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Integral Wealth Securities Ltd. is looking to boost its profile in energy banking, and has wooed a veteran out of semi-retirement to lead the effort.
Integral hired George (Geo) Wilson to head up its energy investment banking group. Mr. Wilson was vice-chairman and a managing director at Canaccord Genuity until early 2011.
It's a gutsy step for a small firm, especially in a year that has seen a few shops close their doors in Calgary due to a dearth of deals and financings, though this month activity has picked up considerably.
"We felt, whether the market recovered or not, it would be accretive to our business," Integral CEO John Gibson asserted. "That said, George is of the view, and we're of the view, that things have probably bottomed out and sentiment may start to turn." Mr. Gibson added that "getting positioned and building a firm at the bottom when it's turning is what you really need to do. If you wait until the cycle is fully under way, it's probably too late."
Integral, with capital markets operations in Toronto and Calgary, currently has two investment bankers concentrating on small-cap oils.
Mr. Wilson, with 35 years of experience in investment banking and the energy sector, will seek to "move up the food chain" to target value of clients above the $500-million mark, Mr. Gibson said.
"You really have to have very long-standing relationships with the intermediate-cap companies in order to break in. It's unlikely that would have been a productive exercise with our existing guys to spend a bunch of time with those larger firms because they're busy with their own stuff. But George has been dealing with them for 20-odd years," he said.
Before Mr. Wilson left Canaccord Genuity, where he worked for seven years, he was principal, business development at Avenir Capital's consulting division. That followed positions at such energy companies as Imperial Oil, Husky Oil Ltd. and Ulster Petroleums.