Euromoney, July 2009

AWARDS FOR EXCELLENCE – MALAYSIA

BEST BANK – PUBLIC BANK

Public Bank no longer has this award so easily to itself as the CIMB Group continues to develop and grow, but for now it’s still Malaysia’s clear leader pretty much any way you look at it.

It leads the way in terms of profitability, with a 36.9% return on average equity compared to an industry average of 19.6%; cost to income ratio, at 31.2% compared to 48% for the industry; and the quality of the book. Its gross NPL ratio, at 1%, and net NPLs at 0.9%, both lead the industry, with loan loss coverage of 163.8% almost double the norm in Malaysia.

As well as being well run the bank is successful. Already the market leader in both loans and core customer deposits, it increased its market share in both areas in 2008. It has 15% of residential mortgages in Malaysia and 24% of vehicle hire purchase business, while its Public Mutual subsidiary holds 40% of the unit trust industry. Initiatives are taking shape in bancassurance (with ING), wealth management and customer service. Malaysia’s banks have come out of the financial crisis largely unscathed and this is nowhere more true than Public Bank.

BEST INVESTMENT BANK – CIMB

CIMB leads the field in every discipline of investment banking.

The most important area over the last year has been the debt capital markets. CIMB leads not just in league table terms, with big deals like the RM4 billion Islamic MTN program for PLUS and RM4 billion tier one bond issue for CIMB itself, but in innovation, leading the first Islamic sukuk for a member of the Toyota financial services group, and a RM1.13 billion senior and junior sukuk for MRCB Southern Link, a greenfield project finance deal.

Only one equity deal really mattered during our review period: Time dotCom’s placement of Digi.com shares worth RM436.5 million in January, an accelerated placement. CIMB was the sole placement agent and bookrunner.

And in M&A it was involved in a host of different transactions, covering purely domestic transactions, Malaysians going overseas, others coming into Malaysia, and even the merger of Malaysia-owned businesses elsewhere. CIMB advised Sin Chew Media Corporation and Nanyang Press Holdings on their merger with Ming Pao Enterprise Corporation in Hong Kong, creating the inaugural dual primary listing on Hong Kong’s stock exchange and Bursa Malaysia. It also advised Magnum Holdings on the privatisation of Magnum Corporation through a selective capital reduction and repayment exercise; Bumiputra Commerce Holdings on the merger of its Indonesian indirect subsidiary, Bank Niaga, with Bank Lippo; CIMB on its own purchase of BankThai; Abu Dhabi Commercial Bank in buying a stake in RHB Capital from the Employee Provident Fund; and Telekom Malaysia on the demerger into TM and Axiata, one of Asia’s largest corporate demergers.

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