Thursday, November 19, 2009 12:55 PM
West Face lands Morgan Stanley veteran
Andrew Willis
Top Wall Street talent continues to find its way back to Toronto, as private equity fund West Face Capital landed a veteran of Morgan Stanley this week.
West Face, a Toronto-based fund that’s been an active and constructive player in a number of restructurings, welcomed Richard Carty as its newest partner.
For the past 14 years, Mr. Carty was in New York with Morgan Stanley, most recently as the managing director responsible for the investment dealer’s own investments, known as the Principal Strategies unit. The group had more than $8-billion (U.S.) of assets. Mr. Carty led teams that ran Morgan Stanley’s special situations investments, strategic private investments and global quantitative portfolio strategies. In other words, he had responsibility for a whole lot of the house’s capital. Before joining the Wall Street firm in the early 1990s, Mr. Carty worked in Toronto for five years at Gordon Capital.
Two of Mr. Carty’s analysts - Jatin Patel and Jeff Qin - also joined West Face, and they will work from New York.
West Face has a reputation for doing an enormous amount of homework on companies it backs, and unlike many Canadian peers, the fund is willing to sink capital into distressed corporate situations. It has firepower that’s in the $1-billion range. Co-founded by financier Greg Boland, West Face and predecessor funds have made money on CanWest Global Communications, Stelco, Saskatchewan Wheat Pool and CP Ships.
Other money managers, such as the CPP Investment Board and the Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec, have been steadily adding Wall Street veterans over the last year. While the majority of new hires are expat Canadians returning home, individuals with international credentials and no Canadian ties are also moving to domestic funds with global mandates.
