01
Investment Banking
Equity capital markets and coverage: IPO execution, placements, sponsor work, and the distribution that takes a book to investors.
The transaction
Equity capital markets is the centre of the practice. A mandate may be an initial public offering, a follow-on, a rights issue, a placing, or a block trade. The seat may sit in origination, in execution, in syndicate, or in the institutional effort that places the shares.
Execution is the part that has to be staffed with people who have done it. That is the listing process itself: due diligence, prospectus disclosure, valuation, the cornerstone and anchor process, bookbuilding, pricing, allocation, and stabilisation. Where the listing is in Hong Kong, it includes the sponsor's work and the timetable the exchange actually runs.
- Origination: the client, the capital need, and whether the house can deliver the product.
- Execution: diligence, disclosure, valuation, and the documents that have to be right on filing.
- Syndicate and bookbuilding: demand, price range, allocation, and the greenshoe.
- Distribution: which institutional accounts take the paper, and in which market.
Who is sought
The search is for people who have carried a live book. A vice president who can run a workstream. A director who can hold the client and the syndicate at the same time. An equity-capital-markets specialist who has priced, not only pitched. An institutional salesperson who knows which accounts buy Hong Kong, China, and cross-border equity.
Coverage and product are not the same seat. The banker who owns the relationship still has to know which transaction the institution can execute. The brief names the desk, the licence, and the stage of the deal the person must carry. Someone hired to file is not someone hired to distribute.
Mandates are taken on instruction. There is no standing advertised list. The employer stays unnamed until the client is ready. Candidates are told what the transaction is, and what it is not.