As Jefferies Canada aims to ramp up its presence in Canada with a new investment banking unit, the capital market firm’s CEO says Canadian businesses are at “the vanguard of innovation and change.” 

During an interview with BNN Bloomberg on Tuesday, Bruce Rothney, CEO of Jefferies Canada, explained that entrepreneurial focus is the hallmark of industry expansion, with goals of leveraging technology, health care, energy and financial services established on Canadian soil. 

“We think we have an opportunity to bring Canada to the world and the world to Canada at Jefferies. It’s going to be an exciting time,” Rothney told BNN Bloomberg. 

He added that the interest rate environment has “cast a bit of a cool period.”

“We see that tempering over the next few quarters and we’re optimistic that we’re going to have a rebound in (mergers and acquisition) volumes and equity capital market volumes as we head into the wider part of the year,” he said. 

John Manley, chairman of Jefferies Canada, also believes in the potential of Canadian entrepreneurship and innovation. 

“I think Canadians tend to be more critical of Canada than a lot of foreigners are,” Manley told BNN Bloomberg on Tuesday. 

“You look at Canada and we’ve got pretty much everything the world needs. We’ve got energy, we’ve got talented, smart people, we’ve got a very strong financial services sector…this is a good place to be doing business.”

Manley stressed that the significance of the Canadian market should not be overlooked. 

In terms of entrepreneurship in Canada, Rothney explained that Canadian businesses are looking for more support, “and they’re looking for a firm that has an entrepreneurial flavour and drive.”

“Jefferies is a very dynamic, very fast-paced institution. It understands that time is of the essence and there’s got to be urgency in business. Sometimes the difference between being fast and being late is the difference between success and failure.” 

Manley added that one of the major “challenges for Canada has been scale,” explaining that improved productivity hinges on scaling up “opportunistic companies.”

“What we’re going to try to bring, to enhance that equation, is the ability to expand particularly looking south of the border but globally as well, bring in the capital that’s required,” Manley said. 

“That’s what is going to enable our companies to scale up to an international level and that will improve those productivity numbers over time.”

To watch the rest of Rothney and Manley’s interview with BNN Bloomberg, watch the video above.