This marks the ninth consecutive year NDBIB has been bestowed with this prestigious award in recognition of its leading position in equity raisings, debt capital markets and mergers and acquisitions (M&A) transactions in the country. The Bank was adjudged as ‘Sri Lanka’s Best Investment Bank’ at the Awards for Excellence 2020 by Euromoney Magazine.
Darshan Perera, Chief Executive Officer of NDBIB, commenting on the award stated, “It is a great achievement to be awarded as the best by Euromoney and we take pride in being able to consistently maintain our winning traits for nine consecutive years”.
NDBIB recorded a commendable performance for 2019 having structured debt and equity fundraising transactions valued at approximately LKR 62.0 Bn, despite facing challenging capital market conditions and macro-economic headwinds during the year.
Kaushini Laksumanage, Chief Operating Officer of NDBIB stated, “We were successful in exploring opportunities in raising dollar-denominated debt and more structured debt options to move away from the highly competitive plain vanilla local currency fundraising.”
NDBIB’s transaction execution expertise was well demonstrated with multiple debt raising deals being completed in and during the COVID-19 lockdowns in the country.
NDBIB also experienced heightened activity on the M&A front where it acted as the Exclusive Financial Advisor to over four transactions including non-bank financial services, technology, and agribusiness sectors. The acquisition of Hatton Plantations PLC by Lotus Renewable Energy, a subsidiary of Singapore based G&G Group was a case in point where NDBIB came together with its ultimate parent NDB Bank and sister company, NDB Securities to go beyond handling the M&A process to include acquisition funding and transaction execution services.
Nilendra Weerasinghe, Chief Corporate Advisory Officer, commenting on the performance, stated, “We managed to demonstrate two important factors in 2019; first is our strength as a financial services group being able to offer a total solution to our clients and the second is our regional presence which generates a deal flow to offset volatilities in our home market.”
The recent strategic M&A transaction involving a leading confectionery player, Daintee (Pvt) Ltd, where NDBIB acted as the Exclusive Financial Advisor to the divesting family shareholders, adds to a large array of strategic M&A transactions executed by NDBIB to assist family-owned entities to transition to the next phase of growth.
Euromoney’s Awards for Excellence was established in 1992 and was the first of its kind in the global banking industry.
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