Best bank – ABN Amro
Best debt house – ABN Amro
Best equities house – ABN Amro
Best M&A house – ABN Amro
Best local partner – Dexia Securities via Kempen & Co corporate finance
ABN Amro is indisputably the best bank in the Netherlands. Its expertise across the range of investment banking products is clear from the fact that it sweeps the board for Dutch product awards this year, with huge market shares in both debt and M&A.
ABN’s business is divided into a consumer and commercial clients division, private clients and asset management and wholesale clients. It has also developed an excellent cash management platform, which helped to produce a respectable 22.6% return on equity for the bank in 2002.
Continuing the trend for domestic banks to dominate their home debt markets, ABN Amro wins the award for best debt house in the Netherlands. It takes a share of over 16% of the market compared with the 10% of its closest rival, Barclays Capital. In the corporate market, Morgan Stanley has been busy this year but despite this does not manage the same breadth and variety of issuers as ABN.
The Dutch bank has worked with all of the leading Netherlands-based companies this year from Akzo Nobel, VNU and KPN to Shell and Unilever. Neither Akzo Nobel nor Shell had tapped the euro-denominated debt markets before. Friesland Bank was a financial institution debut issuer this year. ABN managed its inaugural senior unsecured bond issue and its first ever residential mortgage-backed securitization transaction.
For agency borrowers Bank Nederlandse Gemeenten and Nederlandse Waterchapsbank, ABN led deals in the euro, dollar and Swiss franc markets. Its position in the syndicated loan market is well established. Among this year’s deals was a e3.2 billion syndicated repo facility for Vereniging Aegon, on which it was sole underwriter and bookrunner.
At first sight, Morgan Stanley is a strong contender for best Dutch equities house. However, much of its business is not for domestic companies. It has raised money in the Netherlands for LUKinter Finance, Deutsche Telekom and Infineon for example. Discounting these deals, the bank that has served the needs of Dutch companies in the equity markets most successfully this year is local bank ABN Amro. Deal of the year in the Netherlands – and indeed a contender on a European scale – has to be the e3.5 billion accelerated bookbuilt offering for Aegon. This deal was impressive in terms of timing since Aegon was suffering the same solvency worries as other insurers but managed to get its deal away first.
The deal also demonstrated ABN’s execution capabilities as the shares were placed in the space of two days, despite Aegon’s shares falling below the e10 per share offer price.
ABN is the biggest dealer in Dutch stocks, according to Autex, and its home-country research team is highly ranked in industry surveys.
ABN Amro’s expertise in Dutch M&A is also undisputed. With around 100 M&A bankers in the Netherlands, it’s hardly surprising that its name appears next to most of the important deals that were done in the past 12 months. In February ABN advised Reliant Resources on the sale of Reliant Energy Europe to Nuon, a e1.2 billion transaction.
It has worked on a number of sales to financial sponsors too, advising Getronics on its sale to NIB private equity, a Dutch firm. It also worked on the purchase by CVC Capital Partners of six specialist units of Royal VendexKBB. Cross-border, it advised health and beauty company AS Watson on its acquisition of the Kruidvat Group.
This year Dexia split its Dutch activities into two banks, one devoted to the retail business under the name Dexia Bank and the other, specializing in asset management, securities and corporate finance, known as Kempen & Co.
It was recently sole adviser to Eneco Energie on its acquisition of Regionale Energie Maatschappij Utrecht (REMU), an important step in the liberalization of the Dutch energy market. It also worked with Koninklijke Volker Wessels Stevin on its management buyout by the Wessels family.
