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May 25, 2005–Deutsche Bank Securities Inc. today announced that John Godsman will join its Large-Cap investment banking team as part of the continued expansion of this important area. Godsman will join the Bank in New York as a Director specializing in the global aerospace and defense industry and also will cover other large cap companies.

Godsman most recently was a Director in Credit Suisse First Boston’s London office heading its European aerospace and defense coverage. Previously, Godsman was an officer in CSFB’s New York M&A group, assisting a range of large-cap industrial and telecommunications clients on complex strategic transactions.

Additionally, Jerry Coughlan was appointed to a new role spanning the Large-Cap and Technology investment banking groups. In his new position Coughlan will coordinate the client service teams for some of the largest technology companies, reporting to Jeffe and Technology Group Co-Heads Tor Braham and Mike Murray. Coughlan has been a Managing Director in the Technology Group since 1998.

From news.moneycentral.msn.com

Société Générale said an "exceptional" performance in corporate and investment banking helped it beat analyst expectations with a 41 per cent jump in first-quarter profits.

Jean-Pierre Mustier, head of SocGen’s corporate and investment banking unit, said on Wednesday that the bank was "reaping the fruit of our medium-term, steady investments over the past seven years.

Revenues rose 19.6 per cent year-on-year to €4.7bn. Net income jumped from €867m to €1.22bn ($1.53bn). The bank said it enjoyed "sustained growth across all business lines, with an exceptional performance by the corporate and investment banking division".

SocGen’s results, which bettered good results from its main rival BNP Paribas two weeks ago, also reflected an improvement from the previous quarter, when it saw net income of €836m on revenues of €4.32bn.

Shares in SocGen rose 1 per cent to €81.55 in early trading on Wednesday. Analysts said the bank was heavily emphasising the "exceptional" nature of the first-quarter results and investors did not expect them to be repeated over the whole year.

Mr Mustier said: "The outlook for the rest of the year is that we will have a more normalised environment. But, for us, normal is already very good."

Return on equity at the corporate and investment bank was 54 per cent in the first quarter, up from 36 per cent a year ago. But he said this was likely to drop during the year towards the "average of the past eight quarters of above 30 per cent".

A booming market for equity derivatives, a speciality of the French bank, accounted for the lion’s share of its profits growth, contributing to a 31.6 per cent jump in revenues and 57.1 per cent rise in profits at its corporate investment banking division.

The bank credited "rising markets, strong merger and acquisitions activity and excellent performance in index arbitrage business" for the trebling of equity and advisory profits to €219m. Corporate banking and fixed income profits rose 15 per cent to €279m.

Mr Mustier dismissed fears that SocGen’s speciality in equity derivatives could expose it to risks of heavy losses amid jitters in bond and derivatives markets following last week’s credit downgrade of Ford and General Motors by rating agencies.

"We have done very heavy stress test scenarios and these show we would suffer very limited losses from hedge fund investments," he said.

Analysts said the second quarter could be an "acid test" for French investment banks, to see how much they are affected by the recent turbulence in derivative markets.

While admitting there could be "slightly less interest from investors in the short term in the hedge fund asset class," Mr Mustier forecast there would continue to be "healthy growth of new money in the medium or long term".

Copyright 2005 Financial Times

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From vanguardngr.com | Read more …

Guaranty Trust Bank (GTB) Plc total assets has risen to over US $1 billion, just as it secured an additional $20 million facility from  the International Finance Corporation (IFC), the private sector arm of the World Bank. This brings IFC’s investment in the  15-year-old Nigerian bank to $60 million.

As one of Nigeria’s largest and most successful banks, GTB has an excellent track record in providing funding for Nigerian  companies. The bank recently co-arranged, alongside 14 other banks, a N60 billion facility for Dangote Industries and Obajana  Cement Company. The $20 million revolving loan, IFC’s third investment in GTB, will be used to improve access to long-term  financing for Nigerian companies.

From Ottawa Business Journal

Tropic Networks, already one of the best-financed start-ups in Ottawa, has secured an additional US$48 million in financing.

The deal involved US$33 million in equity capital. JP Morgan Partners, Narra Venture Capital, Dynamic Venture Opportunities Fund, CrossBridge Partners Fund, VentureLink Fund, and The Bank of Nova Scotia along with Tropic’s current list of investors participated in this round. JP Morgan is the lead investor for the round.

In addition, Silicon Valley Bank is loaning the company US$15 million in operating capital.

"We are pleased to have this level of confidence in the company from the financial community," said Tropic CEO Kevin Rankin said in a statement.

"The additional funding combined with the operating capital facility provides the framework required to respond to the growing demand for our solutions from our tier-1 partners and customers."

Tropic makes equipment for metro-regional optical networks.

The company says it has been shipping generally available products for revenue since early 2004. Over the last year, it has secured channel partners in key markets, experienced real-world deployments and steady growth.

"The Tropic team has successfully combined market vision with innovative technologies to deliver a highly differentiated optical platform that enhances the capabilities of its customers’ networks," says Jeff Logan, principal with JPMorgan Partners. "Tropic Networks has emerged as a forerunner in the growing metro optical networking space and is expanding its market opportunity by providing solutions to both the telecom and cable sectors, for high bandwidth IP service delivery including Video on Demand and IPTV."

Tropic’s windfall is the latest in a string of sizeable venture capital announcements to come in recent months, reaffirming forecasts that activity is indeed picking up in the local tech sector. Only last week Zelos Therapeutics Inc. raised US$42.5 million in a Series B financing round to complete Phase II clinical trials of its drug candidates for treating osteoporosis and psoriasis.

Banc of America Securities has hired Andrew Bednar as a managing director and head of U.S. mergers and acquisitions, a newly created position.

Bednar joins BofA Securities from Goldman Sachs & Co. (NYSE:GS), where he was a managing director and senior mergers and acquisitions investment banker.

He will be based in New York.

Bank of America Corp. (NYSE:BAC), the parent company of Banc of America Securities, is spending $675 million to expand its investment banking activities worldwide.

BofA will invest $500 million of the $675 million in the United States, and $175 million in Europe and Asia.

In April, the Charlotte-based bank told Reuters it planned to beef up its fixed-income business, adding an unspecified number of jobs in Charlotte, New York and Chicago.

"We see a huge untapped opportunity for Bank of America in developing the secondary trading platform in fixed income,” Chief Financial Officer Marc Oken told the news agency.

Also in April, BofA hired five executives to bolster its corporate and investment banking group for financial institutions.

Four of the executives will serve as managing directors and focus on insurance or banking. The fifth, Anna Iacucci, a former executive director at Goldman Sachs, will serve as global head of the financial institutions group rating agency and advisory team.

Source: http://charlotte.bizjournals.com/charlotte/stories/2005/05/23/daily6.html