National Bank Financial revamps managementCharla Jones/The Globe and Mail
National Bank Financial is revamping the management of its securities division, elevating a handful of executives to key roles and flagging a new generation of up-and-coming leaders.
NBF, the securities unit of National Bank of Canada , said that Greg Thompson will take over as head of investment banking from Cam di Prata, who is leaving the firm. Mr. Thompson founded the capital markets division at Wellington West and became head of equities when NBF bought Wellington West last year. He keeps the head of equities job.
The bank named Denis Girouard, one of its fixed-income co-heads, to be deputy head of financial markets. He will assist Ricardo Pascoe, who oversees the entire financial markets business.
NBF also named Sean St. John, the other co-head of fixed income, to the management committee. Yanick Blanchard, NBF's head of lending, also joins the management committee.
The changes signal a new group of future leaders at NBF, and a further step in the firm's attempt to streamline and better co-ordinate its offerings.
By combining both equities and investment banking under Mr. Thompson, National hopes to better tie together the equities business, which encompasses selling and trading stocks, and the investment banking business that generates deals such as new stock sales. Not insignificantly, the result is also one less large pay package at a time when investment banking deal-flow is tough to come by and keeping expenses down is a priority.
"Our changes are driven by several priorities," Mr. Pascoe said in an internal note to staff. "First is organizing ourselves in a manner that delivers to our clients the best overall quality of experience and service they can find anywhere. In addition, we have a tremendous pool of talent that is maturing into our future leaders. These changes reflect our commitment to bring the best talent forward into positions of responsibility."