FEATURES
COVER STORY: HOT LIST Shafik Hirani Blue Energy Capital Hirani manages a bustling practice in the Alberta oil patch. So when he began prodding clients to cash out their energy holdings, he must have seemed a heretic. Post-oil price crash, Hirani is looking like a genius. “I was laughed at as an Alberta advisor, saying energy will go down when everyone said it’s going to infinity,” he says. “Even my own compliance departments were giving me a hard time.” With Investors Group, he says he feels somewhat vindicated by the crude crash. His outlook is similarly contrarian: “I don’t believe it will be the ‘V’-shaped recovery everyone is suggesting.”
Matthew Robinson W.A. Robinson
Paul Tepsich, Scott Tomenson High Rock Capital Management There are some new kids on the private wealth block. Paul Tepish served as head of Canadian credit trading at Merrill Lynch Canada until his departure in 2008. A portfolio manager at Hesperian Capital Management, he was the lead manager for their two newly formed high-yield funds. The firm’s flagship high-yield fund, The Norrep Yield Fund, was a top performer on a quarterly basis while Tepsich was lead manager. He left Hesperian to form High Rock Capital was formed in 2010. Since then he has teamed up with Scott Tomenson, a 30-year veteran of investment management who began as an institutional fixed-income trader/risk manager. Now co-owners, the pair have been managing about $200 million in institutional money for Scotiabank – ut friends and family kept asking when they were going to manage money for them. Thus, High Rock Private Wealth management was born this April.
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As a young kid, Robinson grew up around the family business, W.A. Robinson Asset Management. His father, Wayne, incorporated the Robinson Group in 1980 on the shores of Sharbot Lake, Ont., and started offering managed mortgage-based investments in 1986. The firm has grown to 30 employees from three. Now, with Boomers headed to retirement, cottages are increasingly becoming first residences, and the pools of rural mortgages the company offers through its subsidiary are set to do well, even in a low-rate environment. After a years-long, successful succession plan, Matthew Robinson took the reins from his father last July.
Nick Fournier Raintree Financial Solutions A recent report from the University of Calgary suggests the burgeoning exempt market could be much larger than thought. Raintree Financial Solutions, led by Nick Fournier, has been working to unlock the potential in the $100 billion market by offering investments in hot market sectors like farmland, retirement communities and REITs. With interest rates where they are, business is likely to continue to boom.
David Christianson Christianson Wealth Advisors National Bank Financial Christianson is a veritable poster boy for this year’s Hot List – he grew his book by 70% this year, and profit was up 100%. He also added a CIM designation and PM license to his resume. Impressive stuff – but then, he’s the kind of advisor who has been CRM2 compliant since 1993.