Charlie Spiring has worked tirelessly to promote innovative, client-first thinking – and he's not done yet
Charlie Spiring took an interest in finance at a young age. As a kid growing up “on the wrong side of the tracks,” he says he always thought the door into the financial industry only opened for people from silver-spoon families. But shortly after earning a commerce degree from the University of Manitoba in 1979, Spiring got his start as a rookie broker.
He describes the financial industry back then as a “run-and-gun business”: A research report would come down from the head office, and brokers would trade like mad as they pushed investment ideas hard on prospects and clients. Things have changed since then, which Spiring attributes to banks’ actions to raise the bar on professionalism. But even at the time, he felt let down.
“I was expecting the research analysts and the people on the inside to be much more in the know,” he says. “But when you pulled the curtain back, there was clearly a lot of room for improvement. And I thought if someone ever focused on that, we could do a lot of good for the industry.”
Dreaming in Technicolour
Spiring harboured those feelings for the better part of 10 years, all the while establishing himself as an upstanding investment advisor. Then, in 1993, he joined forces with a handful of other like-minded individuals and founded Wellington West, which would eventually turn out to be an industry-shaping firm – though he had no idea at the time.
“Admittedly, I didn’t know what I didn’t know,” he says. “But I always dreamed in Technicolour, and I really believed that we could have something much better by taking away the bureaucracy and hot air that large firms were spewing at the time. And I knew a lot of leaders in the financial industry came from Winnipeg, so I thought, ‘Well, why couldn’t that be me?’”
It wasn’t long before other advisors joined the Wellington West movement. Calling on his common sense and a work ethic that he credits to his parents, Spiring was able to attract people and help them raise their upper barriers. Wellington West gave people the freedom to take chances and make the occasional mistake; anyone could sit at the table as long as they had good ideas. Through these and other practices, the organization managed to foster an innovative, client-first culture.
Spiring says the original plan was to create a “Prairie powerhouse” firm in Western Canada. But the business took on a life of its own and expanded its footprint well into the east. As the outsourcing model became more available and it became easier to reliably hand off back-office work, Wellington West was able to achieve a scalable model that let advisors run practices that were more focused on planning and client service.
“If we didn’t treat each person like a number, and we let them be creative and add value and be client-focused, I thought it could be a home run,” Spiring says. “And it turned out I was right.”
Over the course of nearly 20 years, Wellington West grew from just six founding members to a 666-strong network of partners. Around that point, National Bank was looking to expand its business across Canada and made an offer to acquire the firm. While Spiring personally wasn’t ready to cash out of the business, many partners were keen to retire. After much soul-searching, he decided to let go, and National Bank acquired Wellington West for $333 million in 2011.
As part of the deal, the bank welcomed Spiring as the vice-chair of National Bank Financial Wealth Management’s executive committee. It was a good relationship. The bank was very open to innovative thinking, which Spiring had in spades; he had no interest in getting sucked into the bureaucratic machinery and reporting processes, and the bank was more than happy to give him elbow room. But even that wasn’t enough for Spiring to settle down completely.
“I could see a vision of what I’d learned and built in Wellington West,” he says. “I knew we could go back and build something that’s just remarkable.”
A return to independence
In early 2017, Spiring left National Bank and got together with two other colleagues to found Wellington-Altus Private Wealth. It took practically no time for the firm to find success; by its first year, it had become the most successful new investment firm in Canada’s history. That growth continued through the firm’s second, third and fourth anniversaries, propelling it to nearly $20 billion in assets under administration.
“We’re in our fourth year, and it’s been our best ever,” Spiring says. “I think no one’s ever done this before in the retail wealth area, so I’m pretty excited.”
The firm is well positioned for more growth ahead. In the US, the wave of advisors choosing independent firms is cresting, and Spiring is convinced that trend will carry over into Canada during the next five to 10 years. He’s also quick to embrace the delegated style of money management as the best and brightest ideas become accessible for lower and lower costs, opening more opportunities for planning and advanced wealth management.
While Wellington-Altus Private Wealth is seeing explosive growth on the IIROC platform, Spiring is also looking at welcoming bright minds from the ICPM platform who, after setting up their own shops 10 or 20 years ago, are now thinking about how to step away gracefully and monetize their hard work. The same story is playing out at some asset managers, which Spiring sees as a potential third leg of the stool in his firm’s continued expansion in Canada.
“I’ve really been reticent to go back in the capital markets area,” he says. “So we’re going back to our friends in the industry and have our people refer into them. Some of the bank firms have caught onto it, so even as we’re attracting brokers from their retail side, we’re helping to renew their capital markets side business. It’s amazing.”
