Former Tristone CEO Announces Strategic Partnership with ATB Financial

George Gosbee starts AltaCorp Capital Inc.

CALGARY, May 20 /CNW/ - George Gosbee announced today the launch of AltaCorp Capital Inc. (AltaCorp), a new financial advisory service firm that will provide investment banking to the three cornerstones of the Alberta economy - energy, agriculture and technology.

Once regulatory approvals have been obtained, which is expected to take six months, AltaCorp will begin providing services in corporate mergers and acquisitions, property acquisitions and divestitures, equity financing, institutional equity sales and trading, and research.

The 40-year-old Gosbee returns to Calgary's competitive investment banking community after building Tristone Capital Inc, a company he founded in 2000 and sold in September 2009.

AltaCorp will adopt many aspects of the best-in-class energy advisory models that Gosbee has helped build in the past and will apply them to agriculture as well. AltaCorp will also focus on the technology sub-sectors that intersect with energy and agriculture, such as biofuel, biotech and alternative energy.

"I think my career track record would show that the energy industry is both a strength and passion of mine, but I see tremendous upside in AltaCorp's new and refined focus on agriculture and technology," says Gosbee. "Looking to the future, I think there are untapped global opportunities in the value-added agriculture and food business and in emerging technologies that spin out of both energy and agriculture."

Alberta's biggest financial institution, ATB Financial, will have a 19.9 per-cent equity interest in AltaCorp. ATB President and CEO Dave Mowat believes the strategic partnership with AltaCorp links ATB to an immediately credible leader in Gosbee and helps create a homegrown magnet that will attract financial expertise to the province.

Says Mowat, "It's a great fit for ATB. It's good for our customers who gain a new source for their capital markets needs and it's good for Alberta's competitiveness in the longer term."

For more information, please visit www.altacorpcapital.com.

For further information: Paula Worthington, Brookline Public Relations for AltaCorp Capital Inc., Telephone: [phone] ext. 104, Cell: [phone], Email: [email protected]; Shawn Ohler, ATB Financial, Telephone: [phone], Email: [email protected]