TORONTO (Bloomberg) Barclays Capital, the investment-banking arm of Barclays Plc, is building up its operations in Canada to target more cross-border deals, Canadian Chairman Michael Wilson said.

“The clients are looking more outside Canada than they ever had before,” Wilson, a former Canadian finance minister and ambassador to the US, said. “Our sweet- spot is going to be the cross-border activities.”

Those activities will include sales and trading, mergers and acquisitions, foreign exchange and other investment-banking activities, Wilson said. Barclays, which has 45 employees in Toronto and 20 in Calgary, also plans to hire more analysts. “We don’t have enough on the ground on the research side to support the sales and trading,” Wilson, 73, said.

Barclays unveiled its Toronto office at Bay Adelaide Centre, one of the city’s newest office towers, at an event yesterday. Barclays Capital opened an office in Toronto in 2007.

Barclays hired Wilson and former RBC Capital Markets Deputy Chairman Bruce Rothney to run the Canadian operations in May. Wilson, a former chairman of UBS Canada, was the Canadian ambassador in Washington from 2006 to 2009.

Rothney, who was appointed country head, joined Royal Bank of Canada in 1991.