African Barrick appoints RBC
AFRICAN Barrick Gold, the FTSE 250 Tanzanian gold miner, has appointed RBC Capital Markets as joint corporate broker and ended its relationship with Morgan Stanley.
Sources said the firm made the decision following an internal review, which concluded the miner should ditch Morgan Stanley, its joint corporate broker alongside JP Morgan Cazenove since March 2010.
RBC, the investment banking and wholesale arm of Royal Bank of Canada, has been aggressively chasing corporate brokerships as part of a rapid expansion of its European capital markets team.
One source close to African Barrick said RBC had “given it a good push and was obviously very keen on the mining sector”, although they would not be drawn on the firm’s reasons for cutting ties with Morgan Stanley, which has advised the firm since it was spun out of US-based parent company Barrick Gold 18 months ago.
In November last year, RBC won its first FTSE 100 client by replacing Citigroup as corporate broker to Resolution, Clive Cowdery’s life insurance funds group. It has added 12 new corporate broking mandates so far this year.
Corporate broking, where a bank acts as the main point of contact between companies in their investors, is fiercely competitive, because the relationship often leads to lucrative advisory work.
FAST FACTS | RBC CAPITAL MARKETS
● RBC Capital Markets is the wholesale and investment banking arm of Royal Bank of Canada.
● It has been aggressively chasing corporate broking mandates and has won 12 this year