If George Gosbee, the Calgary investment banker who founded Tristone Capital and AltaCorp Capital Inc., had his way, Canada would have one more publicly traded bank.

Mr. Gosbee wants Alberta to privatize ATB Financial, the 170-branch bank he figures is worth about $4-billion. The institution, which holds a minority stake in AltaCorp, was founded in 1938 and became a provincial Crown corporation in 1997. The provincial government guarantees its deposits.