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The investment bank has come through more than a decade of difficulties to become the momentum firm on Wall Street once again. The last piece of the puzzle, making its fixed income business fit for purpose, is now in place. Morgan Stanley is working together as a firm better than ever before. Its people have their swagger back. And the architects of this renaissance are determined to press home their advantage with a ruthless approach to deploying the firm’s capital – both financial and human.

For almost 50 years, Euromoney has been the leading publication for covering the growth of international finance. Over the past 12 months its coverage has included interviews with close to 100 bank CEOs, ministers of finance and central bank governors around the world.

Cheap financing helped big M&A deals continue to proliferate in Europe over the period of these awards. Western Europe’s best bank for advisory, UBS, has experience of the pinnacle of the trend for Chinese M&A in Europe, acting on the Swiss side of ChemChina’s $50 billion takeover of Syngenta, which was reaching closure at the end of the awards period. The bank’s work also included a defence against a less attractive offer by Monsanto.

Bank of America Merrill Lynch wins the award for best bank for advisory.

As Stuart Gulliver’s time as chief executive of HSBC runs down, the moment has come to acknowledge his achievement in managing the remarkable transformation of one of the world’s biggest, most complex banks. Once a diffuse portfolio of unconnected banking franchises, it now starts to look much more like the jewel it should be: a properly managed network that can serve customers and reward shareholders by handling global trade and capital flows.

Citi aims to develop new banking apps with the speed of a Silicon Valley startup and deliver them across a vast incumbent bank.

Itaú Private Bank wins the award this year for best bank in wealth management in Latin America.

The revival of its markets, as well as momentum in its traditional investment-banking strengths, has made Morgan Stanley stand out from its competitors over the review period.

Kenya Commercial Bank wins this year’s award for best bank for corporate social responsibility in Africa for the work of the KCB Foundation and, in particular, two ground-breaking initiatives. Last year, it launched 2jiajiri (‘let’s employ ourselves’) – a youth enterprise development and employment initiative that works in partnership with more than 100 technical training institutions across Kenya. More than 12,000 students have taken part so far in the programme, which aims to turn young people into entrepreneurs by training them and connecting them to graduates in law, accounting and marketing to help them get their businesses off-the-ground.

Bank of America Merrill Lynch wins the award for the best investment bank in the region.

The US firm has a broad franchise in financial institutions, but whatever the sector and no matter what the solution, advice is at the heart of its offering.

Few people would have expected a firm following a bancassurance model with operations in the eastern bloc to be among Europe’s best-performing financial institutions. But that is what KBC has achieved.