National Post - Financial Post Magazine
Mark Oline and Andrew Smitiuch have a plan to turn Fitch Ratings into a household name in Canada.
Cross-border duo plan to turn Fitch Ratings into a household name in Canada
Long-distance relationships have a bad rap for rarely panning out, but Mark Oline, the Chicago-based global head of business and relationship management at Fitch Ratings Inc., and Andrew Smitiuch, Fitch’s Canadian business leader in Toronto, seem to have figured it out. Together, they are responsible for growing the credit rating agency’s footprint in Canada and their efforts are paying off as the appetite for global expertise in tapping markets both here and abroad continues to grow in the country. “It’s been good,” Oline says in an interview during a visit to Toronto this past spring. “We’re both on board with getting out there and figuring out how to win and create demand for our products in Canada.”
Founded in 1913, Fitch operates in 31 countries around the world and is widely regarded as one of the “big three” credit ratings agencies alongside Moody’s Investors Service Inc. and Standard & Poor’s Financial Services LLC. Its presence in Canada, where it also competes with DBRS Inc., dates back more than a decade to when an increasing number of investors outside the country started asking Fitch for an opinion on Canadian banks. From there, the company expanded its reach and it now provides ratings on a wide range of credit issuance, including structured products such as commercial mortgage-backed securities, in which they’ve been involved in every single Canadian transaction over the past year and a half. “Our expertise is being recognized,” says Smitiuch, a former investment banker at RBC who was hired to lead Fitch’s Canadian operations two years ago. “The reception has been good.”
So good that Fitch is looking to expand the Canadian team and recently hired someone to help Smitiuch drive business development. He said they are also exploring the possibility of adding credit analysts to the mix, but will continue to rely on the company’s global roster of researchers for now since there are just two
employees in the Toronto office. “It is sector specific whether we would add an analyst in Canada,” he says. “Infrastructure may be an option. Right now, it’s a global team, but it would be convenient to walk across the street and meet with someone whenever we wanted.”
The same is true of financials and structured products, where more local knowledge would definitely be a benefit, Smitiuch adds. In the interim, he is more than comfortable tapping the resources he has available to him, including Oline, his boss and a 20-year company veteran who was previously Fitch’s top auto analyst during the financial crisis. “I try to get him up here as often as possible,” Smitiuch says.
To his credit, Oline makes the trip north of the border from Chicago about four or five times a year and is regularly in contact with Smitiuch. He is excited about the opportunity that Canada presents and wants Fitch to become a household name on Bay Street for its ratings prowess as well as for its perspective and vast research on diverse topics such as geopolitics, oil prices and housing markets. “We consider ourselves just as much a research house as a ratings agency, so by providing that full package, we are going to create long-term value for our products,” he says.
Oline says there is an increasing number of Canadian companies that have achieved the competitive status and size to tap global markets and want to expand their investor base beyond North America to Asia and Europe. As a result, he sees Fitch’s global scale as a huge selling feature when meeting with companies, bankers and investors about opportunities abroad. “We know that outside of Canada, we stack up very well,” he says. “When big issuers want to tap the global capital markets, they want to make sure there is good information from credible sources.”
Smitiuch couldn’t agree more and believes Fitch is gaining a similar reputation for the work it’s doing in Canada as well. “We have found it a very open door,” he says. “There is an appetite for high-quality research and our expertise is recognized.” Both he and Oline expect that appetite to only grow in the years ahead and, together, they plan to be a big part of the reason why.