BMO Capital Markets Opens Institutional Sales and Trading Office in Paris

TORONTO, Oct. 14 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ - BMO Capital Markets, the investment and corporate banking arm of BMO Financial Group (TSX, NYSE: BMO), today announced it has opened an office in Paris, France - BMO's 27th global office - as part of its strategy to broaden its institutional equity sales and trading services for European clients.

The new BMO Capital Markets office will significantly bolster the firm's current global institutional equity sales capabilities, which now include desks in 11 cities: Toronto, New York, Paris, London, Zurich, Lugano, Montreal, Vancouver, Boston, Houston and San Francisco.

The Paris office will be led by Matthieu Debost, who joins as Managing Director and Head of European Sales, BMO Capital Markets. He brings a new group, which includes six equity sales professionals, all of whom come from a global investment bank and have experience in covering a broad cross-section of stocks. The new team will strengthen BMO's existing European institutional equity sales group.

"By expanding our global footprint to Paris, we will have the leading distribution capability for Canadian equities in Europe," said Tom Milroy, Chief Executive Officer, BMO Capital Markets. "With this opening, BMO Capital Markets will be the only Canadian investment dealer with four equity sales and trading offices in Europe. In addition, this team will strengthen our ability to distribute US equities and offer a wide range of equity products and services to European investors, especially our top-rated research, where we are recognized leaders."

"Our priority is to offer European institutional investors access to the best ideas in all key sub-sectors, including global metals and mining, a historic strength of the firm," said Mike Miller, Head of Equity Products, BMO Capital Markets. "Our global equity capabilities allow us to execute on behalf of clients anywhere - extending from North America, Australia, Brazil and South Africa to the U.K. and Europe."

About BMO Capital Markets

BMO Capital Markets is a leading full-service North American financial services provider, with over 2,400 employees operating in 14 North American offices and 27 worldwide, offering corporate, institutional and government clients access to a complete range of investment and corporate banking products and services. BMO Capital Markets is a member of BMO Financial Group (TSX, NYSE: BMO), one of the largest diversified financial services providers in North America with US$385 billion total assets and 37,000 employees as at July 31, 2009.

SOURCE BMO Bank of Montreal