31 March 2005
HSBC has topped a prestigious Middle Eastern banking league table.
The annual listing is compiled by the Middle East Economic Digest (MEED), the region’s leading commercial publication providing essential business information in the Middle East and North Africa.
HSBC tops the MEED league table of international banks active in the GCC project-related and asset-backed finance market in 2004 for the third year running, participating at a senior level in a total of nine deals worth with commitments of close to $1,000 million. MEED said in its commentary: "The success was also well-diversified, with transactions in every market but Kuwait – where there were none to do – and across the sectors, including the first private power deal in Bahrain."
HSBC also extended its lead at the top of the financial institution (FI) loans and regional bond arrangers table, doing eight deals with a total value of more than double its nearest competitor. MEED said: "The bank's wide structuring capabilities, extending from simple syndicated borrowings through to the burgeoning sukuk market and the increasingly fashionable euro medium-term note (EMTN) programmes met with a strong pick-up in demand for all three types of instrument, which saw deal flow surge to some $7,100 million from just under $3,500 million in 2003."
HSBC also had the largest number of live mandates during 2004, with seven under way at one point or another over the course of the year across four Gulf states. MEED pointed out that through the formation of its proposed joint venture investment bank with the Saudi British Bank, HSBC will be particularly well-placed to pick up some of the many advisory mandates on power and petrochemicals projects likely to come out of the Kingdom during 2005.
HSBC's Corporate, Investment Banking and Markets division (CIBM) offers a full range of wholesale advisory, debt finance, risk management, treasury and capital markets, investment, custody and commercial banking services to large companies, institutions and governments in the Middle East. As part of one of the largest businesses of its kind in the world and with the benefit of the bank’s extensive regional coverage, CIBM fosters long-term relationships based on the Group's unmatched international knowledge and local expertise.
