With two highly prized UK corporate brokerships won in the first week of February, a lead role in British Virgin Islands incorporated company Justice Holdings' initial public offering (IPO) the same month and the status of sole bookrunner for mining company Aurubis's accelerated bookbuild in January, it is clear that Barclays Capital's (BarCap) aggressive expansion into European equity capital markets (ECMs) is bearing fruit.
This year's corporate brokerships were important wins. The first, Anglo-Australian mining giant BHP Billiton, saw BarCap unseat incumbent broker Bank of America Merrill Lynch (BAML). The second, International Airlines Group (the holding company created by the merger of British Airways and Spanish carrier Iberia) chose BarCap as its broker over BAML, UBS and Morgan Stanley, the advisors that helped to put the merger together.
