Asia Pacific Loan House: Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group
Making a splash
Uncertainty continued to grip global financial markets for the best part of 2025, hitting lending volumes hard in Asia Pacific as borrowers remained on the sidelines. Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group stood out with its comprehensive coverage, notching up several high-profile mandates while achieving strong distribution, making it IFR's Asia Pacific Loan House.
Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group’s biggest splash came in acquisition and leveraged financings for corporate and financial sponsors. The Japanese mega bank’s shining moment came when it jointly underwrote with one other bank a €3.88bn bridge loan to support Tata Motors’ bid to buy Italian commercial vehicle maker Iveco Group.
The acquisition and the related borrowing marked the largest such deals for Tata Motors and the significance was evident from the response – around 20 lenders had committed to the borrowing by the close of the IFR Awards period.
“MUFG’s leadership in numerous jumbo financings across the APAC region has been a standout,” said Siong Ooi, co-head of capital markets group (APAC) at MUFG. “Building on our established leadership in bank market distribution, we have led numerous bespoke financing solutions for our clients placed with key global institutional investors cementing our leadership in both public and private debt markets.”
MUFG also took a top role on another high-profile acquisition financing from India, a US$675m five-year bullet loan backing JSW Neo Energy’s acquisition of renewable energy assets from Temasek-backed O2 Power Pooling.
The bank was sole green loan coordinator on the offshore borrowing, which carried an uncommon structure as the proceeds were for acquiring an overseas company with a large asset base in India.
Elsewhere, it was one of three leads on a loan of around US$457m that financed Jakarta-listed Medco Energi Internasional’s purchase of a 24% stake in Indonesia's Corridor Block upstream gas operation.
In Australia, MUFG won key roles on leveraged loans for financial sponsor-owned businesses. The bank was one of the four underwriters on a A$700m (US$454m) term loan B backing Pacific Equity Partners’ leveraged buyout of Singapore Post’s Australian business, Freight Management Holdings. Pricing for the covenant-lite loan was reverse flexed following a strong response.
MUFG was one of eight underwriters for the A$1.8bn-equivalent refinancing and dividend recapitalisation for Permira Advisers-backed I-Med Radiology Network.
The bank helped raise multi-billion-dollar loans for data centre developers across the region, including three jumbo deals for AirTrunk totalling around US$6.44bn-equivalent that attracted lenders in droves. The bank was one of six underwriters for NEXTDC’s A$3.5bn loan, the data centre operator’s largest syndicated facility, which drew 31 lenders in syndication.
A US$2.5bn portion of a larger multi-tranche borrowing for the Malaysian assets of Bain Capital-backed Bridge Data Centres also proved popular, with 23 lenders joining in syndication.
“The breadth of our fundraising demonstrates our comprehensive coverage of clients across the credit spectrum, deep structuring expertise and powerful distribution platform across local, regional and global investor pools,” said Shailesh Venkatraman, co-head of capital markets group (APAC) at MUFG.
The bank leveraged its distribution capabilities across the region to dominate Asian term loans for Australian borrowers. Its roster of standout deals included Brisbane Airport’s A$300m eight-year loan and Port of Melbourne’s A$300m 10-year financing. Brisbane Airport returned for a seven and 10-year ATL, which MUFG also led with two other banks.
In its home market, where widely syndicated deals are few and far between, MUFG made its mark in some of the high-profile event-driven financings. In October, it was sole lender of a ¥186.3bn (US$1.19bn) senior loan that formed part of a financing package backing Tokyo-listed auto parts maker Pacific Industrial’s ¥231.3bn management buyout. The same month, the bank underwrote with seven other banks a five-year term loan of around ¥300bn supporting US private equity firm Bain Capital’s LBO of Mitsubishi Tanabe Pharma.
In May, MUFG was among a handful of banks providing a ¥2.38trn bullet term loan to Nippon Telegraph & Telephone for its take-private of subsidiary NTT Data. The same month MUFG provided a ¥170bn one-year bridge loan on a sole basis to Mitsubishi for the take-private of its food wholesaler unit Mitsubishi Shokuhin. Another financing on a sole basis was a ¥24bn loan for EQT’s LBO of Tokyo-listed medical information provider CareNet.
MUFG was also one of five MLAs on a ¥1.4trn senior portion of a financing for Japan Industrial Partners’ acquisition of Toshiba – the largest LBO loan from Asia Pacific.
Another area in which MUFG delivered was the Samurai loan market. In June, Louis Dreyfus Suisse increased its five-year sustainability-linked loan to ¥145.6bn following a blowout response from 38 Asian lenders joining in general syndication. The mega bank was also one of three leads on a ¥61.6bn three and five-year borrowing for San Miguel Corp that marked the Philippine conglomerate’s debut Samurai loan.