Best bank
Royal Bank of Canada
Best M&A house
Morgan Stanley
Best equities house
CIBC
Best debt house
Scotia Capital Markets
Scotia Capital Markets wins this year's best debt house award in Canada for continuing its aggressive push up the domestic bond league tables first identified in last year's awards. Last year's winner, RBC Dominion Securities, still comes top of the league tables for all debt securities underwriting but Scotia has in the past 12 months taken first or second spot in all the major debt league tables such as public finance, asset-backed securities and high-yield debt. In that time frame RBC has not had as good a presence in high yield.
But RBC's overall debt markets presence is still impressive. Matched up with its status as the country's major lender, largest custodian and largest foreign exchange house, RBC remains best Canadian bank.
Morgan Stanley takes top spot in M&A for advising on many of the high-profile deals struck in the past 12 months, such as John Hancock's merger with Manulife and Alcan's acquisition of Pechiney, just nudging out CIBC. However CIBC does win best equities award. It's in the top spot as underwriter of Canadian IPOs and as top underwriter of the major IPO sub segment, income deposit funds, which accounted for the vast majority of Canadian IPOs in the past 12 months (see story).