Best emerging markets debt house:
HSBC
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Also shortlisted: |
Over the past year, primary market conditions for emerging market borrowers have been remarkably stable, despite commodity-linked corporate bond defaults from Latin America to eastern Europe, the market shutdown in Brazil and Russia, and FX volatility.
What’s more, the default from Chinese property developer Kaisa early this year only temporarily dampened appetite for Chinese real-estate paper, representing some 40% of Asian high-yield issuance. Corporate ambitions and deal volumes in international debt markets, however, remained high despite these pressure points and market hysteria over emerging-market leverage. Records have been broken across geographies and sectors on pricing, tenor, deal structures and FX formats.
The key primary market issuance themes in EM over the past year include euro issuance for non-European names, the globalization of Chinese debt, leverage-driven M&A, the growth of Basel-III bank capital, corporate hybrids, sukuk and perpetual debt, as well as the challenges of navigating FX and commodity-price volatility.
On all fronts, HSBC excelled.
While some rival bankers attempt to downplay the strength of HSBC’s DCM franchise, claiming it leads with balance-sheet facilities rather than market-leading ideas, the past year highlighted the level of trust invested in the bank from key clients.