Canada’s largest bank agreed Tuesday to purchase Denver-based Daniels & Associates, a leading investment bank serving the cable and telecommunications industries with a half-century history in Denver.
The value of the cash and stock deal with Royal Bank of Canada’s corporate and investment banking arm, RBC Capital Markets, was not disclosed.
Daniels, founded in 1958 by the late Denver cable pioneer Bill Daniels, is privately owned by 25 partners in the firm.
The deal allows Daniels & Associates – known for its mergers and acquisitions in cable and telecom – to offer its clients debt- and equity-financing services, officials said.
“This gives us an entire suite of capital-markets capabilities that we’ve never had,” Daniels chairman and chief executive Brian Deevy said.
He will become CEO of the new entity, to be renamed RBC Daniels.
For RBC, the purchase furthers its reach into the U.S. market and deepens its media and communications expertise.
Daniels has completed more mergers and acquisitions in cable, telecom and broadcast in the U.S. than any other investment bank in the past six years, the company said. Daniels completed 72 deals worth $2.7 billion last year and has done 55 deals worth $6.4 billion this year.
“We’re looking to be the premier middle-market U.S. investment bank,” said Peter de Vos, head of U.S. investment banking for RBC Capital Markets. “We feel like the addition of Daniels gets us a lot closer to that goal.”
The deal is expected to close during the first quarter of 2007. Daniels’ 40 employees in Denver and 10 in New York will be retained. Daniels’ president and chief operating officer, Brad Busse, will retain those titles with RBC Daniels.
Royal Bank of Canada, which owns the RBC Dain Rauscher stock brokerage, already has 177 employees in Colorado.
Officials from Daniels and RBC have held merger talks off and on for five years, Deevy said. RBC rekindled discussions a few months ago. One telecom expert said Daniels officials may have seen the merger as a way to keep growing in a consolidating industry.
“Buying and selling cable systems is getting more complex. There are fewer deals. It’s probably a good time for someone like them to sell to someone bigger,” said Jan Helen, chief executive of the Denver-based Janco Partners investment bank. “It’s a complex business, and it takes big bucks.”
Staff writer Greg Griffin can be reached at 303-954-1241 or ggriffin@denverpost.com.
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Daniels chronology
1952: Bill Daniels starts cable- TV system in rural Wyoming.
1958: Daniels & Associates, a cable-TV brokerage, founded.
1973: Company announces expansion to include consultation for cable-TV firms.
1980: It arranges financing for future cable giant Turner Broadcasting System.
1986: Daniels & Associates teams with Salomon Bros. for cable-industry financing deals.
1988: Its cable division is sold to United Artists Communications for $190 million in cash and stock, leaving the company to focus on its investment-brokerage business.
1989: Opens New York office.
1990: Owner Bill Daniels sells 49 percent of the company to nine of the company’s executives to make more time for other business and philanthropic interests.
2000: Bill Daniels dies. Daniels & Associates completes a record 115 transactions
worth about $22.7 billion. Of those deals, 84 represent mergers and acquisitions worth $21.9 billion.
2005: Daniels & Associates completes 72 transactions worth $2.7 billion.
2006: Royal Bank of Canada acquires Daniels & Associates.
REGINA L. AVILA,
DENVER POST RESEARCH LIBRARY
