• Best privatisation
• Best high-yield bond issue
• Best Convertible bond deal
• Best investment-grade corporate bond

• Best Securitisation
• Best large-cap equity issue
• Best small-cap public equity offer
• Best merger

US banks are mentioned only slightly more often than their European rivals as the lead managers, arrangers, advisers and co-ordinators of the eight transactions chosen by Euro as the best deals of 1999 (and presented in the following pages).

The winner in each of the eight categories has been decided on the basis of innovation, importance in developing its particular market and good old-fashioned value-for-money. Investment banks were asked to submit their nominations, and Euro decided each winner after interviewing both investment bankers and fund managers. The winning deals had either to involve European companies or be denominated in euros.

Nineteen banks were involved in the transactions as lead manager, adviser, arranger or co-ordinator, but as some were involved in more than one deal, there are a total of 26 mentions for one of these top places. Of these 26 mentions, 14 were for US banks (if one includes CSFB, which has headquarters in both New York and London). The total includes Morgan Stanley Dean Witter and Goldman Sachs, which accounted for the highest number of mentions for single organisations – three each. But in fact honours were spread among a large number of banks. The 19 banks involved in one or other of the deals ranged from regional players such as Enskilda Securities to the big global banks.

The technology sector dominates the deals. Telecoms companies were involved in the winning deal for exactly half of the categories, with internet-related companies winning in two others – for both large and small-cap IPOs.

Telecoms companies were involved in the winning deal for exactly half the categories, with internet-related companies winning in two others – for both large and small-cap initial public offerings

In most categories there were a large number of nominations for the best deal, with one notable exception: investment-grade corporate bonds. To many fund managers the Tecnost deals securing and consolidating Olivetti’s takeover of Telecom Italia had no real competition. As one London-based credit analyst at a big US asset manager put it when asked about possible nominations for this category: “We can only really think of bad deals.”

Euro also judged each deal in relation to the market conditions of the time. For example, Swedish internet consultancy Framtidsfabriken (FramFab), subject of the best small-cap equity issue, was all the more impressive since it sold well even though some Swedish journalists were advising investors not to subscribe to shares. TotalFina/Elf Aquitaine, meanwhile, winner in the best merger category, was impressive largely because the companies and their advisers managed to turn it into a friendly all-share merger that gave shareholders in Elf, originally the ‘victim’, a high premium.