Mergers & Acquisitions

Vito Sperduto is a Managing Director and Co-head of Global Mergers and Acquisitions at RBC Capital Markets.

He is responsible for the bank’s overall M&A effort across all industry sectors. Historically, he has extensive sector experience with origination and execution of transactions in industrials (with a focus on aerospace, defense and government services), communications, media and entertainment, technology, and business services.

Vito has over 27 years of investment banking experience, during which he has advised on over 150 transactions with a combined value exceeding $100 billion.

Prior to RBC, Vito was most recently Managing Director and Head of Software M&A coverage for CIBC World Markets in New York, where he worked across the defense, consumer, business services and technology sectors.

He has previously worked for SoundView Technology Group, Smith Barney and Kidder, Peabody.

Vito earned his B.A. from Harvard University in Computer Science / Engineering Sciences.

Larry Grafstein has been Deputy Chairman of the Global Investment Banking at RBC Capital Markets since September of 2018.  In his 30 years on Wall Street, he has advised clients on nearly $1 trillion of completed transactions. His experience spans all industries and geographies and includes some of the largest and most complex M&A, restructuring, equity and privatization deals. 

His clients over the years have included AerCap, AT&T, BAT, Charter Communications, Creative Artists Agency, Fiat Chrysler Automobiles, Hutchison Whampoa, Intel, Jabil,  Juniper, Leucadia, Level 3, Microsoft, Mosaic, Sprint, Time Warner, TPG, Visteon and Vodafone.  Recently he advised CSX on its response to activist investor Mantle Ridge, IBM on its acquisition of Truven, and Molson Coors on its acquisition of its Miller Coors JV. He advised on the restructurings of WorldCom and Nortel, two of the largest done to date.  

He has worked on behalf of the Governments of Canada and Ontario regarding their investments in Chrysler and General Motors after the financial crisis and advised on the landmark privatizations of Telefonos de Mexico and Telstra of Australia. He recently represented Statewide Mobility Partners, a consortium of investment funds, on the divestiture of Indiana Toll Roads, one of the largest infrastructure sales in US history.  In 2014 he helped settle the strike and consumer boycott at Market Basket Supermarkets in New England through the sale by certain members of the Demoulas family of their ownership stake and resolution of their 20-year control dispute.

Mr. Grafstein is a graduate of Harvard University (B.A.), Oxford University (M.Phil, Balliol College, Rhodes Scholar), and the University of Toronto (J.D.). He is co-chair of his Harvard class and has served on the board of a number of public companies and philanthropic institutions, including the US board of Upper Canada College and the board of trustees of Horace Mann School in New York.

Ben Mandell is a Managing Director and Head of Canadian Mergers and Acquisitions at RBC Capital Markets. He has been in the M&A group at RBC for over 10 years with prior experience working at an independent financial advisory firm in Toronto, in the Investment Management Division at Goldman Sachs in both New York and Toronto as well as working as a Consultant with Monitor Group in London.

Ben received his Bachelor’s degree in Economics from Queen’s University, a MBA from Harvard Business School and he holds the CFA designation.

Hank Johnson is a Managing Director and Co-Head of U.S. Mergers and Acquisitions at RBC Capital Markets. He joined RBC in 2013 and has over 20 years of investment banking experience. Prior to joining RBC, Hank was a Managing Director at Barclays, and previously worked at Lehman Brothers.

Hank received his A.B. in Economics from Duke University and an MBA from Duke’s Fuqua School of Business.