IFR Award Winners Announced

Barclays mounted a serious challenge to dominant US lenders in 2016 and was the top-placed non-US bookrunner in the award period, as the transatlantic investment bank targets global growth. “In 2017 we will continue to invest in this business … and we certainly have ambition to be in the top three, not only in the US but globally as well,” said Jean Francois Astier, the bank’s global head of leveraged finance. It was a very good year for Barclays, particularly in leveraged finance, where the bank topped the highly competitive US leveraged...

JP Morgan set the benchmark for performance and client service in credit derivatives markets in 2016, taking advantage of periods of intense trading activity to boost revenues and launch new products. An exceptionally volatile first quarter, extreme market moves around the UK vote to leave the European Union, and a number of complex corporate defaults led to significant price swings in credit, interspersed with periods of relative inactivity.  The US investment grade CDX index traded in the first quarter as high as 123bp and as low as 78bp,...

On November 10, a little more than 24 hours after Donald Trump had been confirmed as the next US president, and as rates markets were convulsing, Gazprom completed a €1bn, seven-year trade. For JP Morgan, one of the leads on the deal, along with Bank of China, Gazprombank and UniCredit, it was business as usual, despite the big sell-off in Bunds and Treasuries. It was also confirmation of a dominant display by the US bank in one of the big stories in the CEEMEA region over the past year: the pick-up in Russian supply. Many state-owned...

“Most of the time when pitching, issuers didn’t even consider us as a bookrunner,” said Christoph Stanger, co-head of EMEA ECM at Goldman Sachs. A few years ago that would have been a shocking admission, today it is a badge of honour, with responsibility – and fees – now residing at the more senior global coordinator level. All banks have focused on trying to increase the proportion of top-line positions, while continuing to accept the league table boost of junior bookrunner. None has achieved what Goldman Sachs did in the IFR awards period – a...

The US$6.6bn jumbo exchangeable for SoftBank into Alibaba and the US$3bn 10-year convertible from Dish Network had two things in common. They were both award-winning deals in their respective regions – and both were run by Deutsche Bank. Working with just one other bank on Softbank – and being alone on Dish – underlined just how much Deutsche was valued purely for its advice. In a year that saw relatively muted M&A activity, the German bank was able to focus on its clients’ particular needs. “We got a little lucky,” said Andrew Yaeger, head...

“I don’t think there’s a question that we’ve re-established ourselves as one of the leading global banks in wholesale. No one is questioning our viability, survivability or presence. When people think about the banks that will be dominant in the future, Citi will have a seat at that table.” That comment by James Forese, president of Citigroup and CEO of the Institutional Client Group, speaks volumes about how far the bank has come on its journey. Citigroup made US$17bn in net income in 2015, its highest level since 2006; and 3Q 2016 results...

The European securitisation market has braved another tough year filled with multiple blows, including a broader credit sell-off early in the year, volatility ahead of the UK’s Brexit vote and the looming prospect of tougher rules for the sector. These shocks have at times widened spreads to eye-watering levels and made it even more difficult to execute deals, mounting further pressure on banks to choose between scaling back their European business and finding a way to reinvent themselves. Many have opted for the former, applying deep cuts to...

Sprint was already burning through plenty of cash in the autumn as it saw another wall of debt maturities appearing on the horizon, including a US$2bn bond coming due in just a couple of months. The company was keen to cut its reliance on the volatile high-yield market, where it had been the number one issuer of bonds for some time, and needed to reduce its interest expenses and slow its cash burn. Goldman Sachs stepped forward with a unique solution. It structured a US$3.5bn bond that effectively mortgaged 14% of the company’s...

In November 2015, at the start of IFR’s awards period, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia hadn’t even established a debt management office, never mind stunned the financial markets with a record-breaking transaction. In the 12 months since, however, the kingdom has made its mark in both the bond and loan markets as no debut issuer has before. If its US$10bn syndicated loan in May was an early sign of appetite for the credit – initially Saudi was seeking to raise between US$6bn and US$8bn – the US$17.5bn bond deal in October left little doubt about the...

Bunds were hardly a screaming buy at the beginning of 2016. Far from it: shorter-dated paper offered investors next to no yield at all; and even at the longer end, a 0.1% coupon on 30-year debt must have seemed like scant compensation for all the risks that might befall the investment during that time. But applying that logic might have cost you your job: Bunds were one of the best-performing assets in 2016. If you’d started the year buying German government debt maturing in 2046, by the end of July you’d have been sitting on a paper gain of...