Randomly Noted

The largest bank in Australia isn’t a household name in the U.S. And Macquarie Bank may not want to become one. But it does plan to grow its business in the U.S. and today’s acquisition of Fox-Pitt Kelton Cochran Caronia Waller helps it do that.

Fox-Pitt is hardly a household name itself. It’s a boutique investment bank that specialiaes in bank and insurance investment banking. And is small – has a little less than 270 employees. But it made a tidy profit for its former owners, a group led by J. Christopher Flowers that bought Fox-Pitt for around half of the $130 million Macquarie paid for it.

As The Wall Street Journal noted in august, Macquarie has been on a mini buying binge in the U.S., snagging bankers and researchers as well as asset managers. In August, it bought Delaware Investments from Lincoln National. It bought energy investment bank Tristone Capital in May. And it bought a gas trading operation earlier in the year.

Tim Bishop, president of Macquarie Capital in the U.S., told Dow Jones Newswires reporter Joe Bel Bruno: “We’ll look at further acquisitions … The current market gives us an opportunity to build our business across the Americas, and we will continue to do that.”

The strong will get stronger.