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THE ROAD LESS TRAVELLED Peter Intraligi, president and COO of Invesco Canada, opens up about some of the challenges of being an independent investment manager in this country
IN ADDITION to his role as president and COO of Invesco Canada, Peter Intraligi added more to his plate last year when he became Invesco’s head of North American retail distribution. The US market is obviously a lot larger than Canada’s, but as Intraligi explains, there are other important differences between the two neighbours. “In the United States, there’s a view that advice should be independent from manufacturing,” he says. “That fundamentally is the biggest difference between Canada and the US, but also Canada and every other country – we pretty much stand alone in that regard.” When selecting Intraligi to oversee distribution in the two markets, Invesco tapped someone well versed in all aspects of the business. Intraligi began his career as an analyst with travel company Thomas Cook before embarking on stints with Ernst & Young and the Loewen Group. He joined Invesco in 1999 as vice-president of marketing for Canada and has been on a steady climb since then. A pivotal moment in that ascension was being named president and COO of Invesco’s Canadian business in September 2007. The timing of that appointment made for some pretty stressful days in his first year, but it was a formative period both for the company and for Intraligi personally.
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“Every business goes through cycles, and we were going through a period of relative underperformance when the financial crisis hit,” he says. “That’s where being part of a global firm like Invesco was a massive advantage. Had we not had the backing of Invesco, and were a stand-alone firm in Canada, I think we would have been in a lot of trouble.”
could weather the storm so well can be attributed to its rock-solid foundations. “The best way to safeguard a firm is to make sure you have very strong governance and oversight,” he says. “I personally don’t think it’s a surprise that we had no exposure to the securities that caused the financial crisis. We didn’t lay off a single person through the financial crisis.”
“When we launched PowerShares, our competition was trying to use that as leverage against us. They said we were walking away from active management and going passive – today, many of those same competitors have now launched ETFs” Having the support of a worldwide enterprise meant that instead of cutting costs and shedding jobs like many of its competitors, Invesco Canada was actually able to expand during the dark days of the financial crisis. In fact, by 2009 the company was launching its PowerShares ETF suite in Canada, which now accounts for more than $4 billion in assets across 51 offerings. According to Intraligi, the reason Invesco
From ETFs to PTFs Currently, ETFs/ETPs have more than US$3.9 trillion in assets worldwide, and PowerShares accounts for $110 billion of that total. That leaves it fourth in the global rankings, but as Intraligi reveals, the brand has come a long way since it launched in the US in 2003. “When we launched PowerShares, our competition was trying to use that as leverage
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5/05/2017 3:51:55 AM