Canaccord was adviser to parka maker Canada Goose when it sold a majority stake to U.S. private equity firm Bain Capital.Aaron Vincent Elkaim/The Canadian Press
So much for Canaccord Genuity being dependent on the Canadian resources market. The Toronto-based firm has been aggressive in building an international presence outside mining and energy and the fees are starting to roll in.
Not only has the firm been adding senior bankers and buying advisory businesses, such as Collins Stewart Hawkpoint in Britain, it has adjusted the way it pays internally to give a bump to bankers who generate cross-border transactions.
The payoff from that international expansion that analysts and investors have been waiting for may well be starting to show up. In recent days, Canaccord has advised on three significant merger deals, all with an international component and a cross-border flavour.
The firm was the adviser to parka maker Canada Goose when it sold a majority stake to Bain Capital, a U.S. private equity firm. Canaccord's London office worked for Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan when it bought cookie maker Burtons's Holdings from Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce and Apollo Global Management.
And Wednesday, the firm was revealed to be working for the founder of European retirement home operator Orpéa SA, who sold a 15-per-cent stake in the company to Canada Pension Plan Investment Board for $470-million. There is also a financing component. That deal spanned the Paris-Toronto axis.
"The old days of going to a North American client and showing them a North American idea, that is not enough any more," said Phil Evershed, head of global investment banking at the firm.
It's not clear how much of a bump this will mean to Canaccord's earnings, as the deal sizes were not disclosed for Canada Goose and Burton's. But international revenue has already been the driver in recent months.
Across the firm, advisory fees are up by 21 per cent in the first two quarters of the company's fiscal year. In the first six months of the Canaccord fiscal year only one-quarter of overall advisory and investment banking revenue came from the firm's home country, down from about a third in the first half of fiscal 2012.