RBC forms global prime survives group

Date: Thursday, April 10, 2008
Author: Hedge Funds Review

RBC Capital Markets, the corporate and investment banking arm of Royal Bank of Canada, has formed RBC global prime services group to provide prime brokerage services and support to hedge fund, mutual fund and institutional asset managers.

The prime services business unit will provide a range of services, including credit. The group brings together services recently launched by RBC and several operational units of the bank including RBCAccel, a multi-asset class proprietary trading platform, and RBC capital introduction group as well as RBC global futures and base metals group.

“We recognise that the lines between hedge fund and traditional institutional managers are becoming more obscure as their needs become more similar — hedge funds are going public and no longer using only long/short strategies, traditional fund managers are launching 130/30 funds, using leverage and shorting, while institutional managers need more robust services,” said Jeremy Frommer, head of RBC global prime services. He said the group would be doing traditional prime brokerage functions as well as trading technology, financing, securities lending and capital introductions.

RBC Capital Markets is active globally in debt origination, sales and trading, foreign exchange, infrastructure finance, structured products, metals and mining and energy.

For more information on Canada’s hedge fund industry, see the special report in the April issue of HFR.