Awards for Excellence 2019
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Morgan Stanley has the most balanced investment banking operation in Asia, both geographically and by product. Across M&A, equity and debt capital markets, from Japan via China to southeast Asia, Korea and Australia, the bank is reliably high quality.
ECM displayed its strength to greatest effect during our review period, as it usually does. It was on the headline China megadeals – China Tower, Xiaomi, Meituan-Dianping, Pinduoduo, Nio – but also found the biggest deals in southeast Asia to be on, including Sea Ltd’s $1.6 billion follow-on, the Vietnam IPOs (or their local equivalent) of Vinhomes and Techcombank, and a follow-on for San Miguel Food & Beverage.
Australia delivered $5 billion of follow-ons for Transurban and almost $2 billion for Woodside Petroleum in two deals apiece, while in India the bank handled deals for HDFC Bank, Tata Consultancy Services, Kotak Mahindra and Axis Bank.
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Wei Sun Christianson |
In M&A, it ran a very close second to Goldman Sachs, handling some of the biggest deals in the region, among them the Shire/Takeda Pharmaceutical deal, EDP/China Three Gorges and Petrohawk Energy/BP America Production.
Again, success was geographically diverse, from the TMB/Thanachart merger in Thailand to Bharti Infratel/Indus Towers in India, Transurban/WestConnex in Australia to Inalum/Freeport Indonesia.
And DCM landmarks included the largest Reg S corporate high-yield offering of our review period, for Tata Steel, as well as other landmarks for Sunac, Cambodia’s NagaCorp, Indonesia’s Medco Energi, and the high-yield deal for The Center in Hong Kong. Deals covered the whole gamut from investment grade to high yield and included event-driven funding, liability management, private placements and formosa bonds.
On top of all this, on the trading side, Morgan Stanley is a leader in Asian institutional equities, and has one of the best positions in Stock Connect and A-share coverage. It is also very strong in prime brokerage and electronic trading in Asia.
There are some years where Japan can be something of a tie-breaker in a tight field, and when that happens, Morgan Stanley’s joint venture with MUFG is an extremely useful card to play. The venture, still more successful than anyone ever expected it to be, is rewarded in our Japan investment bank category.
In summary, Gokul Laroia and Wei Sun Christianson, co-heads for Asia Pacific, run a business with no obvious weak points. It remains the name all competitors for this award measure themselves against.
