RBC’s McGregor eyes private-equity deals

Bloomberg

Call it a New Year’s resolution for Royal Bank of Canada’s top investment banker: Doug McGregor wants to spend more time with private equity in 2019.
As head of RBC Capital Markets, McGregor spent a decade expanding a Canadian bank-owned firm once focussed on its home turf into a global operation with more bankers, resources and revenue in the US and a growing beachhead in Europe. McGregor, 62, is looking for an edge going into the new year.
“We’re really spending a lot of time trying to figure out where our calling efforts should be focused, and there’s more and more activity with private equity and large asset managers,” McGregor, the head of RBC Capital Markets, said in an interview. “Their capital raising has been unbelievable.”
Industry estimates suggest private-equity firms have more than $1 trillion of undeployed capital — so-called “dry powder” — ready to be spent. McGregor wants RBC Capital Markets to play a bigger role in providing banking services to those firms, including Blackstone Group LP, Brookfield Asset Management Inc, Apollo Global Management LLC and Silver Lake Management LLC.
“Some of our biggest customers are Blackstone and Brookfield — which I view as almost private equity as it’s a large asset manager — and Apollo, Silver Lake,” McGregor said. “We’re trying to get better positioned with the biggest customers.”
“We’re in a place now where we can execute with those, the largest and most sophisticated private equity firms in the world,” he added. “That’ll help your brand, but they’ll also keep you on your toes, in terms of keeping up and being good.”
McGregor has pursued the same strategy for more than five years: building the investment bank with on-the-ground operations in its geographic focus areas — Canada, the US, UK and Western Europe and, to a lesser extent, Australia — with lending, advice and sales-and-trading capabilities. RBC Capital Markets has about 7,500 people worldwide, with about 3,000 each in Canada and the US.