RBC's Hodaly leaves for Silver Wheaton

Analyst Haytham Hodaly is going from armchair quarterback to playing in the big game.

The longtime stock picker is leaving RBC Dominion Securities, where he has covered mining stocks, to join Silver Wheaton Corp. as senior vice president of corporate development.

His job will be to find new silver miners that can partner with Silver Wheaton, which has built a big business on buying future production from mining companies that are looking for up front cash.

Prior to RBC, Mr. Hodaly was a mining analyst at Salman Partners. He knows the rocks, not just the numbers. He's an engineer with a specialty in mining and metals processing. He also has an eye for acquisition opportunities.

According to Silver Wheaton, even as an analyst, he was always pointing the investment bankers at his firm toward potential deals.

At RBC he covered Silver Wheaton, Tahoe Resources , Centerra Gold and Alamos Gold , among others.