Maybank
So often, Maybank is a bank of firsts, at least where the Belt and Road Initiative is concerned.
The Kuala Lumpur-based lender issued Rmb1 billion ($144 million) worth of bonds on China’s interbank bond market in 2017, using the proceeds to support BRI-related projects in sectors including mining and oil and gas. In June 2019 it was back again, issuing an Rmb2 billion BRI panda bond.
In the first half of 2020, it stepped up – as all the best banks did during the initial stages of the coronavirus pandemic – to help clients plan for tougher times ahead.
The eye is drawn to Beijing Construction Engineering Group, a key Maybank customer, which launched a $100 million, three-year borrowing into limited syndication in the first few weeks of the year. That deal was notable for being one of the first to be completed as Covid-19 began to emerge from China.
Maybank completed a host of other big-ticket capital market raisings in Malaysia and across southeast Asia in the first half of 2020, for the likes of China Universal, China Minmetals, and China Universal Leasing, directed by the bank’s CEO of Greater China, Felino James Marcelo.
A few other deals stand out over the last year. When Cogent Jurong Island, a division of China’s Cosco Shipping International, was awarded a contract to build a new chemicals logistics plant on Singapore’s Jurong Island, Maybank was there. It acted as sole financier on the S$94.9 million ($69 million) facility, which is expected to be completed in the second half of 2020.
And when Huatian Group set out to buy all the shares it didn’t own in Malaysian chip assembly firm Unisem, Maybank came through, acting as sole cash-management solutions provider to Huatian.