Credit Suisse eyes representative office in Philippines
Updated November 4, 2017 – 12:00am
http://www.philstar.com/
MANILA, Philippines — Zurich-based Credit Suisse is expanding its presence in the Philippines by putting up a representative office.
“Right now the view is the Philippines is the darling of investors in Asia. Almost all of them are coming here which is good,” Fonacier said.
The European firm currently has a presence in the Philippines through Credit Suisse Securities (Philippines) Inc. — a licensed broker dealer at the Philippine Stock Exchange and the Securities Clearing Corp. of the Philippines.
Last May, Credit Suisse tapped former Macquarie Capital Philippines head Michael De Guzman as head of Philippine coverage of its Asia Pacific Investment Banking & Capital Markets department.
The Philippines is an important part of Credit Suisse’s Southeast Asia franchise, and where the bank has been a leading financial advisor since1992.
Credit Suisse has advised on numerous landmark and innovative transactions in the country, including the Philippines’ accelerated switch tender offer and $2 billion notes offering which marked the bank’s 17th bond offering and liability management deal led for the country since 2004.
It also played a major role in the $1.2 billion rights issue of BDO Unibank Inc.
Representative offices are liaison offices of foreign banks dealing directly with the public by promoting and giving information about the services offered by the foreign bank.
However, the offices are not allowed to transact banking business such as acceptance of deposits, issuance of letters of credit and foreign exchange trading.
Credit Suisse was found in 1856 and now have a global reach with operations in about 50 countries and 47,170 employees.
With the entry of Credit Suisse, the number of representative offices of foreign banks in the Philippines would increase to 12.
Banks that operate liaison offices in the country include State Bank of India, Ogaki Kyoritsu Bank Ltd, Wells Fargo Bank, Korea Development Bank, Bank of Singapore Ltd., DBS Bank Ltd, Japan Bank for International Cooperation, Rothschild (Singapore) Ltd., The Bank of New York Mellon, Korea Eximbank, and UBS AG.
