By IANS
Ahmedabad : The government-owned State Bank of India has been ranked as the top loan arranger in the Asia-Pacific region in 2007 by Britain-based Project Finance International (PFI), a well-known source of global project finance intelligence.
The bank arranged loans worth $4.87 billion covering 16 deals. The loan arranger league table of PFI has 88 participants.
ICICI bank, ranked forth, is the next Indian bank in the top five. The other three are Korea Development Bank, ANZ Bank and CBA. ICICI Bank arranged loans worth $2.14 billion covering 16 deals.
According to PFI, the State Bank of India maintained its number one position in the league table for the third straight year thanks to a continued upsurge in domestic activities.
The presence of other Indian banks in the top five underscored the huge demand for financing in India, PFI said.
The firm’s data shows that the Asia Pacific project finance market continued to gather pace and was the busiest to-date last year with 139 deals completed.
Australia and India were the two standout performers in terms of deal making.
While Australia completed 34 deals for a total of $13 billion, India registered 36 deals for $10.8 billion. The Australian deals centred on mining, oil and gas sectors and Indian deals covered infrastructure sectors including roads and power.
In the global top 10 for loans category, SBI Capital has retained its ranking of 9 in 2007 as it was in the previous year with 16 deals. The global league of leader arrangers has 215 participants.
The pre-eminent position of the State Bank in syndicating financial deals has also been confirmed in a Bloomberg report of the current month.
Its underwriter league table notes that for the period between Jan-Dec 2007, State Bank of India topped a list of 20 in Asia outside Japan, raising $14.94 billion, accounting for a 7.2 percent market share and involving 61 deals.
SBI was ahead of well-known global banks like Standard Chartered, which was ranked third, Citibank ranked eighth, and BNP Paribas group ranked 11.
SBI again topped the list of “Loans Book runner” for 2007 outside Japan with a business volume of $15.11 billion with a market share of 8.7 percent.