Awards for Excellence 2017
Financing, and particularly debt, is one area where European investment banks can still have a grip on their home markets. Many are already reaping the benefits of having shifted to a more capital-efficient deployment of their balance sheets.
One of these is HSBC, Western Europe’s best bank for financing. HSBC’s debt financing business is particularly dominant, although it is also making strides in ECM, rising up Dealogic’s ranking for western Europe during the awards period. It has also dramatically increased the number of ECM deals on which it acted as a global coordinator.
HSBC is way ahead in Dealogic’s Western Europe debt capital markets ranking, bookrunning a total of 561 deals worth $137 billion. Its bonds during the period included a seven-tranche deal for Siemens, a $2.6 billion double-tranche formosa bond for EDF, a $6 billion dual-tranche deal for the Kingdom of Belgium extending to 40 years and a $4 billion issuance from ING.
It was also at the forefront of regulatory capital developments, whether it was a Solvency II-compliant restricted tier-1 transaction in Scandinavia for RSA, a green hybrid issue for TenneT in the Netherlands, or Banco Santander’s ground-breaking senior non-preferred bond.
In ECM, HSBC was sole global coordinator on a €125 million convertible bond for Air Berlin, sole placement agent in Volvo’s SKr5 billion ($574 million) private placement of preference shares, sole global coordinator on Fugro’s €190 million subordinated convertible bond and joint global coordinator on Phoenix Group’s £735 million rights issue as part of wider advisory and financing work for the British life assurance consolidator. It also led the IPO of X-FAB Silicon Foundries in Germany and acted in the rights issues of Deutsche Bank and UniCredit.
HSBC was central to many of the biggest European acquisition financings of the period, such as British American Tobacco’s $49 billion takeover of Reynold American and the $18 billion acquisition of Mead Johnson by UK consumer goods firm Reckitt Benckiser. In structured finance, it raised £300 million for Greene King by securitizing pubs, as well as leading several multi-billion pound mortgage deals. Its infrastructure and real estate finance business extended from French toll roads to a SACE-supported facility for the National Grid.