Our Investment Banking Division

• Overview
• | Country/Geography Groups
• | Industry Groups
• | Product Groups

Our product groups are divided broadly into Mergers and Acquisitions (M&A) and Global Finance. Bankers in these groups work with their country and industry counterparts to provide product expertise in developing client solutions. Most product bankers also assume direct client coverage roles.

Mergers and Acquisitions

Our Mergers and Acquisitions (M&A) team maintains a close dialogue with our country and industry coverage bankers in developing creative ideas and solutions for their clients. This ensures that we allocate appropriate country specialist and industry knowledge to each client assignment. The M&A team typically focuses on providing both strategic advisory and execution expertise around the acquisition or divestment of company assets. In addition, our M&A team works closely with the Global Finance team to deliver fully integrated solutions to clients.

Global Finance

The Global Finance group is responsible for all financing and risk management products and includes the following areas:

Debt Capital Markets

The Debt Capital Markets (DCM) team helps our clients access the global fixed income markets and raise money for acquisitions, capital expenditures or other general business purposes.

DCM provides:

• Global finance analytics.
• Securitization.
• Loan capital markets.
• Hybrid capital.
• Product development.
• Cash management.
• Liability management.
• Structured financing products.

Equity Capital Markets

The Equity Capital Markets (ECM) team helps clients raise financing for acquisitions, capital expenditures or other general business purposes through the issuance of equity (stock) or equity-linked products (e.g. convertibles).

ECM provides:

• Initial public offerings (IPOs).
• Secondary offerings.
• Block trades.
• Rights issues.
• Convertible bonds.
• Exchangeable bonds.
• Equity derivatives.

Risk Solutions

The Risk Solutions group (RSG) works with clients to identify and manage their interest rate, inflation and currency risk, among other risks. The team develops solutions to manage risk, drawing upon a range of swap and derivative products. This requires an in-depth knowledge of accounting and tax issues. Accordingly, the team includes specialists in interest rate, inflation, currency derivatives and cash products, as well as tax and accounting professionals.

RSG provides:

• Credit risk management.
• Accounting advisory.
• Pension advisory.
• Inflation derivatives.
• Energy derivatives.
• Foreign exchange.

Private Placements

The Private Placement group is dedicated to raising private capital for private and public companies. It also serves as an "incubator" for longer-term investment banking activities and generates high-margin revenues with no capital risk.

The group works globally across all industries and is aligned with bankers in each of the Firm's industry groups.

Leveraged Finance

The Leveraged Finance group provides comprehensive financing solutions for clients rated as less-than-investment grade by the major ratings agencies. It provides high yield bond, leveraged loan, bridge financing and mezzanine debt products.

The Leveraged Finance group works closely with financial sponsors or private equity firms, often around leveraged buyouts (LBOs).

A great deal of the Leveraged Finance group's effort goes into creating financing structures that balance the needs of issuing companies with the appetite of bond purchasers. This can be especially difficult for companies without investment-grade ratings. Rigorous credit analysis is vital in order to thoroughly understand the financial, structural and business risks related to any transaction.

Leveraged Finance products fall into two categories.

• Non-investment-grade fixed income securities and loans (long-term capital).
• Short-term interim loans (bridge loans) to be replaced with permanent financing.

Capital Advisory

The Capital Advisory group helps clients manage their capital structures. Team members are experts on the range of capital-raising instruments including hybrid capital, preferred securities and convertible bonds. They are also experts on the regulatory environment governing the use of capital, particularly for financial institutions and treatment by credit rating agencies.

Pensions Advisory

The Pensions Advisory team works with our clients to provide analysis of pension funds and to create solutions to help manage the risks or capital challenges that may arise from them. In recent years, pension funds have become an especially pressing issue for clients. Team members are experts on a wide range of financial products, clients and their pension plans, and the regulatory environment.