RBC Capital Markets appoints Jim Wolfe as head of U.S. Leveraged Finance

NEW YORK, July 2008 — RBC Capital Markets today announced the appointment of Jim Wolfe as managing director and head of U.S. Leveraged Finance as the firm continues to bolster its leveraged finance platform globally. He will report to Blair Fleming, RBC’s head of Global Syndicated and Leveraged Finance, and will be based in New York.

As part of his mandate, Wolfe will partner with Miguel Roman, RBC’s U.S. head of Global Syndicated Finance and Nick Daifotis, head of High Yield Capital Markets, to continue to drive growth in the origination and distribution of leveraged finance transactions in the U.S. market. Wolfe will be primarily focused on deal origination and execution, and, accordingly, will coordinate closely with RBC’s Financials Sponsors team to continue to deliver world-class execution of acquisition financings to the firm’s sponsor clients.

Prior to joining RBC, Wolfe spent 15 years with Bear Stearns, most recently as senior managing director in the Leveraged Finance group. In that role, he was responsible for origination, structuring and execution of leveraged loans, bridge loans, and high yield offerings for corporations and financial sponsors in connection with leveraged buyouts, acquisitions, refinancings and recapitalizations.

“Jim’s extensive experience in the leveraged finance area combined with deep client relationships will benefit RBC’s fast growing origination efforts,” Fleming said. “We continue to make strategic investments in our leveraged finance platform both in the U.S. and globally that will best serve our clients.”

RBC recently announced the creation of a new European Leveraged Finance business with the hiring of a team of 15 professionals, all of whom joined RBC from CIBC. The team focuses on the origination and distribution of local and cross-border financing transactions for financial sponsors with operations in Europe. As well, RBC last month announced the appointments of Paul Zingarini as head of Secondary Loan Trading, and Richard Rothschild as a managing director within the firm’s Global Syndicated Finance Sales group. Zingarini will oversee the build-out of RBC’s U.S. public secondary loan trading platform, and Rothschild will be responsible for covering many of the firm’s high profile institutional and bank accounts in the syndicated leveraged loan market.