
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Goldman Sachs |
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HSBC |
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HSBC |
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HSBC |
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DBS |
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Best bank in Asia
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Stephen Bird, Citi, leaves the region on a revenue and earnings high |
This year’s best bank in Asia award goes to Citi at a time of transition at the top of the firm’s management structure in the region. The tenure of Citi veteran Stephen Bird as regional CEO has come to an end, and the award brings a strong vindication of Bird’s strategy: Citi Asia is the highest-earning division of the bank after North America. During the submission period, Citi generated a fifth of global revenues and a third of global earnings in Asia, including $3.7 billion of net income, up 9% year-on-year. Bird went out with a bang when in Q1 of this year Citi notched up strong first-quarter earnings in Asia, with revenues up 7% year-on-year to $3.3 billion and ebit up 18% for the same period to $1.5 billion.
Citi and Bird have taken pride in the balance of the business in the region, where no one country accounts for more than 10% of revenues, displaying an appreciation for dispersing risk across geographies and potentially shielding the company from swings in fortune for any one market.
“Citi Asia is not concentrated towards one country or one business like many competitors in the region,” Bird, who is now Citi’s global head of consumer banking, tells Euromoney. “We have invested and built up sufficient scale across retail and institutional banking in Asia to be relevant to our clients both locally, across Asia and globally. Citi’s pivot to Asia to support our clients started in 1902 and the network we have in over 100 countries is a competitive advantage for them.
“The team made strong progress across our retail business especially with the roll out of the AIA bancassurance transaction in Asia. On the institutional side Citi has been one of the major beneficiaries of the further opening up of China’s markets, with several daily records in client flows across our network. We also increased our wallet share with our key institutional clients across the region.”
In Asia, Citi raised close to $200 billion for clients from international capital markets during the submission period and was involved on close to $100 billion of M&A from 100 transactions. Other milestones for Citi during the awards period involved passing 7 million digital banking users in Asia and 34 million retail clients. It also made strides in a number of areas connected to the internationalization of the renminbi and the development of the Shanghai-Hong Kong Stock Connect system.
Transaction services was a big theme for Citi during the awards period. The challenge to carry out treasury and trade business for Asia’s star companies and secure the region’s next corporate champions is a fierce one, but Citi showed it was up for the fight during the awards period and forged ahead with innovation and new business.
As Stephen Bird begins his new role in New York, he passes the baton to former Latin America CEO, Francisco Aristeguieta, who will be keen to push Citi on even further in the region and keep the best bank title out of the clutches of rivals next year.
“I am confident that this region will continue to deliver a sustainable annuity income for Citi,” adds Bird. “In my new role I will also continue to be actively involved in Asia in partnership with Francisco, with half of our consumer markets in Asia. I’m confident that our Asian team will be able to take the region to the next level because there is a long runway of growth ahead.”
Best investment bank in Asia
Morgan Stanley stands out as the best investment bank in Asia following an impressive awards period, where the US bank outfoxed its rivals by landing an impressive variety and volume of key deals in the region. The bank’s Asia-Pacific completed deal volume, including M&A, equity and debt, stood at $196 billion.
One of the deals that defined Morgan Stanley’s year and caused a huge stir in the market was the audacious last-minute coup that saw it act as bookrunner on the $4.8 billion follow-on from Ping An insurance. Admiration and praise abounded from competitors as Morgan Stanley took the spoils of the largest H-share placement ever.
“Across ECM we’re proud of our differentiated contributions on the mega deals, but we’ve also been highly effective identifying additional pools of capital for private placements and blocks, working seamlessly with our other divisions including wealth management,” says Shane Zhang, co-head of Asia Pacific investment banking at Morgan Stanley.
Participation in large M&A deals such as Suntory/Beam and Sinopec Marketing strengthened Morgan Stanley’s case for the best investment bank in Asia, and the rewards now being seen from the bank’s joint venture in Japan add extra impetus to a house that is benefiting from the outbound Japanese deal boom.
“Cross-border connectivity continues to be key for us in M&A,” says Dieter Turowski, co-head of Asia-Pacific investment banking at Morgan Stanley. “We believe that our strong global footprint, including our MUFG relationship, combined with innovative idea generation and long-term relationship focus is what makes the difference for our clients.”
Although not the be all and end all of the market, transactions carried out by Alibaba during the awards period were monumental in size and scope, and Morgan Stanley made sure it was at the forefront of the group’s $25 billion IPO and its $8 billion bond deal. Helping this already iconic Chinese company to raise cash was something that no investment banker in the region wanted to miss out on, even if some downplayed its importance in private.
Some high-profile missteps by other players in the market helped Morgan Stanley’s case for the top investment-banking prize as it rolled along a smooth path throughout the awards period, boosting its reputation with a consistent flow of business.
Best M&A house in Asia
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Stephen Gore. BAML has invested so its clients can access its services across the world and across industries |
The best M&A house in Asia award this year goes to a bank that has engineered an impressive climb up the league tables and made the market stand up and take notice of its record. Bank of America Merrill Lynch has increased its market share and had leading advisory roles on five of the top 15 transactions completed in the region during the awards period. Although there were other candidates with valid claims on the award, this is recognition of how BAML has bulldozed its way up the rankings and into competition with the big players over the last few years.
“M&A represents the pinnacle of the strategic dialogue that investment banks engage in with their most important clients,” says Stephen Gore, head of Asia M&A at BAML. “Our incredible success last year reflects the transformation of our business and our intense client focus. At Bank of America Merrill Lynch we have invested heavily to ensure that clients can access a broad range of advisory and effective solutions across the globe and across industries.”
BAML advised on some of the largest deals involving Chinese state-owned enterprises during the awards period and advised OCBC in its acquisition of Hong Kong’s Wing Hang bank, a deal that attracted much prestige in the wider market.
“In a year of record M&A activity in Asia, we have positioned ourselves at the forefront of the major trends, including SOE [state-owned enterprise] reform, complex structured transactions, cross-border transactions and public takeovers,” says Gore. “This did not happen in isolation but comes as a result of our most important client relationships and our firm-wide capabilities to deliver successful results for those clients.”
Best equity house in Asia
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Jonathan Penkin: Goldman Sachs will continue to lead the biggest and most innovative deals in Apac |
Goldman Sachs had another superb year in equity capital markets and, as a result, scoops the best equity house in Asia award. Goldman raised $28 billion through 96 equity and equity-linked transactions.
A role on Alibaba’s mega IPO was the gloss on an awards period that saw the US bank feature on a variety of key transactions, including the A$5.7 billion ($4.4 billion) IPO of Australia’s Medibank and the $4 billion IPO of Dalian Wanda Commercial Properties. As the Alibaba IPO displayed, Goldman showed itself to be a strong draw for Asian issuers looking for offerings in the US, and the bank carried several of these types of transactions during the awards period.
“We’ve led some of the largest deals in the region with the pickup in issuance since the second half of last year, particularly the return of volumes into China,” says Jonathan Penkin, co-head of Goldman Sachs’ financing group in Asia Pacific ex-Japan.
The attractiveness of listing in China means Goldman can expect continuing competition for the award next year as rivals no doubt will strive to grab as much business as they can.
“The outlook for the rest of this year remains positive, and we expect more activity from China led by the financial and broader healthcare sectors,” adds Penkin. “We’ll continue to focus on growing our A-share business and leading the biggest and most innovative deals in the region.”
Best debt house in Asia
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Alexi Chan. HSBC has helped its customers navigate difficult markets |
HSBC takes the award for best debt house in Asia after impressing across the board in a number of debt categories. The bank led over $100 billion in G3 issues from Asia via 164 transactions. Some standout sovereign deals and a number of eye-catching FIG issuances helped to build HSBC’s case and a showing in offshore RMB deals, including one for the UK government, also displayed HSBC’s DCM prowess in the region.
“Throughout the year, we were consistently at the forefront of the key trends in Asia’s debt markets – across bank capital, corporate hybrids, liability management, and sustainable finance,” says Alexi Chan, global co-head of debt capital markets, HSBC.
“We leveraged the unique breadth of the HSBC platform, across the G3 and local-currency markets, to navigate our clients successfully through rapidly changing market conditions,” says Chan. “We see a major opportunity to support the opening up of China’s capital markets. The offshore RMB deals we led for issuers such as the UK, CCB and the IFC were landmark transactions which really broke new ground.”
Best flow house and best risk adviser in Asia
Best flow house in Asia and best risk adviser in Asia were added to HSBC’s 2015 awards haul as the bank demonstrated solid performance indicators in both categories. HSBC’s flow business in Asia grew 26% in sales volume during the qualifying period, with strong showings in areas such as foreign exchange, rates, credit and commodities. One of the biggest stories in Asia last year was the launch of the Shanghai-Hong Kong Stock Connect and HSBC was at the forefront of providing customers with access to the new system.
On the risk adviser side, HSBC broadened its business and delivered a full spectrum of risk management solutions across GBM and commercial banking. DCM and financing-linked hedging solutions, repo and financing trades, plus RMB hedging made up just some of the business that HSBC carried out to justify the award.
Best transaction services house in Asia
Competition in Asia is strong, but having a focused commitment to the region that spans both the emerging markets and established economies are reasons to give DBS the award for best transaction services house in Asia.
The bank showed its commitment to technology with the launch of the DBS Ideal mobile app in November 2014, which allows the user to view balances, check the status of cheques, and make and approve payments. The app has been developed to assist SMEs in particular, with the inclusion of working-capital solutions and loan calculators. The app was initially launched on Apple’s iOS platform; an Android version appeared at the beginning of 2015.
March 2015 saw the launch of DBS’s Working Capital Advisory Programme. Using big data and proprietary analytics, the programme allows for industry benchmarking and assessments of working-capital drivers for clients. Through the assessment, the bank is able to advise clients on the best products and steps they can take to optimise working capital, including freeing up trapped cash.
DBS continues to show strength in renminbi business in the region. The bank is rated top for RMB trade finance in Singapore and had booked 608 RMB-denominated trade deals as of the end of 2014.
Responding to the changing needs of the Asian market, the bank has created a number of supply-chain finance programmes. In 2014 it created the Ideal supply-chain finance module for multinational corporation clients to work alongside its existing programme. Created to assist large corporates and their distributors and suppliers, it has been designed for easy management. DBS also offers regional buyers finance credit, which can be used to give clients an edge by accelerating the closure of deals.
