Euromoney Votes CSFB New Zealand’s Best

Auckland, 22 August 2000-- Credit Suisse First Boston is pleased to announce that the prestigious and highly respected International publication, Euromoney, has confirmed CSFB New Zealand as “the best foreign equity house" and "best foreign M&A house” in the country.

In the recently released Euromoney Awards For Excellence 2000, CSFB was named winner of 14 global and regional awards. Among the global awards, CSFB was named Best Underwriter of IPOs, Best Project Finance House and Best Underwriter of Asset-Backed securities. The regional awards demonstrated the breadth and quality of CSFB's global network with awards in countries such as Austria, Brazil, Czech Republic, France, Greece, Singapore and Switzerland.

CSFB NZ Managing Director Bill Trotter, said the New Zealand awards were a measure of the group’s unique ability to provide its clients with a combination of local expertise and global capabilities.

"They also reflect the size, scale and nature of deals completed within the region during the judging year (year ending 31 May 2000), " he said.

“During the period of review, we advised on more than $NZ 7.5 billion of M&A transactions and on more than $3 billion of capital raising transactions. Amongst these were such high profile projects as the sale of Fletcher Challenge Paper to Norske Skogindustrier AS (the largest M&A transaction ever in New Zealand); the innovative $240m redeemable preference share capital raising for Edison Mission Energy's acquisition of Contact Energy; the 400 million Eurodollar Eurobond issue for Telecom Corporation; the demutualisation and float of Tower Limited; the acquisition by Carter Holt Harvey of Australian businesses; the acquisition by Sky City of Adelaide Casino and the move by Lion Nathan Limited to shift its domicile and primary listing to Australia.
“Of particular relevance was the number of projects where a strong Australasian capability combined with global industry and product knowledge was the criteria for success. Our ability to provide this in a seamless manner enables us to add real value to our New Zealand clients in mergers, acquisitions and capital raisings.

"Delivery of our Australian capabilities is increasingly important to our New Zealand clients. We have a very strong full service business in Australia. They have worked on most of the major transactions, including the Telstra privatisation and share offerings, the NZ$45 billion Victorian utility privatisation and, more recently the Commonwealth Bank’s take over of Colonial (the largest takeover in Australian history). CSFB also advised on the recently completed NRMA demutualisation and float,” he said.

As well as the Euromoney recognition, CSFB NZ recently earned the title of ‘Best New Zealand Investment Bank” by AsiaMoney. The company has also been ranked by Thomson Financial Securities Data as the “Number 1 adviser to New Zealand companies by deal value” during the year under consideration.

Over the past five years, CSFB, through its offices in Wellington and Auckland, has been the No 1 investment bank by deal value for deals advised upon—as assessed by SDC of $US9.2 billion. This is twice the market share of its nearest competitor.

Euromoney has a monthly international readership of 160,000. It is regarded globally by corporates, banking and investment specialists as one of the world’s best financial magazines and information sources. As well as a strong European presence, the company has offices in Tokyo, Hong Kong and New York.

# # #
Credit Suisse First Boston is a leading global investment banking firm, providing comprehensive financial advisory, capital raising, sales and trading, and financial products for wholesale users and suppliers of capital around the world. It operates in 57 offices across more than 37 countries and six continents and has over 15,000 staff. Credit Suisse First Boston is one of the world’s largest securities firms in terms of financial resources, with approximately US$9.8 billion in revenues in 1999 and US$7.8 billion in equity and US$275 billion in assets as of December 31, 1999. The Firm is a wholly owned subsidiary of the Zurich-based Credit Suisse Group. For more information on Credit Suisse First Boston, please visit our website at http://www.csfb.com.
___________________________________________________________
For more information please contact:
Bill Trotter
Managing Director
CSFB NZ
Tel: 04 474 4419
Dwight Whitney
Senior Consultant
Beyond Public Relations
Tel: 09 306 1804
Mobile: 025 907 188

© Scoop Media