Malaysian Rating Corporation Berhad (MARC) yesterday honoured Malaysia’s top capital market players comprising investment banks, other financial institutions and bond/sukuk issuers at its 2017 Lead Managers League Table Awards held at Hilton Kuala Lumpur. The guest of honour, Datuk Zainal Izlan Zainal Abidin, Deputy Chief Executive of the Securities Commission presented the awards.
MARC Chairman Datuk Azizan Haji Abdul Rahman commented in his opening speech that he hoped such recognition will motivate and encourage capital market players to continue striving to bring innovation to Malaysia’s debt and sukuk capital market. He also drew attention towards the theme for the evening, “Creating Sustainable Impact”. “Creating sustainable impact as a domestic credit rating agency means taking up the challenge of becoming a sustainable development goal (SDG) champion ourselves,” he added.
CIMB Investment Bank Berhad (CIMB) topped MARC’s 2017 Lead Managers League Tables in the issue value category while Maybank Investment Bank Berhad (Maybank) won the issue count category. Echoing the evening’s theme, MARC also presented, for the first time, Sustainability Champion Awards. The award recipients, three solar independent power producers were described as “tangible proof that environmental problems tackled as business opportunities can deliver economic return and concurrently contribute to a healthy and thriving ecosystem”. Other awards given during the evening were the Transparency Award 2017, the Project Financing Award of the Year 2017 and the Corporate Financing Award of the Year 2017.
Chief Executive Officer Sabrina Kan Wai Sum paid tribute to the innovative spirit of the lead arrangers and underlined MARC’s commitment to the capital markets in her opening remarks. She acknowledged MARC had a collective responsibility with the other capital market intermediaries to keep the pulse of the domestic capital markets strong. She added further that MARC’s lofty aspirations to play a role in transitioning Malaysia’s economy to a more sustainable development path could be “made lighter by like-minded stakeholders”.
Published annually, the league tables rank the lead managers by volume and number of lead-arranged MARC-rated issuances in any given year. Since its inception in 1996 to July 2018, MARC has rated 795 bonds and sukuk issues valued at RM528 billion.
Contacts:
Ahmad Feizal Sulaiman Khan, +603-2717 2911/ feizal@marc.com.my;
Lana Mahbob, +603-2717 2912/ lana@marc.com.my.
