Leveraged Finance

John Cokinos is the Co-Head of US Leveraged Finance and Capital Markets at RBC. He joined the US leveraged finance and capital markets team at RBC Capital Markets in March 2014. He and Mr. Charles Smith oversee all origination and distribution activities under the leveraged finance business. Mr. Cokinos focuses on acquisition finance and private equity transactions with specific industry expertise in Technology, Healthcare, Financial Services and Industrials.

Prior to joining RBC, he spent 7 years at Bank America Merrill Lynch, where his last role was head of leverage finance capital markets. Before joining BAML, Mr. Cokinos worked at Lehman Brothers from 1998 until 2007.  He is a graduate of Cornell University with a BS in Business Administration, class of 1995. He is a board member of the Fiver Children’s Foundatoin, a non-profit organization that helps New York City youth. Mr. Cokinos resides in Manhattan with his wife and three children. 

Kete Cockrell is a Managing Director at RBC Capital Markets, where he serves as Head of High Yield Capital Markets and Co-Head of Leveraged Finance Capital Markets. Kete works closely with RBC industry coverage bankers and other product disciplines as a trusted advisor to RBC issuer clients for which he originates, structures and distributes below investment grade financings. He also works closely with RBC’s Leveraged Finance Sales and Trading function to cultivate, maintain and/or improve relationships with RBC’s investor clients.

Kete joined RBC in 2009, having previously worked at Credit Suisse/DLJ where he was the Co-Head of the US High Yield Capital Markets group. Kete began his career at BAML where he focused on providing investment banking services to their corporate banking clients.

He graduated from Indiana University with a BS in Finance and minors in East Asian Studies and Political Science.

Tim Cottrell is Head of European Syndicated Finance. He is responsible for underwriting and syndicating all loans and high yield bonds originated and distributed in Europe including infrastructure, corporate, acquisition finance and leverage finance transactions for corporate and financial sponsor clients.

Tim joined RBC in July 2011. He has over 20 years of experience in Loan Capital Markets having worked at Bankers Trust, Morgan Stanley, Unicredit and Lloyds Banking Group. He has primarily focused on leveraged finance having underwritten over 200 deals, but has also covered corporate acquisition financing, shipping, real estate, portfolio distribution and whole business securitisations.

Tim is a qualified chartered accountant and received a BSc in Natural Sciences from Durham University.

Mr. Dickinson joined RBC Capital Markets in March 2008 as a Director in European Leveraged Finance. He was appointed head of European Leveraged Finance in 2017.

Mr. Dickinson remains co-head of European Leveraged Finance (a role he shares with Craig Campbell) and was appointed Managing Director and Head of UK & Europe and Australia Corporate Banking in April 2023.

From April 2009 to June 2010 Mr. Dickinson worked in the Toronto Leveraged Finance team on US and Canadian transactions. In September 2014, he assumed responsibility for the European High Yield Capital Markets. In 2016 he was appointed head of European Sponsor Coverage a role he relinquished in 2022.

From 2006 to 2008 he worked in the Origination and Execution offices for CIBC’s European Leveraged Finance department. Between 2003 and 2006, he worked in Calyon’s Leveraged Finance team in London.

Mr Dickinson gained his MBA at Cranfield Management School between 2002 and 2003 and prior to this was employed between 1996 and 2000 as a Lawyer in the London office of Morgan Lewis working in the corporate finance and banking teams on European and US transactions.

Judith Fishlow Minter is Co-Head, Loan Capital Markets and has responsibility for syndicating leveraged finance transactions for corporate and financial sponsor clients. She has spent the majority of her 30 year banking career at Citi starting in 1987 where she was Head of Loan Syndicate for North America from 1998 through 2008. Her latest position prior to starting at RBC in 2011, was as Managing Partner with North Sea Partners, a boutique leveraged finance advisory firm.

At RBC, Judith is a member of the Regional Operating Committee and a sponsor of RWomen, an employee resource group at the firm. She also serves on the board of the Loan Syndications and Trading Association and is Trustee of Franklin & Marshall College.

Judith received her MBA in Finance from The Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania and a B.A. in Economics and Government from Wesleyan University.

Charles Smith joined RBC in 2011 and is currently theHead, U.S. Leveraged Finance.  In addition to his responsibilities as Head, Mr. Smith heads the Consumer, Food and Retail vertical within U.S. Leveraged Finance.  As such, he is responsible for originating, structuring and executing both bank and bond deals across a broad array of Consumer clients.  Prior to joining RBC, Charles spent 18 years at JPMorgan Chase in various senior debt related positions including Leveraged Finance, Syndications and Merchant Banking.  Mr. Smith obtained his B.A with honors from Hamilton College and his MBA from Columbia University.  Mr. Smith resides in Cranford, NJ with his four children.

Tim is the Head of Leveraged & Syndicated Finance in Australia. Tim joined RBC in 2016 and has over 12 years of experience in debt advisory, leveraged and syndicated finance. Tim is responsible for the origination, structuring and distribution of leveraged and underwritten corporate finance transactions in the Australian market.

Prior to joining RBC, Tim worked in leveraged and acquisition finance teams at HSBC and Westpac.

Tim holds a Master of Applied Finance from Macquarie University and Bachelors of Commerce and Accounting from the University of Tasmania.