Bangkok Bank
Year after year, Bangkok Bank quietly goes about getting business done. In the context of this award, it is a force for innovation and for good, its five full-service branches in China (in Shanghai, Beijing, Shenzhen, Chongqing and Xiamen) helping it to play a big role for Beijing’s biggest corporations and lenders in and across southeast Asia.
The bank, led by Chartsiri Sophonpanich, has a presence in nine Asean countries. It also boasts a number of subsidiaries dotted around the region, including Indonesia’s PermataBank and Malaysia-based Bangkok Bank Berhad.
During the awards period, it pulled out all the stops to get a host of big-ticket deals done. In Laos, it helped finance Hongsa Power, the country’s third-largest coal-fired power plant, which generates 1,800 megawatts of electricity and cost about $3.7 billion. China National Electric Engineering built the plant, with Xi’an Electric Engineering and Henan Electric Power responsible for constructing the power lines.
Bangkok Bank was the mandated lead arranger on the deal, helping to raise $2.8 billion toward the final cost of the plant, as well as providing advisory services.
In Vietnam, the bank helped finance five China-built solar energy projects, collectively costing upward of $1 billion, while back home in Thailand, it is working with a mix of Chinese and Thai developers to build a trio of ‘smart’ cities encircling the Thai capital.
During the awards period, Bangkok Bank co-invested $50 million in mixed-use development projects in China, incorporating malls, serviced apartments, nursing homes and office facilities, in a number of tier-one and tier-two mainland cities, including Tianjin, Hefei and Kunming.