ANDREW WILLIS
Independent investment dealer Origin Merchant Partners is set to expand the services it offers to company founders by acquiring boutique advisory firm CCC Investment Banking.
Toronto-based Origin, which specializes in advising on mergers and acquisitions, will add seven CCC bankers based in Toronto and Vancouver.
CCC opened its doors in 1975 and focuses on advising owners of industrial, healthcare and consumer companies, including food and beverage entrepreneurs, on buying businesses and selling their companies.
Employee-owned Origin has more than 60 bankers at offices in eight Canadian and U.S. cities, including Atlanta, Boston, Chicago and Denver. Rob Bird, a senior managing director at CCC, said in an interview an increasing number of the firm’s entrepreneur clients are looking at cross-border transactions – including deals involving private equity funds – when selling or buying business. The bankers decided they could better serve clients by teaming up with Origin.
“Canadian company founders need to consider the U.S. market when they’re building their business or looking at succession,” said Mr. Bird. “By teaming up with Origin, we’re able to offer those clients far deeper U.S. expertise in every sector.”
Origin co-founder and co-chair Jim Osler said cross-border advisory assignments, which were always a significant part of the firm’s business, picked up over the past year as interest rates fell, the Canadian dollar weakened and U.S. President Donald Trump injected uncertainty into cross-border trade.
“Canadian business owners are revisiting their U.S. growth strategies and need the expertise that CCC and Origin provide,” said Mr. Osler.
CCC bankers decided to sell the firm late last year after co-founder and majority owner Bill Rogers died in November.
The two firms have historic ties. Several Origin and CCC bankers, including Mr. Osler and Mr. Bird, began their careers together at accounting firm Ernst & Young. In 2011, veterans of Genuity Capital Markets and other investment dealers launched Origin by temporarily taking space in CCC’s Toronto office.
Over the past five years, Origin bulked up through a series of acquisitions. In 2022, the firm opened an office in Montreal and moved into the U.S. market by acquiring Chicago-based InterOcean Advisors LLC, expanding its staff to 40 bankers. In 2023, Origin moved into Boston by hiring technology-focused investment banker Horacio Facca.
Origin advises on large takeovers, such as last year’s $1.8-billion purchase of Softchoice Corp., a Toronto company, by St. Louis-based World Wide Technology Holding Co. However, the firm’s bread and butter comes from assignments in what’s known as the mid-market – deals worth less than $250-million.
The mid-market sector represented 88 per cent of the 655 M&A transactions announced in Canada in the third quarter of 2024, the most recent data available from advisory firm Crosbie & Co. These deals were valued at $7-billion.
Crosbie & Co.’s data showed cross-border transactions made up 43 per cent of M&A activity – or 279 of the 655 deals in the quarter. M&A involving a Canada and U.S. business accounting for 65 per cent of the international deals.
Origin and a number of rival boutique dealers run as purely advisory firms, without the equity sales and trading desks found at most independent investment banks a generation ago. The stock trading business has been consolidating around its largest players for years. Last month, veterans of Eight Capital Corp. wound down the dealer to join St. Louis-based Stifel Financial Corp.
