Awards for Excellence 2020
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It isn’t easy being a very big bank with a very big presence in very big markets. Citi is a big financial institution present in virtually every large Asian economy. You don’t get to be this size and to last this long without an innate ability to react smartly and nimbly to systemic threats.
Under chief executive Peter Babej, Citi Asia Pacific was quick to react to the coronavirus crisis. In the pandemic’s early stages it saw echoes of the Sars outbreak in 2003. Within weeks, 75% of its workforce had transitioned to working from home and it disbursed special compensation awards to 25,000 staff.
When India went into lockdown, digital support staff worked overtime to ensure that corporate clients from Asia to the Americas were able to pay staff on time.
Zoom meetings became de rigeur; virtual events and resources were put in place to ensure employees and their families were cared for. Health and wellness experts were made available to anyone feeling stressed or depressed.
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Peter Babej |
The bank reached out to its core customers and markets, extending $10 million in relief measures to China and India.
In Hong Kong, Citi donated more than 275,000 face masks to the Tung Wah group of hospitals and $150,000 to help feed struggling families.
In Singapore, it donated to Willing Hearts, a soup kitchen that delivers 6,500 meals a day to 40 locations across the country, 365 days a year.
But where Citi perhaps made the greatest difference was its ability to help get Asia’s capital markets up and running again after lockdown. The bank is a deal machine; after the markets stirred again in late March, it sprang back into action.
Standout transactions include a $4.3 billion 50-year triple-tranche issue by the Republic of Indonesia to fund its Covid-19 relief efforts and a $2.35 billion dual-tranche deal by the Republic of the Philippines, one of the country’s largest-ever bonds.
Citi was a bookrunner on both, as well as Kookmin Bank’s $500 million five-year Covid-response bond.
It worked overtime to help key Asian clients to strengthen their balance sheets, from Petronas, whose $6 billion bond secured over $37 billion in orders, to Yageo, where an accelerated bookbuild helped the electronics maker print a $180 million zero-coupon convertible bond.
