RBC Bank on Bay Street, Toronto. August 2, 2013.Gloria Nieto/The Globe and Mail
Royal Bank of Canada has quietly spent the summer lining up new leaders in its investment banking division.
The most significant move is the appointment of Derek Neldner as head of Canadian investment banking. Within the bank, as well as in financial circles generally, Mr. Neldner is widely viewed as a rising star. He has been with the investment bank for nearly twenty years, and started at RBC as an investment banking analyst in 1995.
Most recently Mr. Neldner served as RBC's Canadian energy head, as well as the investment bank's Alberta head, based in Calgary. His new job is based in Toronto.
To replace him, RBC named Trevor Gardner and Kent Ferguson as co-heads of Canadian energy investment banking. Both men work out of Calgary.
The changes come in the same summer that RBC changed chief executives, with Dave McKay replacing the now-retired Gord Nixon as CEO earlier in August.
RBC continues to hold a dominant place in the Canadian investment banking landscape, ranking as the top underwriter for stock sales in the first half of the year, according to Thomson Reuters. However, its U.S. arm is starting to steal the spotlight in some respects.
RBC has hired heavily south of the border since the financial crisis, and those efforts are now paying dividends. The U.S. capital markets division – which includes everything from trading to advisory work to investment banking – brought in nearly double the amount of revenue that the equivalent Canadian unit did last quarter.
Tim Kiladze