Advisor Forum update: Quebec advisors share keys to success

In Calgary on October 28, see Lee Raine, G2 Financial Group Inc.; Stephen Ross, CIBC Wood Gundy; and Remo Cardone, HSBC Securities (Canada) Inc. On November 3 in Vancouver, you can hear from Malcolm Ross, Invest-A-Flex Financial Strategies Ltd; Nancy Shewfelt, Wellington West Capital Inc.; and David Chalmers, Rogers Group Financial. Toronto‘s Top Advisor Panel […]

By Scot Blythe | October 1, 2003 | Last updated on October 1, 2003

5 min read

In Calgary on October 28, see Lee Raine, G2 Financial Group Inc.; Stephen Ross, CIBC Wood Gundy; and Remo Cardone, HSBC Securities (Canada) Inc.
On November 3 in Vancouver, you can hear from Malcolm Ross, Invest-A-Flex Financial Strategies Ltd; Nancy Shewfelt, Wellington West Capital Inc.; and David Chalmers, Rogers Group Financial.
Toronto‘s Top Advisor Panel features Cynthia Kett,Stewart & Kett Financial Advisors Inc.; Mike Newton, CIBC Wood Gundy; and Murray Morton, Cartier Partners Financial Services on November 18.
Last but not least, Halifax‘s Top Advisor Panel will be made up of Michael Nuscke, Assante Capital Management Ltd.; Mike DeVenney, The Bluteau DeVenney Group of Wellington West; David Bluteau, The Bluteau DeVenney Group of Wellington West; and Remy Richard, PEAK Investment Services Inc.

For dates and more session details on upcoming Advisor Forum conferences in Calgary, Vancouver, Toronto and Halifax, please visit the Advisor Forum Web site by clicking here.

• • •

Filed by Scot Blythe, Advisor.ca, sblythe@advisor.ca.

(10/01/03)

Scot Blythe

In Calgary on October 28, see Lee Raine, G2 Financial Group Inc.; Stephen Ross, CIBC Wood Gundy; and Remo Cardone, HSBC Securities (Canada) Inc.
On November 3 in Vancouver, you can hear from Malcolm Ross, Invest-A-Flex Financial Strategies Ltd; Nancy Shewfelt, Wellington West Capital Inc.; and David Chalmers, Rogers Group Financial.
Toronto‘s Top Advisor Panel features Cynthia Kett,Stewart & Kett Financial Advisors Inc.; Mike Newton, CIBC Wood Gundy; and Murray Morton, Cartier Partners Financial Services on November 18.
Last but not least, Halifax‘s Top Advisor Panel will be made up of Michael Nuscke, Assante Capital Management Ltd.; Mike DeVenney, The Bluteau DeVenney Group of Wellington West; David Bluteau, The Bluteau DeVenney Group of Wellington West; and Remy Richard, PEAK Investment Services Inc.

For dates and more session details on upcoming Advisor Forum conferences in Calgary, Vancouver, Toronto and Halifax, please visit the Advisor Forum Web site by clicking here.

• • •

Filed by Scot Blythe, Advisor.ca, sblythe@advisor.ca.

(10/01/03)

(October 1, 2003) Going from a bull to a bear market has certainly put pressure on financial planners, but it has also presented opportunities, ranging from tax advice to more comprehensive risk management. It’s also provided another opportunity: keeping client trust with tried planning techniques, says a panel of top Quebec advisors.

Annie Boivin, who spent 15 years as a banker at National Bank and earned a master’s in taxation, figured she was ready for a change. “I couldn’t have worked in taxation as long if I’d stayed in the banking business,” she told an audience of advisors at the Advisor Forum in Montreal Tuesday.

“So I finally took the leap and changed careers,” opting to become an independent financial advisor and columnist. She also teaches at the Institut québécois de planification finiancière. It was a struggle, she adds. “All of sudden, you’re on your own, looking for contracts.”

Now, as a financial writer, she finds that “people are actually telling me what they want to hear about.” For her part, she is answering one of the public’s needs, although, she adds, “I am a columnist, not a publicist. I’m really an advisor just like you.”

The bubble years posed a different set of challenges for Pierre-Yves Pelland, an advisor with RBC Investments who started his career 40 years ago. While value managers he respected, such as Kim Shannon at the CI Canadian Investment Fund and Jerry Javasky at Mackenzie’s Ivy family of funds, were extremely contrarian about the valuations of those years, he recalls “a difficult year, where people weren’t believing in what we were doing.”

He had to make up for a “shortage of trust,” but as a result, managed to keep 98% of his clients. He calls his conservatively managed approach “gestion du patrimoine,” essentially private banking — though when he started, many thought he was involved with the other side of “patrimony,” namely historic buildings.

It’s an approach he also applies to his work with non-profit organizations. “When you’re doing charity work or volunteering, the perception is that you are able to give, so you are able to give good advice.”

Like all the speakers on the panel, tax optimization is an essential component to his portfolio management practices. However, Pelland cautions, an advisor can’t do everything, and like the other two Top Advisor Panel speakers, he stressed the importance of networking with allied professionals.

Risk tolerance

Daniel Mercier followed a different path. A long-time academic at the Université du Québec à Hull, advisors asked him, “Your theories are very good, so why don’t you try them out?” Mercier, a chartered financial analyst, had developed risk management software calibrated to individual investor tolerances. He is now involved in a shop of 42 advisors at JLL Les Sommets in Sherbrooke, Quebec.

With the software, Mercier has worked out various portfolios such that, over a five-year horizon “the strategy will deliver the results.” The message for clients is that even in their worst year, the long-term prospects are not as bad as they think they may be. That’s a theme echoed by Pelland. “In a bull market, they may not necessarily be happy [about advice on the downside risk] but in a bear market, they will be prepared.”

Risk management software is not new, but Mercier has tried novel ways to popularize its significance with clients. When clients ask for safe investments, for example, putting $100,000 portfolio entirely invested in money market funds, he uses a hockey analogy: “All right then, we have six goalies.”

At the moment, he says, “We are facing up to new challenges.” While the software has proven successful, he feels there’s another step he has to take with clients: integrating insurance and investments. Using another analogy, he feels investments are the wheels of the car, but insurance is the steering wheel.

Tax considerations are also crucial, since the academic theories of portfolio construction, Mercier notes, model returns “in a world without taxation. You can fight to get an extra 2%, but if you give up 50% [to taxes], you’re back to 6%.”

Trust and advice

Building trust and popularizing concepts that are not yet part of an investor’s lexicon are important constituents in an advisor’s success. So is being able to say no. “I am very well-known for the investments I don’t allow,” acknowledges Pelland. He wants clients to “stay the course and not jump from one investment to the next.” That task is made more difficult with investment advertising. “People are reading papers,” he says, and he finds he must sometimes talk clients “back to earth” after they’ve read about another high-yielding investment that is unsuitable for them.

It can work both ways though. While Boivin considers herself an independent financial planner, as a financial columnist “I cannot go into fine details as I would face-to-face.” Instead, she’s often in a position where she can convince investors to see a financial advisor.

Invariably, that leads to the question of what constitutes advice. For Boivin, “it’s a strategy, adapted to the client, but it’s not a sale. The advice leads to a sale,” she elaborates, “but it’s more about implementing the strategy to realize the client’s goals.”

For Pelland, who won’t hesitate to say “no,” advice has two parts: to give a client the pros and cons of an investment, “and maybe give him an opinion about his situation.” Still, higher-end advisors may not be able to deal with all clients. In that instance, Pelland says, the advisor has to be honest about what he can do.

• • •

You can get insights about prospecting, client retention, cost efficiencies and maintaining a quality client experience from successful advisors from your region at every city on the Advisor Forum tour:

In Calgary on October 28, see Lee Raine, G2 Financial Group Inc.; Stephen Ross, CIBC Wood Gundy; and Remo Cardone, HSBC Securities (Canada) Inc.
On November 3 in Vancouver, you can hear from Malcolm Ross, Invest-A-Flex Financial Strategies Ltd; Nancy Shewfelt, Wellington West Capital Inc.; and David Chalmers, Rogers Group Financial.
Toronto‘s Top Advisor Panel features Cynthia Kett,Stewart & Kett Financial Advisors Inc.; Mike Newton, CIBC Wood Gundy; and Murray Morton, Cartier Partners Financial Services on November 18.
Last but not least, Halifax‘s Top Advisor Panel will be made up of Michael Nuscke, Assante Capital Management Ltd.; Mike DeVenney, The Bluteau DeVenney Group of Wellington West; David Bluteau, The Bluteau DeVenney Group of Wellington West; and Remy Richard, PEAK Investment Services Inc.

For dates and more session details on upcoming Advisor Forum conferences in Calgary, Vancouver, Toronto and Halifax, please visit the Advisor Forum Web site by clicking here.

• • •

Filed by Scot Blythe, Advisor.ca, sblythe@advisor.ca.

(10/01/03)

Risk tolerance

Trust and advice

• • •

In Calgary on October 28, see Lee Raine, G2 Financial Group Inc.; Stephen Ross, CIBC Wood Gundy; and Remo Cardone, HSBC Securities (Canada) Inc.
On November 3 in Vancouver, you can hear from Malcolm Ross, Invest-A-Flex Financial Strategies Ltd; Nancy Shewfelt, Wellington West Capital Inc.; and David Chalmers, Rogers Group Financial.
Toronto‘s Top Advisor Panel features Cynthia Kett,Stewart & Kett Financial Advisors Inc.; Mike Newton, CIBC Wood Gundy; and Murray Morton, Cartier Partners Financial Services on November 18.
Last but not least, Halifax‘s Top Advisor Panel will be made up of Michael Nuscke, Assante Capital Management Ltd.; Mike DeVenney, The Bluteau DeVenney Group of Wellington West; David Bluteau, The Bluteau DeVenney Group of Wellington West; and Remy Richard, PEAK Investment Services Inc.

For dates and more session details on upcoming Advisor Forum conferences in Calgary, Vancouver, Toronto and Halifax, please visit the Advisor Forum Web site by clicking here.

• • •

Filed by Scot Blythe, Advisor.ca, sblythe@advisor.ca.

(10/01/03)

Scot Blythe

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