Briefly: “BMO hires senior NY investment banker” and more news

Previously this week: | MON | TUE | WED | THURS |

BMO Capital Markets has hired senior investment banker Christopher Donohoe as a managing director in its financial institutions group. He will be based in New York City.

“Chris’s expertise in the specialty finance industry is a great fit for the team, and his hiring is testament to our continued commitment to our clients as well as the continued building out of our U.S. platform in financial services,” said Erik van Nispen, managing director and sector head, U.S. financial institutions, investment and corporate banking.

Prior to joining BMO, Donohoe was a senior investment banker with Bank of America and J.P. Morgan, where he spent the last 15 years advising specialty finance companies and banks on a wide variety of M&A, debt and equity assignments.

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AlphaPro announces results of Gartman IPO

AlphaPro Management has announced the closing of the initial public offering of the Horizons AlphaPro Gartman Fund. Investors subscribed to 4.85 million Class A units and about 650,000 Class F units, for gross proceeds of more than $55 million.

“We are delighted with the response to this fund offering in these volatile markets,” said Howard Atkinson, president of AlphaPro. “It is very exciting to be working with Dennis Gartman again and providing investors access to his investment strategies with all the benefits, after conversion, of an ETF structure.”

The goal of the fund is to provide investors with the opportunity for capital appreciation through exposure to the investment strategies of The Gartman Letter, L.C., one of the world’s leading investment newsletters.

The fund will use equity securities, futures contracts and ETFs to provide the investors with long and short exposure to multiple asset classes, which may include but are not limited to global equities, commodities, fixed income and currencies. It should automatically convert into an actively managed ETF by no later than March 31, 2010.

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BGI offers microsite on bonds

Since the stock market cratered, investors have discovered just which investments truly were non-correlated. Probably the best asset class over the past six months has been sovereign debt.

Investors who missed that boat may now be looking at corporate bonds, but also be unsure of how to invest: through mutual funds, or directly. Barclays Global Investors (BGI) Canada has launched a new campaign focused on financial advisors, hoping to attract attention to its new iShares Fixed-Income ETFs.

“Investors are looking for stability in their portfolios and a fixed return, but traditional fixed income products are difficult to access, and don’t offer enough versatility,” said Heather Pelant, head of iShares, BGI Canada. “We want advisors and their clients to understand that there are alternatives to traditional investment tools such as bonds, bond ladders and bond funds.”

The iShares Canada’s microsite offers detailed information as well as educational tools such as webinars on fixed-income investing and white papers on managing risk, the importance of understanding fixed-income indexes and the differences between traditional bond investments and ETFs.

(03/26/09)