Best bank – Vilniaus Bankas
Best debt house – joint BNP Paribas & DrKW
Best equity house – Suprema Securities
Best M&A house – Prime Investments
Best local partner – Zabolis & Partners
Lithuania is the least developed of the three Baltic countries in terms of the proportion of the population that has banking relationships. There are three dominant banks in this market. Together, Vilniaus Bankas, Hansa-LTB and the Agricultural Bank have a market share of 75% of total assets.
Vilniaus Bankas, a subsidiary of Swedish bank SEB, rules the market with a market share of around 40% in assets, loans and deposits. Its closest competitor is Hansa-LTB, which has a 26% share of assets and 31% of deposits.
Vilniaus Bankas has seen impressive growth in its net profit of 33% to reach Lit126.5 million ($43 million) at the end of 2002 and earnings per share were Lit8.19, up from Lit6.16 a year ago. The bank’s return on shareholders’ equity rose from 15.1% to 16.9%. In 2002 the bank also saw 9% growth in the number of its corporate customers to reach 57,000.
Hansa-LTB will be the bank to watch next year. Hansabank has done a good job with its merger with the Lithuanian savings bank LTB, completing integration around five months ahead of schedule, and the bank has been experiencing good momentum.
There were only two international bond deals out of Lithuania during the 12-month period. Both e400 million 10-year issues were for the Republic of Lithuania. The first was in April 2002, in which JPMorgan and UBS acted as joint bookrunners. The second was in February this year and was jointly led by BNP Paribas and DrKW, which jointly take the award for best debt house.
Both deals were fully placed and the only distinction were indications that there wasn’t a very strong demand for the paper in the aftermarket for the April 2002 deal. The price for this year’s issue initially stayed the same and then heightened in the aftermarket.
Suprema Securities takes the award for best equity house. The firm arranged the placement of e77 million-worth of Lithuanian crude oil refinery Mazeikiu Nafta’s equity to the public in September last year. Suprema also has a good market share on the local stock exchange.
Prime Investments, the winner of the best M&A house award, had a distinct advantage this past year in that two of its peers did not have their teams operating for the full period. In September last year the employees of VB Vilfima left to start up their own firm when Vilniaus Bankas acquired 100% control of the company.
Nonetheless, Prime Investments has had a successful year during which it advised on six transactions including buy-side and sell-side roles. In May the firm advised on the largest transaction in Lithuania this year to date. It advised UAB Limarko, a Lithuanian freight forwarding and ship management company, in its acquisition of Klaipeda Transport Fleet from the Lithuanian State Property Fund. The deal had a total size of e17.7 million.
Zabolis and Partners, the ex-advisory team of VB Vilfima, which won the award for best M&A house in Lithuania in Euromoney’s 2002 awards, has done an excellent job during the short period it has been up and running and takes the award for best local partner.
The firm opened its doors in September last year and has been involved in several impressive deals such as the sale of a majority stake in DIY retail company Senukai to international retailer Kesko Corporation in which it acted as sole adviser to Senukai.
The firm is also the only local house advising on a project to privatize natural gas distributor Lietuvos Dujos together with foreign player BNP Paribas.
