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UNITED KINGDOM | |
Best Investment Bank: Barclays | ||
Barclays is the best investment bank in the UK. Indeed, it is one of few European banks capable of competing with the big five US based firms that dominate global investment banking, thanks to the old Lehman business.
It tops the debt capital markets ranking for bookrunners of bonds from UK borrowers, ranks fourth in ECM and comes in sixth, just below the top US banks, in M&A.
It is a sign of how competitive the market is in the UK that the local champion only just clutches this award. But the other firms don’t compete in the top tier across each of those three categories.
And Barclays worked on some important deals.
It was lead financial adviser and corporate broker to National Grid on its sale of a 60% equity interest in its UK gas transmission and metering business NGG to a consortium of investors, including global asset manager Macquarie Asset Management, one of the world’s largest infrastructure managers, and British Columbia Investment Management Corporation, one of Canada’s largest institutional investors.
The transaction, which implies an enterprise value of £9.6 billion for NGG, continues the repositioning of National Grid’s portfolio towards electricity assets, benefitting from long-term structural UK investment in decarbonization as part of the Net Zero transition.
It was sole sponsor, joint financial adviser and joint corporate broker to Rentokil Initial on its $7.4 billion acquisition of Terminix Global Holdings. The transaction brought together two complementary businesses to create the global leader in pest control and hygiene and wellbeing, and the leader in the pest control business in North America.
Barclays also remains prominent in UK IPO activity and acted as joint global coordinator on the large Semiconductor IPO of £856 million for Alphawave IP Group. It was also lead financial adviser on the £8.3 billion direct listing of Wise – the first direct listing of a technology company on the London Stock Exchange.
Stepping up
Its leadership in sterling debt markets is almost a given. It is worth noting that as our awards period drew to an end when Russia invaded Ukraine, Barclays stepped up to support its UK issuer base through the attendant volatility.
On March 16, with tensions escalating, Barclays worked with UK real-estate investment trust Segro on a €1.15 billon offering that was increased in size after attracting north of €7 billion of demand.
Just over a week later, Barclays worked with the GSK Consumer Health spin-off Haleon to deliver €9 billion-equivalent in funding across 12 tranches and three currency markets, attracting hundreds of new investors.