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After a principled departure from apartheid-era South Africa, investment industry veteran Brian Kadey has engineered a successful wealth management business and amassed more than $850 million dollars in managed assets

EVEN AS a young man living in apartheid-era South Africa, Brian Kadey was fascinated with the world of capital markets.

“From a very young age, I was very intrigued by how everything that happened in the world got reflected in the prices of commodities, equities, currencies, and other asset classes,” said the senior investment advisor at Canaccord Genuity Wealth Management, which recently rebranded to CG.

After high school, Kadey earned his commerce degree from the University of the Witwatersrand, then got an accounting degree and did his articles at an accounting firm. Aside from satisfying his intellectual curiosity, he devoted those years to education in order to avoid military service, which was compulsory at the time for white male citizens who did not choose to pursue further studies.

“I came to Canada on vacation in 1987, and was supposed to return to South Africa and join the army for two years,” he said. “I phoned my parents and told them I didn’t want to work for something I don’t believe in.”

It was this conviction, among other things, that ultimately drew Kadey to CG Wealth management. “CG has created an environment where diversity and equal opportunities exist for everyone, no matter where you come from,” he notes.

After working at an accounting firm to earn his landed immigrant status, Kadey applied for a job at Merrill Lynch Canada, and was one of only 13 people accepted out of a field of more than 1,000 interested jobseekers that year. Little did he know that his first day in the industry would also be a historic one: October 19, 1987, also known as Black Monday.

“I was sitting there looking around, and all the brokers at Merrill Lynch were kind of frozen,” Kadey recalls. “The quote screens couldn’t even keep pace as to where the prices were. No one knew where anything was trading.”

Despite that ominous start, he’s come a long way. Today, his book of 50 families represents assets of over $850 million in-house with, by his estimates, another billion dollars outside.

Kadey works with an exclusive clientele of smart, sophisticated individuals – many having been with him for more than three decades – who are crucial to what he calls his “wealth-creation business.”

“I use very little information from financial analysts or investment bankers,” he says. “Most of my information comes from my clients, who are very smart entrepreneurs in different fields, and we work together on different wealthcreation opportunities.”

“Sometimes we’ll meet someone who really understands a certain sector that we’re trying to figure out, and we’ll take them on as a client, even if they have a fairly small account, because of value they add to the group.”

Kadey’s investment approach relies heavily on developing a deep understanding of different companies, as well as what’s happening in the world; equipped with that knowledge, he can decide which companies are worth buying stakes in.

On the wealth-management side of Kadey’s business, his focus is on “working with clients to help identify their unique investment objectives, and designing very customized portfolio

BUILDING CONVICTION FROM DUE DILIGENCE

Even in this challenging rising-rate environment when companies are hardpressed to access capital from investors, Kadey’s deep knowledge of his portfolio companies lets him stick to his guns. “We do have a very in-depth knowledge of the business and the industry, and confidence in the management team [of the companies in our portfolio],” he says. “We have no problem supporting and defending the companies we’re invested in.… If we can hold a company forever, it means we’ve done a really good job, because that’s where you can make the biggest returns.”

“I use very little information from financial analysts or investment bankers. Most of my information comes from my clients, who are very smart entrepreneurs in different fields”

solutions to meet those objectives, based on their level of risk tolerance.”

Many advisors might fixate on the total assets they manage, but Kadey prizes his ability to call and have conversations with CEOs of public companies, who share whatever information they can. Doing that legwork lets him get a much better handle on companies and industries than any analyst report, which in turn helps strengthen his convictions in challenging conditions.

“I tell most of my clients, ‘you’re probably not going to hear from me much when things are good, but if something bad happens, you’ll hear from me immediately,” he says.

“Obviously, nothing goes straight up, and there have been very tough times in the market. The most important thing is not how you handle the good times, but how you deal with the bad times.” FAST FACTS: BRIAN KADEY

PRACTICE Kadey Group

FIRM CG Wealth Management

LOCATION Toronto, Ontario

AVERAGE ASSETS PER CLIENT approximately $18M

NUMBER OF CLIENTS approximately 50