Eight Capital closes - what next for Canadian independents?
As the title says, what’s the future for Independent IBs? I know they sling a lot of junk, but they do play an important role in Canadian capital markets
GMP is gone, Miles Nadal has his odd merger with Echelon, M Partners is gone, and now Eight.
With the equity markets still dry, and exploration companies lagging more mature peers, are other firms like Haywood and Paradigm next to close? Does Beacon even do deals anymore?
Curious what folks at other independents have heard from firms that are still a going concern.
Canadian economy and job market is a joke. The only folks doing well are uber drivers and fake students from india
and yet Firepower soldiers on
Hilarious. I forgot about them. My favourite business broker, sorry boutique investment bank.
Aren’t they backed by some dude’s family office for their investments into debt and equity?
yes, I believe so. Founder's dad is some senior exec or has significant ownership of a large REIT. But hey, at least he's not spending his days blowing his family's money at nightclubs and on vices like a lot of Toronto rich kids.
They actually had a solid ECM year in 2024, especially in mining. GMP has been awful post Stifel acquisition with the exception of their mining group who has an astounding one client (…Orla). Beacon, paradigm and Ventum .. they serve their purpose for small cap ECM I suppose, but don’t think the Canadian capital markets would be missing much if any of them closed their doors. And M Partners was arguably the worst investment bank in the country possibly worse than firepower (probably not) .. just a place where family, cousins and neighbors could get hired for $40k per year out of school and be a “banker”
M Partners was the second worst! Don’t forget about Gravitas
Word on the street is that Stifel will be acquiring Eight Capital, or atleast some of their Bankers.
Source: https://www.linkedin.com/posts/tkiladze_bay-street-investment-bank-eigh…
Del
.
Infra team is among the sweatiest teams in Canada but has good deal flow. The rest of the firm is just as bad as the other names mentioned on this thread
Agentis “mining” lol .. worse than being a teller at state street. Zero deal experience
.
C$50M market companies are going to suffer, the rest of the market won't even flinch.
Think the Eight producers are moving to Stifel no? That's what I heard anyway, and the rest of people are out on the street.
It's been tough for the ECM heavy independents and feel like the writing was on the wall. There have been waves (cannabis, blockchain) but they were mostly fast money type shit while the bread and butter junior mining financing business has been tough for quite a while. On top of US banks moving down market, Canadian banks moving down market and it's just generally more competitive.
My view is that an ECM focused mid/small cap playbook just doesn't work in the long run. It's not sustainable. These independents just have to be more multi dimensional.
It’s wild to see some of the mandates the Canadian banks are taking. Things that I would have thought would be at the mid market IB team level are being run by IB proper lol.
Great points though, I agree. I am surprised they haven’t started to do more advisory work, god knows all the small caps are going private now too.
Hopefully the exploration stage companies come back soon. But I am a big fan of independent firms.
BMO all over those sub 20 mil junior mining raises. Starting to see CIBC in similar sizes, it's quite nuts. I don't know how the economics make sense for them with multiple bankers, research coverage, ECM and big equity sales teams. The independents would do those with two bankers (one ECM), a research analyst and maybe 3 sales guys.
Nesciunt facere fuga ratione ut perferendis earum. Veniam molestiae non rem at deserunt qui iusto quae. Debitis debitis non reiciendis illum laudantium dolorem inventore.
Quod iure incidunt eligendi vitae voluptas illum. Omnis ut dolor officiis est. Natus aliquam saepe minus et. Beatae delectus ratione quibusdam pariatur architecto. Ut et quaerat alias quis voluptas quasi.
Nostrum ab et necessitatibus autem officiis quisquam esse. Ipsum eos deleniti et ut sequi exercitationem. Nam rerum impedit consequatur assumenda libero tenetur quasi. Temporibus libero non laboriosam qui sunt eius aut.
See All Comments - 100% Free
WSO depends on everyone being able to pitch in when they know something. Unlock with your email and get bonus: 6 financial modeling lessons free ($199 value)
or Unlock with your social account...