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Souping up MDBs
As calls grew for multilateral development banks to expand their lending to help the world adapt to climate change and all the challenges it brings, the World Bank has been at the forefront of efforts to evolve the model MDBs use to effect change. The World Bank is IFR’s SSAR Issuer of the Year.
Swiss champion
In the centre of the storm, UBS transformed Swiss bank capital from a potential pariah product to the beneficiary of the biggest order book in recent memory and executed an agile and innovative funding dash. UBS is IFR’s Financial Issuer of the Year.
Nuclear powerhouse
Electricite de France bolstered its position as a global issuer in a challenging year that was marred by heightened interest rate volatility. The French utility diversified its investor base with successful transactions in six currencies, while bringing innovation through a US dollar hybrid bond and a euro green bond. EDF is IFR's Corporate Issuer of the Year.
North star
Nordea accelerated its pioneering effort to create use-of-proceeds bonds from its sustainability-linked loan portfolio, while also showing exceptional commitment to greening its debt. As much as two-thirds of the benchmark bonds the bank issued in 2023 across a raft of structures and currencies were in ESG formats. Nordea is IFR’s Sustainable Issuer of the Year.
Pushing the limits
Few deals have held a mirror up to the capital markets as clearly as the US$5.5bn debt financing backing Blackstone’s purchase of Emerson’s climate technology business, Copeland. For pushing the limits of the possible in the most difficult conditions, it is IFR’s Financing Package of the Year.
Calling time
UBS had long considered a takeover of Credit Suisse, to create a US$5trn national champion, a remote possibility but that idle dream turned into an initially uncomfortable reality when an old-fashioned bank run meant Credit Suisse – and Switzerland – needed a saviour. UBS’s acquisition of Credit Suisse is IFR’s M&A Deal of the Year.
Former ECM banker and self-described origination junkie Craig Coben looks back on the good times, bemoans the present and manages – just about – to be hopeful about the future.
After nearly 40 years in DCM, Chris Tuffey recalls the highs and lows and examines how things have changed. The thrill of the deal is still there, but perhaps not quite what it was.
Rupak Ghose looks back on a banking career in which it felt like everything changed, but some things remained the same.
PR veteran (and former IFR man) Jezz Farr explains what the awards process looks like for the unfortunate souls trying to line up all the egomaniacs involved (and that’s not just the bankers).
PRC institutions take lion's share of Asian investment banking fees, and are steadily expanding into overseas markets.
