(Bloomberg) -- Independent investment-banking firm Infor Financial Group Inc. hired longtime Calgary banker Greg Saksida as a principal at what it believes could be a turning point for Canada’s energy industry.
Saksida, who spent more than two decades with Toronto-Dominion Bank before recent stints at the Calgary offices of Citigroup Inc. and Stifel Financial Corp., said he expects deal activity in the region to pick up after several years of challenging conditions. The Alberta city is at the center of Canada’s oil and gas industry, which has seen a drought in equity financings as well as mergers and acquisitions.
While there’s likely to be continued volatility until the trade issues between Canada and the US are settled, businesses are still seeking advice on how to navigate that environment, Saksida said in an interview. On Monday, the two countries announced a 30-day pause on tariffs.
“The dialog around energy is a little bit different in Canada right now, partially because of what’s going on in the US, partially because of what’s going on in Ottawa,” Saksida said, referring to the Trump administration’s pro-energy policies and a sense that political tides are changing in Canada too and could soon support more development of natural resources. “It feels like it’s not necessarily a four-letter word at this point in time.”
Infor’s Calgary office has just four bankers, including Saksida. While the country’s biggest banks offer a wider range of services and put their formidable balance sheets to work for underwriting and lending, Infor can compete, he said, partly by targeting clients smaller than those larger firms focus on.
There also have been new opportunities to arrange private-capital deals in the oil and gas sector, Infor Chief Executive Officer Neil Selfe said in a separate interview, noting that the fees for such deals can be as lucrative as those for M&A.
“We did three significant deals last year of private credit into Calgary resource companies that would previously have been funded by Canadian banks,” he said.
Selfe’s firm is investing in Calgary even as other smaller players in the market have closed up shop. Stifel shut its office in the city last June. Raymond James Financial Inc. pulled out a year earlier, and Eight Capital, which also had an outpost there, recently shut down entirely.
Infor remains profitable, Selfe said, after starting about a decade ago as an advisory-only firm without sales, trading or research arms. Such services have become prohibitively costly for some smaller shops to retain amid the rise of online trading platforms and widespread availability of financial information, he said.
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