Pellettieri joins Wellington West

Sam Pellettieri’s been a busy guy lately. In just over two months, he’s moved from Tetrem Capital Management to Sarbit Asset Management, and now joins Wellington West as the company’s chief investment officer and portfolio manager.

“It’s a great opportunity to build something,” says Pellettieri, who joined his new firm only three days ago.

The former portfolio manager and one of the founding principals at Tetrem will spearhead Wellington’s new asset management firm, where clients will get the full planning treatment. “We don’t want to be people selling performance. We want to build a platform where we’re selling financial well-being,” says Pellettieri. “At the end of the day we can talk about what’s going on in the markets and who are the great managers, but really it’s about the clients.”

He has also been tasked with leading the asset allocation program and guiding the overall investment philosophy of the firm.

Pellettieri’s departure from Sarbit, where he was responsible for Canadian and global equities, wasn’t a big surprise to CEO Larry Sarbit. While he didn’t want to get into details, he says he had “reasons to believe that it might happen.”

Still, Pellettieri left the company a mere two months after joining, and he took Shaun Hauser, Sarbit’s co-founder, executive vice-president and national sales manager, and Nestor Theodorou, Sarbit’s executive vice-president, with him to Wellington.

That means Larry Sarbit has a few holes to fill. Tom Ball, who has 17 years of Canadian equity experience, will take over the Canadian portion of Pellettieri’s former job while the company is “on the cusp of bringing in a very interesting fellow” on the global side, says Sarbit.

As for Tetrem co-founder Daniel Bubis , “I can tell you he’s happy for me,” says Pellettieri. “We’ve been in contact, and he thinks this is a good move.”

Leaving Tetrem wasn’t easy, he reveals, adding that his partnership with Bubis was like a marriage. “It’s hard because of the relationships you have with people, and it’s something you created with other people. It was a very difficult decision to make.”

So far, it’s just Pellettieri, Theodorou and Hauser working on the asset management business, but other Wellington employees should be joining the team soon.

The new department’s development is still in the early planning stages — it doesn’t even have a budget yet. The only thing somewhat firmed up right now is where the group would like to see the business in the future. “We have a vision of what we want to deliver,” Pellettieri explains. “But in terms of the specific details behind it, we’re still figuring those out.”

Filed by Bryan Borzykowski, Advisor.ca, bryan.borzykowski@advisor.rogers.com