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Originally Posted by Unregistered
Apologies - I meant to say ECM. Okay, I thought that I read somewhere that MacQ has decided to trim its M&A bankers as they recently realised that Singapore's companies (1) aren't very open to M&A; (2) prefer to do it in-house. I was wondering how true it is, and whether it's only a recent thing.
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Not sure where you read that from but if it's true then the following should explain.
It is somewhat true that Singapore (or Asian companies in general) firms are not as open to M&A as compared to their American or European counterparts. Alot of it is due to culture differences and what not. You must remember that a much higher percentage of businesses in Asia are family businesses and therefore, family controlled. Convincing an Asian family clientele to sell 51% equity in their family business? I would much rather fancy my chances at getting into Harvard law.
Also, more specific to MacQ, I think part of the reason why they're cutting back is also because they might be realizing that the investment banking business (
IBD, S&T etc) is a very scalable business. i.e. clients realize that big players can offer more and at better value. Much respect to MacQ for toughing it out but 9/10 times the business flow goes to the big players in SEA (the BBs like GS, JPM, CS, MS etc and perhaps the big local banks like
OCBC and DBS).
I think people are getting too caught up over a few isolated cuts in the business. These cuts and pullbacks happen all the time. It doesn't mean business is dying.