Bank of Montreal has hired senior bankers from Barclays to expand its brokerage business in Tokyo, as Canada¡¯s third-largest lender looks to tap Japanese demand for overseas securities.
Ryuta Higuchi and Makoto Ohkawara joined the Toronto-based bank¡¯s Japanese securities subsidiary as directors this year, people familiar with the matter said, asking not to be identified because the matter is private.
Higuchi handles sales of fixed income securities to institutional investors in currencies other than the yen, the people said. Ohkawara is responsible for establishing a foreign exchange and derivatives distribution team in Japan, they said. A bank spokesperson declined to comment.
Bank of Montreal joins a slew of foreign lenders expanding in Japan as market transactions grow and the volume of mergers hits record highs. Citigroup plans to increase its investment-banking team by almost a third, while Goldman Sachs and UBS have made key hires.
The Canadian firm is betting that Japanese investors will continue to seek additional returns overseas even as the Bank of Japan¡¯s interest-rate hikes add to the allure of domestic debt. As Japanese money gradually shifts from deposits to investments, demand for bonds denominated both in yen and foreign currencies should rise, according to Bloomberg Intelligence analyst Hideyasu Ban.
Bank of Montreal, which obtained a brokerage license in 2022 from Japan¡¯s financial regulator, stepped up hiring in Tokyo last year as part of its international expansion.
BMO Japan Securities, as the local unit is known, recruited former Barclays managing director Tomohiro Mikajiri in July as Japan global markets head. The U.K. firm¡¯s former Japan macro trading chief and a veteran of mortgage-backed securities transactions has helped lead the build-out since. Tomokaze Kawachino also joined from Mizuho last year to trade securities backed by mortgages.
Bank of Montreal has been seeking to grow its global markets business in Asia as clients look for access to North American products, the people said. In Japan, it aims to build a full-coverage platform for institutional investors, one of them said.
The firm sees demand in Japan for structured securities backed by pools of mortgages, the people said. It ranked No. 1 last year and in 2024 for U.S. agency collateralized mortgage obligations.
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