FIRST Metro Investment Corp., the investment-banking arm of the Metrobank Group, was selected by Global Finance magazine as the Philippines’s Best Investment Bank in 2016. The award follows First Metro’s recognition as the country’s best investment bank from Euromoney last year.
“First Metro is truly honored to be given this recognition for the first time by Global Finance, whose awards have become a trusted standard of excellence for the global financial community. Recognitions, such as this, serve as an inspiration and a challenge for us. We will continue to work hard, provide our clients excellent investment banking services to power their growth, and contribute to the development of the capital market for the ultimate benefit of the larger economy,” First Metro President Rabboni Francis Arjonillo said.
Global Finance, a monthly global business and finance magazine, has been conducting its annual review on the world’s best investment banks for 17 years.
These awards have become a recognized and trusted standard of excellence around the world.
“With these awards, we honor those firms that understand the market, execute well and create innovative solutions for their clients’ unique needs,” Global Finance Publisher and Editorial Director Joseph Giarraputo said.
In announcing the awards winners, Global Finance said the magazine’s editors, with input from industry experts, used a series of criteria that include market share, number and size of deals, service and advice, structuring capabilities, distribution network, efforts to address market conditions, innovation, pricing, after-market performance of underwritings, and market reputation to score and select winners, based on a proprietary algorithm. Deals announced or completed in 2015 were also considered.
Justino Juan Ocampo, First Metro executive vice president and head of investment banking, said: “In 2015 First Metro demonstrated plenty of ambition to capture business with a good showing in both equity and debt capital markets. We successfully completed 19 deals, participating in 88 percent, or P399.14 billion, of the total P456.04 billion debt and equity transactions in 2015.”
Some of these landmark deals, where First Metro played lead roles, include Metrobank’s P32-billion stock rights offering; GT Capital Holdings Inc.’s P9.8-billion overnight placement; Filinvest Land Inc.’s P8-billion fixed-rate retail bonds; Aboitiz Equity Ventures Inc.’s P24-billion fixed-rate retail bonds; SM Prime Holdings Inc.’s P20-billion fixed-rate retail bonds; and the Bureau of the Treasury’s P264.04-billion domestic liability management exercise.
First Metro was also on top of three big-ticket project finance deals in 2015, acting as mandated lead arranger for the P11-billion project finance facility of Panay Energy Development Corp.; sole mandated lead arranger and bookrunner for the P31.97-billion project loan facility of Therma Visayas Inc.; and as joint mandated lead arranger, joint bookrunner and joint issue coordinator for the P42.15-billion project finance loan facility of San Buenaventura Power Limited Co.—the Philippines’s largest all-peso project finance transaction to date.
In the financial advisory space, the investment bank provided financial advisory services to Adora Retails Philippines Inc., Monde Nissin Corp., and Holcim Philippines Inc. The company was also an arranger for the debt financing facility of Monde Nissin Corp. to acquire UK-based Quorn Foods Ltd.