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The Australian and New Zealand bond markets took on new global significance in 2014, as a growing number of international issuers turned to an expanding local investor base in search of alternative sources of funding. Australia and New Zealand Banking Group was at the forefront of this trend, leading Australian dollar issuance and doing more than any other arranger to connect international issuers with Australasian investors. Benefiting from its offices in Dubai and Abu Dhabi, it was a joint bookrunner on all four of 2014’s Kangaroo issues from...

Goldman Sachs made its mark in Australasian equities in 2014 with leading roles on Australia’s largest IPO, rights issue, institutional placement and block trade. The bank has honed its local platform and made multiple personnel changes since taking full control of its JB Were joint venture in 2011, and those investments paid off in a year when Australian equity raising continued to rebound, while IPOs gathered pace. Notably, Goldman used its ability to take risk to lure top-tier clients away from its main competitors. Toll-road operator...

Japan takes over With 2015 looming large on the horizon, it is Japan that has Asia’s foreign-exchange markets on tenterhooks. US monetary policy, so long the key to global market liquidity, is playing second fiddle. The US Federal Reserve ended its massive six-year stimulus programme in October without much ruckus. The central bank had already prepared investors for this in July, seven months after it first started trimming its bond-purchase programme, which, at the peak, had pumped US$85bn a month into the global financial system. Fed...

In a mature market where the four major domestic banks were dominant, National Australia Bank stood out from its peers in 2014, thanks largely to a reshuffle of its debt markets team that broadened its product offerings. Under the leadership of Steve Lambert, executive general manager of NAB’s debt markets division, the bank rolled out a client-focused structure in 2013, bringing together loan and bond specialists in a single team. While common in global banks, the set-up is unique in Australia, and allowed NAB to originate and execute across...

China continued to promote the capital markets as an alternative to bank lending in 2014, and Bank of China Group led the charge, scoring landmark deals in both the offshore and onshore markets. Onshore, BOC, one of China’s Big Four commercial banks, became a top player in the domestic interbank market during IFR’s review period, helping to raise more than Rmb275bn (US$44.7bn) for its clients from around 250 deals, representing a market share of 10.5%. Offshore, the group executed 45 G3 and 37 offshore renminbi transactions, showing its...

With domestic markets still in a state of flux and the pipeline for public sector offerings shrinking, Credit Suisse’s ability to market China’s emerging private-sector champions to international investors saw it stand out from the competition. Chinese technology companies were especially active in 2014, and Credit Suisse’s sector expertise came to the fore as internet stocks emerged as the leading drivers of Chinese equity capital markets. Credit Suisse added to its reputation as a technology sector powerhouse with a key role on the...

The renminbi’s global march entered a new phase in 2014 after some volatile trading squeezed out currency speculators, but HSBC’s dominance remained intact throughout the year. HSBC executed more landmark transactions across products, sectors and geographies than any other bank in the offshore renminbi market. It registered up a market share of over 25%, having led 93 of the 249 issues, excluding CDs, during IFR’s review period and handled around 1.58 times the volume of its closest competitor. The bank also pioneered new initiatives and was...

HSBC stood head and shoulders above its peers in Hong Kong’s syndicated loans market in 2014, leading borrowings for blue-chip companies and playing prominent roles on jumbo event-driven financings. It topped the bookrunner league tables in IFR Asia’s review period, notching up US$4.22bn across 31 deals for an 8% share of a well-banked market, showcasing both the bank’s structuring capabilities and the depth of its corporate relationships. HSBC kicked off the review period with a sole mandate on a HK$10bn (US$1.29bn) dual-tranche acquisition...

The HK$6.8bn (US$878m) listing of China’s Luye Pharma Group was the closest anyone came to a flawless Hong Kong IPO in 2014. Luye achieved an attractive valuation that left something on the table for investors, built a high-quality shareholders’ roster and more than justified its decision to switch from Singapore two years earlier. At a time when most Hong Kong IPOs risked confusing investors with an overcrowded syndicate, Luye’s float also showed that a sizable deal can be neatly executed with only three banks. Luye, which boasts a diverse...

Trust Investment Advisors was at the centre of efforts to develop the rupee debt market in 2014, using its solid relationships to broaden the investor base for new structures in the bank capital and property sectors. India’s bond markets were in a recovery mode in 2014 after huge outflows of capital in the second half of the previous year and a standstill in the domestic market, as a result of some unclear regulation. Bond volumes, however, bounced back later in the year – thanks in part to the new products that Trust Investment helped...

RBS had a strong profile in India in its former incarnation as ABN Amro, having arranged countless corporate and acquisition loans for clients in the country before the global financial crisis. Now revamped and under new management, RBS once again proved its mettle in 2014 in the face of intense competition from foreign and domestic lenders. After a steep decline in the rupee in August 2013, India’s political and economic situation created a difficult climate until the national elections in mid-May, when a landslide win for Narendra Modi’s pro...

India’s equity markets hit new heights in the second half of 2014, but it was JP Morgan’s ability to raise funds for issuers across multiple sectors throughout the year that shone through. JP Morgan worked with clients in both the public and private sectors, and at home and abroad, helping to reopen the equity markets for highly geared companies from the telecom and infrastructure sector following Narendra Modi’s May election victory. The bank was involved in a number of key deals in the earlier part of the year, when conditions were far more...