Canaccord Genuity Group Inc. hired Gene McBurney, co-founder of rival GMP Capital Inc., to head up an investment-banking foray into Latin America and the Caribbean.

McBurney, who’s based in the Bahamas, spent several years establishing an investment-banking practice serving the Caribbean and Latin America, Toronto-based Canaccord said in a statement Thursday. His hiring will complement the firm’s existing sales, trading and distribution capabilities that serve the region from New York, Canaccord said.

“Gene has a Rolodex of contacts and very close business associates and clients who have been with him for years,” Pat Burke, president of Canaccord’s Canadian capital-markets unit, said in an interview. “He’s been a dealmaker in the risk-capital arena,” Burke said, and “he’s got a number of years of understanding how both Latin America and the Caribbean region can fit into that infrastructure.”

A former lawyer, McBurney has an investment-banking career that spans more than 25 years and includes the founding of investment dealer Griffiths McBurney & Partners in 1995. The Toronto-based firm went public under the name GMP Capital in 2003, and competed against Canaccord in providing banking for small and midsize mining and energy firms while expanding into areas including wealth management.

Stifel Financial Corp. bought GMP’s advisory and trading business in December, leaving the firm to focus on wealth management. McBurney retired from GMP’s board this month.