NDB Investment Bank’s winning streak

NDBIB, the leader in the Sri Lankan investment banking landscape was once again recognised as the Best Investment Bank in Sri Lanka by Euromoney Magazine, for its resilient performance during a year marred by political upheaval and macro-economic crises, demonstrating its dominance for the 12^th consecutive year.

Despite all challenges, NDBIB was able to raise Rs.30 billion in funds in 2022 for its clients and made in-roads in building a healthy deal pipeline for 2023 and beyond. This award comes on the back of its 7^th consecutive Asiamoney Award accolade as the Best Investment Bank in Sri Lanka for 2022, NDBIB said in a media release.

“We believe that securing the Euromoney Award for the twelfth year on-the-trot is a testament to the unwavering consistency of the highest calibre of services offered by the NDBIB team. The team’s tenacity and top-of-the-class service delivery during the rather challenging year led to the successful execution of several noteworthy transactions in 2022,” said Darshan Perera, the Chief Executive Officer of NDBIB.

In 2022, NDBIB was able to manage the Rights Issues of Abans Finance PLC, Pegasus Hotels of Ceylon PLC and AgStar PLC, all of which were oversubscribed. In the M&A front, NDBIB acted as the Financial Advisors to the; (1) Shareholders of Kings Hospitals Colombo (Private) Limited on the strategic investment by Ceylinco Life Insurance Limited, (2) Shareholders of Browns Investments PLC and Faber Capital Group on the divestiture of Saga Solar Power to Aitken Spence PLC, and (3) Sri Lanka Telecom PLC on the divestiture of SLT Campus (Private) Limited to a consortium of investors. NDBIB also managed the Debenture Issues for Brown & Company PLC and Resus Energy PLC during the first quarter of 2022.

Earlier this year, NDBIB acted as the exclusive Financial Advisor and Manager to Hela Apparel Holdings PLC, successfully concluding the fund raising of US$14 million via Norfund, directly to Hela’s investment holding company earmarked for its operations in the African Region. This marked NDBIB’s debut in the African capital market and its first transaction outside Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and the Maldives. “The successful completion of the Hela transaction is an endorsement of the competent deal management skills of the highest-standard maintained at NDBIB. We plan on furthering our foreign collaborations and securing more foreign mandates enabling us to harness our skillset while penetrating further into opportunity-laden markets like Africa and APAC,” noted Kaushini Laksumanage, the Chief Operating Officer of NDBIB.

NDBIB also recently successfully arranged, structured and placed the UB Finance Limited Initial Public Offering, which was the first IPO in over a year and was also the first to be executed post DDO announcement. “We are currently working on several exciting transactions including a few IPOs to be opened in the coming months and M&A (mergers and acquisitions) opportunities. We will bank on our expertise in product innovation and superior service delivery in seeing these and other transactions in our pipeline over the finish line,” stated Saminda Weerasinghe, the Head of Corporate Advisory at NDBIB.