Greenwich Associates’ 2008 Quality Leaders Report reveals which of Europe’s financial institutions are best positioned to compete in the customer businesses that will serve as the life-blood of the corporate and investment banking industries in the coming, post-crisis era.
Due to the severity of the risks facing the global banking sector, all eyes have remained rightly focused on the solvency of major financial institutions and on the effectiveness of governmental rescue programs aimed at recapitalizing banks and restoring order to global markets. But any projections about the future viability and performance of individual banks or the banking industry as a whole will eventually rest on surviving institutions’ ability to wring profits out of businesses that had become pass during the liquidity boom. As mortgage businesses, structured credit units and proprietary trading desks are downsized or shuttered, revenues will once again become dependent on the traditional staples of corporate finance and investment banking: trading and originations in debt and equity capital markets, corporate lending, cash management and, of course, mergers & acquisitions advisory services.
Greenwich Associates’ 2008 European Quality Leaders Designations identify the banks that companies and institutions in Europe see as the best in 20 business categories falling into three main areas: investment/corporate banking, equities and fixed income. Greenwich Associates’ equities and fixed-income research measures the quality of service that banks and broker-dealers provide to institutional investors across sales, trading and research. Also included in this research is foreign exchange and commodities trading, in which Greenwich Associates measures the quality of service provided by banks to the users of OTC derivatives and physical commodity products. Greenwich Associates’ investment/corporate banking research measures the quality of service that banks and investment banks deliver to companies in overall corporate banking, cash management, mergers & acquisitions and debt and equity capital markets coverage. In this program, capital markets service encompasses banks’ execution and distribution capabilities, as well as the coverage and influence of their research franchises. The Quality Leader designations are based on almost 4,000 interviews with senior executives at corporates and institutions in 2008.
The complete list of Greenwich Associates’ 2008 European Quality Leaders is available at the www.greenwich.com
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