Singapore's best corporate and investment Bank 2019: DBS
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Singapore's best corporate and investment Bank 2019: DBS

DBS

Piyush Gupta, Group CEO, DBS.JPG
Piyush Gupta, DBS

DBS, led by chief executive Piyush Gupta, stands out in Singapore’s corporate and investment banking market, making it the natural winner of this award this year.

First, consider the numbers. During the awards period, DBS was the market leader in Singapore in terms of revenue earned from investment banking, with $52 million and a 14.3% market share, according to Dealogic.

In the Singapore debt markets bookrunner league table, it came top in terms of volume, with nearly $7 billion in credits and a market share of about 25%. OCBC, in second place, had $3.7 billion in credits and market share of 13.2%.

It is a similar story in loans and equity capital markets, too. DBS ranked second in the loans bookrunner league table for Singapore (behind ING), with a 7.6% market share. On ECM, it also came second (after Goldman Sachs) with nearly one fifth of the volume and credits for $1.2 billion.

One of the common criticisms made against DBS is its aggressive use of its balance sheet to win business. Even so, under the leadership of Seat Moey Eng, managing director and head of capital markets, DBS boasts an enviable roster of clients. Given the Singapore market is small, Eng and her team have focused on bringing real estate investment trust assets from the US, Japan and Europe to list in Singapore. This year DBS worked on all three Reit IPOs featuring US assets in Singapore – Prime US Reit, ARA US Hospitality Reit and Eagle Hospitality Reit.

It also worked on numerous secondary share offerings, for example for Frasers Centrepoint Trust, Suntec Reit and Keppel Infrastructure Trust.

In the bond market too, DBS ran a number of deals successfully. Whether it was helping Singapore’s government-owned investment company Temasek tap the local currency bond market and the securitization market, or bringing international banks to the Singapore dollar bank capital market, or working with big companies such as China General Nuclear Power Corp, DBS was among the go-to banks.

Its distribution capabilities have gone from strength to strength too, thanks to the close collaboration between the investment bank and the private bank – something that also stands out in the way that Credit Suisse, one of the top contenders for this award, runs its business. DBS leverages its private banking clients to drum up demand for both equity and bond deals.

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