Citi emerges tops with a 12.7% wallet share.

Investment banking fees in Singapore reached about US$187.8 million in the first quarter of 2026, marking an 8.2 per cent year-on-year (yoy) increase and the strongest opening quarter for the industry in three years.

The London Stock Exchange Group’s (LSEG) Singapore Investment Banking Review report for Q1 showed that Citigroup was the top fee earner in Singapore’s investment banking league table. It received US$23.9 million, or a 12.7 per cent wallet share of the total fee pool.

Equity capital markets (ECM) underwriting fees totalled US$57.3 million, which LSEG noted as “rising more than sevenfold” from a year ago.  

The three initial public offerings (IPOs) on the Singapore Exchange during the quarter raised a 13-year-high figure of US$791.9 million.

LSEG noted that the US$944.3 million IPO of  UI Boustead Reit  : UIBU 0%, which included public and private placement tranches, is the “largest offering so far this year and the biggest in the region since 2017”.

By sector, real estate issuers accounted for 81.5 per cent of ECM proceeds, raising US$2.2 billion, supported by substantial real estate investment trust (Reit) offerings. Four of the top five deals this year came from Reits.

The high-technology sector followed, with a 14.6 per cent market share, raising US$388.9 million. Healthcare came in third, contributing 3.4 per cent of the total proceeds. 

DBS Group took the top position in the Singapore-domiciled equity, equity-linked underwriting league table for Q1, with US$564.4 million in related proceeds, LSEG said.

As for debt capital markets, primary bond offerings from Singapore-domiciled issuers reached US$8.8 billion, a 30.7 per cent decline from a year earlier.

This was dominated by Singaporean issuers from the financial sector, which captured a 72.8 per cent market share worth US$6.3 billion. Activity was supported by major offerings from DBS Bank, UOB and OCBC.

In the primary bond market, the number of issues fell 30 per cent to a three-year low. 

Meanwhile, M&A transactions involving Singapore hit an all-time high of US$51.6 billion in value. This came even as the number of announced deals declined 33.5 per cent to the lowest level since 2015.

Five transactions above US$1 billion contributed US$41.5 billion, accounting for over 80 per cent of quarterly activity.

Domestic M&A activity trebled to US$7.2 billion, marking the strongest Q1 result since 2020. Outbound M&A reached a record US$33.7 billion, while inbound M&A grew 6.6 per cent yoy to US$3.5 billion.

By sector, high technology was the most targeted industry involving Singapore by value, capturing a 74.4 per cent market share worth US$38.4 billion.

This was followed by telecommunications, where dealmaking totalled US$3.9 billion, and real estate, which was up 69.7 per cent yoy at US$2.3 billion.

Morgan Stanley topped the league table for M&A involving Singapore, with related transactions amounting to US$8.3 billion.