KUALA LUMPUR: Maybank Investment Bank has been named Malaysia Syndicated Loan House of the Year by the Asia Pacific Loan Market Association (APLMA) for the second consecutive year, based on votes from APLMA members.
The bank was joint mandated lead arranger and bookrunner for Battersea Phase 3 Holding Co Ltd’s £895mil term loan, Lotuss Stores (M) Sdn Bhd’s RM2.3bil syndicated loan and Malayan Cement Bhd
’s RM2bil syndicated facility.
The latter two were among several high profile Malaysian borrowers that tapped the syndication market with tremendous success last year.
Maybank said Malaysia’s loan activity remained flattish from 24 deals in 2020 to 23 deals in 2021.
However, it noted that loan volumes rebounded 43% year-on-year, hitting US$9.3bil in 2021. Volumes were dominated by the financial and real estate sectors at 48% and 28%, respectively.
“We have seen a healthy investor appetite for Malaysian credits coupled with abundant liquidity in Malaysia. This is evidenced by the strong year-on-year growth in syndicated loan volumes with an increase in loan financing activities,” head of investment banking and advisory Kevin Davies said in a statement.
“As a whole, borrowers have been demonstrating signs of business improvement and we expect the overall volume to grow at a faster pace in 2022 as our market moves towards a recovery phase.
“Growth is also expected as the public sector increases its participation in the syndication market, driven in part by marked increases in green, social, sustainability (GSS) and sustainability-linked loans (SLL),” he said.
He added that demand for sustainable finance in Malaysia will continue to be driven by government infrastructure projects such as low carbon public transportation, renewable energy as well as water infrastructure and water management.
Besides Malaysia, Maybank Investment Banking Group also won Vietnam Syndicated Loan House of the Year for the first time.
