Expanding the well

RICK VALADE IS LEADING WELLS FARGO’S CANADIAN EXPANSION INTO NEW BUSINESS LINES

Not much surprises Rick Valade, country manager at Wells Fargo Bank Canada. That’s what 30-plus years in the Canadian banking business will do for you. But the U.S. firm’s successful wholesale banking expansion north of the border over the past yearand-a-half may be the exception. “I’m not sure about surprised, but I’m definitely pleased,” he says. “We’ve been well accepted at a time when a lot of international banks have exited and some of the larger U.S. banks had started to cut back on the offerings.”

Born and raised in Toronto, Valade took over his current role in September 2010 after spending the previous five years with Wells Fargo’s now-defunct Canadian consumer retail business. The big push, however, started two years later when Wells Fargo was granted a licence to become a Schedule III bank in Canada, allowing it to operate as a foreign bank branch with deposit-taking capabilities.

Since then, he and his team have been busy setting up several wholesale lines of business, including a commercial banking division that services mid-market clients across various industries in Vancouver, Calgary, Toronto and most recently Montreal. There is also a commercial real estate division based in Toronto and an energy group in Calgary focused mostly on servicing the banking needs of the oil patch. In addition, a global banking team has been established to cater to U.S. company subsidiaries in Canada, and a corporate banking group that services companies based in Canada with $1 billion or more in revenue and, potentially, international corporations that have large operations here.

The most recent expansion, Valade says, is Wells Fargo’s securities business. “We expanded some of the capabilities to really allow us to assist our Canadian customers access U.S. capital markets,”