Boutique brokerage Jacob Securities is adding a restructuring specialist, hiring long-time banker Benoît Jamar as head of corporate restructuring and advisory.
Mr. Jamar is a New York-based big-cap banker at what has so far been a smaller-cap firm centred in Toronto. He has advised on such situations as upset shareholders working to oust Jean-Marie Messier as head of France's Vivendi SA and Canada's Dome Petroleum on its restructuring and sale to Amoco.
Mr. Jamar started in the work-out trade in 1982, in the special loans department of what was then Citicorp's investment banking group. He then moved to Lehman Brothers and finally Donaldson, Lufkin & Jenrette (DLJ), where he was a group head. He left DLJ in 2001 and moved to merchant banking and an activist investment fund, according to Jacob Securities. His most recent role is as a partner at OBX Partners, a corporate advisory firm.
The hiring comes a few weeks after Jacob hired another long-time banker with a background at large firms. In March, the firm hired Don Reid, who was at one time the global co-head of energy investment banking at Morgan Stanley. He is now a vice-chairman at Jacob.
"We see a really interesting opportunity amongst the boutique world where we want to focus on providing clients a deep team with deep investment banking talent," said Sasha Jacob, founder and head of the firm.
Adding a restructuring banker gives Jacob a bit of countercyclical help – business there picks up when the economy slows – and something that not many other boutiques have. Canada's restructuring banker market is pretty small – just a handful of names at a few firms.
Mr. Reid said that his belief is that restructuring fits well in a boutique, because the firm does no lending so is not likely to face conflicts of interest. While he will remain based in New York, Mr. Jamar is going to focus on Canada, where Mr. Reid said he foresees business coming from the recent surge in use of borrowed money.
"It seemed to me we're a boutique, there is flow in Canada, there is an increasing reliance on leverage, and that leverage is more widely sourced," he said.