“The most notable feature of the Sub-Saharan Africa Investment Banking fees verified in the first half of 2018 is that investment banking fees were 12% less than the value recorded in the first half of 2017. This year, they only reached an estimated US$241 million,” says Sneha Shah, Managing Director for Africa at Thomson Reuters.

She adds; “Fees from completed Mergers and Acquisitions (M&A) transactions totaled US$33.7 million, a 60% decrease year-on-year and the lowest first half since 2005. On the other hand, Equity Capital Markets (ECM) underwriting fees reached US$71.2 million, the highest value since 2007.”

Rand Merchant Bank’s (RMB) continues to lead the chart on most investment banking fees received this year in SSA with a total of US$27.4 million or a 11.4% total fee pool. RMB also leads completed M&A and Syndicated Loans fee rankings in H2 2018.

Source: Thomson Reuters

Standard Bank, also known as Stanbic, leads the Equity Capital Markets (ECM) underwriting fee ranking with a 25.1% share of the market and CITI leads the Debt Capital Markets (DCM) underwriting fee ranking with a 15.7% market share.

In comparison, the total Sub-Saharan Africa fees from DCM underwriting fees accounted for 27% of the overall SSA investment banking fee pool, the highest since 2003. Completed M&A and ECM generated 14% and 30% of the total fee pool, respectively, and Syndicated Lending fees accounted for 30%.

Two of the top three largest M&A deals in the first half of 2018 took place in Nigeria with the largest

being Milost Global Inc. US$1.1 billion leveraged buyout transaction to acquire the entire share capital of Primewaterview Holdings Nigeria Ltd.

South Africa’s overseas acquisitions accounted for 74.9% of SSA outbound M&A activity, while acquisitions by companies headquartered in Mauritius and Zimbabwe accounted for 21.9% and 2.5% respectively.

The Ivory Coast continued to be the most active issuer nation in bond proceeds at US$6.3 billion or 26.7% of market activity, followed by South Africa and Angola.