NDB Investment Bank eyes global markets
NDB Investment Bank has aggressive growth plans for the next three years, to extend its business from onshore to offshore, offshore to onshore, and to conduct offshore transactions in other markets.
“We intend to grow our market share locally and follow our clients into the overseas market. Most of our large institutional clients have grown overseas as well. We will be offering them cross-border transaction services. We are trying to garner more investment banking partners into the country and help them to help our clients grow. Therefore, our expansion plans, going into the next three years, will be venturing into the Southeast Asian, West Asian, and African markets.” NDB Investment Bank CEO, Harshana Jayaweera, told the Sunday Times Business in an interview recently.
The company has prior experience in the Maldives, facilitating the Initial public offering (IPOs) of Ooredoo Maldives and Maldives Islamic Bank, and providing a US$28 million facility for an energy company, and functioned as the lead arranger for a $40 million loan for Maldives Airport Company Ltd recently. “The capabilities and the expertise of the team assisted us to do this transaction,” Mr. Jayaweera added, noting that he is pushing towards more such transactions, which will give the company more exposure in the cross-border transaction space and will bring in much-needed revenue to the country while trying to create more new markets and partnerships for the country.
Sri Lanka needs a broader range of products for investment banking, rather than the current focus on IPOs, bond issuances, and mergers and acquisitions, he said.
Here, there is a dearth of products, such as arranging structured financing, cross-border transactions etc compared to other capital markets, he pointed out, noting that debt raises, capital raises etc are in the market, but with certain challenges, which may be a reason this sector has not grown as much as it was expected to.
He noted that it is important for the capital market regulators to work towards a far more diverse product segment than what is available now. “Not necessarily the IPOs, the equity, or the bond market, but the derivatives, the commodities, the structural products etc. should be worked on. Therefore, it is important to have new products, and I know that regulators are discussing them,” he added.
Noting that the January Investor Forum in the Middle East, organised by the Securities and Exchange Commission, was a good initiative, he said that more such forums are important. “It is quite different for investment banks to do this, on their own, rather than a government-related stakeholder doing it. This forum has had a good momentum for all investment banks in the country, and we will be using this as a stepping stone to grow more partnerships in that part of the world and attract more investment into the country.”
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