BofA Securities retains the award for Latin America’s best investment bank. Last year, the team, led by Alexandre Bettamio, co-head of global investment banking, and Augusto Urmeneta, president for Latin America and head of Latin America Investment banking, claimed the award for a strong regional performance. This year BofA went even further and took the country awards for Colombia, Peru and Brazil. The latter is easily the most important investment banking market in the region.
League-table presence is always important, especially in low volume years. Not only because the fight for mandates is fierce, but also because those deals create valuable market intelligence and insight into investor appetite.
BofA Securities generated the deal flow that created the intelligence to win more mandates to generate more deal flow. And it was a regional success: in M&A, the bank generated far more fees than any other competitor. According to Dealogic, BofA generated 17.8% of all M&A fees in Latin America during the awards period – exactly double that of second-placed Credit Suisse, which had 8.9%. BofA led transformational, cross-border deals for companies based in all the large Latin American countries.
BofA Securities was also the clear leader in terms of equity capital markets fees. The bank generated more than a fifth of all ECM fees (20.9%), according to Dealogic, this time beating BTG Pactual into second place.
It wasn’t a busy year for fresh equity issuance, but BofA’s team captured market share by being flexible in terms of structures and timing. For example, BofA was lead placement agent on XP’s July 2022 block trade and sole placement agent on XP’s subsequent block trade in November 2022. Also in Brazil, the team was global coordinator, sole placement agent and sole bookrunner for GPS’s April 2022 block trade.
In Mexico, the bank was financial adviser on Fibra Prologis’ $390 million rights offer and kept the equity investment flowing to companies in the region with follow-ons for CVC, Eneva and Eletrobras, where is was lead international global coordinator and stabilization agent on the June 2022 $5.9 billion deal.
BofA Securities generated the deal flow that created the intelligence to win more mandates to generate more deal flow
And while DCM isn’t a deep strength for BofA, the team remains among the top 10 banks in raising debt for Latin American countries. Notable transactions in BofA’s pitch book this year include Cemex’s $1 billion sustainability bond, deals for development banks CAF and Cabei, sovereign transactions for Chile and Panama and both high-yield and high-grade corporate bonds.
BofA also led on a wide range of liability-management deals, as well as completing a healthy book of loans for credits throughout the region. It is also worth noting that BofA’s continued strength in transaction services continues to underpin its investment banking success in Latin America – making the bank a formidable competitor in the region.
