IFR Asia Awards - winners announced

When it comes to China, Donald Trump is not shy about taking credit. The US President’s self-proclaimed list of achievements even includes convincing Chinese President Xi Jinping not to send troops into Hong Kong to deal with months of anti-government protests in the special administrative region, according to a rambling interview he gave to Fox News in November. As far-fetched as that may be, Hong Kong’s capital markets probably owe him some gratitude. The Stock Exchange of Hong Kong leapfrogged both the New York Stock Exchange and Nasdaq to...

Australia and New Zealand Banking Group strengthened its position as the go-to Antipodean bond house with another dominant performance on both sides of the Tasman Sea. ANZ negotiated a choppy start to 2019 for the Australian dollar market, which lost its absolute yield advantage over the US dollar, before taking advantage of a surge in semi-government, corporate and financial issuance. “The market picked up from late February, before APRA’s July ruling triggered a surge in bank supply, a large proportion of which was executed by ANZ as we...

Credit Suisse has punched above its weight in Asia for years, and it moved up a division in 2019 with an impressive list of deals across the region. A leaner operation than most of its investment banking rivals, the Swiss bank took the title with a powerful combination of wealth management coverage and product expertise, proving that its business model can go the distance in the competitive Asian market. A genuine contender for this award for each of the past five years, Credit Suisse was a worthy winner in 2019 as South-East Asia took on...

There is a term in Japanese business circles for a market that has developed without the influence of external forces. Garapagosu-ka, which translates to Galapagosization, takes its inspiration from the quirks of nature found only in the remote Galapagos islands, almost 1,000km off the coast of Ecuador. It is a fitting description for the yen bond market, which has retained its own unique characteristics even as the global markets have evolved to become faster and more efficient. This fondness for isolation, however, is slowly fading. After six...

DBS’s regional footprint and long-term focus made the difference in 2019 as South-East Asia took on greater significance in the capital markets. The bank ended 2019 – as it always seems to – on course for another year of record profits, having grown net earnings 13% to a record S$4.88bn in the first nine months of the year. In the institutional bank, an upswing in equity capital markets activity in South-East Asia and a surge in debt capital markets activity across the region played into its hands in 2019, although DBS was far more than a...

United Overseas Bank built on its reputation as one of Asia’s top capital markets issuers in 2019 with a series of smartly timed financings that spanned multiple markets and the entire capital structure. It opened up new markets with Singapore’s first Panda bond, set new benchmarks for bank capital and reopened the covered bond market for Singaporean banks. The bank raised US$2.3bn-equivalent in IFR Asia’s review period, and found ways to engage with investors even when conditions were not right for a new issue. UOB has now firmly established...

HSBC broke away at the top of the table despite tough competition, booking US$35.9bn from 327 issues in Asia ex-Japan. Not only did the volume of deals rise 37%, but the bank also grew its market share by 130bp to 8.9%. Risk appetite at the start of IFR’s review period in November 2018 was weak, due to expectations that the US Fed would raise rates several times in 2019. HSBC resisted the temptation to push through deals in a soggy market and instead advised some issuers to wait for better conditions in January. That paid off with a strong...