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If there is one word to describe RBC Capital Markets’ equity-linked business in 2014 it is momentum. The fledging platform has poached clients from bulge-bracket firms and increased issuance by 260% in one year. RBC Capital Markets is IFR’s Americas Structured Equity House of the Year.
In a turbulent year for Thailand, CP Foods managed to bring a new structure to market, achieve aggressive terms and time the offering to perfection, raising US$290.4m from an exchangeable bond just three days before street protests brought issuance to a standstill.
In Asia-Pacific, equity-linked issuance was far from easy in 2014, but one bank delivered consistently across a wide range of markets. For its sound judgement and for sticking by its clients, Credit Suisse is IFR’s Asia-Pacific Structured Equity House of the Year.
Getting paid to issue debt is an extraordinary feat, yet E.ON achieved this with its exchangeable bond converting into the extremely illiquid Swiss energy company BKW – even when there was a competing convertible from BKW in the market at the same time.
Patchy issuance and the demand for diversification required banks to provide both variety and innovation this year. In matching its reputation for structuring with a sharply increased flow of deals, Societe Generale is IFR’s EMEA Structured Equity House of the Year.
One weakness of convertible bonds is the uncertainty of outcome for an issuer as the bonds near maturity. A share price close to the conversion price means a company must prepare for conversion or repayment. A surprise repayment could be painful.
In an uncertain year, one bank combined its Asian expertise and global platform to raise funds for top-tier clients. For its continued dominance of market-defining deals, Goldman Sachs is IFR’s Asia-Pacific Equity House of the Year.
The joy of winning the mandate to float a long-established high-profile company is short-lived when it comes with the caveat that the deal cannot be launched unless it is certain to complete. Europe’s traditional four-week IPO process offers no such guarantee, yet Hella’s founding family were clear – the float was strategically important but must be certain.
IPOs dominated the landscape in 2014 and one bank led from the front, regularly printing several deals in a week, while simultaneously making the UK its home. JP Morgan is IFR’s EMEA Equity House of the Year.
In a volatile year that saw just a handful of equity issues in Latin America, Mexican infrastructure firm Promotora y Operadora de Infraestructura’s US$624m capital raising stood out for its ground-breaking structure.
The world’s largest IPO of all time was also one of the smoothest, with exemplary execution and a strong secondary performance despite its unprecedented scale.
Investment banks have had to tear up decades-old strategies and rethink their purpose since the financial crisis. Their leaders tell IFR about the shape they are in now, what they think will happen next, and what the industry will look like after all the upheaval.
As a watershed year for global derivatives reform, 2014 saw one of the most ambitious strands of the Dodd-Frank Act finally come to life. Large swathes of the US$691trn over-the-counter swaps market were pulled out of the OTC shadows and into the bright lights of regulated exchanges.
Fines for previous misdemeanours reached all-time highs in 2014 as regulators became more assertive in extracting large settlements that, while eye-popping, wouldn’t break the banks. But with the last of the big scandals reaching a close, banks are hoping the era of penalties may be behind them.
Equities sales and trading is yet another area of European banking in the midst of upheaval. Regulators want banks to be more open with the way they price equity services, including research.
Holdout investors in recent years have done better than those that accepted the terms of sovereign debt restructurings. That has prompted renewed efforts to change the system, level the playing field and bind in defiant creditors. But can the reforms actually work?
Investors in banks could be forgiven for longing for simpler times. On established metrics banks look incredibly cheap. But a host of new rules around capital requirements and resolving failing banks, not to mention a host of untested debt structures, have left investors attempting to evaluate an unpredictable new world.
Japanese retail investors have tended to leap on the opportunity to buy foreign equity in public offerings without listing, yet relatively few IPOs end up including such a tranche. As investors from the country gear up to invest more abroad, Tokyo could become a more frequent stop for IPO roadshows.
All for one and one for all – that seemed to be Alibaba’s motto when it came time for the internet giant’s record-setting IPO. Levelling the playing field turned out to be good business for all concerned in the US$25bn deal.
The curious governance structure of Alibaba, the Chinese internet retailer, has focused attention on dual-class shares and how stock exchanges around the world should view corporate efforts to keep control at the top.
They may not quite be all the rage just yet, but Green bonds are an increasingly popular funding option for borrowers keen to do, or at least be seen to do, the right thing. They’re great PR and (usually) good finance. But do they actually help to make the world more green?