This was, as is the norm, a fight between Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs. This year the award changes hands between them and goes to Morgan Stanley for the breadth of its successes.
Our review period covered a quite extraordinary range of market circumstances and external influences, and it was important to us that the winner of this award could demonstrate an ability to come through for clients throughout.
Morgan Stanley was not on the top of the league tables for equity capital markets in our review period – that was Goldman – but it did impress for the scale of its activity. It was a leader on arguably the most high-profile transactions in each of South Korea (LG Energy Solution), China (Didi), India (Paytm), Southeast Asia (Grab), Australia (Transurban), Indonesia (Mitratel), Thailand (Ngern Tid Lor) and Japan (Renesas).
Three of those deals fared poorly afterwards, whether for reasons of tech rotation, rising inflation or unpredictable Chinese regulation, but in each case one can find a better, smaller and more important deal waiting in the wings: the impressive Zomato IPO in India, for example, or the $14.7 billion Tencent sell-down by Prosus. The bank was either a winner or an exceptionally close runner-up in Japan, Thailand, India, South Korea, Singapore, Hong Kong, China, Taiwan and Indonesia.
M&A showed the bank on top of its game. While its biggest deal in our review period, the Altimeter/Grab deSpac merger, was not our favourite, there were dozens of others that were very positive. The multi-billion-dollar deals such as Square/Afterpay, Woodside Petroleum/BHP, Transurban/WestConnex and US Bancorp/MUFG Union Bank were all lucrative and impressive, but the real innovation can be found in smaller deals. Advising the Cuscaden Peak investor consortium on its acquisition of Singapore Press Holdings was an example, as was advising Temasek on the 20-years-in-the-making Sembcorp Marine/Keppel Offshore & Marine merger.
Other standouts include EQT/Baring Private Equity Asia, the Bain Capital consortium’s purchase of Hitachi Metals, Telenor Asia/Axiata in Malaysia, Emart/eBay Korea, and several deals for Blackstone.
We tend to think of debt capital markets as something of an afterthought for Morgan and Goldman, but that is not really the case. Both banks can boast important deals in DCM, leveraged finance and liability management.
We feel the breadth of our franchise and the longevity and seniority of our bankers played well into a volatile environment where we needed to find creative, bespoke solutions for clients
Shane Zhang
Environmental, social and governance offerings were a particular strength for Morgan Stanley, such as a sustainability dollar bond for the Republic of the Philippines, a green euro bond for CK Hutchison, a green dollar perpetual for AC Energy and a green dollar bond for Xiaomi. Other highlights included the largest China corporate offering to date for Tencent, a liability management exercise for the government of Mongolia, and tricky deals to reopen Asian credit markets for issuers including State Grid, GLP China and China Water Affairs.
The team that delivers all this is reassuringly familiar. Dieter Turowski, Shane Zhang, Julien Begasse de Dhaem, Rich Wong and others have been narrating Morgan Stanley’s Asian adventures to us for many years; likewise country leaders such as Sangwook Cho in Seoul. It is clear that experience helped in a tough year.
“We feel the breadth of our franchise and the longevity and seniority of our bankers played well into a volatile environment where we needed to find creative, bespoke solutions for clients,” says Zhang, co-head of investment banking, Asia Pacific.
