All Topics  
Thomson Financial League Tables

 

 
   Email Print
   Bookmark   Link
 

 

Thomson Financial League Tables
 
 
  Topics Thomson Financial League Tables Topic Home

Thomson Financial
Thomson Financial

Thomson Financial was an arm of The Thomson Corporation, formerly one of the world's leading information companies, focused on providing integrated information solutions to business and professional customers....
's standard league tables are rankings of Investment Banks in terms of the dollar volume of deals they work on. New standard league table sessions in compliance with 2004 league table criteria for Debt
Debt

Debt is that which is owed; usually referencing assets owed, but the term can cover other obligations. In the case of assets, debt is a means of using future purchasing power in the present before a summation has been earned....
, Equity
STOCK

Software for fixed assets management and stock control developed in 2004. Stocktaking process is carried using a hand-held mobile terminal equipped with barcode reader or RFID technology....
, Syndicated loan
Syndicated loan

A syndicated loan is a large loan in which a group of banks provide funds for a borrower, usually several but without joint liability. There is usually a lead bank or group of banks that takes a percentage of the loan and syndicates or sells the rest to other banks....
, Project Finance
Project finance

Project finance is the finance of long-term infrastructure and industrial projects based upon a complex financial structure where project debt and Stock are used to finance the project, rather than the balance sheets of project sponsors....
 and M&A are currently available. Notice that this is revenue and dollar volume of securities issued (in underwriting) or transaction size (in M&A), not profitability.

ue tables are used in two contexts: either in promotional materials or client pitches produced by an investment bank, or tabulated by a financial information tool, such as mergermarket, Dealogic, Thomson Financial or Bloomberg.

When used in bank-produced materials, the company is always in control of deciding how to tabulate each table and which ones to show to customers.






Discussion
Ask a question about 'Thomson Financial League Tables'
Start a new discussion about 'Thomson Financial League Tables'
Answer questions from other users
Full Discussion Forum



Encyclopedia


Thomson Financial
Thomson Financial

Thomson Financial was an arm of The Thomson Corporation, formerly one of the world's leading information companies, focused on providing integrated information solutions to business and professional customers....
's standard league tables are rankings of Investment Banks in terms of the dollar volume of deals they work on. New standard league table sessions in compliance with 2004 league table criteria for Debt
Debt

Debt is that which is owed; usually referencing assets owed, but the term can cover other obligations. In the case of assets, debt is a means of using future purchasing power in the present before a summation has been earned....
, Equity
STOCK

Software for fixed assets management and stock control developed in 2004. Stocktaking process is carried using a hand-held mobile terminal equipped with barcode reader or RFID technology....
, Syndicated loan
Syndicated loan

A syndicated loan is a large loan in which a group of banks provide funds for a borrower, usually several but without joint liability. There is usually a lead bank or group of banks that takes a percentage of the loan and syndicates or sells the rest to other banks....
, Project Finance
Project finance

Project finance is the finance of long-term infrastructure and industrial projects based upon a complex financial structure where project debt and Stock are used to finance the project, rather than the balance sheets of project sponsors....
 and M&A are currently available. Notice that this is revenue and dollar volume of securities issued (in underwriting) or transaction size (in M&A), not profitability.

Usage

League tables are used in two contexts: either in promotional materials or client pitches produced by an investment bank, or tabulated by a financial information tool, such as mergermarket, Dealogic, Thomson Financial or Bloomberg.

When used in bank-produced materials, the company is always in control of deciding how to tabulate each table and which ones to show to customers. Banks naturally never show unflattering league tables, so one rarely sees league tables where the firm is not in the top 3. Banks seeking to enter a new space may show two tables side by side from the previous and the current year to show how they have improved. As mentioned above, the details of how each table was calculated are essential to understanding how much these tables have been tweaked.

Growing concerns about credibility of league tables have led some banks to use actual screenshots of Bloomberg's league tables in their materials to emphasize that no tweaks were used to manipulate the ranking. The selection bias of only showing the favorable rankings still holds however. In order to get the most complete information, one should access leagues tables on Bloomberg, Thomson Financial, or any other reputable source (they all rely on a third-party database that actually stores information on all announced deals or collect the data themselves for deal related information). For convenience, most common league tables are reproduced below for recent years.

Criticisms

League tables are important for classifying investment banks by their area of expertise, but are a very imprecise way of ranking investment banks within broad categories. League tables give equal credit to all investment banks involved with a transaction, even if one of them collected the bulk of the fees, was hired first, and had more responsibility. With the emergence of financial supermarkets and stapled finance, companies are often accused of tacitly doling out league table credit to banks to secure better terms on the financing for the transaction.

Most damaging to the tables' credibility, however, has been the way league tables are tabulated and used in investment bank pitches to clients and prospective hires. Exploiting the fact that there's no "industry standard" in calculating league tables, bankers instruct their analysts to tweak the way the tables are tabulated to make the home institution appear higher in the tables, ideally in the top 3. Most common tweaks include counting or excluding announced but uncompleted deals, deals smaller than a certain size, deals in a given geographic area, the date range, and so on. These details are usually listed at the bottom of each table, and should always be scrutinized.

Debt and equity


2004


2003


Mergers and acquisitions


2005



2004



2003


230,415.3

See also

  • Advisory services
  • Debt levels and flows
    Debt levels and flows

    Debt is used to finance and pay for undertakings and business around the world. Debt levels are worth 3 years of GDP in many countries that have an annual GDP/person above $10,000....
  • Financial services
    Financial services

    Financial services refer to Service provided by the finance industry. The finance industry encompasses a broad range of organizations that deal with the management of money....
  • Mergers & acquisitions
  • Underwriting
    Underwriting

    Underwriting refers to the process that a large financial service provider uses to assess the eligibility of a customer to receive their products ....


External links