Advisory fees for completed mergers and acquisitions (M&A) came in 63.6% lower at US$45.2 million from a record high of US$124.0 million in 1Q18.
The report also saw ECM underwriting fees increased 279.1% y-o-y to a six-year high of US$60.8 million, while fees from DCM underwriting fees also increased 14.9% to US$51.9 million.
Syndicated lending fees however saw a 66.5% decline to US$14.9 million, after a strong 1Q18.
Among the local investment banks, Morgan Stanley earned the most investment banking fees in the country for 1Q19, and topped the fee league table with a total of US$21.7 million or a 12.5% share of the total fee pool.
Meanwhile, overall M&A activity in Singapore touched US$24.2 billion so far this year, up 89.2% y-o-y in proceeds.
Singapore targeted M&A deals grew 240.4% from the same period last year, reaching US$15.8 billion in proceeds, making it the highest first quarter period on record. This was mainly thanks to CapitaLand’s US$7.9 billion pending acquisition of Ascendas-Singbridge, which is now the largest Southeast Asian M&A deal so far this year and the largest domestic Singaporean deal on record.
Cross-border deal activity for the quarter came up to US$11.6 billion, an 87.2% increase from last year. Local inbound M&A activity grew 99.4% from a year ago to US$5.9 billion, while outbound M&A activity also increased by 76.2% year-on-year with US$5.7 billion in deal value.
JP Morgan led the Singapore involvement M&A league table rankings this quarter, with 33% market share and US$7.9 billion in related deal value, followed by HSBC Holdings with 6.7% market share and both China Renaissance Securities (HK) and Lazard tied at third place with 6.0% market share each.
Similarly, Singaporean equity and equity-linked (ECM) proceeds this quarter reached US$2.3 billion, a 145.8% increase from the same period last year, mainly due to the US$1.5 billion American depository share follow-on offering from Sea Ltd in New York, the biggest equity offering from a Singaporean company so far this year.
Meanwhile, initial public offerings (IPOs) by local companies have raised US$75.6 million, 79.5% lower than the same period a year ago, while follow-on offerings increased 579.2% from the comparative period last year, raising US$2.2 billion.
Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs are tied for first place in ECM underwriting rankings, each with a 34.2% market share and US$776.3 million in related proceeds.
Primary bond offerings from Singapore-domiciled issuers slowed down this year after a strong start in 2018, recording a 19.2% y-o-y drop to US$7.5 billion raised so far this year. Singaporean companies from the financials sector dominated the bonds markets and raised US$2.6 billion, down 60.1% from the same period last year and captured 34.7% market share.
DBS Group led the Singapore bonds underwriting with US$1.8 billion in related proceeds, with 24.4% market share, followed by United Overseas Bank (UOB) with 14.7% market share and Oversea-Chinese Banking Corporation (OCBC) with 13.1% market share.
