ROYAL TRUST PLOTS AGGRESSIVE GLOBAL EXPANSION

  &lt;Royal Trustco Ltd>, in a move unique
  among Canadian trust companies, is pursuing a bold global
  expansion that could someday lift the foreign share of its
  yearly earnings to 50 pct, president Michael Cornelissen said.
      First Marathon Securities Ltd financial services analyst
  Michael Walsh said Royal Trust's international growth target is
  attainable. But it "will be a tremendous achievement because
  ... they're going to have to build an international earnings
  base larger than the earnings of a lot of significant domestic
  trust companies," Walsh said.
      Global operations, which made up 22 pct of Royal Trust's
  154 mln dlr 1986 net profit, will post 33 pct profit growth
  this year against an expected 15 pct jump in total company
  profit, Cornelissen told Reuters in an interview.
      He said the foreign share of total profit would rise to 26
  pct in 1987 and to 44 pct by 1990.
      Royal Trust, Canada's second largest trust company with
  assets of about 19.54 billion Canadian dlrs, has operated
  internationally since 1929 when it opened a London bank.
      Its aggressive global strategy began in the 1980s, when
  other Canadian trusts, the equivalent of U.S. savings and
  loans, were focusing on domestic retail banking.
      The company's overseas ambitions were whetted by heightened
  domestic competition and impressive growth at its London bank
  operations, which attained full British banking powers in 1980,
  Cornelissen said.
      Last year, Royal Trust moved into continental Europe and
  Asia with its 239 mln Canadian dlr acquisition of Dow Chemical
  Co &lt;DOW>'s Dow Financial Services Corp, which included asset
  management, merchant and private banking companies.
      "It was a heaven-sent opportunity," Cornelissen said of the
  Dow Financial acquisition. "We achieved in one year what would
  otherwise have taken five to 10 years to set up."
      Cornelissen stressed that Royal Trust would shun direct
  competition with major global financial institutions in
  activities such as international lending and stock brokerage,
  in order to exploit "profitable niches" overseas in traditional
  trust activities such as asset management, private banking and
  advisory services.
      He said that Royal Trust hoped to complete negotiations
  "before the end of this month" to sell its London-based Savory
  Milln brokerage, acquired in the Dow Financial deal.
      "The international market is so big and we have such a
  miniscule share of it that growth opportunities are really
  limited only by our energy and our desire to find more
  business," he said, adding that in trust-type services, "we
  don't think the international markets are well-served."
      Aiding Royal Trust's foreign growth are greater foreign 
  investment interest in North America and increased Canadian
  investment abroad, Cornelissen said.
      Central to Royal Trust's strategy is Asia, boasting rapid
  economic growth and huge pools of Japanese capital, said
  Cornelissen, whose company administers assets of 71.85 billion
  dlrs, more than any other Canadian trust.
      Citing statistics indicating that by the year 2000, Asia
  will contain two-thirds of the world's population and 50 pct of
  global productive capacity, Cornelissen said, "We knew we had
  to be there." Royal Trust's 14 international locations include
  offices in Tokyo, Hong Kong and Singapore. The company also
  recently listed its shares on the Tokyo Stock Exchange.
      The Royal Trust president said the company was stressing
  growth within its overseas units, adding he did not foresee any
  acquisitions in the "immediate future," although "we have our
  eyes wide open for the right opportunities."
      Asked about Royal Trust's plans for the U.S., which the
  company abandoned with the 1983 sale of its Florida bank units,
  Cornelissen said the company faced a trust services market well
  covered by hundreds of small regional banks.
      "That doesn't mean to say we shouldn't be in the U.S.,"
  said Cornelissen. "That is probably one area that we will
  probably do something with in the next five years."
      He said the company would continue to emphasize its home
  Canadian market, which Cornelissen and financial services
  analysts agreed would remain vital to Royal Trust.
      Proposed government regulations to allow Canadian banks,
  trusts, insurance and securities dealers full participation in
  one another's actitivies will mean more domestic competition
  for Royal Trust, "but not drastically more," Cornelissen said.
  

