Awards for Excellence 2016
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HSBC’s power in debt financing, allied with the strength of its balance sheet, is well known, but Stephen Williams’ capital financing team was no one-trick pony during our review period. It handled equity or equity-linked deals in Korea, Singapore, Taiwan and India as well as many of the deals that mattered most in Greater China. Among them were the $2.115 billion IPO of China Reinsurance and $2.54 billion IPO of China Huarong Asset Management which collectively re-opened regional equity fundraising markets in October. VRL Logistics in India was one of the most successful IPOs from the country for years.
But clearly, 2015/16 was not an ECM year, and it is the bank’s overpowering performance in DCM that nets it this award. Its league table strength is a given, and it dominated in regional G3, local currency (particularly the Hong Kong dollar) and offshore renminbi. But more important is the fact that the bank has shown diversity of assistance to its clients and leadership in new markets.
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Che-Ning Liu, HSBC |
So, for example, if you believe G3 issuance from Chinese state-owned enterprises is the key fundraising trend of the moment, then it is instructive that HSBC was a bookrunner on 21 of the 47 such deals in our review period and global coordinator on 16, among them the $4.8 billion/€1.5 billion jumbo from Sinopec, the largest ever dual currency deal from Asia. It also handled nine deals from provincial Chinese SOEs, an emerging trend.
If you think a bigger trend was Asian issuers taking advantage of ECB monetary easing and going to euros, HSBC handled 18 such deals. Sovereigns? Six of them, from structurally interesting Islamic deals in Hong Kong to a new benchmark from Sri Lanka. Or how about the ability to get high-yield deals away in grim markets? HSBC deals included Greentown China Holdings, China SCE Property and Golden Wheel Tiandi.
Away from the tyranny of league tables, HSBC was also busy in the private placement markets, tapping Taiwanese and Japanese investor bases for issuers such as Singapore’s Olam and India’s Reliance Industries in its first-ever formosa transaction. And it led six public liability management transactions, another important theme.
Finally, although the panda bond market has yet to live up to anything like its potential, bankers continue to believe it’s just a matter of time; HSBC’s leadership on panda deals, including for the Province of British Columbia, Republic of Korea and BMW, will stand it in good stead.
