BEST BANK
Royal Bank of Scotland
BEST DEBT HOUSE
Barclays Capital
BEST EQUITY HOUSE
Merrill Lynch
BEST M&A HOUSE
Morgan Stanley
Although Royal Bank of Scotland has maintained its global business expansion, it has managed to keep a firm focus on its domestic market, making profits in the UK over 2004 of £5.6 billion ($10.2 billion) and attracting more retail and corporate clients with a broad range of services. In retail, lending increased by 11% in 2004 and the private-banking business increased its UK client base by 8%. In corporate and investment banking, RBS is the UK’s number one corporate relationship bank, with a 33% market share, and relationships with more than 95% of the FTSE 100 and more than 75% of the FTSE 250 in investment and traditional banking. The bank is a leading arranger for project finance deals in the UK and a key bookrunner and arranger on bond and syndicated loan deals for UK issuers. RBS has also been prominent on sterling bond transactions off Network Rail’s new debt issuance programme, including the successful inaugural £2.25 billion three-tranche bond offering in November last year.
Accompanying RBS as a joint bookrunner on the deal was Barclays Capital, which once again wins the award for best debt house. It leads the league tables in syndicated loans and bond issuance in its domestic market. The firm has also been in the market for innovative bank capital issues and securitization deals. Barclays appeared alongside Citigroup and Merrill Lynch as bookrunner on mortgage bank Northern Rock’s £4.5 billion Granite 05-01 deal, which achieved record tight pricing for a European residential MBS deal in January. In the corporate bond market, deals for Diageo and Boots feature as successes.
The league tables for UK equities are dominated by Merrill Lynch and UBS, but the former takes the award for best equity house this year because of its wide success. In the primary market, the bank has had a balanced mix of activities, including a series of IPOs for UK financial sponsors such as Halfords, while still basking in the success of last year’s accelerated bookbuild for RBS. On the sales and trading side, Merrill Lynch is in the top two for volume traded on the London Stock Exchange, and in the top three for FTSE 100 corporate broking clients.
In M&A, the largest deal in the UK of the past 12 months was the sale of Abbey to Santander. The $16 billion deal was the largest cross-border banking transaction in Europe and the second largest globally. Morgan Stanley was sole adviser to Abbey in the complex transaction and, as a result, claims the award for best UK M&A house this year, above close runners-up Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan with which it alternates the top three positions in the league tables. Another significant cross-border transaction featuring Morgan Stanley is Pernod Ricard’s pending acquisition of Allied Domecq, where the bank has advised the acquirer and provided a bridge loan facility. In the UK, Morgan Stanley successfully defended the bid by Philip Green for Marks & Spencer, and was subsequent adviser on the sale of M&S’s financial services business to HSBC.
