Best bank – Bangkok Bank
Best equity house – Asset Plus Securities
Best debt house – Siam Commercial Bank
Thailand was one of the few countries in the region to experience an upturn in corporate lending in the past year. On the retail side, consumers have also been helping to drive the economy on. Other positive developments include the establishment of the Thai Asset Management Company and the transfer of non-performing loans from the state-owned banks to this entity. This is building competition. But for now Bangkok Bank maintains its supremacy as the best bank in Thailand. Its branch network is still the strongest, with 600 branches. In addition, the bank has doubled the number of micro branches located in superstores, universities and office blocks. No other bank comes close to this kind of extensive coverage. Bangkok Bank’s ATM network is also renowned as Thailand’s most modern and technologically advanced. And this coverage is paying off. It has the largest retail deposit base, with 12 million accounts and a market share of 22%.
Asset Plus Securities, the winner of the best equity house award, set a thundering pace throughout 2002 and has managed to maintain its position as a force to be reckoned with in the domestic IPO market in 2003. The breadth of its coverage has also been admirable, taking companies public from the entertainment, motor parts and finance and securities industries.
Amid all this activity it also managed to successfully list itself in August on the Stock Exchange of Thailand. Transactions were equally spread and varied in size. It took Finansa to the market in September for Bt900 million ($21.6 million) and in October AAPICO HITECH went public for Bt250 million.
November was an especially busy month for the firm when it was financial adviser and lead underwriter for GMM Media (Bt1.3 billion) and Lalin Property (Bt700 million). Its most recent deal was the Bt784 million IPO of RS Promotion. This amount of deal flow did no harm to Asset Plus’s financials. By the end of 2002 it had increased its profits from Bt11.64 million in 2001 to over Bt110 million.
Picking the winner of the best debt house in Thailand award was a close-run decision. Standard Chartered and Deutsche Bank were strong contenders but Siam Commercial Bank pips the two foreign houses. With only the one G3 currency deal, a $300 million FRN for the sovereign, to be issued from Thailand in the 12-month period, the decision is based on the plain-vanilla local-currency market. But as one banker says: “The market is very, very simple. And all bond deals look remarkably similar.”
Contrary to the claims of one bank, which said it was miles ahead of the competition, for the 12-month period under consideration Siam Commercial topped Dealogic’s league table with nine deals to a value of e1.318 billion. This compares with Deutsche 13 deals valued at e1 billion and Standard Chartered’s nine, worth e769.73 million.
Siam’s deals are well diversified across a mix of industry sectors – a coverage that other banks cannot claim. Siam was bookrunner on offerings out of the finance sector, such as Export-Import Bank of Thailand’s Bt10 billion bond, and the telecoms sector, with a Bt15 billion forex and Bt6.7 billion FRN offering for TelecomAsia Corp. In addition the bank was able to capitalize on its position as Thailand’s fourth-largest bank and offer its clients very strong retail distribution.
