The State Bank of India (SBI) is firmly at the top of the loan syndication chart in the Asia Pacific region, excluding Japan, but including Australia. The public sector bank has topped the league table for the third consecutive year in the region beating Chinese and other foreign banks such as Bank of China, ANZ Banking Group and HSBC.

In 2009, SBI syndicated rupee and dollar loans amounting to $27.94 billion in about 67 issues, capturing 12.3 per cent of the loan syndication market. The share of each of the other banks active in the region was less than 6 per cent.

During the year, SBI funded mergers and acquisitions worth $805 million. “Of this, 25 per cent are mid-corporate companies who are buying assets overseas and the remaining were large companies who are acquiring companies in their line of business,” said a senior SBI official.

In the six months ended December 31, 2009, SBI received mandates for 10 loan issues aggregating $1.29 billion, followed closely by IDBI Bank, which had mandates for arranging $1.26 billion for two companies. The other Indian bank in the top 15 banks in dollar loan syndications was Axis Bank at 14th position with a market share of 2.6 per cent, having done deals worth $184 million.

“This shows that Indian companies are expanding overseas and building up assets. Fall in interest rates is also prompting a number of companies to raise foreign currency loans from overseas debt market through bond issuances,” said a senior IDBI official.

This is the third time in a row that SBI is topping the charts both for foreign currency loans and total syndicated loans in the region. It was in 2007 that SBI first moved to the top position from the fourth position a year earlier. It then had a market share of 11 per cent having lead arranged foreign loans worth $2.6 billion. ICICI Bank was close behind with 7.4 per cent market share, having lead arranged loans worth $1.8 billion.

Then in 2008, while SBI continued to improve its market share to 20.6 per cent, lead arranging about $3.51 billion out of 14 issues and ICICI Bank dropped to 16th position with the market share of 2.1 per cent.

The rise of SBI in the league table coincided with the global credit squeeze following the collapse of the subprime mortgage market in the US and the recession in developed economies that followed.