Andrew Willis

June 24, 2010 6:49AM EDT

Rob Chalmers, founder of the Street’s newest investment bank, is miffed with his partners.

It seems one of the proven financiers who walked away from an established dealer to throw in his lot with BayFront Capital Partners used the upstart’s photocopier to print the entire prospectus for a junior company. Mr. Chalmers is taking pains to point out that photocopying costs money. While no one is willing to confess to Xerox abuse, the partners seem sincerely sorry.

This is not the Street’s typical attitude toward costs. But BayFront is not a typical dealer.

Less than six months after opening the doors with nothing more than a rented desk and his own ambition, Mr. Chalmers has attracted a trio of partners who embrace a small-is-beautiful approach to finance. The team targets what they see as an under-serviced niche, raising $15-million or less for growth companies that can’t get in the door at traditional dealers.

Converts to the cause include Mike Berry, who walked away this week from a senior role on the sales team at Cormark Securities, and anchored Yorkton Securities’ desk prior to that.

There there’s Mike Curtis, who spent the bulk of his career in corporate finance at RBC Dominion Securities, then in biotech with Lehman Brothers in London and San Francisco before coming home to work at what’s now known as Canaccord Genuity prior to joining Mr. Chalmers.

And Derek Webb started on the Street in CIBC World Markets’ M&A team, then moved to Canaccord for more than a decade before coming to BayFront. The team also includes veteran investor relations executive Joanna Longo, who came out of Equicom after the IR firm was sold to TMX Group. Mr. Chalmers is a veteran of Cormark Securities, Canaccord Capital and Macquaire Group.

In just six months, the BayFront team have been part of 18 financings, a blistering start, and all for companies few investors have encountered. The mantra is to find “emerging leaders” in resources and other growth sectors, and sell these stories to institutional investors who set aside a little mad money for growth stocks. In Mr. Berry’s case, that approach means tapping deep ties to the U.S. hedge fund crowd.

These individuals all used to work at Canadian dealers that opted to go up market, in search of larger deals that could support a bigger investment bank. BayFront is staying proudly down market, leading small deals for growth companies, and keeping the photocopying to a minimum.

source:

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/globe-investor/investment-ideas/streetwise/small-is-beautiful-at-bayfront/article1615768/

Joanna Longo appears to be president of Terre Partners: see tags in list below for her contact details in affiliation with Marathon Gold TSX:MOZ!!!