Firm: Nour Private Wealth
Locations: Oakville, ON; Point Claire, QC; Toronto, ON; Montreal, QC
Year established: 2018
Employees: 80
AUM: $500 million+
Target clients: Varies by advisor
It took time and required overcoming numerous challenges, but Elie Nour, founder and CEO of Nour Private Wealth (NPW), achieved his dream of creating his own independent firm in 2018. Since then, he’s been expanding his locations and services and is poised to grow even further as he looks to offer more to clients.
“When we started in 2018, we saw the strengths and the weaknesses of our business,” Nour says. “Our focus was on building a strong compliance environment. We recognized that a robust compliance structure is the backbone to any successful company in this industry. We also made sure that we continue investing in our infrastructure by always looking years ahead into the future to determine what clients and advisors alike will need.”
Nour wanted to establish a solid foundation before adding more advisors to his team. He started by building a stronger compliance team, then hired a business development manager and a chief operating officer as he expanded the business. Now NPW has 80 employees in four offices spread across Ontario and Quebec; the most recent, in Montreal, opened in October 2019. Nour recently added a marketing team to help share his company's success story and value proposition to attract new advisors who are looking for more independence and recognize the value of a technologically advanced firm.
That investment has paid off: Nour says NPW has received a lot of interest from advisors who are looking for a more advisor-centric firm that will allow them to offer more to their clients.
“Transition is never easy for people in this industry,” Nour says. “Our experienced team helps onboard new advisors and sets timelines and expectations for the process from start to finish, while maximizing client retention and with minimal disruption. We focus on helping advisors grow their practice by providing them a wide range of investment tools and services that they can offer their clients. We also offer them the support they need to distinguish themselves and show their true value to clients. We have monthly meetings with advisors and weekly meetings with associates to discuss market conditions, portfolio adjustments, tax strategies, new investment opportunities and overall business planning.”
Nour is a big believer in continuing education, which is why NPW has created an incentive program to encourage all employees to further their own knowledge.
“It’s a big responsibility to manage people’s money, and advisors have the responsibility to go beyond their clients' expectations and become the best in their field,” Nour says. “They need to educate themselves on a regular basis to demonstrate that they have the knowledge and skills to manage wealth with high-level investment strategies and to examine their clients' entire financial picture at the highest level of complexity. The program we have created supports advisors’ and associates’ continuing education by helping them get reimbursed for any course successfully completed through the CSI, FP Canada and other associations for investment professionals. My opinion is that advisors with a higher education prove their dedication to a higher professional standard and add credibility in the eyes of clients, peers and the regulators.”
Nour adds that it’s vital for advisors to listen to clients and understand their financial goals and needs. "We allocate a good amount of time collecting information and analyzing clients' situation while focusing on the human aspect: dreams, goals and expectations,” he says, adding that his team is conservative and disciplined when managing wealth, which mirrors the company’s own philosophy and operations.
One recent initiative Nour is especially proud of is NPW’s ability to offer alternative investments to clients. “We started our due diligence on this asset class not long after we launched, but we officially approved it for advisors’ use earlier this year,” he says. “Most of the industry has been focused on public securities. Studies have proven that alternative investments can increase diversification and reduce volatilty, given low correlations to more traditional investments. They can also offer the potential for enhanced returns due to the wider investment opportunity set.”
Alternative offerings are just one of the benefits Nour has been able bring to his clients since going independent. Another is NPW’s ability to invest in 19 different currencies. “We are not restricted to only the North American markets,” Nour says. “Our advisors have access to trade on 28 different stock markets worldwide.”
Nour has also dealt with plenty of challenges along the way. Aside from COVID-19, he says the main ones his team faces today are staying on top of compliance requirements and avoiding any cybersecurity issues.
“Three years ago, cybersecurity was not an item on our agenda,” he says. “Today, cybersecurity threats pose significant risks to financial firms, investors and the markets. As we increasingly rely on technology to collect, store and manage our data, we recognize the need to have guidelines and provisions for preserving the security of the firm’s information. For this reason, NPW has put in place a series of security controls and risk management techniques and designed a policy that establishes mandatory conduct from all parties involved in the company’s operations."
Moving forward, Nour has three primary goals. First, he hopes to have a discretionary trading platform up and running by year end. Second, and perhaps most boldly, he’s in the process of setting up a presence in Dubai, which he believes would be a first for a Canadian firm.
“It is uncommon for Canadian firms to operate outside North America,” he says, “but there is a large concentration of wealth in the UAE and a lot of Canadians working mainly in Dubai who would be more comfortable trusting the management of their wealth to a Canadian company.”
Finally, NPW plans to obtain US registration to better serve its clients with dual citizenship and/or interests south of the border. “Given the increasing number of work and retirement-related mobility cases in North America, demand for specialized cross-border financial advice, including immigration, tax, estate and investment planning, is growing,” Nour says.
Given all the initiatives in the pipeline, there’s no doubt that the NPW team is poised for more success as it continues to grow.
