Toronto-Dominion Bank Chief Financial Officer Riaz Ahmed will take over as president and chief executive officer of TD Securities, giving new leadership to a unit that’s underperformed some rivals.
Bob Dorrance, 67, will retire from both positions on Sept. 1 after a career of more than four decades, but will remain chairman of TD Securities and serve as special adviser to CEO Bharat Masrani, the bank said in a statement Thursday. He has led TD Securities since 2005, steering it through the global financial crisis and the COVID-19 pandemic.
Toronto-Dominion has long been dominated by its retail unit, which has a sizable presence in both the U.S. and its home market of Canada, but its capital-markets business has sometimes lagged behind those of competing banks. Toronto-Dominion generated about 15 per cent of its revenue last fiscal year from activities related to capital markets, a smaller share than Royal Bank of Canada and Bank of Montreal. In the second quarter, revenue from Toronto-Dominion’s wholesale division fell 8.2 per cent from a year earlier, underperforming rivals.
“TD’s securities unit has had a more volatile performance than peers,” Bloomberg Intelligence analyst Paul Gulberg said in an interview. “Someone with deep CFO experience and deep banking experience might be able to bring more consistency to it.”
Ahmed, 58, joined Toronto-Dominion in 1996 as an investment banker with TD Securities’ infrastructure and independent power team. Three years later, he was appointed the unit’s CFO and later its vice chair and chief administrative officer. In 2004, he was named senior vice president of corporate development, helping guide the bank’s acquisition and treasury strategies. He also had stints leading insurance, credit cards and enterprise strategy before becoming CFO in 2016.
Kelvin Tran, 49, will replace Ahmed as CFO. He’s currently executive vice president for enterprise finance. Moti Jungreis and Robbie Pryde will become executive vice chairs of TD Securities. Barbara Hooper, executive vice president of corporate development, treasury and strategic sourcing, will join the senior executive team.
Dorrance joined Toronto-Dominion in 2000, when the bank bought Newcrest Capital Inc., which he co-founded and where he was CEO at the time. He held a variety of positions in corporate and investment banking and equities before being named the unit’s head in 2005.
Toronto-Dominion shares were little changed at CUS$87.01 at 10 a.m. in Toronto. They’ve gained 21 per cent this year, compared with a 23 per cent advance for the S&P/TSX Commercial Banks Index.
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