| |
Meeting the Challenges of Global Banking
Dominion Securities
King Street was the centre of Toronto's growing commercial district in the 1880s, and it was on the busy corner of King and Victoria that The Central Canada Loan & Savings Company opened in 1884. Seventeen years later, on April 1, 1901, Dominion Securities Corporation Limited was incorporated by The Central Canada Loan & Savings Company as a separate company operating out of their offices at 26 King Street East. The fledgling securities company expanded quickly and opened its first branch in Montreal before the end of 1901. Six years later, at the annual meeting of The Central Canada Loan & Saving Company, President George Cox reported that Dominion Securities "now constitutes the Central Canada's most important and profitable asset". That same year, Dominion Securities opened an office in London, England.
In the early years, industry generally went to London when it needed financing and the business of Dominion Securities was largely confined to underwriting and distributing a rather limited number of government and municipal bonds. That was soon to change as Canada began to industrialize in the years leading up to the First World War. With this industrialization came a growing need for capital and Dominion Securities was destined to play a major role in financing within Canada. During the First World War, the company was closely identified with the Dominion government's financing of the war, beginning with the first war loan in 1916. Edward Wood, President of Dominion Securities was Dominion Chairman of the Victory Loan Committees throughout the War and it is interesting to note that the organization set up by Wood during the first war became the pattern followed by the War Finance Committee in the Second World War. During the First World War, Canada was converted to a nation of bondholders - it is estimated that in 1914 there were only a few thousand Canadian bondholders; by 1919, there were over one million bondholders in Canada.
The company's United States affiliate, The Dominion Securities Corporation was incorporated in New York in April 1929. In the same year, branches were also opened in British Columbia and Manitoba. In 1937, the stock trading department was added to complete the all round investment facilities of the firm. By the 1950s, branches were operating in all the principal cities of Canada and throughout the 1960s and 1970s, the company grew as Canada's economy expanded.
Dominion Securities expanded further through a series of strategic mergers. Major acquisitions included A.E. Ames & Co. (1981), Pitfield, Mackay, Ross Limited (1984) and Molson Rousseau (1986). Dominion Securities' 1985 Annual Report describes a company with 600 registered representatives working in 62 branches in Canada, the United States, Switzerland, Hong Kong, Great Britain, France and Japan. Dominion Securities was now one of the largest securities firms in Canada.
On March 31, 1988, Royal Bank acquired 67% of Dominion Securities Inc., which was raised to 100% ownership in 1996. RBC Dominion Securities further strengthened its leadership in Canada's investment industry with the acquisition of Pemberton Willoughby Investment Corporation (1989), Marcil Trust Co. (1990), McNeil, Mantha Inc. (1991) and Richardson Greenshields of Canada Ltd. (1996). In 1998, RBC Dominion Securities began to serve the wholesale corporate and investment banking market exclusively with the move of its Private Client division to Royal Bank's Wealth Management platform on November 1st and the concurrent integration of the bank's Corporate Banking business with RBC DS Investment Banking. Early in 2001, the firm greatly expanded its North American presence when the equity capital markets division of Dain Rauscher joined the corporate and investment banking platform. On November 1st of that year, the aligned business began to operate globally as RBC Capital Markets. As Canada's leading underwriter, mergers & acquisitions advisor and corporate lender and a global competitor in equity and credit derivatives, structured finance, international bonds and foreign exchange, RBC Capital Markets is poised for continuing growth as a globally-focused operation with a powerful North American base.
|
|
