Creating Opportunities : Canada Financial & Investment Advisors for High Net Worth Entrepreneurs in Toronto, Ontario

In the midst of gloomy economic data and mid-summer market doldrums, it’s nice to spread some good news.

Timbercreek Real Estate Investment Trust, a private portfolio of 62 apartment buildings in Canada, in which we had a $40 million investment, was sold to Greystone Managed Investments in late August for $182 million – a 15% premium over the recent unit price.

We owned Timbercreek REIT for several years through two of our private funds and it’s been a terrific steady performer generating both predictable cash flows and modest capital gains. Over the past ten years, Timbercreek REIT has delivered an average annual return of 13%, versus the flat performance of the TSX over the same time period.

In some respects, the sale is a mixed blessing because it’s always a challenge to reinvest at that level of return – particularly in this environment!  But as someone once said, ‘you never go broke taking profits’.

We have re-invested a portion of our sale proceeds in other Timbercreek apartment investment funds, additional select real property projects as well as a portfolio of quality Canadian commercial mortgages.

Congratulations to the Timbercreek management team, led by Blair Tamblyn and Ugo Bizzari for delivering outstanding shareholder value. We look forward to continuing to invest behind them in additional opportunities.

You can read more about the story in this Globe & Mail article, "Timbercreek REIT sold to private equity investors".

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Last week, we hosted another of our Inside the Tent events (a series of evenings where we invite some of our clients and special guests to hear from other successful entrepreneurs and thought leaders from our network on topics of mutual interest).

Our theme for the evening was art appreciation and insight from the perspective of three different entrepreneurs in the art world: gallery owner, art consultant and artist.

The event was held at the fabulous gallery of our friend and neighbour, Nicholas Metivier. Art consultant, Robin Anthony offered advice on how to start building a collection. And special guest of the evening, John Hartman, one of Canada’s best known contemporary artists, thrilled us with an advance look at his new works (the official exhibit opened Thursday May 27th and runs until June 19).

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What does it take to succeed as an entrepreneur?

It’s a question that one third of Canadians are contemplating apparently.

That’s how many dream of running their own business according to a recent Angus Reid poll.

What’s the appeal? The main reason, according to the survey, is so they’ll have greater control over their own destiny. Other reasons include not having to work for someone else, and being able to make more money than working on a salary.

But what about passion?...

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The Canadian Association of Family Enterprise GTA held its annual Family Business of the Year awards dinner on Thursday. What an inspiring evening of success stories from families who have overcome not only the usual host of market and competitive challenges, but real adversity and often personal tragedy to achieve prosperity and longevity for their companies. It was just the inspiration we all needed on a cold grey night at the end of winter at the end of a recession.

There were three presentations from award nominees (more about this in a future blog) and keynote address from Derek Oland, Executive Chairman and fifth generation owner of Moosehead Breweries Limited.

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This week, as reported in Investment Executive magazine, the Conference Board of Canada released results of a nationwide survey confirming what entrepreneurs have known for some time: the cost of providing employee benefit programs is rising unsustainably -- 10% in the past year, roughly three to five times the rate of inflation.

What’s more, most businesses are wondering if they’re getting what they’re paying for. While 78% of survey participants said they have well developed benefits strategies, only 14% said they believe their programs are effective at meeting the objectives of the strategies.

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I blogged a couple of weeks ago about the entrepreneurial thinking of money manager, Tye Bousada in my post, How entrepreneurs -- and smart investors - really succeed. I was inspired by a New Yorker article written by Malcolm Gladwell, entitled The Sure Thing.

The premise of the article being that successful entrepreneurs are not really risk takers, as the conventional view suggests. Rather, an entrepreneur's strength is in "occupying a ‘structural hole'”, a niche that gives him a unique perspective on a particular market” and acting decisively to take advantage of it.

Here’s a related story of a seasoned entrepreneur who stands to profit from this great recession – not in spite of challenging economic times, but rather because of the turmoil and his ability to take advantage of it.

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We only just launched our blog and a few questions have come up about how to subscribe and specifically, 'what is RSS'?

If you have yet to discover the power of this nifty way to get updates from your favourite blogs and news sites, RSS in plain English is a mighty useful 3 minute video.

The video explains, well, in plain English, the utility behind that ubiquitous little orange icon and how to make it work for you.  I got up and running in 4 minutes. Getting feeds from my favourite on-line sites any time there's an update. 

Thanks to the folks at Common Craft for creating the video, and the folks at lexblog for sending it to me, so I could pass it on to you.

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Euromoney magazine released the results of its annual global private banking survey.

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Late 2008 and early 2009, financial markets were in crisis and the world was in deep economic recession. 

The prevailing wisdom was to invest in 'obvious survivors'. Food, pharmas and other non-discretionary goods that penny pinching consumers couldn't live without.

Good strategy.  But as investors stampeded into those stocks, the relative upside became less attractive.

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