Investment banking in Singapore registered a record year in fees, generating more than $868 million in 2019, according to Refinitiv data.
The city-state posted the strong year since records were made available in 2000 with the annual fees growing 22.1 percent year-on-year. With the exception of debt capital markets and loan fees, which posted minor increases or decreases, all major investment banking revenue lines saw strong year-on-year growth with DBS topping the fee league table at $102.4 million or 11.8 percent of the total pool.
Citi ($70.8 million) ranked second in the period followed by Goldman Sachs ($65.6 million), Credit Suisse ($54.7 million) and UOB ($54.5 million).
Mergers and Acquisitions
M&A activity was up 57.5 percent in 2019 to reach $116 billion with particularly strong contributions from domestic activity growth (up 214 percent) which reached at least an 8-year high.
In fact, 2019 saw the largest deal on record with Singaporean involvement from Blackstone Group’s $18.7 billion acquisition of GLP Pte Ltd’s U.S. logistics assets.
Capital Markets
Equity capital market fees also posted a strong 90.9 percent year-on-year growth to reach $9.6 billion – the best period since 2013’s $10.7 billion. Singapore-based digital entertainment firm Sea Ltd topped all equity deals with a $1.5 billion issuance in March this year.
Debt capital market fees grew a lackluster 3 percent with Singapore-domiciled issuers raising $32.9 billion year-to-date – a 11.2 percent decline following a record 2018. Sembcorp Financial Services issued the largest bond offering in Singapore thus year at $1.1 billion used to fund its offshore engineering subsidiary.
