ATB remains ‘committed' to energy industry after Cormark acquisition, CEO says
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The head of ATB Financial says the Calgary-based financial institution will continue to focus on supporting Canada's energy industry following the announcement of a major acquisition.
'We are very committed to the energy industry in Western Canada and more broadly, Canada,' Curtis Stange, president and CEO of ATB, told BNN Bloomberg in a Tuesday interview.
'If you compare how we put our balance sheet to work; the percentage of our balance sheet as a total percentage of our total assets, it is meaningfully higher than any of the other banks in Canada… we are long on the energy industry.
Stange's comments came a day after ATB said it would acquire all outstanding shares of independent investment bank Cormark Securities, which has offices in Toronto and Calgary. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.
The agreement will combine Cormark with ATB's growing capital markets business, which Stange said has delivered results in recent years that the firm is 'quite pleased' with.
'We felt that an acquisition of this size was something that was in our future. We've been talking to the Cormark team… for eight to 12 months now and we're very happy with the announcement from yesterday,' he said.
'We have complimentary sectors… we are very focused on energy and diversifying, and Cormark has a very good mining business and a very successful diversified business we think we're going to unpack. We think there's great opportunity and great synergies between the two firms.'
ATB, an Alberta Crown corporation, is optimistic about the growth of the Canadian economy and how its latest acquisition puts it in position to benefit from an increasing focus on nation building and self-sufficiency given the changing international trade landscape, Stange said.
'We think for the Canadian economy, we see some reasonable growth. We certainly see reasonable growth in Western Canada,' he said.
'Cormark has a client base that is quite diversified, similar to ATB. We think the flow of capital and bringing buyers and sellers together in the sectors that we're very specified in right now in addition to where we're going to focus will be a good thing for the Canadian economy, there's no doubt.'
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