Awards for Excellence 2002
Citigroup/Salomon Smith Barney
In the international asset-backed markets, Citigroup/Salomon Smith Barney has emerged as the clear leader over the past two years. In the breadth of its business, its track record of innovative deals, its structuring, distribution and trading strengths, and its global franchise, Citi is the firm to beat.
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Citibank: placed some big bets on fixed income while its rivals were obsessed with equities and M&A |
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“Compared with our competitors, this was one of the first product areas where we started to think about the business globally,” says Jeffrey Perlowitz, who co-heads the firm’s global securitized markets business alongside Mark Tsesarsky. “We have a world-class multi-seller conduit business and a very strong term business, both of which have had an active global presence over the years. That has allowed us to offer products and ideas to clients that our competitors cannot match.”
Europe has been a key driver of growth and will continue to be. Last year’s landmark deal was the £2 billion whole-business securitization for Glas Cymru (Welsh Water) which Citi arranged – and which is commonly regarded as one of the most pioneering securitizations to date.
That template was repeated again this year when Citi sneaked in ahead of CSFB to make a securitization-backed £2 billion offer for Southern Water.
In the UK mortgage-backed markets, Citi has played the leading role in groundbreaking master trust securitization structures for the two jumbo issuers – Abbey National and, more recently, HBOS.
It has led global MBS deals for Commonwealth Bank of Australia and ANZ. It has arranged UK property deals for clients such as Canary Wharf. It orchestrated the innovative Telereal financing for BT. It has been active in Italy – with a car loan deal for Fiat, a record-breaking MBS deal for Banca Popolare di Milano and a national lottery repackaging.
It teamed up with Morgan Stanley to put together the first whole-business securitization in Germany, it has transacted novel vendor finance securitizations and it packaged a e2.6 billion ($2.4 billion) securitization of housing loans for the State of Lower Austria.
Nick Evans
