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2020
HOT LIST 2020
ISSUE 8.06 | $12.95
50 men and women who are shaping the future of Canada’s wealth management industry FINDING RETURNS IN REAL ESTATE Which sub-sectors should investors be targeting right now?
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ECONOMIC RECOVERY AHEAD
What advisors need to know to navigate the post-shutdown investment landscape
WHAT’S NEXT FOR ETFs?
Assessing the vehicle’s pandemic performance and future potential
26/06/2020 3:34:22 AM
September 30, 2020 • Toronto
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ISSUE 8.06
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CONTENTS
@WealthProCA facebook.com/WealthProCA
UPFRONT 02 Editorial
Preparing for a potential shift in clients’ behaviour
FEATURES
18
2020
34
ADJUSTING TO THE TIMES
How have ETFs performed during the pandemic – and what’s next for the investment vehicle?
Wealth Professional spotlights 50 men and women who have pushed Canada’s investment industry to new heights over the past 12 months FEATURES
40
THE CASE FOR APARTMENTS
Why the apartment sector appears better prepared to weather COVID-19 than most investments
Emerge Canada founder and CEO Lisa Langley details how she built a successful business by focusing on smaller asset managers
14
06 News analysis
What advisors need to keep in mind as the economic recovery kicks off
08 Intelligence
This month’s big movers, shakers and new products
10 ETF update
Why investing in quality companies is key – especially right now
12 Alternative investment update
HOT LIST 2020
INDUSTRY ICON
Key data that should be on your radar this month
Is litigation funding about to become Canada’s hot new investment vehicle?
SPECIAL REPORT
PEOPLE
04 Statistics
17 Opinion
REITs are a good bet for those looking to capitalize on the market downturn
FEATURES 46 From small changes to huge gains
Three minor adjustments that will result in a major productivity boost
PEOPLE 38 Advisor profile
Wellington-Altus co-founder Frank Mauro on how the firm hit $10 billion in AUM in less than three years
48 Other life
44
Going the distance with advisor and cyclist David Barnsdale
FEATURES
RUN SUCCESSFUL VIRTUAL MEETINGS Tips for keeping remote meetings engaging and effective
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26/06/2020 3:35:35 AM
UPFRONT
EDITORIAL
A shift in consumer behaviour is coming
T
he post-COVID-19 world will undoubtedly look very different. According to the Bloomberg Nanos Canadian Consumer Confidence Index, 79% of Canadians believe the economy will get worse within the next six months. The Bank of Canada and other central banks around the world have done their part by lowering interest rates, but that doesn’t necessarily solve the problem the post-COVID-19 economy might face. As one advisor recently put it to WP: “You can lower interest rates, but you can’t force people to borrow.” That notion was backed up by a recent Scotiabank Economics report, which outlined that HELOC borrowing continued to trend downward in February, even as total Canadian household credit growth picked up, mainly fuelled by acceleration in mortgage and consumer credit. However, Scotiabank predicted that the impact of COVID-19 will cause mortgage and credit borrowing to slow in the months ahead. That falls in line with the findings of the Consumer Confidence Index about home prices; 41% of Canadians expect to see a decline. This could all spell trouble for the Canadian real estate industry post-crisis.
Only 5% of Canadians said they expect their purchases to increase once businesses are reopened In another Nanos Research survey for Bloomberg, only 5% of Canadians said they expect their purchases to increase once businesses are reopened, while about half said they would spend the same as they are now on non-essential services. All of this signals a change in spending behaviour in the near future, which is something advisors need to take note of – not necessarily the day-to-day spending of their clients, but rather the behaviours, emotions and perhaps even fears clients have about their money right now. One thing WP often hears from advisors, especially those who are heavily involved in retirement planning, is that they love telling their clients they can afford to spend more during their retirement because they have a plan in place that has allocated funds to retirement’s different phases. Now is the time to take into account how clients are feeling about their individual situations and reassure them that the plan you’ve put in place has them covered. The team at Wealth Professional
wealthprofessional.ca ISSUE 8.06 EDITORIAL
SALES & MARKETING
Editor Darren Matte
Vice President, Media and Client Strategy Dane Taylor
Writers Leo Almazora James Burton David Kitai Executive Editor Ryan Smith Copy Editor Clare Alexander
CONTRIBUTORS Jeff Olin Donna McGeorge Amantha Imber
ART & PRODUCTION Designer Marla Morelos Production Manager Alicia Chin Production Coordinator Kim Kandravy Traffic Manager Ella Dayandante
National Account Manager Alan Stewart National Account Manager Blase Wasser Vice President, Sales John Mackenzie Project Coordinator Jessica Duce
CORPORATE President & CEO Tim Duce Office/Traffic Manager Marni Parker Events and Conference Manager Chris Davis Chief Information Officer Colin Chan Human Resources Manager Julia Bookallil Global COO George Walmsley Global CEO Mike Shipley
EDITORIAL INQUIRIES
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Wealth Professional is part of an international family of B2B publications, websites and events for the finance and insurance industries LIFE HEALTH PROFESSIONAL
Correction In Wealth Professional 8.05, WP published information pertaining to Manulife Investment Management’s institutional business under the heading “Manulife Investment Management’s Specialist Approach.” This accompanied an article that focused on Manulife Investment Management’s retail business and should not have appeared with it. WP apologizes for any confusion.
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INSURANCE BUSINESS CANADA john.mackenzie@keymedia.com T +1 416 644 874O
INSURANCE BUSINESS AMERICA cathy.masek@keymedia.com T +1 720 316 0154
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24/06/2020 3:36:09 26/06/2020 3:53:23 AM pm
UPFRONT
STATISTICS OIL PRICES REBOUND
CANADIAN GDP SEES RECORD DROP
2%
In March, Canada’s GDP had its worst one-month drop since data has been recorded, falling by 7.2%, according to the latest figures from Statistics Canada. Putting that into perspective, the previous record, set during the 2008–09 financial crisis, was a 1.4% drop in January 2009. Given that monthly GDP gains haven’t exceeded 0.3% in the last year, the recent decline was a substantial blow – and it’s only expected to get worse. StatCan predicted that monthly GDP will be down around 11% for April.
44.9%
Increase in the value of Brent crude between May 1 and June 1
0.2%
0.1%
0% 0.1%
0%
-2%
-4%
-6%
-8%
79.2%
-10%
Increase in the value of West Texas Intermediate between May 1 and June 1
-12%
June 2019
July 2019
August 2019
WORST UNEMPLOYMENT IN A DECADE
96.2%
Increase in the value of Western Canadian Select between May 1 and June 1
Canada’s unemployment rate reached 13.7% in May as a result of the COVID-19 economic shutdown, easily surpassing the 8.36% unemployment rate seen in 2009 at the height of the financial crisis. The silver lining: Nearly 290,000 jobs were added to the economy in May, according to StatCan, and the unemployment rate is likely to recede by the end of the year as the economy begins to reopen. 15% 13.7%
12%
9% 8.36%
103.9%
6%
Increase in the value of the OPEC basket between May 1 and June 1 Source: Oilprice.com
8.0%
7.5%
7.33%
7.1%
6.93%
6.9%
6.99%
6.34%
5.83%
3%
0%
2009
2010
2011
2012
2013
2014
2015
2016
2017
2018
5.67%
2019
2020 (May)
Sources: Statistics Canada, Trading Economics, Statista
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Septem 2019
ust 19
ETF FLOWS BOUNCE BACK MONTHLY CHANGE IN CANADA’S GDP
0.3%
-0.1%
0.1% 0.2%
0.1%
0%
The Canadian ETF industry came out of the gates hot in 2020 – January and February saw net inflows of $4.1 billion and $8.4 billion, respectively. After a massive COVID-19-induced drop in March and April, flows began to rebound in May, led by gains in equity ETFs. $10bn
NET ETF FLOWS
$8bn
$8.4
billion
$6bn
-7.2% $4bn
$4.1
billion
$2.9
$2bn
billion
-11%
September 2019
October 2019
November 2019
December 2019
January 2020
February 2020
March 2020
April 2020 (estimate) Source: Statistics Canada, Trading Economics
$2.4
$655
billion
April 2020
May 2020
million $0
January 2020
February 2020
March 2020
Source: National Bank of Canada Financial Markets
S&P/TSX CONTINUES TO CLIMB
HOUSEHOLD CREDIT GROWTH DIPS In April, the growth rate of Canadian household credit fell to its lowest point since 2001. The Bank of Canada attributed the drop to a combination of declining consumer borrowing, the Canadian Emergency Relief Benefit and the lockdown, which has curbed spending in certain sectors.
After dropping in March to a low not seen since the 2008–09 financial crisis, the S&P/TSX Composite Index has been gradually recovering amid signs that the economy is getting ready to reopen. By early June, the index had regained more than half of what it lost in March. 20,000
HOUSEHOLD CREDIT ANNUALIZED THREE-MONTH GROWTH RATE
15% 12% 9%
15,000
6% 3% 0% -3%
10,000 1/1/01
1/1/03
1/1/05
1/1/07
1/1/09
1/1/11
1/1/13
1/1/15
1/1/17
1/1/19
4/1/20
Source: Bank of Canada
1/2/20 1/15/20 2/3/20 2/20/20 3/2/20 3/16/20 3/23/20 4/1/20 4/15/20 5/1/20 5/15/20 6/1/20 Source: TMX Money
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26/06/2020 3:36:34 AM
UPFRONT
NEWS ANALYSIS
The new financial landscape As the global economy takes the first steps toward restarting, advisors need to be prepared for changes to the financial world
COUNTRIES AROUND the world are beginning to ease COVID-19 restrictions, signalling that their economies are reopening. Yet it won’t exactly be a return to business as usual, and all financial professionals need to be ready for the lingering effects of COVID-19. “I’m tentatively heartened by the experiences in other countries,” says Eric Lascelles, chief economist at RBC Global Asset Management. “China has managed to revive their economy substantially without any secondary outbreaks. The European trends, so far, are
Looking at how other countries are reopening, Lascelles foresees a similar pace for Canada. He is optimistic restrictions can be lessened and the economy can regain approximately half of the ground it lost due to the pandemic over the next few months without triggering a recurrence of the outbreak. That’s why it’s important for advisors to maintain a long-term view, says Wolfgang Klein, a portfolio manager, SVP and senior investment advisor at Canaccord Genuity Wealth Management.
“We have the recovery happening faster than normal because this was an artificial event … but it’s not an overnight proposition” Eric Lascelles, RBC Global Asset Management promising. The US has had a rougher experience than Canada with the virus, but several states are in the process of opening, and data is showing some job creation. It would seem a recovery of some sorts is taking place. I wouldn’t say we can declare victory, but it is not an obvious huge mistake.”
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“You must have a long view if you want to get through these periods of noise where you see the stock and bond markets advancing ahead of the optimistic scientific data,” he says. “The long view, as an advisor and client, allows you to participate when the market bounces back.”
When it comes to the mechanics of the market recovery, economists and other observers have debated whether it will be V-shaped (very quick ) or U-shaped (slower). Lascelles believes it will be a combination. “We’re not getting 100% back in two weeks, which is how long it took for the bottom to fall out,” he says. “My perspective is somewhere in the middle. We have the recovery happening faster than normal because this was an artificial event. People have relations with their prior employers, and there is massive government stimulus preventing consequences of past recessions, but it’s not an overnight proposition. The initial recovery will be quick, but slower to return to full potential.” Given the likely pace of recovery and the unknowns that lie ahead, Klein suggests advisors take a “barbell approach” by investing in both growth and value stocks. “Value stocks are not working right now; growth are because the economy is seeing a low-growth environment,” he says. “Amongst the stimulus, the market is telling you it could be a sluggish recovery. That’s why value, which is cyclical, is not kicking into gear – value is
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TECH THRIVES DURING COVID-19 While many sectors have struggled during the COVID-19 crisis, it’s been a different story for technology, as demonstrated by the NASDAQ 100 Technology Sector Index’s performance over the past three months.
6,000
VALUE OF THE NASDAQ 100 TECHNOLOGY SECTOR INDEX
5,500
5,000
4,500
4,000
Mar Mar Mar Mar Mar Apr Apr Apr Apr May May May May Jun 1 9 16 23 30 6 13 20 27 4 11 18 26 1 Source: Marketwatch.com
very cheap. I think a barbell approach makes sense: some growth, some value.” Moreover, Klein predicts the stimulus to areas such as infrastructure, buildings, hospitals, schools, water and utilities will be significant. “Ultimately, all of this will become inflationary, which could spell the end of low interest rates,” he says.
rates in a year’s time, but that is because we are in an extraordinary moment,” he says. “Fundamentally, we think they stay quite low. That has consequences on the allure of stocks versus bonds.” That’s something Klein has his eye on, which he says is why he currently dislikes the bond market. “If you want to make a reason-
“If you want to make a reasonable return, you must buy stocks, but the stock market isn’t cheap. You need to overweight stocks to bonds” Wolfgang Klein, Canaccord Genuity Wealth Management Lascelles agrees that the risk of higher inflation could be greater now than with the 2008 financial crisis, but he’s not expecting anything too extreme. He sees interest rates staying relatively low, even if they do increase as things normalize. “A formal forecast is for slightly higher
able return, you must buy stocks, but the stock market isn’t cheap,” he says. “You need to overweight stocks to bonds to the tolerance of pain.” To generate returns, Klein is looking to sectors that have held up during the crisis, such as technology – companies like Microsoft, Apple, Facebook and Activision – and
digital payment solutions. He adds that if inflation kicks in, areas like banks and resources will be good bets. However, Lascelles cautions that while events like the COVID-19 pandemic make it feel as if the world is changing dramatically, the actual changes aren’t always as great as expected, making it unwise to fully pivot to any perceived ‘new normal.’ Still, he has noticed some pandemic-related trends, including big retailers that have posted strong earnings during the crisis – Walmart, for instance, enjoyed a 10% increase in sales in the first quarter. “People need to buy essentials and want to go to as few stores as possible,” Lascelles says. “It seems specialty and small retailers are the ones being hurt, while larger retailers, as a generalization, are not doing as bad or doing outright well.” Finally, advisors shouldn’t forget about the virus itself. As restrictions loosen, there’s always the risk that if COVID-19 has not been tamed, a second wave could induce another quarantine, quickly shuttering the economy once again.
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UPFRONT
INTELLIGENCE CORPORATE ACQUIRER
TARGET
PRODUCTS COMMENTS
Barometer Capital Management
Roundtable Capital Partners
The merger of the two investment managers will result in a company with $1 billion in AUM
Easy Legal Finance
Seahold Investments
Litigation financing firm Easy Legal Finance has snapped up Seahold Investments, one of the first firms in Canada to offer pre-settlement lending to personal injury plaintiffs
Manulife Investment Management
Mahindra & Mahindra Financial Services
Manulife has invested $49 million to take a 49% stake in India-based asset manager Mahindra Finance
Raymond James
Oak Trust Company
Oak Trust is a privately held, federally regulated trust company based in London, Ontario
PARTNER ONE
PARTNER TWO
COMMENTS
Canaccord Genuity Wealth Management
Envestnet, Morgan Stanley
The independent investment dealer has partnered with Envestnet on a unified managed account solution and with Morgan Stanley to support its entry into the Canadian wealth management space
Equitable Bank
IFDS Canada
IFDS will provide a full range of service solutions for Equitable Bank's new US high-interest savings account
Prairie Payments Joint Venture
IBM Canada
Alberta, Manitoba and Saskatchewan’s credit union centrals have teamed up with IBM to create a new digital payments system
Purpose Advisor Solutions
Milestone Wealth Management
The partnership will allow Milestone to use Purpose’s turn-key Advisor Wealth Platform for its advisory business
Raymond James incorporates trust services
Raymond James has made a move to become the first non-bank-owned, fullservice investment dealer in Canada to offer integrated fiduciary trust services with its acquisition of Oak Trust Company, a privately held, federally regulated trust company based in London, Ontario. Following regulatory approval, Oak Trust will be renamed Raymond James Trust (Canada). “This acquisition is an important way to broaden our service delivery for Canadian investors and their families who require fiduciary trust services to assist them with a wide range of important needs like estate settlement, trust administration, tax-efficient estate planning and power of attorney services,” said Raymond James chairman and CEO Paul Allison. “It gives our advisors and portfolio managers important new trust services tools, which will complement their core wealth management services and further benefit clients with more complex needs.”
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NEI updates two responsible investment mandates
NEI has revamped two of its responsible investment mandates. The NEI Balanced RS Fund has been relaunched as the NEI Global Sustainable Balanced Fund, investing in a 60/40 portfolio of equities and fixed income in areas like water, food, gender equality and affordable housing. The fund also regularly reports impact data to show investors the difference they’re making. Meanwhile, the NEI Jantzi Social Index Fund has been renamed the NEI ESG Canadian Enhanced Index. It tracks an index customized with a proprietary ESG evaluation and also incorporates capabilities such as corporate engagement, proxy voting and policy work.
Mackenzie introduces US mid-cap strategy
Mackenzie Investments has launched a new mutual fund that offers Canadian investors potential long-term growth and diversification benefits via exposure to US mid-cap companies. Managed by the firm’s growth team, the Mackenzie US Mid Cap Opportunities Fund “gives investors access to what can be the sweet spot of the market-cap spectrum,” said Mackenzie SVP and head of product Kristi Ashcroft, who added that “there’s a unique risk-return opportunity between fast-growing small businesses and mature large companies that can help to diversify portfolios and provide the potential for strong returns.”
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PEOPLE Mawer launches global large-cap fund
Mawer Investment Management has unveiled a new fund that aims to provide access to select large-cap opportunities outside North America. Using a systematic, disciplined, bottom-up investment approach, the Mawer EAFE Large Cap Fund invests in large-cap companies located in developed countries outside Canada and the US, primarily in Europe, Australasia and the Far East. By restricting its mandate to large-cap companies in developed markets, the fund aims to provide diversification beyond North America while removing the volatility that comes with investing in small- to mid-cap companies or emerging market economies.
NAME
LEAVING
JOINING
NEW POSITION
Jonathan Durocher
N/A
National Bank Financial Wealth Management
President
Bjorn Frohnsdorf
CWB Wealth Management
CWB Trust Services
Vice-president and general manager
Dean Liotta
N/A
Franklin Templeton Canada
Senior vice-president, consultant relations
Andrew Lo
Kanetix
Financeit
President
Tiff Macklem
University of Toronto
Bank of Canada
Governor
Kevin Martino
Dimensional Fund Advisors
Capital Group
Vice-president of institutional business
Peter Mennie
N/A
Manulife Investment Management
Global head of ESG research and integration
Doug Sommerville
Teva Canada
QuestCap
CEO and director
Bank of Canada names new governor
Franklin Templeton unveils global aggregate bond fund
Franklin Templeton Canada has launched the Franklin Global Aggregate Fund, a mutual fund version of its popular global investment-grade bond ETF. The fund provides Canadian-dollar-hedged exposure to government, sovereign and corporate bonds by investing directly in the Franklin Liberty Global Aggregate Bond ETF, which uses top-down macro views and bottom-up analysis to target the best fixed income investment opportunities in developed and emerging markets. The strategy looks to pinpoint and capitalize on market inefficiencies in debt markets while protecting assets through disciplined risk management.
Equitable Life adds sales charge option to seg funds
Equitable Life has added a no-load chargeback sales option to its Pivotal Select segregated funds lineup, providing an additional option to complement its existing low-load, no-load and deferred sales charge options. The Pivotal Select Series also offers three distinct guarantee classes: investment (75/75), estate (75/100) and protection (100/100). “Advisor-client relationships are constantly being redefined by the idea of choice,” said Equitable Life VP Judy Williams. “Introducing this new sales charge option broadens that choice for advisors and clients choosing Equitable Life.”
Tiff Macklem, a veteran of the 2008–09 financial crisis, has succeeded Stephen Poloz as head of the Bank of Canada as the central bank navigates the economic fallout of the COVID-19 pandemic. Macklem, who most recently served as dean of the University of Toronto’s business school, began his seven-year term as governor on June 3. The appointment was a redemption of sorts for the Photo: Bank of Canada 58-year-old economist and former Bank of Canada official, who lost his first bid for the job in 2013 to Poloz. Macklem was a key architect of the global response to the financial crisis just over a decade ago, when he served as a top aide to Finance Minister Jim Flaherty. He was one of four Canadians in the room when G7 finance ministers made the pivotal decision in October 2008 to fully back a banking system that was on the verge of collapse. He also chaired the influential standards committee at the Financial Stability Board, which was established to tighten global financial market regulations.
Franklin Templeton names SVP of consultant relations
Franklin Templeton Canada has appointed Dean Liotta as its senior vice-president of consultant relations. A two-decade industry veteran, Liotta will take charge of developing and expanding the firm’s relationships and business within Canada’s institutional pension and asset consultant community. His primary responsibility will be to facilitate consultant access to Franklin Templeton’s global investment platform and professional expertise. “Drawing on his background in investment consulting and his history of working alongside consultants nationally, Dean brings an exceptionally strong technical and client-service approach to understanding the needs and priorities of consultants and their clients,” said Bill Tsotsos, head of institutional at Franklin Templeton Canada. “We are excited to have Dean lead our expanded efforts among our partners in this very important segment of the market in Canada.”
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UPFRONT
ETF UPDATE NEWS BRIEFS Brompton Funds unveils two new dividend-focused active ETFs
Brompton Funds has launched two new actively managed ETFs on the TSX: the Brompton Global Real Assets Dividend ETF (BREA) and the Brompton North American Low Volatility Dividend ETF (BLOV). BREA invests in a diversified portfolio of global real asset companies, including those that own and operate power plants, pipelines, transportation infrastructure, telecommunications networks, commodities-related businesses and real estate. BLOV, meanwhile, invests in equities from North American issuers with a market cap more than $5 billion; its portfolio is constructed to generate lower volatility than the broad equity market.
Desjardins adds new ETF to responsible investment lineup
Desjardins Global Asset Management has bolstered its responsible investment ETF shelf with the launch of the Desjardins RI Developed ex-USA exCanada Low CO2 Index ETF (DRMD). Trading on the TSX, DRMD seeks to replicate the performance of the Scientific Beta Desjardins Developed ex-USA ex-Canada RI Low Carbon Index, investing mainly in large- and mid-cap companies while aiming to significantly reduce the portfolio’s weighted average carbon intensity and ensure all issuers meet pre-determined ESG standards.
RBC iShares expands its sustainable ETF offerings
RBC iShares has added three new fossil-fuel-screened funds to its suite of iShares ESG ETFs: the iShares ESG Advanced MSCI Canada Index ETF(XCSR), iShares ESG Advanced MSCI USA Index ETF (XUSR) and
10
iShares ESG Advanced MSCI EAFE Index ETF (XDSR). All three funds track MSCI indexes that apply extensive business involvement screens to filter out companies involved in industries such as fossil fuels, adult entertainment, alcohol, gambling, tobacco, genetic engineering, weapons, for-profit prisons, predatory lending, palm oil and nuclear power, as well as companies involved in severe business controversies.
Hamilton ETFs eyes shakeup of financial sector funds
Hamilton ETFs has announced plans to revamp its entire lineup of financial sector ETFs. The firm is proposing to terminate five existing ETFs – the Hamilton Australian Financials Yield ETF, Hamilton Global Financials Yield ETF, Hamilton Global Bank ETF, Hamilton Canadian Bank Variable-Weight ETF and Hamilton US Mid-Cap Financials ETF – in a slew of mergers into new ETFs. Aside from slightly different investment objectives for each fund, Hamilton said the mergers would result in lower costs, as each continuing fund will be offered for 10 basis points less than the corresponding existing fund.
CI Investments teams up with DoubleLine for new funds CI Investments has rolled out three new income mandates that will be subadvised by DoubleLine Capital and legendary ‘bond king’ Jeffrey Gundlach. The three funds – the CI DoubleLine Total Return Bond US$ Fund, CI DoubleLine Core Plus Fixed Income US$ Fund and CI DoubleLine Income US$ Fund – are available in both mutual fund and ETF series; the ETF versions began trading in mid-May on the TSX. The new funds expand CI’s extensive fixed income lineup, which already has approximately $40 billion in assets under management.
COVID-19 puts the spotlight on quality If the pandemic has shown investors anything, it’s that quality companies are more important than ever in portfolios While the COVID-19 pandemic has dealt the markets blow after blow over the last few months, the importance of quality in portfolios has remained clear. No one knows this better than Harvest Portfolios president and CEO Michael Kovacs, whose tenure in the financial industry spans some of the worst crashes in recent history. “Whether buying stocks, fixed income or ETF products, you need look at the underlying issuer or the company behind it,” Kovacs explains. “When you look at quality, you look at companies that can come back from a crisis like this and do well in the future. When I think about it throughout my career, which started just before the stock market crash in 1987, then I witnessed the bailout of Long Term Capital in 1998, tech crash in 2001, financial crisis in 2008 and now what we are going through with COVID-19, at the end of the day, I have seen that quality comes back first. That’s why it’s important to focus on good products that hold quality companies. “When we define quality at Harvest, we look at excellent companies run by fantastic management teams, with great long-term product lines and the ability to grow cash flow and earnings and pay
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dividends consistently year after year.” That’s the approach Harvest took with its Brand Leaders Income Plus ETF (HBF), which boasts a who’s who of large-cap American and European companies that have track records that transcend time and borders. Kovacs points to Disney as one example in HBF’s portfolio.
“When you look at quality, you look at companies that can come back from a crisis like this” “We are watching Disney, our parents and grandparents watched Disney, and grandparents now watch with their grandkids, so it has really transcended time, and that quality is there,” he says. “The same is true with CocaCola and various products. When putting together the Brand Leaders portfolio, those were the great companies we wanted to make sure we filled it with.” Kovacs adds that the current investment climate presents opportunities to get quality companies at reduced valuations. “It’s times like this that you see opportunities,” he says. “Whether or not we are at the bottom, I think we are at a good buying point. There could be other points in the future, but where we are sitting right now represents some good value. If you liked the stock or ETF when it was $25, why wouldn’t you like it at $18? If you own quality and are comfortable with it, then take advantage of these opportunities.”
Q&A
Hussein Rashid ETF strategist INVESCO CANADA
Years in the industry 10 Fast fact Invesco Canada offers currency-hedged access to high-yield bonds through the Invesco Fundamental High Yield Corporate Bond Index ETF – CAD-Hedged (PFH.F)
Opportunities in currency and high-yield bonds How can ETF investors capitalize on the strength of the US dollar to the Canadian dollar? When the USD is appreciating relative to the CAD, an unhedged ETF holding USD securities should add excess return relative to a currency-hedged strategy. Since the middle of 2011, investors holding an unhedged US equity strategy would have outperformed a currency-hedged US equity strategy, since holding US-dollardenominated securities was favourable. This year, the USD was trading against the CAD at highs not seen since early 2003. The current level provides a potential opportunity to capture the recent outperformance of the USD. Investors holding either unhedged US strategies or US-listed strategies may be able to capitalize by rotating into CAD-hedged versions of the same strategy.
What opportunities has the recent spike in high-yield bond spreads created? Historically, as high-yield credit spreads tighten from their peaks, we see strong performance from high-yield bonds. With the recent market volatility due to COVID-19, we have seen high-yield bond spreads widen to levels not seen since 2008. This should provide a favourable opportunity to allocate to high-yield bonds.
What risks are associated with high-yield bonds? First, we have not seen the full effect of the pandemic on corporations, especially in terms of defaults. Spreads may continue to widen, especially if the default rate climbs significantly. Additionally, companies are increasing the amount of debt in their capital structures, and some are maxing out their credit lines to increase cash flow. Low interest rates are also helping to fuel an increase in debt issuance. Due to this uncertainty, investors may want to look at high-yield bonds that are rated B or higher. Although CCC and lower-rated bonds tend to have higher yields, they also tend to have higher average default rates, so investors should be cautious about what portion of the high-yield market they allocate to in this environment.
What’s the best way for advisors to take advantage of these opportunities while limiting future risks? The Invesco Fundamental High Yield Corporate Bond Index ETF (PFH.F) applies a fundamental indexing strategy to the US corporate high-yield bond market, rather than a traditional market capitalization weighting strategy. This strategy emphasizes debt service capacity, as opposed to debt size, by weighting holdings according to business fundamentals – i.e. a company’s sales, cash flow, dividends and book value. Additionally, the ETF invests primarily in higher-rated bonds within the high-yield space.
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26/06/2020 3:37:49 AM
UPFRONT
ALTERNATIVE INVESTMENT UPDATE
The recent rise of litigation funding An area already favoured by institutional investors could be poised to grow as more organizations learn about the benefits
ties are more commonly using it as a form of liquidity or capital to access. Litigation funding generally falls into two camps: commercial claims and personal injury matters. Omni Bridgeway concentrates solely on the former – areas like intellectual property and contract disputes, securityrelated claims, conspiracy and fraud, and insolvency and restructuring. Because the main downside risk is being unsuccessful
“We’re very optimistic that there is opportunity for growth in Canada”
Litigation funding is a relatively niche investment vehicle, but one that’s attracting increased interest – both from companies interested in using it as a tool for funding legal operations and from large institutional investors such as the Harvard Endowment Fund, which have seen its potential to offer uncorrelated returns. “Litigation funding is a form of project financing,” explains Paul Rand, CIO for Canada at global litigation funder Omni Bridgeway. “We provide capital to clients to
NEWS BRIEFS
pay legal fees, disbursements and provide protection against exposure to adverse cost orders. We pay fees along the way; lawyers get paid; clients don’t have to pay – and, when successful, they give up a portion in exchange for seeing the case through. The litigation, whether an individual case or portfolio of cases, is the collateral to the investment.” Rand sees many benefits to litigation funding. For some parties, it offers access to justice when they don’t have the resources themselves. In addition, capitalized enti-
Gold-backed ETFs see surge in inflows
The demand for gold as a safe-haven investment was apparent in the first quarter of 2020 as gold-backed ETFs saw a surge in inflows prompted by the COVID-19 pandemic. According to the World Gold Council, global investment in gold saw year-over-year growth of 80%, reaching a four-year high of US$539.6 trillion. Bar and coin investment decreased by 6% relative to the previous quarter, but that was offset by a 10% rise in gold inflows, which surged by a record US$23 billion during the quarter.
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in a funded case, Omni Bridgeway seeks to partner with the best possible lawyers with strong cases, which is where the team’s expertise as former litigators comes into play. “We are highly selective,” Rand says. “We sometimes find ourselves in conversations with great lawyers and clients, talking about a claim that is really strong, but it won’t work within our framework, so we end up passing.” With an estimated total annual legal spend of more than $27 billion, the Canadian market is one with long-term potential for litigation funding, Rand believes. “Litigation funding will continue to be accessed in the coming years as more companies look to the option of using other people’s money to sustain their legal expenses,” he says. “We’re very optimistic that there is opportunity for growth in Canada.”
Mortgage giant opens fund to retail investors
CMLS Asset Management has opened its mortgage fund to retail investors, confident that it has the expertise and resources to provide consistent yield in challenging economic times. With around $40 million in AUM, the CMLS Mortgage Fund has a 12-year track record and was originally created to give partners an opportunity to invest alongside institutional clients. Its strategy has been expanded to enhance returns by investing in inefficient markets, aiming to continue providing a 5% to 7% average return, net of fees.
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Q&A
David MacNicol President and portfolio manager MACNICOL AND ASSOCIATES
Years in the industry 30+ Fast fact MacNicol established MacNicol and Associates in 2001 after spending two decades working in investment management
Gold’s value soars amid the pandemic Gold and precious metal investing has gained a lot of attention recently. What do advisors need to know about the sector?
we see a lot more uptake there as intuitions start to look for safe harbours.
We have been long-time precious metal investors, dating back to 2002. Our premise in 2002 was that there was too much government debt. Now the debt levels have gone up between 10 and 20 times since 2002. Debt is a major concern. We believe in the true value of hard assets, and gold is probably the hardest of all assets. We like a balance between the commodity and the mining companies. The gold miners we like tend to be the large-cap ones that have production. Some have been shut in right now because of the virus, but we are still seeing the ones in production have great earnings due to the appreciation of the commodity. Gold is not something you can analyze and look at future earnings, but we do have an insight to the flows of the commodity and use of it. We see a target of about $2,000 per ounce by the end of the year.
Is this latest rise in its value an indicator that gold is still looked at as insurance in portfolios?
With valuations near nine-year highs, is it risky to get into gold at this point? No, I don’t believe so. I think gold is in a bull market right now – I think it has a number of favourable things happening for it. It is definitely under-owned by Americans and US intuitions. We have seen reports that only 1% to 3% of their portfolios are in gold, the commodity and miners. So
CI Investments adds to liquid alt offerings
CI Investments has launched its fourth liquid alternative fund, the CI Marret Alternative Enhanced Yield Fund (CMEY). Managed by Marret Asset Management, CMEY aims to provide income with low volatility over a market cycle, regardless of market conditions or general market direction. Targeting low correlation to equities and traditional income, CMEY offers exposure to nontraditional investment strategies with the potential to enhance diversification, returns and risk management.
I think so. You are seeing challenges in emerging markets right now – the strong US dollar has been challenging for those markets. They are all battling the virus, but meanwhile their currencies tend to be pegged to the USD. Gold is, in effect, also pegged to the USD. If the USD comes under pressure – and we imagine that could happen in time; we don’t think the Fed is that concerned with the currency, they are more concerned with stock markets and where they are heading, especially in a political year with elections in November – gold is being pulled alongside the USD. As the USD comes down in price, that is a positive effect for gold and potentially those emerging markets.
What’s your view on how much gold investors should have in their portfolios? Most of our clients have between 10% and 20% in both physical commodities of precious metals and also in quality public mining companies. We think up to 20% weighting is a prudent way to store some value. It can be used as a source for cash down the road when markets get back to normal after there is some kind of vaccine or solution to the virus concern.
Auspice Capital closes Canadian crude oil fund
Auspice Capital Advisors has terminated its Canadian Crude Oil Index ETF (CCX), citing market pressures brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic. “While the CCX was the top-performing ETF in 2019 and has played an innovative role as the only way for investors to trade the price of Canadian heavy oil, along with creating financial liquidity for the market, the current economic and political environment has made it uneconomic for the CCX to persist,” said Auspice founder and CIO Tim Pickering.
Private debt firm eyes underserved market
Private Debt Partners (PDP), a newly launched Canadian investment firm, is raising its first-ever fund aimed at lending to Canadian mid-market businesses. PDP’s $750 million Senior Secured Direct Lending Fund aims to build a multiple-sector portfolio of longterm, fixed-rate senior secured loans to high-quality companies. PDP founder and managing partner Jeffrey Deacon said the firm expects that “alternative debt instruments will be ... vital to fuel the economic recovery.”
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26/06/2020 3:38:06 AM
PEOPLE
INDUSTRY ICON
LOOKING OUT FOR THE LITTLE GUY When Lisa Langley founded Emerge Capital Management, her mission was to service smaller managers with strong performance and compelling stories who had been neglected. Today, she’s bringing that same approach to Emerge Canada
IN MORE THAN 30 years in the financial industry, Lisa Langley’s experiences have taken her from Canada to the US to Scotland. Seeing how the industry works in different countries gave Langley the idea to focus on smaller, lesser-known managers and provide them with service and support that they couldn’t find elsewhere. In 2016, she founded Emerge Capital Management in the US based on that idea; last year, she expanded on it with the founding of Emerge Canada. Today, as Emerge Canada celebrates the one-year anniversary of its first suite of ETFs, she says she’s just getting started. Langley was exposed to the industry early on, growing up with a father who was an advisor. “I had experience from an early age, helping my father with paperwork,” she says. “I developed a love for the industry. I understood how he earned a living and the importance of client relationships.”
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Yet Langley decided that she was more comfortable on the institutional side of the industry, helping multiple advisors rather than building her own book of business. She
pendently managed accounts supplier in Canada,” she says. “Prior to that, they were only offered at bank-owned firms – there was no way for an advisor to move separate
“The name Emerge represents those who are emerging, trying to do something different with excellence. Each manager we currently support stands out with us for that” began her career with T. Rowe Price, then had the opportunity to come to Toronto, where she began working with CIBC, helping to launch CIBC Financial Planning and later joining First Asset. “At First Asset, we launched First Asset Advisory Services, the first separately, inde-
accounts in kind. We worked very hard, built very quietly, got everything in place and had record growth. It was highly disruptive, enabling advisors to move to different firms and take accounts with them.” After First Asset was sold, Langley moved to the regulatory side, taking a compli-
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PROFILE Name: Lisa Langley Title: Founder and CEO Company: Emerge Canada Years in the industry: 33 Based in: Toronto and Buffalo, New York Career highlight: Having the opportunity to start new businesses ance role with what is now IIROC, before accepting a position in Scotland. When she returned to North America, it was with a boutique investment management firm called Sandhill Investment Management, where she laid the groundwork for Emerge. “We came to an agreement where I got a distribution contract to start my own firm: Emerge. It was with Sandhill’s full support,” she says. “Since then, we have learned what we are good at, how to build out a team, gather assets and work in a niche way. The name Emerge represents those who are emerging, trying to do something different with excellence. Each manager we currently support stands out with us for that.”
Cross-border challenges In early 2019, Langley expanded Emerge north of the border, founding Emerge Canada. “We have been fortunate to have a great team in Canada and the US,” she says. “We share expertise, behind-thescenes things and leverage resources so both succeed individually.” Running both a US and a Canadian business brought the challenge of bridging two very different environments, but based on her experiences in both countries, Langley was confident she could find success where others had failed. “Very few organizations have a seamless
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26/06/2020 3:38:51 AM
PEOPLE
INDUSTRY ICON
North American offer,” she explains. “You have seen US companies come to Canada who didn’t appreciate the culture, failed and left. Then you have others who look at the US and partner with other firms, and their story gets lost because the US brand is so big. I don’t think there has been a successful North American firm that helps Canadian asset managers enter the US market and helps new US managers successfully enter the Canadian market. It has always been some-
has been a tremendous benefit for our first suite of ETFs to be with them.”
Room to grow With that ETF suite approaching the one-year mark, Langley is turning her attention to Emerge’s future growth. “We’d like to introduce new fund families in Canada in 2020 and are planning to expand the separate accounts roster,” she says. “We’d also like to build out the team and remote servi-
“I don’t think there has been a successful North American firm that helps Canadian asset managers enter the US market and helps new US managers successfully enter the Canadian market. It has always been something I wanted to do – connect the dots and have that seamless offering” thing I wanted to do – connect the dots and have that seamless offering.” In doing so, Langley is proving that there are no limits to being small. Last year, Emerge launched its first suite of Canadian ETFs: five actively managed thematic funds focused on the evolution of technology, subadvised by ARK Invest. “ARK has an amazing story that very few people know,” Langley says. “They built a research organization that focuses on their core themes: genomics, automation, fintech, next-generation internet and deep learning. They took research analysts from those industries and taught them to do the financial piece. They have shared their research and have created actively managed ETFs in the most difficult areas that are so unique. It
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EMERGE CANADA AT A GLANCE
cing capabilities. We are building a sustainable wealth management organization that focuses on diversity – diversity of talent in managers and diversity in our team. We are advocates of that and making good strides.” While growth and diversity are the goals, Langley recognizes that they’re also challenges. She says her role as CEO of Emerge Canada has been the biggest challenge of her career, but she believes it’s important to have confidence in her decisions and to keep moving forward. “People told me when I tested my business case for Emerge that it’s going to be tough focusing on managers no one has heard of, but that’s exactly what I did,” she says. “If you believe you can do it, you truly can, but you must stay committed and not sway.”
YEAR FOUNDED 2019
HEADQUARTERS Toronto
PRODUCTS Five ETFs (Emerge ARK Global Disruptive Innovation, Emerge ARK Genomics & Biotech, Emerge ARK Fintech Innovation, Emerge ARK AI & Big Data, Emerge ARK Autonomous Tech & Robotics) and one separate account strategy (ARK Disrupt Innovation Strategy)
AUM $28.3 million (Canadian ETFs)
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20/07/2020 6:46:33 AM
UPFRONT
OPINION
GOT AN OPINION THAT COUNTS? Email editor@wealthprofessional.ca
REITs are the word Amid the ravages of COVID-19, opportunity exists in REITs for investors who understand the sub-sectors of real estate, writes Jeff Olin AS INVESTORS hungry for cash sold off assets indiscriminately in March and early April, nowhere was safe. The common shares of real estate companies and REITs were no exception. The obvious victims, initially, were hotel and resorts. As panic set in and the market selloff continued, fundamentals such as relative valuations and property sectors no longer mattered – investors were selling whatever they could to raise cash. As investors start to settle in to the ‘new normal,’ pockets of opportunity are appearing. Investors with the flexibility to actively select stocks based on business fundamentals – not panic or stock activity – are well placed to take advantage of lower prices created by the selloff. As an example, REITs were down around 40% on average in March and are still currently down 25% year-to-date; some are still down as much as 80%. Despite the difficulties brought on by COVID-19, actual property prices haven’t dropped to the same degree. If investors look only at activity in these securities, they are only seeing part of the picture. There are many solid companies and operators whose stock plummeted in March, despite the fact that the overall effect of the pandemic on their business was much less drastic. There are lessons to be learned from how markets responded. We should see a stronger focus on business fundamentals, greater differentiation between securities, and, in real estate, more focus on differentiating superior and inferior property types, sectors, and valuations. Factors like geographic regions, the merits of the entity itself, financial strength, corporate strategy and management have always been
important and now are even more so. This has already begun. In real estate, we’ll see different sectors respond and recover in different ways and at different speeds. Investors’ ability to differentiate between sectors, securities and property types, and their underlying fundamentals, will determine how they themselves recover. But in times like this, investors also want liquidity, which is hard to come by when investing directly in real estate. Investing in real
will be affected the same way by the pandemic, but some will recover faster and more effectively than others. Public single-family residential rental operators in North America, for example, will come out of the pandemic stronger than many of their peers. This is largely because finances will be much tighter as millions of people see reduced wages and hours or get laid off entirely. Retail, on the other hand, will be one of the hardest-hit sub-sectors. Now that consumers have more or less been forced to turn to online shopping, e-commerce will continue to eat up more and more of total retail sales. The flipside of this is that warehousing and storage space will benefit from increased demand. There is a limited supply of warehousing space in North America and, in many key markets, an equally limited supply of land suitable to build new space. As more consumers turn to e-commerce, the storage needs of companies like Amazon, Walmart and others will grow. Another victim will be office space. While some workers will be eager to get out of their work-from-home setup and back to the office, many companies will see that they can func-
“Investing in real estate securities and stocks allows investors to capitalize on mispricing created by the March selloff ” estate securities and stocks, on the other hand, allows investors to capitalize on mispricing created by the March selloff. Investors can buy great names at a significant discount right now while also maintaining liquidity. Another distinct advantage to investing in real estate through the stock market is that, while you can’t short a property directly, you can short a publicly traded REIT. Certain property types and regions will have both more immediate and longer-term negative fundamental and valuation hits. Select REITs are holding assets that remain overvalued, over-leveraged and unlikely to recover to pre-pandemic levels. In this particular environment, the flexibility to short a security makes a huge difference. No two sub-sectors of the real estate space
tion well remotely and will put some serious thought toward how much capital they allocate to their physical workspace. The disparities in how the COVID-19 pandemic is affecting different real estate sub-sectors illustrate just how important it is to understand the fundamentals of each distinct sector. Indiscriminately selling off real estate securities – or real estate itself – without considering any of these factors could mean losing out on once-in-a-lifetime investment opportunities. Jeff Olin is co-founder, CEO and portfolio manager at Vision Capital and the manager of the Vision Opportunity Funds, which are focused on long/short and active investments in publicly traded real estate securities.
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26/06/2020 3:39:08 AM
SPECIAL REPORT
HOT LIST
HOT LIST 2020 Wealth Professional spotlights 50 men and women who have had a major impact on the wealth management industry over the past 12 months THERE ARE many individuals throughout the financial industry with the power to significantly affect advisors’ work, from the top decision-makers at Canada’s largest financial institutions to the heads of fund providers, regulatory bodies and major advisory firms. This year’s Hot List shines a light on 50 of these profes-
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sionals, all of whom have made an indelible mark on the wealth management landscape over the past 12 months. Whether they’ve pioneered a new investment innovation or tirelessly advocated for advisors, their collective contributions are a large part of what makes Canada’s wealth management industry so strong.
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2020
HOT LIST INDEX NAME Karen Adams Paul Allison Kathy Bock Paul Bourque Mark Brisley Jeff Carney Pat Chiefalo Bruce Cooper David Cusson Dan Daviau Victor Dodig Pat Dunwoody Sean Etherington Kevin Gopaul Roy Gori Jacques Goulet David Gunn Steve Hawkins Darcy Hulston Michael Katchen John Kelleway Raj Lala Michael Lee-Chin Cary List Kurt MacAlpine Mark Machin Bharat Masrani Kevin McCreadie Barry McInerney David McKay Tyler Mordy Louis Morisset John Nicola Bill Packham Brian Porter Fred Pye Greg Pollock Stephen Poloz Greg Romundt Jos Schmitt Som Seif Craig Senyk Charlie Spiring Rob Strickland Camilla Sutton Louis Vachon Claire Van Wyk-Allan Darryl White Damon Williams John Zerr
COMPANY Fundserv Raymond James Vanguard Canada Investment Funds Institute of Canada Dynamic Funds Investors Group/IGM Financial BlackRock TD Asset Management Echelon Wealth Partners Canaccord Genuity Group CIBC Canadian ETF Association Assante Wealth Management BMO Global Asset Management Manulife Sun Life Financial Canada Edward Jones Canada Horizons ETFs Canoe Financial Wealthsimple Industrial Alliance Securities Evolve ETFs Portland Holdings/Mandeville Group FP Canada CI Financial Canada Pension Plan Investment Board TD Bank Group AGF Management Mackenzie Investments RBC Forstrong Global Asset Management Canadian Securities Administrators Nicola Wealth Aviso Wealth Scotiabank 3iQ Corp. Advocis Bank of Canada Centurion Asset Management NEO Exchange Purpose Investments/Purpose Financial Mawer Investment Management Wellington-Altus Private Wealth Fidelity Investments Canada Women in Capital Markets National Bank Alternative Investment Management Association Canada BMO Financial Group RBC Global Asset Management Invesco Canada
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BILL PACKHAM President and CEO AVISO WEALTH
Bill Packham leads Aviso Wealth, a national financial services company owned by the credit union centrals, The Co-operators/CUMIS and Desjardins. With more than $66 billion in assets, Aviso’s MFDA-regulated dealers, full-service IIROC-regulated dealer and insurance agencies support thousands of financial advisors at hundreds of credit unions across Canada. In February, Aviso’s online and mobile investing platform, Qtrade Investor, was named Best Online Brokerage in Canada in an annual survey by The Globe and Mail, marking the 10th time the platform has landed in the top spot. Qtrade Investor also took home top honours for customer service in Canadian financial services for the fifth year in a row in Surviscor’s 2019 Service Level Assessment.
STEPHEN POLOZ Former governor BANK OF CANADA
After announcing in December that he planned to step down as Bank of Canada governor, Stephen Poloz had a busy final few months before leaving the job in early June. The BoC grabbed headlines in March by lowering its policy rate three times during the course of the month to combat the effects of COVID-19, eventually bringing it down to just 0.25%. The central bank has also taken measures to improve the market function so monetary policy actions have their intended effect, including a quantitative easing plan with an estimated price tag of around $200 billion. When announcing his departure from the BoC, Poloz called his tenure as governor “the most fulfilling of my long career. During my term, the bank has created the conditions for steady economic growth, low unemployment and inflation close to target through very challenging times. The role of governor of the Bank of Canada has been my dream job – I will leave it with gratitude and great pride.”
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26/06/2020 6:13:50 AM
SPECIAL REPORT
HOT LIST KAREN ADAMS President and CEO FUNDSERV
JACQUES GOULET President
Since 2017, Karen Adams has been at the head of Fundserv, which services the entire Canadian investment industry, from major banks to asset management firms, operating as a giant file transferring machine and ensuring every trade is processed efficiently, accurately and securely. In 2019, Adams was named CEO of the Year at the Wealth Professional Awards. When accepting the award, she hailed it as a win for gender equality in the financial industry. “It means so much,” she said. “As a woman leader, we don’t often get chances to be honoured and to be in the top spot, so it means a lot for me and all of the women at the organization.”
SUN LIFE FINANCIAL CANADA
Since taking over as Sun Life Financial Canada’s president in 2017, Jacques Goulet has been working to expand the company’s reach beyond insurance. As of December 31, Sun Life had total assets under management of just over $1 trillion, including $29.68 billion with Sun Life Global Investments. One initiative Goulet has focused on since becoming president is enhancing Sun Life’s workplace culture and sustainability. The company was recently recognized in both of those areas, winning the award for Sustainability Bond of the Year – Corporate from Environmental Finance and being named one of the world’s 100 most sustainable corporations by Corporate Knights for the 11th year in a row. Sun Life was also named one of Canada’s Top Employers for Young People by Mediacorp and one of the Top-Rated Workplaces in Canada by Indeed. “Working around the world has given me the opportunity to experience diversity in so many ways, and it’s something that I’m truly passionate about and continue to focus on in my role at Sun Life,” Goulet told WP in an interview last year. “Having a diverse and inclusive company is a key to business success.”
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BRIAN PORTER President and CEO SCOTIABANK
Brian Porter is president and CEO of Canada’s third largest bank, which holds approximately $1.2 trillion in assets as of January 31. Porter joined Scotiabank in 1981 and progressed through a series of increasingly senior positions before being named president of the bank in 2012 and CEO in 2013. Scotiabank has a team of approximately 100,000 employees and serves more than 10 million retail, small business and commercial customers. Last November, Scotiabank formally launched its global wealth management division, a move that was aided by its headline-grabbing acquisitions of MD Financial Management and Jarislowsky Fraser.
JOHN KELLEWAY President INDUSTRIAL ALLIANCE SECURITIES
Since 2018, John Kelleway has led Industrial Alliance Securities as it aims to grow its advisor network and presence in the wealth management space. Its parent company, Industrial Alliance Insurance and Financial Services, manages more than $189.5 billion in assets, making it one of the largest publicly traded companies in Canada. Industrial Alliance Securities has $38 billion worth of assets under administration and nearly 535 advisor teams nationwide. In December, iA Wealth, the wealth management division of iA Financial Group, which provides services though iA Securities, launched iA WealthAssist, a hybrid advice platform that combines online self-service with the guidance of an investment advisor.
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2020
BRUCE COOPER CEO TD ASSET MANAGEMENT
Bruce Cooper has been CEO of TD Asset Management since 2016. A division of one of Canada’s largest banks, TDAM manages more than $394 billion in assets as of December 31. While the majority of that ($132.7 billion) is on the mutual fund side, TDAM has been busy growing its ETF business and, as of March 31, was up to 22 ETFs and $1.6 billion in AUM. TDAM has seen its ETF AUM expand by a whopping 876% over the last year – more than any other ETF provider in Canada. “Building our ETF complex is one of the key growth initiatives at TDAM,” Cooper told WP last year. “We are looking to build a suite of 30 to 40 ETFs. Our goal is to embed our core investment capabilities in our ETFs.” TDAM’s funds continue to be recognized for their performance, too. Eight TDAM funds were honoured at Fundata FundGrade A+ Awards in January, and six TDAM funds won Lipper Awards in 2019, along with the group award for the equity asset class.
GREG ROMUNDT President and CEO CENTURION ASSET MANAGEMENT
Greg Romundt and Centurion Asset Management have built a solid reputation by offering real estate funds that invest in properties with huge untapped potential: undervalued, but with low vacancy rates and a stable tenant base. Rather than looking in the heart of the big-money markets, Romundt has led Centurion to invest in suburbs and exurbs like Kitchener-Waterloo, Aurora, Abbotsford and Surrey. The firm’s commitment to investing in rental stock – one of the scarcest but least discussed sides of the Canadian real estate market – has paid off, as Centurion’s Class F REIT had a return of 22.59% in 2019.
MICHAEL KATCHEN CEO WEALTHSIMPLE
Wealthsimple founder and CEO Michael Katchen has led the robo-advisor through another banner year. At the beginning of 2020, the firm sold its Weathsimple for Advisors platform to Purpose Investments while also launching three new investor-facing businesses over the past 12 months. The biggest announcement was arguably the creation of Wealthsimple Cash, an all-in-one high-interest savings and spending account, which Katchen said will allow users to earn 2.4% interest on their cash. The launch marked another step in Wealthsimple’s push to become a one-stop shop for Canadians’ financial service needs.
JEFF CARNEY President and CEO INVESTORS GROUP/IGM FINANCIAL
As president and CEO of Investors Group and IGM Financial, Jeff Carney oversees a company that provides a broad range of financial and investment planning services throughout North America, Europe and Asia in three key areas: wealth management, asset management and strategic investments. The company has approximately $147 billion in assets under management, including more than $81 billion on the IG Wealth Management side. Prior to taking the helm of Investors Group in 2016, Carney spent three years as president and CEO of Mackenzie Financial Corporation and co-president and CEO of IGM Financial.
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26/06/2020 6:14:05 AM
SPECIAL REPORT
HOT LIST RAJ LALA President and CEO EVOLVE ETFS
As president and CEO of Evolve ETFs, Raj Lala saw his firm’s disruptor-oriented strategy triumph in March. Of more than 500 equity ETFs on the TSX, only five stayed positive as COVID-19 barrelled into the Canadian economy; three of those five funds came from Evolve. In the unique circumstances of a pandemic-driven market crash, Evolve’s healthcare, cybersecurity and video game thematic ETFs were ideally placed to grow. In fact, the Evolve Global Healthcare Enhanced Yield Fund was the highest-performing equity ETF on the TSX in March. “When we were starting to put these products together, we didn't contemplate this environment,” Lala told WP. “I don't think anybody would have contemplated this environment. However, when we do put products together, we talk about how this sector will perform in a challenged market and, more importantly, in a challenged economy.”
PAUL BOURQUE President and CEO INVESTMENT FUNDS INSTITUTE OF CANADA
KURT MACALPINE CEO CI FINANCIAL
Kurt MacAlpine was appointed CEO and director of CI Financial in September 2019 after previously serving as executive vice-president and head of global distribution for WisdomTree Asset Management, WisdomTree’s Canadian ETF business, which officially became part of CI in February 2020. The deal, which had been in the works for a while, added 14 TSX-listed ETFs with approximately $1 billion in AUM to CI’s family of ETFs, increasing CI’s ETF assets to more than $10 billion. It also put CI First Asset in fifth place among the largest ETF providers in Canada. In addition to CI First Asset, other CI Financial companies under MacAlpine’s purview include CI Investments, Assante Wealth Management, CI Private Counsel, GSFM, WealthBar Financial Services and BBS Securities.
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Since 2016, Paul Bourque has been president and CEO of the Investment Funds Institute of Canada (IFIC), where he’s responsible for giving a voice to the retail investment fund industry and all of its stakeholders. IFIC brings together 150 organizations, including fund managers, distributors and industry service organizations, to foster a strong, stable investment sector. In addition to serving as the organization’s president and CEO, Bourque also sits on the IFIC board of directors and is chair of the board of the IFSE Institute, IFIC’s financial services education arm.
DARRYL WHITE CEO BMO FINANCIAL GROUP
Since 2017, Darryl White has been CEO of BMO Financial Group, which is the fourth largest bank in Canada and the eighth largest in North America, boasting assets of $880 billion as of January 31 and serving more than 12 million customers. In addition to his role as CEO, White chairs the bank’s executive committee and serves as a director of BMO Financial Group, as well as its US subsidiary, BMO Financial Corp. Under White’s guidance, BMO received the highest customer satisfaction ranking in retail banking advice among Canada’s largest banks in J.D. Power’s 2020 Canada Retail Banking Advice Satisfaction Study.
www.wealthprofessional.ca
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26/06/2020 6:14:10 AM
2020
LOUIS MORISSET Chair CANADIAN SECURITIES ADMINISTRATORS
Louis Morisset has served as president and CEO of Quebec’s Autorité des marchés financiers since July 2013 and was named chair of the CSA in 2015. In 2019, Morisset’s term was renewed, extending his tenure as the head of the CSA through 2021. As Canada’s primary securities regulator, the CSA plays a vital role in shaping the investment landscape. In December 2019, the organization announced a landmark decision to ban deferred sales charges, which was adopted by every province except Ontario. The CSA also announced that paying trailer fees to discount brokers will be outlawed, with Ontario in agreement. “Upfront sales commissions create conflicts of interest and impose liquidity constraints that harm investors,” Morisset said at the time. “With ample evidence of investor harm, especially for the most financially vulnerable investors, and no evidence of any benefits, we see no reason to preserve the DSC option.”
www.wealthprofessional.ca
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26/06/2020 6:14:23 AM
SPECIAL REPORT
HOT LIST MICHAEL LEE-CHIN Chairman and CEO PORTLAND HOLDINGS/MANDEVILLE GROUP
When it comes to bringing alternative investments to retail investors, Michael Lee-Chin has been one of the biggest proponents. As chairman and CEO of Mandeville Holdings, Lee-Chin has made it his mission to democratize alternative investment opportunities for his firm’s clients. In 2002, through Mandeville Holdings, a subsidiary of Portland Holdings, Lee-Chin began assembling a diversified group of wealth management companies that includes Portland Investment Counsel, Mandeville Insurance Services (life insurance) and Mandeville Private Client (an investment dealer). The latter has successfully grown its network of advisors and continues to be a leader in providing alternative investment opportunities to clients.
ROB STRICKLAND President FIDELITY INVESTMENTS CANADA
FRED PYE President and CEO 3IQ CORP.
A 37-year veteran of the financial industry, 3iQ president and CEO Fred Pye has had numerous accomplishments during his career, but his biggest might be his most recent. In April, 3iQ debuted The Bitcoin Fund (QBTC.U) on the TSX, becoming the first company in Canada to launch a cryptocurrency fund on a major exchange. For Pye and his team, it was the culmination of five years of hard work. “This really is the pinnacle of my career,” Pye told WP in an interview shortly after the launch. “I am 60 this year, and it is great to have it listed. It was a full team effort. We had everything thrown at us along the way. I am thrilled for our team and everyone who worked on parts along the way.” Looking ahead, Pye is aiming to get The Bitcoin Fund co-listed on other exchanges around the world so that more retail investors can gain access to the asset class.
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At the head of Fidelity Investments Canada, Rob Strickland has been instrumental in the firm’s growth. Fidelity now the manages $126 billion in assets (as of March 31) across individuals, financial advisors, pension plans, endowments, foundations and more. In 2019, Fidelity’s funds took home an impressive 12 Lipper Awards. The company has also made major strides on the ETF front over the past year, increasing its AUM to $1.18 billion across 22 funds – an annual growth rate of more than 150%.
JOS SCHMITT President and CEO NEO EXCHANGE
Shark Tank’s Kevin O’Leary recently called the NEO “the most interesting exchange” in Canada when talking to WP about his investment in a psychedelic research fund listed on the exchange. From his position as head of the NEO, Jos Schmitt has been a leading advocate for regulatory changes in Canadian stock markets. The NEO promises a better experience for companies, dealers and investors by eliminating practices like high-frequency trading, and the alternative exchange has continued to grow and add listings over the past year. Schmitt had another chance to push for a new way of doing things earlier this year. When the TSX closed for the afternoon on February 27, in the first stages of the coronavirus selloff, its regulatory framework allowed a glitch to lead to a full closure of the exchange. Schmitt called the suspension a “black eye for the Canadian market,” citing his previous calls for making consolidated market data available. Moving forward, Schmitt and NEO are set to keep growing and pushing for change.
www.wealthprofessional.ca
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2020
KEVIN MCCREADIE CEO and CIO AGF MANAGEMENT
Kevin McCreadie wears multiple hats for AGF. As CEO, he’s responsible for the asset manager’s overall success, leading its executive management team and serving as a liaison with the board of directors. As CIO, he provides direction and leadership to AGF’s investment management teams and leads the firm’s global institutional business. With more than $34 billion in total assets under management, AGF serves more than a million investors across North America, Europe and Asia. Over the past year, AGF has grown its ETF division, AGFiQ, by 30% and continues to be a leader in alternative asset classes and strategies on both the ETF and mutual fund sides of the business.
JOHN ZERR President and CEO INVESCO CANADA
As COO for Invesco’s Americas business and president and CEO of Invesco Canada, John Zerr oversees the country’s seventh largest ETF provider, which currently boasts 31 funds and $3.7 billion in AUM. Over the past year, Invesco has expanded its ETF shelf with the April 2019 introduction of five ETF portfolios (Conservative, Moderate, Balanced, Growth and High Growth), as well as the March 2020 launch of the Invesco S&P 500 ESG Index ETF, the first Canadian-listed ETF offering exposure to companies that meet the criteria for selection in the S&P 500 ESG Index. Zerr joined Invesco in 2006 as senior vice-president and general counsel for AIM Investments, Invesco’s US retail predecessor, and later became managing director and general counsel for the US wealth management intermediaries business. He became COO for the Americas in February 2018 before being appointed president and CEO of Invesco Canada in March 2019.
DAN DAVIAU President and CEO CANACCORD GENUITY GROUP
Since being named president and CEO of Canaccord Genuity in 2015, Dan Daviau has been helping the financial services firm grow. In 2019, Canaccord Genuity completed its acquisition of leading US-based advisory firm Petsky Prunier and then expanded its Australian presence with its acquisition of Melbourne-based Patersons, a boutique firm with more than 100 investment advisors and $12.6 billion in client assets. Most recently, Canaccord Genuity announced a partnership in May with US wealth technology firm Evestnet, which will provide a unified managed account solution to all of the firm’s advisors.
CARY LIST President and CEO FP CANADA
Cary List has led FP Canada and its predecessor, the Financial Planning Standards Council, since 2006. As president and CEO, List has worked to ensure that CFP certification is recognized as the standard for financial planning. At the beginning of 2020, he oversaw the launch of the Qualified Associate Financial Planner (QAFP) certification, which has replaced the FPSC Level 1 certification. While the June 2020 CFP and QAFP exams were cancelled due to the COVID-19 outbreak, the past year has been a positive one for FP Canada. In late November, a record 1,832 candidates wrote the FPSC Level 1 or CFP examination. The overall pass rate of the FPSC Level 1 exam was 68%, including a 73% pass rate among first-time writers and a 49% pass rate among repeat writers.
www.wealthprofessional.ca
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24/07/2020 3:52:49 AM
SPECIAL REPORT
HOT LIST STEVE HAWKINS President and CEO HORIZONS ETFS
PAT CHIEFALO Managing director and head of iShares Canada BLACKROCK
Since 2014, Pat Chiefalo has been managing director and head of iShares Canada for BlackRock, responsible for the distribution and management of iShares ETF products across Canadian retail and institutional channels. Now in partnership with RBC, iShares continues to be the top ETF provider in Canada in terms of both assets ($61.8 billion) and number of products (130), despite only growing by 2.6% over the last year. In addition to his work at BlackRock, Chiefalo also sits on the board of the Canadian ETF Association.
CRAIG SENYK President and vice-chairman
In addition to serving as president and CEO of Horizons ETFs, Steve Hawkins was appointed in June 2019 to a two-year term as chair of board for the Canadian ETF Association. "Within the last few years, Canada's ETF industry has experienced tremendous growth,” Hawkins said at the time. “It's an exciting time to be in this business. I am thrilled to be able to build on that momentum as the incoming board chair.” During his 13-year tenure at Horizons, Hawkins has helped guide the ETF provider to AUM of more than $11 billion across 93 ETFs, making it the fourth largest ETF provider in Canada. In the last year alone, Horizons has seen growth of 28.8% and continues to be a leader in the thematic ETF space. Horizons also won five Lipper Awards in 2019, including the bond ETF group award.
DAVID GUNN Country leader EDWARD JONES CANADA
Since taking over as Edward Jones’ country leader for Canada in mid-2018, David Gunn has maintained the investment firm’s high standards. In April, Edward Jones came in at number one on the J.D. Power 2020 Full-Service Investor Satisfaction Study for the eighth year running, scoring 836 out of a possible 1,000 points – 46 points better than the industry average. Building trust with investors is key for any investment firm through downturns and troubled times. Also in April, Edward Jones announced it was donating $2.7 million to support organizations on the front lines of the COVID-19 pandemic in Canada and the US. “Our communities need us now more than ever as a result of this pandemic, and it's our privilege to help support both the financial and health needs of those most vulnerable,” Gunn said at the time.
MAWER INVESTMENT MANAGEMENT
Craig Senyk became president of Mawer Investment Management, which he joined in 1997, at the beginning of 2019. As head of the privately owned independent investment firm, Senyk oversees a company that manages more than $59 billion in assets for individual and institutional investors across all major investment strategies. Mawer’s motto is “Be Boring. Make Money” – and it’s a strategy that has clearly been working. At the 2019 Lipper Fund Awards, Mawer won the group awards for both equity and mixed assets.
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LOUIS VACHON President and CEO NATIONAL BANK
Since 2007, Louis Vachon has been at the head of Quebec’s largest bank, overseeing the strategy and development of National Bank and its subsidiaries. As of January 31, National Bank had $289 billion in assets, making it the sixth largest bank in the country. It has also been ranked among Canada’s Best Diversity Employers and Montreal’s Top Employers. Since launching its initial suite of ETFs in February 2019, National Bank has been working on expanding its product shelf. The bank now offers 10 ETFs and has made sustainability a priority to help differentiate its offerings, most recently launching a suite of three sustainable ETFs in January.
www.wealthprofessional.ca
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22/07/2020 5:32:37 AM
2020
PAT DUNWOODY Executive director CANADIAN ETF ASSOCIATION
As the executive director of the Canadian ETF Association, Pat Dunwoody works to support the growth, sustainability and integrity of Canada’s ETF industry, which had another banner year in 2019. For the second consecutive year, ETFs outsold mutual funds in Canada, and the investment vehicle has surpassed $200 billion in total assets, even after dipping below that threshold in March due to COVID-19. After years of impressive growth, Canada’s ETF space now boasts 782 funds from 37 providers. Under Dunwoody’s leadership, the CETFA aims to bolster that growth by providing ETF education to advisors and investors, dealing with industry-specific issues, and creating broader awareness about ETFs outside the industry.
www.wealthprofessional.ca
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26/06/2020 6:14:35 AM
SPECIAL REPORT
HOT LIST GREG POLLOCK President and CEO ADVOCIS
Now in his 12th year at the helm of Advocis, Greg Pollock oversees all aspects of the association’s day-to-day activities, including advocacy, continuing education, best practices and E&O insurance. He’s also responsible for coordinating the interests of Advocis' 40 chapters and giving a voice to its 12,000-plus members. Earlier this year, Advocis launched a new designation, the Professional Financial Advisor (PFA), a two-year online program aimed at both new advisors and those looking to grow their practice. In an interview with WP in March, Pollock said he believes the PFA will fill a necessary foundational void. “We know that retention in the industry is fairly low,” he said. “We believe this designation will help advisors develop a foundation and improve the overall retention rates for the industry.”
BARRY MCINERNEY President and CEO MACKENZIE INVESTMENTS
KATHY BOCK Managing director, Canada, and head of Americas VANGUARD CANADA
At the beginning of 2019, Kathy Bock took over as head of Vanguard's Americas business, which includes Canada, Latin America and the Caribbean. In Canada, Vanguard ranks as the country’s third largest ETF provider, growing by 15.4% over the past year to $22.8 billion in assets across 40 funds. One of the areas in which Vanguard continues to take the lead in innovation is with single-ticket ETFs. Earlier this year, the firm introduced its latest, the Vanguard Global Aggregate Bond Index ETF (CAD-hedged). “Canadian investors and advisors are increasingly going global for simple, low-cost and well-diversified fixed income solutions,” Bock said at the time. “We are pleased to serve those needs with a singleticket fixed income ETF that is broadly diversified and is unique in its category.”
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Over the last year, one of the ETF providers with the most impressive growth was Mackenzie Investments, which grew by 57.8% to $5.25 billion in assets as of March 31. Barry McInerney has been at the head of Mackenzie since 2016, helping it become the sixth largest ETF provider in Canada. Over the past year, Mackenzie has made a splash with several innovative products, including its Emerging Market Bond Index funds, which helped it win Fund Provider of the Year at the 2019 Wealth Professional Awards. “This means a lot to us,” McInerney said when accepting the award. “We are a proud Canadian firm with over 50 years of innovation. We continue to strive in helping Canadians towards retirement security.”
JOHN NICOLA Chairman and CEO NICOLA WEALTH
As the founder of Nicola Wealth, John Nicola set up his firm with a focus on sharing the wealth, creating a model that emphasizes profit-sharing and where clients belong to the firm, not individual advisors. That formula has worked for Nicola, who has seen his firm’s assets grow to $7.1 billion. Nicola Wealth has long been a staple in BC, with offices in Vancouver, Victoria and Kelowna, and it recently expanded to Toronto in a bid to offer its model to more high-net-worth families. Nicola Wealth also focuses on collaboration between its 42 licensed advisors and its asset management team of 22 portfolio managers. “Managers are focused on the best mix for the portfolios we are trying to build,” Nicola told WP in an interview earlier this year. “My view has been the best thing advisors can do for clients is the planning and servicing.”
www.wealthprofessional.ca
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26/06/2020 6:14:38 AM
2020
VICTOR DODIG President and CEO CIBC
Since being named president and CEO of CIBC in 2014, Victor Dodig has helped position it as a modern, relationship-oriented bank. CIBC is currently the fifth largest bank in the country based on assets, holding $651.6 billion and serving 10 million clients in Canada, the US and around the world. Over the past year, CIBC has racked up numerous accolades, including being named Bank Innovator of the Year by the Digital Finance Institute, one of Canada’s Top 100 Employers, Best Consumer Digital Bank in North America by Global Finance, and one of Canada’s Best Diversity Employers and Top Employers for Young People by Mediacorp.
DARCY HULSTON President and CEO CANOE FINANCIAL
Canoe Financial made headlines in mid-April when, with markets still rocky amid a massive economic collapse, it acquired nine mutual funds from Fiera Capital. Canoe president and CEO Darcy Hulston told WP at the time that the move wasn’t opportunistic – rather, it was a commitment to his firm’s long-term growth strategy of expanding its suite of funds and building relationships with new advisors. “There’s roughly 1,800 investment advisors who owned these funds, and 350 of them had zero relationship with Canoe,” Hulston said at the time. “So we get an opportunity to augment our existing advisor base, expand our footprint in Canada and continue to grow our business.” The move was Canoe’s second major acquisition of Fiera funds over the past two years; it also acquired nine funds in February 2019.
BHARAT MASRANI Group president and CEO TD BANK GROUP
Bharat Masrani has overseen Canada’s second largest bank since 2014, after originally beginning his banking career with TD in 1987 as a commercial lending trainee. TD has $1.5 trillion in assets as of January 31 and ranks among the world’s leading online financial services firms, with more than 13 million active online and mobile customers. During Masrani’s tenure as head of the bank, TD has come in second on Global Finance’s list of the Safest Banks in North America and has also been named the Best Bank for Seniors by Money magazine.
ROY GORI President and CEO MANULIFE
Since 2017, Roy Gori has been the president and CEO of Manulife, Canada’s largest insurance company and one of the largest insurance and asset management companies in the world. Manulife currently has $1.2 trillion in assets under management and administration, and in 2019, the company grew its core earnings by 5% to $6 billion, including $2 billion in new business value. As head of Manulife, Gori has put a heavy emphasis on the importance of digital innovation. That strategy paid off in late 2019 when the company was awarded a Cloudera Data Impact Award for its Customer Contacts Insight Centre. This year, Manulife has also been named one of Canada’s Best Diversity Employers by Mediacorp and one of Canada’s Best Employers by Forbes.
www.wealthprofessional.ca
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SPECIAL REPORT
HOT LIST SOM SEIF CEO PURPOSE INVESTMENTS/PURPOSE FINANCIAL
It’s been a busy 12 months for Som Seif and Purpose Investments. Purpose, which Seif founded in 2013, reached $8.7 billion in AUM and grew to 55 funds. The company continues to rank as the eighth largest ETF provider in Canada. One major announcement from Purpose came last October, when the firm announced that it had embedded ESG as a core factor in its entire investment process. “When I started Purpose, I said, ‘We need to figure this out,’” Seif told WP in an interview earlier this year. “We spent five years building our ESG models and collecting data because it’s fundamental to me. The way we rolled it out was not just an ESG fund – we launched it into our core. My hope is that if we can do it, everyone can do it.” More recently, Purpose made waves in January when parent company Purpose Financial announced that it was acquiring Wealthsimple for Advisors and integrating it into Purpose Advisor Solutions.
TYLER MORDY
MARK MACHIN
President and CIO
President and CEO
FORSTRONG GLOBAL ASSET MANAGEMENT
CANADA PENSION PLAN INVESTMENT BOARD
Forstrong Global Asset Management president and CIO Tyler Mordy typifies big-picture thinking. While investors were flocking to US equities during the 11-year bull market, he looked at global market cap weightings and noticed that US equities, for all their performance, have become an expensive investment. Mordy saw value and opportunity in the Asia-Pacific region. That approach has proved visionary so far this year as countries like China, South Korea and Taiwan have managed the COVID-19 pandemic successfully and have shifted their economies in response, positioning them to grow while the US remains mired in the outbreak. “We’ve always forecasted that the safe-haven label would start shifting towards those countries that haven’t embraced massive and unconventional monetary and fiscal responses,” Mordy told WP recently. “So when investors think about a post-virus world, we think emerging Asia will come out the other side looking very good.”
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The head of the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board since 2016, Mark Machin is responsible for leading the investment activities of the country’s largest pension plan, which is worth more than $420 billion. The CPPIB portfolio has gained increased attention in recent years as portfolio managers seek to replicate for retail investors the types of alternative investments and strategies that the CPPIB has been using for close to a decade. As of December 31, the CPP fund had a 10-year annualized rate of return (net nominal) of 10.4%. In addition to the successful returns he’s generated at CPPIB, where he first came on board in 2012 as the organization’s first president for Asia, Machin has also been named one of Canada’s Top 10 CEOs by Glassdoor.
DAMON WILLIAMS CEO RBC GLOBAL ASSET MANAGEMENT
Since 2017, Damon Williams has been CEO of RBC Global Asset Management, which manages $486.4 billion worth of assets for individuals and institutions. RBC GAM is the largest retail fund company in Canada by market share, with a 32.2% slice of the market among banks and a 15.4% piece of the entire market. Thanks to the strategic partnership with BlackRock Canada it cemented at the beginning of 2019, RBC GAM also boasts the largest ETF lineup in Canada. Last year, seven of its funds received awards at the annual Lipper Fund Awards, where it also received the bond and overall group awards.
www.wealthprofessional.ca
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2020
MARK BRISLEY Managing director/head DYNAMIC FUNDS
A champion of active management, Mark Brisley and his team at Dynamic Funds have carved out a niche by providing novel solutions backed by talented active managers. Since the end of 2019, Brisley has pushed Dynamic to offer more liquid alt strategies, including the actively managed Real Estate and Infrastructure Income II Fund. In February, Dynamic launched two new active ETFs, one focused on international dividend players and the other on global infrastructure. “We are excited to provide these new solutions to our clients, as there are few truly active ETFs available in these areas of the market,” Brisley said at the time, hailing the funds’ ability to “provide investors with greater choice and flexibility when diversifying their portfolios.”
PAUL ALLISON Chairman and CEO
CLAIRE VAN WYK-ALLAN
RAYMOND JAMES
As chairman and CEO of Raymond James, Paul Allison oversees the firm’s Canadian operations, which encompass $52.2 billion in client assets spread across 476 advisors at 129 branches. Allison is also responsible for Raymond James’ equity capital markets, private client and corporate services in Canada, along with the firm’s business in the UK. Raymond James has scooped up several accolades over the past year. So far in 2020, the firm has received the Employee Recommended Workplace Award from The Globe and Mail and Morneau Shepell and has been named a Best Place to Work for LGBTQ Equality by the Human Rights Campaign. Raymond James also ranked third on the J.D. Power 2020 Canada Full-Service Investor Satisfaction Study. Most recently, the firm made headlines with its April acquisition of Oak Trust Company.
SEAN ETHERINGTON President ASSANTE WEALTH MANAGEMENT
Sean Etherington leads Assante Wealth Management, one of Canada’s largest wealth management advisory firms, which boasts 830 advisors across Canada and manages approximately $47 billion in assets. Etherington oversees the firm’s vision and strategic plan and works to support both Assante’s advisors and the continued growth of the company. This past year, Assante fostered that support and growth by partnering with WealthBar Financial Services to launch the Assante Connect online investing platform. The platform provides Assante with a hybrid advice model that combines a digital interface with professional advice. The initiative appears to be paying off: Assante ranked second in J.D. Power’s 2020 Canada Full-Service Investor Satisfaction Study.
Director and head of Canada ALTERNATIVE INVESTMENT MANAGEMENT ASSOCIATION CANADA
As the head of the Canadian arm of the Alternative Investment Management Association, Claire Van Wyk-Allan has been quite busy ever since Canada launched its game-changing liquid alt regime at the beginning of 2019, giving retail investors access to alternative strategies. Since then, Van Wyk-Allan has been pleased with what she’s seen – almost 100 liquid alt funds were launched in the first year of the new regime. She’s also happy with how the funds have performed during the coronavirus downturn, citing the Scotiabank Alternative Mutual Fund Index’s 6.61% decline in March, compared to the S&P 500’s 17.74% drop. “We’re incredibly pleased at how [liquid alts] have stood the test through this volatile period in Q1 and March in particular, vastly outperforming their long-only index peers and benchmarks,” Van Wyk-Allan told WP in late April.
www.wealthprofessional.ca
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SPECIAL REPORT
HOT LIST DAVID CUSSON CEO ECHELON WEALTH PARTNERS
David Cusson is co-founder and CEO of Echelon Wealth Partners, which boasts around 60 advisor and portfolio manager teams with more than $6 billion in assets under administration and management. Over the past 12 months, Echelon has increased its footprint with its acquisition of Toronto-based Vestcap Investment Management and has racked up a number of accolades. In January, the firm was named one of Canada’s Best Workplaces for Inclusion on the Great Place to Work 2020 list. Echelon also earned a spot on Canadian Business and Maclean’s 2019 Growth 500 list as the fifth fastest-growing company with revenues of between $50 million and $100 million.
DAVID MCKAY President and CEO
CAMILLA SUTTON President and CEO WOMEN IN CAPITAL MARKETS
As president and CEO of Women in Capital Markets (WCM), Camilla Sutton oversees the organization’s mission to accelerate gender diversity across the financial services industry. “Driving the dialogue is really important,” she told WP in an interview earlier this year. “It was something I have always been passionate been about. I have worked on it on the side of my desk, but this was an opportunity to work on driving diversity in finance on a full-time basis. It has been a privilege and pleasure to work with the industry.” Sutton was tapped to lead WCM in 2018 after spending more than two decades in investment management, including serving as managing director and global head of foreign exchange at Scotiabank. WCM has more than 2,000 professional members, as well as 1,000plus university and student members, and has launched numerous initiatives to promote financial industry careers for women and drive greater gender equality across the financial spectrum.
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RBC
David McKay leads Canada’s biggest bank and one of the 15 largest in the world based on market capitalization. RBC serves 17 million clients in Canada, the US and 34 other countries and held $1.52 trillion in assets as of the first quarter of 2020. McKay joined the bank in 1983 as a co-op student, working his way up to being named president and CEO in 2014. In 2019, RBC was named one of the Best Workplaces in Canada and, for the second year in a row, was named North American Retail Bank of the Year by Retail Banker International, which also awarded it Best Loyalty/Rewards Strategy.
CHARLIE SPIRING Chairman WELLINGTON-ALTUS PRIVATE WEALTH
A year ago, Charlie Spiring was honoured with the Lifetime Achievement Award at the 2019 Wealth Professional Awards. Having founded two highly successful investment firms – Wellington West Holdings and Wellington-Altus Private Wealth – Spiring had one message for WP: “I’m not done yet.” In the year since, Spiring has proved it. In December 2019, Wellington-Altus acquired Calgary-based TriVest Wealth Counsel, marking its first foray into the investment counsel portfolio manager side of Canada’s wealth management industry. Just a month prior, the firm acquired Cresco Wealth Management and its $800 million in AUM from Scotia Wealth Management. Wellington-Altus also installed Rob Djurfeldt, former head of ScotiaMcLeod, as an executive VP last year.
www.wealthprofessional.ca
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2020
KEVIN GOPAUL Global head of ETFs BMO GLOBAL ASSET MANAGEMENT
As global head of ETFs for BMO Global Asset Management, Kevin Gopaul has been leading the bank’s ETF division since its first foray into the investment vehicle. BMO is currently the second largest ETF provider in Canada, with $61 billion in assets, and an undisputed leader in fixed income ETFs. BMO currently has 35 fixed income ETFs with close to $21 billion in assets, putting it at the top of the heap for both number of products and AUM. The company’s prowess in the asset class has also earned it a spot among the world’s 10 largest providers of fixed income exchange-traded products. While BMO’s success in fixed income is well documented, its equity ETF portfolio has also reached some impressive milestones. As of March 31, the BMO S&P 500 Index ETF (ZSP) is the largest ETF in Canada by AUM with just over $8.3 billion in assets, according to the Canadian ETF Association.
www.wealthprofessional.ca
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26/06/2020 6:14:52 AM
SPECIAL PROMOTIONAL FEATURE
ETFs
Adjusting to the times WP sat down with Jason McIntyre, VP of distribution at TD Asset Management, to find out what impact COVID-19 has had on ETFs and what the future of the industry might hold
THE AFTERSHOCKS of COVID-19 have been felt throughout the financial industry, and all investments have been affected, including ETFs. Yet Jason McIntyre, vice-president of distribution at TD Asset Management (TDAM), feels the investment vehicle has upheld its core functions during the crisis and that the lessons learned now will only make the ETF industry stronger moving forward. “Through it all, ETFs have proven strong,”
McIntyre adds that the crisis has helped the industry learn more not only about ETFs themselves, but also about their future. “I think out of this there will be many learnings, one of which may be using technology more in the ways we communicate or transfer information,” he says. “We are learning a lot about our capabilities, and I think we will see more things evolve in the direction this has forced us to take. I have been so impressed with the industry’s ability to make changes quickly.”
“The mechanics of ETFs have held up well. It’s good that, coming through these unprecedented times, ETFs continue to provide the value they always have” Jason McIntyre, TD Asset Management McIntyre says. “They have provided liquidity when it was most needed and did exactly what they were meant to do. The mechanics of ETFs have held up well. It’s good that, coming through these unprecedented times, ETFs continue to provide the value they always have.”
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When it comes to areas that have been hit hardest by the crisis, McIntyre points to the selloff seen in the fixed income space, which had been leading the charge in ETF flows over the past year. In addition, sectors like energy (due also to the OPEC+ price war), healthcare and real estate have fallen off in
Canada. Yet at the same time, other areas have done well and appear poised to come out of the crisis even stronger. “Tech companies have strong balance sheets, continue to grow, are still hiring, and working from home has accelerated the demand for more tech,” McIntyre says. “We have continued to see flows into our technology ETF, TEC. We were seeing good momentum before the crisis, but it has continued as people look at technology differently and see opportunities for continued growth in the technology sector specifically.”
A pivot to active management Another ETF trend that McIntyre has noticed during these times is a growing appetite among Canadian investors for actively managed mandates. “One of the trends we are seeing is a continued shift among investors and advisors
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to active management in ETFs,” he says. “If you have dividend mandates that are passively built versus active, where portfolio managers can look at opportunities for companies that will grow dividends through this and keep them consistent, it makes sense to look at the active option. I am pleased about the recognition that ETFs have evolved from just passive beta solutions. Now there are many great low-cost, fundamental active opportunities that people can take advantage of. We have seen an acceleration of the usage of active ETFs within portfolios.” The fact that those active options are becoming more readily available is one of the reasons why McIntyre believes the ETF industry will continue to grow. “We have seen three main advantages in the mutual fund industry for a long time: low cost, diversification and professional management,” he explains. “ETFs, as passive
investments, provided the first two: low cost and diversification. Now, as we continue to see this momentum towards active and professional management and its benefits, ETFs can provide all three.” Now that traditional mutual fund strategies are becoming available at a lower cost via ETFs, McIntyre says investors and advisors have access to more investment options. The increased exposure those strategies provide helps investors mitigate risk and withstand volatile periods. “It solidifies the view that long-term investors with a solid financial plan can look through periods of volatility, but there are always going to be opportunities in the short term,” McIntyre says. “Having opportunity, through ETFs, to work with professional managers and work with analyst teams, versus picking individual securities, is why we continue to see great inflows in ETFs.”
Educating advisors One thing McIntyre stresses is that ETFs are an investment vehicle, not the investment itself, which he says puts a lot of responsibility on providers to inform investors and advisors not only about the features and benefits of individual funds, but also the mechanics of ETFs, how to use them, best trading practices and their liquidity. “It’s our responsibility to make sure we are working with advisors so they understand what they are putting in portfolios,” he says. “Advisors do more than construct portfolios – they are behavioural coaches, they build plans, and through this time, you really see the value of their advice. With the heightened education about ETFs and spectrum of choice that we at TD provide, advisors can continue to focus on these value-added services and keep clients on track to attaining their goals.”
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SPECIAL PROMOTIONAL FEATURE
ETFs
THE LATEST ADDITIONS TO THE TDAM ETF LINEUP
TGGR TD Active Global Equity Growth ETF A global equity solution that focuses on long-term growth by investing in companies with strong, sustainable franchises and strong capital allocation policies
TULV TD Q US Low Volatility ETF A US low-volatility equity solution that seeks to deliver long-term growth with reduced volatility
“It’s our responsibility to make sure we are working with advisors so they understand what they are putting in portfolios” Jason McIntyre, TD Asset Management
TCLV TD Q Canadian Low Volatility ETF A Canadian low-volatility equity solution that seeks to provide long-term growth with reduced volatility
TINF TD Active Global Infrastructure Equity ETF A global infrastructure equity solution that offers diversification and an alternative income stream with the potential for capital gains
Education and support have become staples for TDAM; McIntyre says the asset manager puts a high level of importance on the infrastructure behind its products. “We look to provide solutions, no mater the vehicle, that build off our capabilities and provide investors with a broad range of solutions to their reach goals,” he says. “We will continue to build from a solutions perspective, but what is also important is the infrastructure behind the solutions. We want to make sure we have the appropriate support with all our solutions.”
New investment options
TUED TD Active US Enhanced Dividend ETF A US equity solution designed to produce stable monthly income with the potential for capital gains Source: TDAM
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At the beginning of June, TDAM added five new ETFs to its lineup: the TD Active Global Equity Growth ETF (TGGR), the TD Q US Low Volatility ETF (TULV), the TD Q Canadian Low Volatility ETF (TCLV), the TD Active Global Infrastructure Equity ETF (TINF) and the TD Active US Enhanced Dividend ETF (TUED).
“We built these five ETFs with an eye towards how they complement our existing lineup of mutual funds and ETFs and how they will help advisors and investors complete portfolios,” McIntyre says. “Whether you’re thinking of core building blocks, satellite strategies, passive or active management, we are building out products that have everything. The five we launched in June are the next evolution of completing and filling out opportunities for building blocks in portfolios.” While launching during the COVID-19 crisis could have been a challenge, McIntyre says he was impressed by the team’s dedication to get the products to market. “I think we have settled into the new work environment, and we were right on time and excited about this launch,” he says. “With advisors having to deal with everything they are dealing with, we will continue to focus on helping them by supporting them, even as we get new products into the marketplace.”
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mp 6
PEOPLE
ADVISOR PROFILE
Building something special Frank Mauro tells WP how his entrepreneurial spirit and time-tested value approach have fuelled Wellington-Altus’ rise to $10 billion in AUM
FRANK MAURO’S 36-year career in the financial industry is no accident – it’s something he planned from the start. “I did my degree in finance and did another in urban land economics,” he says. “I graduated in 1984, and straight out of university, I got into this industry.” Today a senior financial advisor, director of Wellington-Altus Holdings and EVP of Wellington-Altus Private Wealth, Mauro started his career at Prudential Bache Securities and later moved to Dean Witter, which was eventually sold to Midland Walwyn. “I first met [Wellington-Altus co-founder] Charlie Spiring at Midland Walwyn and, many years later, joined him as a partner at Wellington West in 2007,” Mauro says. Over the next four years, Spiring and Mauro doubled the size of Wellington West before selling it to National Bank in 2011. Following the sale, Mauro and colleague Todd Degelman spent six years with National Bank but eventually realized they weren’t cut out for that environment – their entrepreneurial spirit was still very much alive. Along with Spiring, “we decided to strike out one more time, with the aim of becoming the premier private wealth management firm in the country,” Mauro says. “In 2017, we started Wellington-Altus.” The trio didn’t burn any bridges;
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Wellington-Altus still uses National Bank’s independent network as its back office and shares some of its research in a relationship that Mauro likens to being “first cousins rather than siblings.” But as an independent firm, Wellington-Altus has been able to attract like-minded advisors and foster a culture of partnership. “We wanted to be able to not just run our client book, but also to build something very special,” Mauro says. “So far it’s been working; we’ve been attracting a lot of corner-office advisors whom we regard as the top in the industry.” Wellington-Altus has also managed to achieve a meteoric rise in AUM, surpassing $10 billion in less than three years. “The next stop is $20 billion,” Mauro says. “We’ve built the firm’s infrastructure and put people in place to accommodate that. We’re
always looking ahead as opposed to trying to play catch-up.” Even with clear foresight, though, many events – most notably the ongoing coronavirus pandemic – just can’t be predicted. But rather than focus on these “air pockets,” as Mauro calls them, Wellington-Altus stresses long-term wealth management and goodquality value investing. “The unnerving part is the emotional side,” Mauro says. “Clients are human, and they’ll get antsy when markets do what they’re doing. The majority of the ones we work with have been with us for north of 25 years. The ones who have been through this before are a lot calmer than our newer relationships, which need a little bit more guidance.” That guidance involves walking clients beyond investment products and into areas such as tax planning, insurance, risk
EXPONENTIAL GROWTH Last December, Wellington-Altus made a big splash with its acquisition of Calgary-based TriVest Wealth Counsel, which marked its first foray into the investment counsel portfolio manager side of the Canadian wealth management industry. The previous month, Wellington-Altus acquired Cresco Wealth Management from Scotia Wealth Management, which took the firm to a total of 265 employees and 18 branches across Canada. Wellington-Altus has also grown by bringing in top talent to add to its roster of advisors, which has helped it amass more than $10 billion in assets in under three years.
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FAST FACTS: FRANK MAURO
PRACTICE Mauro Private Wealth Management Group
FIRM Wellington-Altus Private Wealth
LOCATION West Vancouver, BC
“The next stop is $20 billion. We’ve built the firm’s infrastructure and put people in place to accommodate that. We’re always looking ahead as opposed to trying to play catch-up” management and the transition of wealth across generations. “It’s all mapped out in a time-tested financial model that we built ourselves, which is based on one I wrote back at the University of British Columbia business school,” Mauro says. “We give the clients a good look at where they are today, and then we determine where they want to go. After that, we work our way backwards to figure out what they have to do to hit their goals.” Often, clients look for the best of both
worlds – achieving high returns while staying very conservative. “As value managers, we rely on good companies with strong cash flows,” Mauro says. “Saying that, our volatility tends to be lower than the market’s, and our performance numbers tend to be higher over the long term. I think that comes from having great advice that helps clients understand the market, gauge their risk appetite and walk them away from wrong decisions. In times like these, sound advice is paramount.”
YEARS IN THE INDUSTRY 36
EDUCATION Degrees in finance and urban land economics from the University of British Columbia
AWARDS Outstanding Corporate Service Award (2011), Wealth Management Excellence of the Year Award (2014), 5 Star Money Manager Award, member of the Chairman’s Club for more than 30 years, ranked at number 11 on the 2020 Wealth Professional Top 50 Advisors list
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SPECIAL PROMOTIONAL FEATURE
REAL ESTATE
The case for apartments in the COVID-19 era Despite the pandemic, Greg Romundt of Centurion Asset Management remains optimistic about his firm’s key investment product: rental housing
IN AN AGE of bleak predictions, grim economic pictures and declining portfolios, Greg Romundt, president of Centurion Asset Management, has a novel outlook: optimism. Romundt says he’s surprised many of his colleagues and friends with his continued rosy outlook on the apartment space in Canada, which he says stems from his own personal nature, as well as a reasonable assessment of the economic toll of the shutdown and the nature of demand for rental apartment housing in Canada. He’s convinced that the
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resiliency of this space will open up new opportunities for Centurion in the coming months and years. “Most entrepreneurs I know are optimists to their core,” Romundt says. “I am also an optimist for two other reasons. For one, I believe that the continued cost of an economic shutdown to our way of life, relative to the risk of COVID-19, means that the economy must reopen – and soon. Two, I believe that apartments are going to be one of the most resilient businesses in an uncertain world.”
Looking at the big picture, Romundt believes the near-total economic shutdown cannot continue much longer, regardless of the public health situation. The economic toll and the loss of businesses and incomes are showing themselves to be brutal costs to bear. Delayed or avoided non-COVID-19-related medical care, as well as inattention to other issues such as mental health, substance abuse and family violence, will also cause death and long-term harm the longer lockdowns persist. While Romundt doesn’t think we’ll suddenly go back to how things were in January, he believes Canada’s gradual reopening will soon have economic engines revving up again. Even in a shutdown situation, though, Romundt says apartments are resilient. Housing sits right behind food as a basic need that people have prioritized during this crisis. Even as discretionary spending on other things declines, Canadians are paying rent to ensure they have a roof over their heads. “We have seen this in our own portfolio,” Romundt says. “Even though courts have closed and some provinces have banned evictions while we are in lockdown, rental collection rates are largely in line and only slightly behind benchmarks. The CERB and other government supports have, in my opinion, helped greatly. Given the national shortage of housing and that market rents are generally
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higher than in-place rents, we have seen very few who have not paid their rent or who have tried to take advantage of the situation.” Romundt is still confident in what he sees as the five major tailwinds for apartments: immigration, affordability, millennial preferences, an aging society and construction constraints. In terms of immigration, while travel restrictions will undoubtedly impact numbers in the short term, Romundt believes immigration will eventually resume at prepandemic levels, if not even higher. He also believes housing prices in Canada’s core metropolitan areas will remain high, especially in the condo space. While singlefamily homes might face some price pressure,
by planning delays, taxes, land costs, labour availability and NIMBYism. While these long-term driving trends will be largely unaffected by COVID-19, Romundt says the pandemic is actually introducing new factors that will drive demand for rental stock. Horror stories of the virus’s spread through nursing homes, for instance, will position them as an absolute last resort, Romundt says, keeping demand for apartments high among seniors. He also believes that the shock of the pandemic will force a reassessment of personal finances. When mortgage deferrals became an option, Romundt conducted an informal survey of Canada’s banks, finding
“While almost no person or industry comes through this time without some bumps and bruises, the apartment industry in Canada will perform better than almost any other sector, in my opinion” Greg Romundt, Centurion Asset Management he says, the bottom of the market will likely remain unaffordable for many Canadians. In addition, rent prices in downtown cores will remain high, pushing people to rent in the ex-urban centres that Centurion targets. The generational trend of millennials preferring to rent will also continue despite the pandemic, Romundt says. Broad trends like a preference for experiences over material goods, proximity to friends in urban cores, decreased car ownership and having fewer children lend themselves to a generation that will continue to demand rental apartments. On the other generational side, Romundt says a significant segment of aging boomers will continue to sell their homes and downsize into rental apartments. Finally, on the supply side, construction in Canada continues to be heavily constrained
that about 12% of homeowners asked their banks about mortgage deferrals. Although his survey wasn’t exhaustive, it points to an over-leveraged situation for many homeowners, who may be forced to admit they can’t afford their homes and rent instead. Driven by these underlying factors, the resiliency of multi-family apartment investments will likely bring more capital into this space, Romundt says, adding that apartments have always been on the low-risk side, as they provide a core need, which will make them attractive to investors in a postCOVID-19 era. “At no time in history have we gotten a more stark demonstration of that in comparing apartments, where nationwide vacancies are few, to hotels, where occupancy is either zero or hovering at 5% to 10%,” he says.
CENTURION ASSET MANAGEMENT BY THE NUMBERS
2003
Year Centurion Asset Management was founded
$3 billion+
Total assets under management
230+
Number of employees
10,000+
Multi-family apartment units owned by the Centurion Apartment REIT
$18.896
Net asset value of the Centurion Apartment REIT (June 2020)
21.79%
Class A returns for the Centurion Apartment REIT (2019)
Romundt is confident that this pandemic will pass and life will return to some form of normal, simply because it has to. He thinks the historic track record of apartments as a resilient investment, coupled with the factors that he believes will keep driving demand, will allow this space to survive the pandemic and thrive in the new normal. “While almost no person or industry comes through this time without some bumps and bruises, the apartment industry in Canada will perform better than almost any other sector, in my opinion,” he says. “There will be opportunities ahead for those with strong balance sheets, access to capital, excellent operating platforms and a willingness to execute. Centurion, I fully believe, is well placed to both protect capital and prosper in this environment.”
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In volatile markets, performance matters. 5-star investment options
Highperforming teams
Proven performance
High performance from high performers. That’s better together
Commissions, trailing commissions, management fees, and expenses all may be associated with mutual fund investments. Please read the prospectus before investing. The indicated rates of return are the historical annual compounded total returns as of April 30, 2020, including changes in unit value and reinvestment of all distributions and does not take into account sales, redemption, distribution, or optional charges or income taxes payable by any security holder that would have reduced returns. Mutual funds are not guaranteed, their values change frequently and past performance may not be repeated. Morningstar Star Ratings reflect performance of Series F as of April 30, 2020 and are subject to change monthly. The ratings are an objective, quantitative measure of a fund’s historical risk-adjusted performance relative to other funds in its category. Only funds with at least a threeyear track record are considered. The overall star rating for a fund is a weighted combination calculated from a fund’s 3, 5, and 10-year returns, as available, measured against the 91-day treasury bill and peer group returns. A fund can only be rated if there are a sufficient number of funds in its peer group to allow comparison for at least three years. If a fund scores in the top 10% of its fund category, it gets 5 stars; if it falls in the next 22.5%, it receives 4 stars; a place in the middle 35% earns a fund 3 stars; those in the next 22.5% receive 2 stars; and the lowest 10% receive 1 star. For more details on the calculation of Morningstar Star Ratings, see www.morningstar.ca.
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Mackenzie Global Dividend Fund
Mackenzie Canadian Growth Fund
Mackenzie US All Cap Growth Fund
Global Equity
Canadian Focused Equity
US Equity
3 Years
5 Years
of 1,515 funds
of 1014 funds
10 Years
of 501 funds
3 Years
of 597 funds
1 Year 1.9% | 3 Year 5.1%
5 Years
of 433 funds
10 Years
3 Years
of 206 funds
of 1,316 funds
5 Years
of 844 funds
10 Years
of 328 funds
5 Year 8.5% | 10 Year 11.3%
1 Year 0.6% | 3 Year 6.8% 5 Year 9.2% | 10 Year 10.5%
1 Year 15.7% | 3 Year 17.8% 5 Year 16.6% | 10 Year 16.7%
Mackenzie Canadian Growth Balanced Fund
Mackenzie US Mid Cap Growth Class
Mackenzie Ivy Global Balanced Fund
Canadian Equity Balanced
US Small/Mid Cap Equity
Global Equity Balanced
3 Years
5 Years
of 395 funds
of 311 funds
10 Years
of 166 funds
3 Years
of 265 funds
5 Years
of 180 funds
10 Years
3 Years
of 72 funds
of 996 funds
5 Years
of 665 funds
10 Years
of 295 funds
1 Year 3.1% | 3 Year 5.8% 5 Year 7.3% | 10 Year 8.3%
1 Year -8.8% | 3 Year 7.1% 5 Year 10.1% | 10 Year 13%
1 Year -0.3% | 3 Year 2.5% 5 Year 5.2% | 10 Year 8.3%
Mackenzie Income Fund
Mackenzie Strategic Income Fund
Symmetry Conservative Portfolio
Canadian Fixed Income Balanced
Canadian Neutral Balanced
Canadian Fixed Income Balanced
3 Years
of 488 funds
5 Years
of 380 funds
10 Years
of 199 funds
3 Years
of 578 funds
5 Years
of 433 funds
10 Years
3 Years
of 172 funds
of 488 funds
5 Years
of 380 funds
10 Years
of 199 funds
1 Year 3.1% | 3 Year 3.4% 5 Year 4% | 10 Year 5.4%
1 Year -2.7% | 3 Year 2.4% 5 Year 4.1% | 10 Year 6.6%
1 Year 2.4% | 3 Year 2.9% 5 Year 3.6% | 10 Year 5.3%
Mackenzie Global Strategic Income Fund
Symmetry Conservative Income Portfolio
Mackenzie Private Global Conservative Income Balanced Pool
Global Neutral Balanced
Canadian Fixed Income Balanced
Global Fixed Income Balanced
3 Years
of 1,245 funds
5 Years
of 923 funds
10 Years
3 Years
of 406 funds
of 1316 funds
1 Year 4.2% | 3 Year 4.1% 5 Year 5.8% | 10 Year 7.6%
5 Years
3 Years
of 844 funds
of 580 funds
1 Year 2.3% | 3 Year 2.7% | 5 Year 3.4%
1 Year 3.4% | 3 Year 3.1%
Mackenzie Strategic Bond Fund
Mackenzie Monthly Income Conservative Portfolio
Mackenzie Core Plus Canadian Fixed Income ETF
Canadian Fixed Income
Global Fixed Income Balanced
Canadian Fixed Income
3 Years
of 474 funds
5 Years
3 Years
of 368 funds
of 580 funds
1 Year 7.8% | 3 Year 4.1% | 5 Year 3.6%
of 474 funds 1 Year 9.2% | 3 Year 4.8%
1 Year 3.2% | 3 Year 3.3% | 5 Year 4.5%
Mackenzie Unconstrained Fixed Income Fund
Mackenzie Unconstrained Bond ETF
High Yield Fixed Income
High Yield Fixed Income
3 Years
of 413 funds
5 Years
of 272 funds
1 Year 2.3% | 3 Year 2.7% | 5 Year 3.7%
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3 Years
5 Years
of 337 funds
3 Years
of 413 funds 1 Year 3.3% | 3 Year 3.1%
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FEATURES
MEETINGS
How to run successful virtual meetings With more people working remotely, virtual meetings have become crucial to gather a team. Donna McGeorge explains how to make your virtual meetings more efficient and effective DOING ANYTHING by distance takes twice the time and is half as good. Unfortunately, if our face-to-face meetings are bad, then it’s likely our virtual meetings will be twice as bad (at least!). Running effective virtual meetings means navigating time zone differences, language barriers and technological inconsistencies. The three biggest criticisms of participants in virtual or distance meetings are that people are not fully present on the call and are checking emails or having side conversations with their phones, that the speaker or presenter often simply reads the slides, and that they go on for too long and much of the content is not relevant to everyone. Good protocols are important for both physical and virtual meetings. Here are some tips for handling virtual meetings. Be prepared. Make sure everyone knows why they’re there and what’s expected of
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them. Send out an agenda, or at least a purpose statement, so that people are clear about the reason for the meeting. Be punctual. Start and end on time. As the meeting convener, be online at least 10 minutes early so you can manage any tech issues. Be present – and keep it short. Distractions are everywhere, so by keeping virtual meetings to 25 minutes or less, you are more likely to keep people focused. In addition to improving how we meet generally, when it comes to virtual meetings, there are other things we need to consider.
Use the camera This is particularly useful for one-on-one meetings or smaller groups, but not so useful once you have more than six people on the
call. Using the camera creates a stronger connection, and you’ll gain access to the visual cues that an auditory interaction can’t provide. Of course, there are exceptions. Your teammates on those late-night conference calls don’t need to see you in your pyjamas. When videoconferencing: Speak clearly and slowly. This is especially important for multicultural meetings. Accents can be hard to understand. Move and gesture slowly and naturally. Depending on the bandwidth, movement can slow things down or create pixellated images. Look into the camera. Don’t look at yourself on the screen. Dress appropriately. Often we think that distance means we can be more casual, but this is not true; you still need to be professional. You also need to think about colours and patterns that might be jarring on the screen. Put your microphone on mute. When you aren’t speaking, be aware of background noise and keep your movement to a minimum. Use the ‘hands up’ function. This is a better way to let people know you have something to say than trying to speak over the top of others. Stay focused and present. Keep focused on the task at hand, just as you should at an in-person meeting.
Run it like a radio show The next time you’re listening to the radio, pay attention to how the announcer refers to the audience. Typically, they don’t say, “Welcome, everyone out there in radio land.” They say things like, “Thank you for joining me today.” This is because they realize that the relationship between the radio announcer and the listener is one-on-one. The listener is often alone in a car, sitting at a desk or listening via headphones, so referring to “everyone” creates a disconnect.
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It can be the same when running virtual meetings. In many cases, the participants are sitting in a room or at their desks with headphones on, looking at a screen. Even when using the camera, the radio principle applies for creating inclusion and engagement. Instead of saying things like, “Thank you all for coming” or “Many of us have,” try saying, “Thank you for making the time” or “You have.”
Tell ‘em and tell ‘em again Everyone in a meeting has to have a role. This is especially important in a virtual meeting. You need to be very clear on what level of participation you need from everyone involved. Let them know in advance that you might call on them specifically for input or information. Remind them that you can’t afford for people to not be fully present. In addition, to get the best from your
virtual or distance meetings, you need to: Use the video to see people’s faces, not to
share slides Be considerate of other attendees’ time
zones and schedule meetings appropriately Encourage those in remote locations to
speak or contribute first Encourage those dialling in to book a room
or private space for the meeting (not just be at their desk) Use different methods of communication to
remind people of your expectations of the meeting; for example, instead of sending out an email, maybe take the time to send a personal instant message to make sure people are clear Make sure the meeting charter for recur-
Run a training session on how to effectively
use the technology; don’t just assume people know how Given a choice, face-to-face meetings are always going to be more effective, but for those times when you need to do virtual meetings, remember that, as the meeting leader, it’s up to you to set the tone and expectations, no matter where in the world people are. Donna McGeorge is a speaker, author and mentor who helps people make their work work. Using a creative, practical approach, she improves workplace effectiveness while challenging thinking on leadership, productivity and virtual work. She is the author of The 25-Minute Meeting: Half the Time, Double the Impact. Find out more at 25minutemeetings.com.
ring meetings is available to all
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FEATURES
PRODUCTIVITY
From small changes to huge gains In a technological world in which we’re expected to be online all the time, it can be easy for productivity to drop as interruptions become the norm. Amantha Imber outlines three small adjustments that can boost your team’s performance
EVERY MINUTE of every workday, there are many managers who are inadvertently killing their teams’ productivity. They are doing this by expecting their teams to be at their beck and call, responding to instant messages or emails within a few minutes. They do this by constantly interrupting their teams – because it’s OK for managers to interrupt people, isn’t it? And they spread out numerous meetings across the course of the week, many of which are not helping anyone make progress on their most important projects. Adobe’s Consumer Email Survey, conducted across 1,000 white-collar workers, showed that we spend two and a half hours in our inbox each day. Furthermore, research published in the MIT Sloan Management Review revealed that executives spend 23 hours a week in meetings – and their subordinates are probably not that far behind. Often, when we talk about improving
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productivity, common sense suggests that to achieve big gains, we need to make big changes. Yet what we know from fields such as cognitive psychology and behavioural economics is that small changes can actually lead to big leaps forward in performance. I call this microproductivity – tiny changes that can lead to huge improvements in the way we work. If you’re a manager, here are three simple microproductivity tactics you can try that will have a dramatic impact on your team’s performance.
1
Ask your team members to work to their chronotype
Do you know which members of your team are morning versus evening people – which ones are firing on all cylinders in the morning and which ones come to life at night? If you don’t know this information,
then you need to get to know it, because this has huge implications for performance. Around 14% of people fit into the category of ‘larks,’ the types of people who are brighteyed and bushy-tailed at 6 a.m. Another 21% are ‘owls,’ who peak in the evening. And the rest of us are ‘middle birds,’ who fall somewhere in between. Once you know where individuals sit on this scale, encourage them to structure their day based on their chronotype. Let your larks start work as early as they like – but this means letting them leave early, too. And encourage your owls to do the opposite. Larks and middle birds are best suited to doing focused and analytical work in the mornings and less cognitively intense work in the afternoons. Owls’ days should be structured in the opposite manner. On my team at Inventium, I have a couple of larks who regularly start work between 4
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a.m. and 5 a.m., when their brains are firing, and finish a bit after lunchtime. By encouraging your team to work to their individual chronotypes, you’ll boost performance significantly by aligning people’s natural clocks with work tasks.
2
Allocate one distraction-free hour each day
The average team starts the day in reactive mode. Emails and Slack are checked at the start of the day, which puts everyone on the back foot, playing whack-a-mole with their inbox to try to achieve the elusive ‘inbox zero’ and attempting to respond to everyone’s requests for their time. And come the end of the day, we wonder why it’s so common to think to ourselves, “What on earth did I achieve today?” If this sounds like your team, you need to help them protect at least one hour of their day when they can work proactively on their most important projects without interruption. Ideally, this should be the first hour of the day, before incoming messages start competing for their attention.
To kick things off, send out a calendar invite to your team titled “Distraction-free hour.” Block this out in everyone’s calendar for the first hour of their workday (except for owls – their hour of power should be at the end of the day). Giving people permission to stay out of their inboxes and protecting this time from meetings will allow your team to
the greater the productivity gains you’ll see.
3
Batch meetings
As a manager, you’re probably responsible for setting many of your team’s meetings. Many managers don’t give much thought to the timing of meetings. All that often matters is that attendees are
Come the end of the day, we wonder why it’s so common to think to ourselves, “What on earth did I achieve today?” get a big chunk of deep, focused work done. You’ll see that people will use this time to make big steps forward on their projects – and, as an added bonus, this creates a much more energizing start to the day compared to getting buried in emails. After your team has mastered its hour of power, you might start to build up to 90 minutes or even two hours. The more time you set aside for focused and uninterrupted work,
free at the allocated time. But by not considering the timing of meetings, you are unwittingly killing productivity. A series of experiments by researchers at Ohio State University showed that when people have a meeting coming up within an hour or two, they use their time much less productively. One of the studies found that when people had a meeting coming up, they got 22% less work done in the time before the meeting started than they did when they didn’t have a meeting approaching. To boost productivity, batch your team’s meetings. You might decide to set aside two or three afternoons per week that are specifically for meetings, or you might want to restrict meetings to only occurring during certain hours of the day, such as from 2 p.m. to 4 p.m. By batching meetings, you will eliminate the ‘dead’ time that happens when meetings are scattered randomly throughout every workday. All three of these changes should be quick and easy to implement, but the results that will spring from any one of them will be enormous. Dr. Amantha Imber is the founder of Inventium, a leading innovation consultancy, and the host of How I Work, a podcast about the habits and rituals of the world’s most successful innovators.
www.wealthprofessional.ca
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PEOPLE
OTHER LIFE
TELL US ABOUT YOUR OTHER LIFE Email editor@wealthprofessional.ca
Barnsdale has been the top fu ndraiser on Tea m RBC for the past five years
7
Years Barnsdale has participated in Ride for the Cure
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Kilometres covered on the Ride for the Cure course
$73,494 Total amount Barnsdale has raised for Ride for the Cure
RIDING FOR A CAUSE When he’s not crafting financial plans for clients, David Barnsdale is most likely on his bike, raising money for cancer research FIFTEEN YEARS ago, David Barnsdale, vice-president and associate portfolio manager at RBC Dominion Securities, lost his father to cancer. “I have had many family and friends affected by this terrible disease – my dad passed of lung cancer in 2005,” he says. The loss of his father inspired Barnsdale to donate to cancer research and eventually
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get on his bike and join the Ride for the Cure. “A friend and RBC colleague of mine, John Digby, convinced me to join the ride for one year in 2014,” Barnsdale recalls. “I’ve been hooked ever since!” Barnsdale has participated in the event each year as part of Team RBC. His first year, he raised $3,370, but that number has steadily grown year after year, and he’s
been the team’s top fundraiser for the past five years, including a one-year high of $17,436. To train for the long ride (including a hill challenge), Barnsdale gets on his bike as soon as spring arrives, maxing out his training between 75 and 100km. During the winter, he rides a stationary bike to stay in top form.
www.wealthprofessional.ca
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