Bank buildings tower over the corner of Bay Street and Adelaide streets in Toronto.Gloria Nieto/The Globe and Mail
Toll Cross Securities is the latest small Canadian brokerage to give up on the business after a long stretch of tough markets in the small-capitalization resource sector.
Toll Cross filed the paperwork with the securities industry regulator to begin the process of resigning its membership, without which a firm cannot be in the brokerage business.
The firm is another in a string of mainly smaller firms that have been unable or unwilling to keep the lights on in Canada through the market's slow period. The list includes Byron Capital, Casimir Capital, Global Hunter Securities, Stifel Nicolaus, Union Securities and Fraser Mackenzie.
Talk of Toll Cross's demise has swirled for a few weeks now, and executives from the firm have not returned calls seeking comment on the firm's future.
According to the notice filed with regulators, the firm has not yet set a date for its final resignation.
A look at the web page advertising recent investment banking deals by Toll Cross paints a picture of a firm that was struggling to get business. There are no transactions listed for the past eighteen months.
The firm's web site lists about a dozen professionals across investment banking, sales and trading and research.