Singapore 9-month investment banking fees hit 5-year high of US$693.8 million

[SINGAPORE] Investment banking fees in Singapore swelled to US$693.8 million in the first nine months of the year – up 9 per cent year on year and marking the highest nine-month tally since 2021.

According to the latest Singapore Investment Banking Review released by LSEG Deals Intelligence on Monday (Oct 5), the Republic accounted for 69.3 per cent of South-east Asia fee pools during the period.

Advisory fees earned from completed mergers and acquisitions (M&A) led the expansion, increasing 23.7 per cent to US$256 million and taking the lion’s share of the total fee pool.

Equity capital markets underwriting fees rose 11.5 per cent to US$159.8 million, and syndicated lending fees gained 11.3 per cent to US$175.9 million.

In contrast, debt capital markets fees dropped 24.6 per cent to US$102.3 million.

Wall Street titan Goldman Sachs topped the overall investment banking fee league table, pulling in US$86.5 million to capture a 12.5 per cent market share. Local lender DBS was second with US$61.1 million, and Morgan Stanley ranked third with US$55.3 million.

M&A volume nearly doubles

Overall M&A deal value involving Singapore nearly doubled, jumping 98.2 per cent to US$104.3 billion.

“Activity was driven by a record first quarter, although dealmaking slowed in subsequent quarters,” LSEG noted, pointing out that Q3 M&A volume slipped 9.9 per cent month on month to US$24.1 billion.

Despite the late-year moderation, outbound M&A soared to an all-time record of US$46.3 billion, more than tripling from 2025.

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This spike was anchored by sovereign wealth fund GIC’s participation in US artificial intelligence giant Anthropic’s US$30 billion funding round in February.

Acquisitions of Singapore-based firms expanded 88.5 per cent to US$39.2 billion – a five-year high – bolstered by transactions such as the US$5.2 billion buy-out of data centre operator STT GDC by KKR and Singtel.

Technology remained the most sought-after sector, commanding 45.8 per cent of total M&A deal value at US$47.7 billion.

Morgan Stanley topped the M&A advisory league table with transactions totalling US$14.9 billion.

Equity capital, debt capital markets

In equity capital markets, Singapore-domiciled issuers raised US$7.4 billion, a 28.2 per cent increase year on year.

While the total number of transactions fell 44.6 per cent to 31, deal size expanded.

Activity was spearheaded by 10 initial public offerings raising US$3.3 billion, most notably Singapore-headquartered Shein Global’s US$1.7 billion Hong Kong listing.

DBS led equity capital market underwriting proceeds with US$918.2 million.

Meanwhile, as for debt capital markets, primary bond offerings from Singapore-domiciled entities reached US$37 billion, up 6.7 per cent year on year and marking the strongest year-to-date period since records began in 1980, said LSEG.

Financial institutions accounted for two-thirds of total issuance, led by multi-billion debt offerings from DBS, OCBC and UOB. OCBC claimed top spot as book runner in the debt capital market, underwriting US$4.1 billion in total proceeds.