Awards for Excellence 2016
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While bulge bracket banks have the edge in pure investment banking terms in CEE, the leading house in terms of overall corporate exposure and activity in the region remains UniCredit, which wins this year’s award for best financing house. Even after retreating from a couple of markets following the financial crisis, the Italian group still has large commercial banking operations in 11 countries across the region, including leading franchises in Poland, Russia and Turkey.
Combined with a healthy appetite for putting balance sheet to work and in-depth sector expertise at group level, this has made UniCredit the leading provider of financing to CEE corporates. By the end of 2015, the bank’s exposure to the segment stood at €55.9 billion, well ahead of any of its European or US peers, while, in this awards period, UniCredit once again easily topped the regional league tables for syndicated loans.
It is not all about numbers, however. UniCredit has also consistently demonstrated its ability to provide a broad range of financing solutions to clients in CEE, from simple term loans to structured and leveraged products. Notable recent deals include a $350 million pre-export finance facility for Ukraine’s Kernel Group, a €547 million refinancing for Blackstone’s real-estate arm in Turkey and a pair of Turkish hospital public-private partnerships.
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Enrico Minniti, UniCredit |
The group also notched credits as sole financial adviser and lead arranger on two of the largest leveraged buyouts in CEE last year: Mid Europa’s purchase of Danube Foods Group and CVC Capital Partners’ acquisition of Polish electricity provider PKP Energetyka. UniCredit has also been better at leveraging its loan market dominance to win investment banking business. In debt capital markets, the bank’s strength in both euros and dollars was demonstrated in October by its presence as bookrunner on the two big Russian bond issues of the year, Norilsk Nickel’s $1 billion note and a €1 billion deal from Gazprom. UniCredit was the only house to win mandates on both transactions. On the equities side, the bank was active on three Polish IPOs and a follow-on deal for Credit Bank of Moscow.
Whether UniCredit will be able to maintain current levels of exposure to CEE following the current group restructuring remains to be seen, but for the moment the bank is a worthy winner of the regional financing award. UniCredit’s CEE corporate and investment banking division has been led since last year by Enrico Minniti.
