Skimming the newspaper yesterday I caught sight of UOB’s one-page advert (in both the BB and the BT) about its award-winning Asset Management division. So I thought of reading up a bit on on Brunei’s financial services industry – particularly in the Corporate side of things. For example … who should Brunei SMEs consult when seeking advice on how to best arrange their Treasury operations? Or how about for SMEs that are struggling with managing cash flows, and need ways to finance the acquisition for badly needed income-generating assets and arrange the insurance thereon? Or how about for SMEs that need expansion capital and want to seek ways to invite more Equity participants in to their business?
I came across an article in the Islamic Finance Asia journal that talks about the state of Islamic Finance in Brunei. The article mentions two of the larger players in Brunei’s financial services industry: BIBD [the merged bank of the Islamic Bank of Brunei (IBB) and the Islamic Development Bank Berhad Brunei (IDBB)] and CIMB [Commerce International Merchant Bankers, Malaysia's 2nd largest financial services provider listed on Bursa Malaysia].
CIMB gets quite a lot of awards and attention. So I thought of digging a bit deeper and looking behind the scenes at the corporate finance league tables produced by Thomson Reuters. Now, these league tables are great for comparing financial advisors through simplistic measures –> Number of deals / $ value of deals. But as ever, placing faith in a single measure of performance is fraught with challenges!
So check out the most recent ones for “1Q09_financial_advisory.pdf“. On Page 25&26 for “Asia (ex-Japan)” you can see that CIMB Investment Bank does some brisk business – hitting the top of the “Completed deals, by # of deals” league table. Interestingly, Ernst & Young is the only Big 4 practice in the “Deals announced, by $ of deal” league table.
The picture changes slightly when you look at the “1Q09_ma_midmarket.pdf” midmarket picture (for Asia ex-Japan). CIMB Investment Bank is still quite high in the league charts – topping # of deals in the $50m and $100m league tables. Then among the Big 4 practices, Deloitte seems to do some high profile M&A deals (Ranked 2nd and 4th in the $50m and $100m league tables), but KPMG seems to be doing plenty of the lucrative high fee M&A deals (ranked highest among the Big 4 in both $50m and $100m league tables).
Anyway – league tables are great for simple straight forward comparisons. But the story they tell must be tempered with information from other sources. It’s hard to identify what strengths and weaknesses the different advisors have based on just this information. At the end of the day you need a mix of practical impelementation, sound business advice while keeping an eye on the higher-end strategyof the business.
Maybe one could infer from the tables that –> since the Big 4 are quite present in the Mid Market rankings, that the Big 4 excel at practicalities and advice for problems that medium-sized enterprises typically face and are more efficient at mobilising/demobilising to meet client needs, whilst the larger capital transactions need a more specialist financial advisor and who can also take advantage of economies of scale when investment bankers operate as universal banks. Again! Take that spot of analysis with a generous teaspoon of caution! It’s not good to generalise from league tables / statistics alone without getting a look at the bigger picture …
Related posts:
- CIMB is hiring for 3 positions in #brunei. CIMB is ranked #4 in M&A League table. CIMB Group is hiring for: Senior Manager, Executive and Assistant...
- IFRS for SMEs – What does the future hold for Brunei? 2 weeks ago at the sidelines of the AFA16 conference,...
- Al Salam Bahrain and TAIB form a strategic partnership The Al Salam Bahrain bank recently announced a strategic partnership...
- Financial planning, the TAP 2009 dividend and the BIBD Al-Kauthar fund series #brunei This week one of our LegCo members suggested that the...
- TAIB financial statements 31 December 2008 The accounts for Perbadanan Tabung Amanah Islam Brunei were published...
