The 2024 IFR Awards ceremony highlighted BNP Paribas’ performance across its businesses and applauded the Bank for its ability to deliver excellence on the bond market and its global leadership in ESG debt and deep commitment to market development.
Collecting the Bond House of the Year trophy for the second year in a row on behalf of the BNP Paribas Group, Frederic Zorzi, Global Head of Primary Markets, thanked IFR for this prestigious recognition. He expressed: “It is a tremendous honour and a testament to the dedication and hard work of our teams in Debt Capital Markets around the world. This recognition would not be possible without the unwavering support of our clients, who trust us to deliver excellence. Thank you to everyone who has contributed to this success, and let’s continue to set new standards together!”
Picking up the ESG Financing House of the Year prize for the second consecutive year on behalf of the BNP Paribas Group, Constance Chalchat, Chief Sustainability Officer for CIB and Global Markets, thanked IFR, stating: “Winning the Best Bank for Sustainable Financing award in 2024 reflects our commitment to supporting clients, enhanced by AI-driven solutions, with a more holistic approach to sustainability: advancing transition frameworks, developing industrial development finance standards, and expanding rigorous carbon market solutions to support conservation and societal resilience. As Europe continues to lead the way, our early work on the EU Green Bond Standard helped pave the way for successful issuances in 2025, reinforcing our role in driving sustainable finance forward.”
BNP Paribas received awards in a total of six categories:
- Bond House of the Year
- ESG Financing House of the Year
- Europe Investment-Grade Corporate Bond House of the Year
- EMEA Leveraged Finance House of the Year
- EMEA CLO House of the Year, new category
- Foreign Exchange Derivatives House of the Year
Bond House of the Year and Europe Investment-Grade Corporate Bond House of the Year: expanding bond market reach
Awarding BNP Paribas Bond House of the Year and Europe Investment-Grade Corporate Bond House of the Year both for the second consecutive year, IFR editors commended the Bank stating: “the French bank’s ability to deliver excellence is second to none. Its core business will always be euros, where it retains its leading market share. But it is expanding its reach in the Swiss franc and sterling markets, and taking steps to grow its US dollar business.”
They also noted: “Not only is BNP Paribas running a different race to its competitors but last year it was able to raise its game compared to itself,” adding “it retained its leading position in the euro bond market, it continued to dominate the European investment-grade corporate market and was a contender for an award in every core business that it has traditionally been involved in.”
Frederic Zorzi, Global Head of Primary Markets notes: “It’s client, client, client. It’s been like that for 20 years.” Describing the Bank’s success, he adds: “We’ve got best-in-class execution and best-in-class origination,” while ensuring there’s no complacency, “we don’t take anything for granted. What’s important is that we deliver year in, year out.”
ESG Financing House of the Year: on the top step again
In naming the Bank ESG Financing House of the Year for the second year in a row, IFR editors noted that BNP Paribas “showed the way in ESG financing with landmarks in key sustainable finance themes, including transition, development finance and nature/biodiversity, and reinforced it with strong advisory and research capacity.”
Constance Chalchat, Chief Sustainability Officer for CIB and Global Markets, states: “We are trying to shape the market in a rigorous way, which is our trademark. We are there to build the market, not to just build our market share.” She continues: “Our goal is really to accelerate transition. It’s about developing the market with rigour and integrity, to establish foundations that are extremely solid [and] to promote [a] transition label, which is robust and valid across the world.”
Noting that “BNP Paribas racked up an array of notable transactions in 2024,” IFR commended the Bank’s contribution to market-wide infrastructure and initiatives, such as on transition finance and sustainable finance principles, as well as recent efforts in nature and blue finance, including involvement in the Taskforce on Nature-related Financial Disclosures and the International Finance Corporation’s biodiversity finance reference guide.
EMEA Leveraged Finance House of the Year: a leading role on the market
Naming BNP Paribas Leveraged Finance House of the Year for the second year in a row, IFR applauded the Bank’s “leading role in exploiting excellent technical conditions to drive through large, complex trades and help issuers rewrite pricing in their favour” and highlighted its work on more than 100 leveraged EMEA loan and high-yield bond transactions through the course of 2024. “The deal roster spanned scale and complexity, delivering familiar names in size, relaunching tarnished credits, introducing new issuers and bringing borrowers back for repeat trades,” showing that the Bank “could adapt its playbook for the smaller end of the market.”
Stanford Hartman, Head of High-Yield and Leveraged Finance and Loan Syndicate for EMEA, describes the Bank’s role over the year: “Where you really prove your worth as a platform is when you’re selling new credits, new names to the market.”
EMEA CLO House of the Year: forging success in a new category
Named IFR’s inaugural EMEA CLO House of the Year, a new category in this year’s awards, editors singled out BNP Paribas “for spearheading key advances while maintaining market share in a growing field” as the euro CLO primary market stormed back in 2024, setting a new issuance record. It noted BNP Paribas’ ability “to keep up with the surge of activity thanks to its strong distribution capabilities, ability to deploy its balance sheet and cohesive international team” as it went above and beyond in 2024.
Dushy Puvan, Head of CLO Origination and Structuring, states: “This year has been about capturing new issue. The existence of this master warehouse programme means that if there’s an opportunity and the managers want to go, they can go. The quickest we can open a warehouse is two days.”
Foreign Exchange Derivatives House of the Year: adapt and thrive
IFR editors picked out BNP Paribas for this year’s Foreign Exchange Derivatives House of the Year award “for strategically growing its business and developing innovative solutions for clients.” With a complex outlook for 2024, the publication notes: “BNP Paribas was well prepared for the market calm having revamped parts of its FX options and forwards businesses in late 2023 to improve client services and tap into demand for more complex products.”
Neehal Shah, Chief FX Officer, FICC, notes that in a low volatility environment “spreads compress [and] competition becomes much tougher. At the end of 2023, we started embarking on slight change[s] to our businesses, both in the options and forward space, to make sure that we could 1) be competitive and offer clients some interesting products in this environment and 2) be able to generate revenue.”
