Investment banking fees earned in Sub-Saharan Africa hits a six-year low of $523.7 million in 2020

The report stated that the energy and power sector generated the highest investment banking fees for the aforementioned period.

By Chidi Emenike

Sub-Saharan Africa, in 2020, recorded its lowest investment banking fees in the last six years, recording an estimated $523.7 million for the

first nine months of the year.

The figure indicates a decline of about 15% when compared with what was obtained in a similar period in 2019.

This is according to an Investment Banking Report by Refinitiv, tagged: “Sub-Saharan African Investment Banking Review First Nine Months 2020”, and seen by Nairametrics.

Key highlights

According to the report, Fee declines were recorded across M&A advisory, debt capital markets underwriting, and syndicated lending as captured below;

• Advisory fees earned from completed M&A transactions declined to $108.3 million, the lowest since 2013, indicating a decline of 55% Y-o-Y.
• Syndicated lending fees declined to $263 million, indicating a decline of 3% Y-o-Y.
• Debt capital markets underwriting fees declined to $64.9 million, the lowest in a four-year period, indicating a decline of 13% Y-o-Y.
• Equity capital markets underwriting fees totalled $87.5 million.

In addition, the report stated that the energy and power sector generated the highest investment banking fees for the aforementioned period, accounting for 26%, followed by the financial and technology sectors which accounted for 17% and 13% in the same period respectively.

Nigeria’s performance in relation to others

• In terms of country spread, Nigeria finished third, accounting for 9% of the total investment banking fees earned in Sub-Saharan Africa.
• The top five countries in terms of percentage of investment banking fees earned are; South Africa (54%), Mozambique (14%), Nigeria (9%), Mauritius (5%) and Ghana (4%).
• In absolute terms, South Africa led the chart with $279.9 million, followed by Mozambique with $73.3 million and Nigeria with $47.1 million.

Top 10 firms in terms of investment banking fees earned

The top 10 firms with the highest investment banking fees earned in the aforementioned period are:

Source: Author’s computation from Refinitiv data

• Sumitomo Muitsui Financial Group Inc, which led the earned investment banking fees chart with $57.3 million – about 11% of the total deal; followed by Standard Chartered Plc with $43.5 million (8.3%); Bofa Securities recorded $41.9 million (8%); JP Morgan recorded $36.7 million (7%); while Citi earned $24.4 million for the period under review (4.7%).