Best bank – Banque Générale du Luxembourg
Best debt house – BNP Paribas
Best equity house – Deutsche Bank
Best M&A house – CSFB
Banque Générale du Luxembourg is Luxembourg’s best bank again this year. Since 2000 it has been majority owned by Belgian/Dutch financial services group Fortis. It offers corporates in Luxembourg a full range of commercial and investment banking services as well as cash management and works closely with many of the country’s mid-cap firms.
Luxembourg’s debt market is small – less than e1 billion-worth of deals have been completed over the past 12 months. The most frequent issuer is Banque et Caisse d’Epargne de l’Etat Luxembourg, which uses Mizuho on its yen deals, Daiwa, HSBC and Lehman on its dollar tranches and Deutsche or Lehman in Europe.
BNP Paribas has, however, arranged some important loan deals for Luxembourg-based corporates. In April, it raised e2 billion for first-time borrower Arcelor and was sole mandated arranger on a $1 billion revolving credit facility for Clearstream Banking last May.
Few of the equity transactions done in Luxembourg over the past 12 months were for true Luxembourg corporates. Italian company Parmalat’s two convertibles, for example, were both issued by a Luxembourg-based vehicle.
Among those that were for domestic firms was a e750 million convertible transaction for Arcelor, which has only a single BBB rating from Standard & Poor’s. Deutsche Bank was a joint bookrunner on this deal. The German bank also tops Autex tables for trading volumes in Luxembourg stocks, with a consistent market share of over 10%.
CSFB has advised on several important deals in what was a very quiet M&A market this year in Luxembourg. The largest transaction was the divestment of Akeler Holdings from Land Lease Global Properties, in which CSFB advised Akeler. It also advised Siderca on the purchase by Tenaris of 28% of its stock.
