Macquarie Group has a new analyst covering Canadian banks.
The firm, which has lost a handful of analysts of late, is bringing in Jason Bilodeau to cover Canadian financial services companies. Mr. Bilodeau was most recently at TD Securities. He will be filling a hole left by the departure of Sumit Malhotra, who moved to the securities division of Bank of Nova Scotia.
The last six months have seen a major shakeup in the bank analyst ranks as the biggest securities dealers in Canada, those owned by the large banks, have taken the opportunity presented by a soft market to grab talent from smaller independent dealers. That has created a chain reaction of analysts moving around.
The arrival of Mr. Bilodeau, who will be a managing director, will begin the process of refilling some of the holes left at Macquarie by a string of departures. In addition to Mr. Malhotra, the firm lost real estate analyst Michael Smith and pipelines analyst Rob Catellier.
Macquarie has been significantly reshaped in the past two years, as the Australian bank has scaled back its ambitions in Canada. The company expanded quickly in Canada, buying energy and mining specialist firms. It also built a retail brokerage network. As part of the buildout, the firm decided to focus on sectors with higher-yielding stocks, such as pipelines and banks. Those have been in favour, and have generated trading. They are also popular with retail investors.
However, in the past year, Macquarie has sold its retail operations and trimmed back in some areas, raising speculation that it would go back to a more mining-and-energy-focused boutique.
The decision to hire Mr. Bilodeau, and the expectation that the firm will seek to replace Mr. Catellier, should help counter some of that speculation.