Credit Suisse Securities (Canada) Inc. has promoted two of its most senior Canadian investment bankers as the Swiss bank looks to consolidate its clout in the country’s energy sector.
Tom Greenberg, who has led Credit Suisse’s Canadian investment banking and capital markets operations from Toronto, has been promoted to a new role as global co-head of the bank’s oil and gas group. Mr. Greenberg, who has been with Credit Suisse since 1998, moved west in 2010 to open Credit Suisse’s Calgary office, helping vault the bank into the ranks of the top three oil and gas lenders in Canada.
More recently, back in Toronto, he led the team that advised Enbridge Inc. on its $37-billion acquisition of Spectra Energy Partners LP in 2016, and more recently, helped steer Encana Corp.'s US$5.5-billion deal to acquire Newfield Exploration Co.
“Canada is a very important part of our global energy business and I don’t think I would have been asked to do this job were that not the case," he said in an interview.
The energy industry “is going through a transition right now,” Mr. Greenberg said, as technological change drives production growth, and environmental standards shift to confront climate change. At the same time, there has been a “significant pickup” in chatter about mergers and acquisitions in the sector as companies look to build scale to cope with lower commodity prices. “All of these things take capital,” he said.
Mr. Greenberg will remain in Toronto, reporting to Jim Amine, the bank’s New York-based chief executive of investment banking and capital markets.
Stepping into Mr. Greenberg’s vacated role as head of investment banking and capital markets in Canada is Ram Amarnath. A veteran investment banker who started his career at Credit Suisse in 2001, Mr. Amarnath spent 12 years at Morgan Stanley before returning to the fold in 2017 to anchor Credit Suisse’s coverage of industrial companies and financial players such as pension funds.
As head of Canadian investment banking, he leads a team of about 35 investment bankers in Toronto and Calgary. And he is tasked with reinforcing Credit Suisse’s key strengths in energy and mining, while placing greater emphasis on growing strengths such as the industrial sector, consumer retail, financial institutions and technology.
“I think a big part of this is continuing to build on some other businesses which have become priorities for us here, including the pools of capital here in Canada which are very prominent globally, our pension funds and our sponsors. We’ll continue to invest in that regard," Mr. Amarnath said.
He now reports to Ron Lloyd, who has led the bank’s Canadian business for 14 years and remains chairman and CEO of Credit Suisse in Canada. Over that period, Mr. Lloyd has helped build Credit Suisse into an influential investment bank competing on Canadian soil with U.S. giants like JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Goldman Sachs Group Inc., as well as Canada’s Big Six incumbents.
“We’re all extremely excited and convinced that we’ll be able to increase the depth and breadth of our banking business in Canada,” he said.
Parent bank Credit Suisse AG recently reported a quarterly profit after a three-year streak of losses as CEO Tidjane Thiam undertook a sweeping program of cost-cutting to refocus the bank’s resources, primarily on wealth management and private banking, and away from its struggling trading operations.
But Mr. Lloyd said he thinks the bank is at a turning point. “That’s now behind us and I think we’re all looking for ways to prudently grow the business," he said.
James Bradshaw