India has one of the largest equity markets in Asia Pacific and continues to attract the attention of global investors. It’s no surprise that there is intense competition between local and international firms. Axis Capital proved this year that it can hold its own with both.
The firm, led by joint managing directors and co-chief executive officers Chirag Negandhi and Salil Pitale, worked on 12 equity capital market trades worth a combined $15.4 billion during the awards period.
Axis Capital worked on transactions (with other firms) whose total value was equivalent to 49% of the market, ranking third in Dealogic’s league tables behind only JPMorgan and HSBC, which took first and second place, respectively.
India held a series of jumbo primary ECM deals over the past year and Axis Capital featured on all of them. These included telecommunications firm Bharti Airtel’s concurrent $2 billion qualified institutional placement (QIP) and $1 billion convertible bond in January, marking the first equity-linked trade in the country for over two years. Axis Capital was the lead bookrunner.
The firm also came straight out of the Covid-19 lockdown to work on Reliance Industries’ Rs531 billion ($7 billion) rights issue in June; that followed SBI Cards & Payments Services’ Rs103 billion IPO in March, its last trade before the virus hit India with full force.
Axis Capital is an arm of Axis Bank, but has shown that it does not operate in its parent’s shadow. It brought a succession of medium-sized and billion-dollar deals to the market during the second half last year and up to the lockdown in March, and positioned itself to take advantage of returning business in the second quarter.