UBS
This year’s best international bank call was particularly tough. Citi, our 2020 pick, had another solid year. Standard Chartered scored some notable deals, as did CIMB Bank. However, this time it’s UBS that takes the gong.
Since finance veteran Lauro Baja, currently UBS’s head of global capital markets for Asia Pacific, first opened the Swiss bank’s doors in the Philippines in 2004, it has completed over 150 transactions with a total value exceeding $40 billion. Today, it is among the leaders in the country for core investment banking products and has its pick of the top transactions across all product groups.
It has maintained leads in mergers and acquisitions, equity capital markets and debt capital markets the old-fashioned way: winning repeat business year after year, while adding new clients to an increasingly dominant franchise.
Before he opened the first UBS office in Manila, Baja had spent the previous 11 years building relationships in New York, Hong Kong and Singapore. Those contacts helped UBS secure and complete 20 major transactions in the Philippines between June 1, 2020, and May 31, 2021.
Among them was a central role in the nation’s biggest initial public offering, a $1.1