Proximo’s Banks and Law Firms of the Year 2023
Which firms moved the market the most in 2023? Proximo looks to provide a subjective measurement of the stand-out lenders and legal advisers.
Excellence in project and infrastructure finance can be a matter of subjective opinion, but just as banks and law firms discover at bonus time, it’s important to let the numbers do the talking when discussing performance. And while sponsors love a friendly and close-knit deal team, they love nudging up their risk-adjusted returns even more.
Is it possible to distill that performance down to a score? Proximo thinks so, and is going to use strictly objective criteria to name the banks and law firms that excelled in their regions in 2023. No brown envelopes, no fine dining with the editors, and no stamping of feet and screaming “it’s our turn!”
Our methodology is clear and exact. Banks and law firms are scored in three categories...
Their ranking in the 2023 Proximo project finance survey: The winners all tended to perform strongly in the survey. This is a global score, and carries through into the totals for each region. Is a far-flung office letting the side down? Time for a frank conversation. Better yet, make sure your clients fill out the 2024 survey, which is live right now.
Their ranking in the Proximo 2023 League Tables: Regional league tables have been used for regional winners. Proximo currently uses the league tables for total volumes of lending (banks) and total volumes of deals advised on (law firms). If you think administrative agent rankings or transaction numbers are more appropriate, let us know.
Involvement in winning Proximo Deals of the Year: We tot up the numbers of award-winning deals that each bank worked on - both globally and on a regional basis. Proximo awards Deals of the Year sparingly, and winning deals tend to be well-supported. It will be difficult for banks to stand-out unless, say, they worked on an outstanding capital markets deal. 2023 was not, alas, a banner year for project bonds.
Ranks were assigned a score between 1 and 20 inverse to their rank, and these scores were totalled globally and in each region. While a small number of banks and law firms dominated, and they were near the top of the league tables, there were opportunities for regional specialists to shine through - for instance HSBC in the Middle East & Africa.
French banks generally sat within the top five in the scores in each region, but all tended to be let down in their survey rankings. Japanese, Canadian and German banks all surveyed well, but the last two suffered from low league table positions.
We’d love to hear your thoughts on the methodology we use. Do we have the weightings right? Should we look at transaction numbers rather than volumes? Either way, the new objective methods will do wonders for our waistlines.
The list of award–winners follows:
Banks
Global Bank of the Year - MUFG
North America Bank of the Year - MUFG
Latin America Bank of the Year - Santander
Europe Bank of the Year - Santander
Middle East & Africa Bank of the Year - HSBC
Asia-Pacific Bank of the Year - MUFG
Law Firms
Global Law Firm of the Year - Milbank
North America Law Firm of the Year - Milbank
Latin America Law Firm of the Year - Milbank
Europe Law Firm of the Year - Allen & Overy
Middle East & Africa Law Firm of the Year - Milbank
Asia-Pacific Law Firm of the Year - Allen & Overy
