Winner: BMO

As last year’s North American Issuer of the Year, Bank of Montreal (BMO) has set a high bar for itself. Thanks to a series of key issuances across multiple SRT platforms, the bank has continued its impressive run this year. As such, with its dedicated team of risk transfer experts, a mix of asset classes and experience in this growing segment, BMO is SCI’s North American Arranger of the Year.

While many players have entered the SRT space in the last couple of years, BMO launched its first SRT platform in 2016. The bank now boasts seven platforms – Algonquin, Boreal, Killarney, Muskoka, Sauble, Taiga and the newly established Quetico - and has completed 25 transactions to date, making BMO the largest SRT issuer in North America and a prolific arranger. And, as new investors continue to enter the market, this experience has put BMO in a prime position to continue setting the pace.

A key enabler of this success is BMO’s dedicated SRT group. “We have a world-beating team here,” says Jamie Payne, md and head of BMO Capital Market’s risk and capital solutions group. “We have a team of 10 experts, who work exclusively on SRT transactions, and that supports the growth we’ve had.”

BMO has also made significant investments in the tools necessary to support both the bank’s requirements and the demands of its investors. “As you grow to the number of active transactions and the number of platforms that we have, you need the systems and capabilities to be able to keep up with that,” Payne says. “We’ve invested a lot of time and effort into building our internal infrastructure to make sure we can support the size of the platform we have.”

And, as the needs of the bank or investors change, Payne says BMO’s systems are built to be flexible. “Having different tools to address different constraints in different ways over the life of a trade is important,” he says.

BMO’s big SRT wins during the 2023/2024 awards period include Algonquin 2023-1, the seventh issuance from the Algonquin platform; Quetico I, the inaugural transaction from the bank’s new US sponsor finance platform; and Boreal 2024-1, the fourth successful transaction on that platform. Given BMO’s established position in the market, as well as the people and the tools it has on hand, such strong performance can be expected to continue for the foreseeable future.

As Payne explains: “The diversity of asset classes we can access, the processes we have in place to be able to trade efficiently and the ability to support the number of transactions we do with the size of team we have, all of that contributes to our success.”

For the full list of winners and honourable mentions in this year’s SCI Capital Relief Trades Awards, click here.