Amalgamated Investments Bancorporation forms joint venture with Moores Rowland

Philippine firm Amalgamated Investment Bancorporation (AIB) and two investment bankers have formed a joint venture with the Singapore and Jakarta offices of UK-based Moores Rowland to provide capital market and corporate finance services to medium-sized companies in Southeast Asia.

Moores Rowland is ranked among the top 10 accounting firms worldwide, while AIB is a leading investment bank in the Philippines with an established analyst pool and information technology/risk management infrastructure. The joint venture seeks to outsource a significant amount of analytical and transaction processing work to AIB’s existing analyst pool.

The joint venture is 51 percent owned by the Singapore and Jakarta offices of Moores Rowland and 16 percent by AIB, while the remaining 33 percent represents the founder shares of Ibasco and AIB president and CEO Gary Cheng, a former JP Morgan professional who now also serves as executive director of Moores Rowland AIB.

Called Moores Rowland AIB Corporate Finance Pte Ltd., it will focus on the middle market in Southeast Asia with financing requirements between $20 million and $100 million, as large foreign banks are fighting it out to get a share in the overbanked market of blue chip and top-tier companies. It will be based in Singapore.

This mid-sized market segment has been largely underserved by the large investment banks due to its focus on smaller deal sizes, the profitability of which could not cover their large overhead and infrastructure costs.

Moores Rowland AIB managing director Daniel Ibasco noted that the region is brimming with fast-growing entrepreneurs that could not maximize their potential due to limited financing facilities available to them and limited access to global merger and acquisition opportunities. The joint venture seeks to provide global connectivity to its targeted customer base and to diversify customers’ traditional reliance on bank loans to long-term private debt and private equity placements.

On one end, there are the big financial institutions competing for the last basis point from large corporate clients, and on the other are a number of intra-country boutique advisory firms focused on advisory work and domestic fund raising. Moores Rowland AIB seeks to fill this market gap with its pioneering move.

"We have access to over 100 hedge fund and institutional investor accounts through our distribution partnerships globally and the ability to tap select pools of private equity for our clients," Ibasco adeded.

Moores Rowland AIB has strategic alliances with international distribution houses and partnerships with a number of industry-focused investment firms, making it an effective and sensible virtual alternative to large banks.

The company has a strong presence in Australia, China, Hong Kong, Indonesia, India, Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, and the Philippines. Among its current clients are those involved in infrastructure projects such as LPG processing facilities, logistics and transportation, consumer finance and mid-sized power plants.