Sean A. Moir, Portfolio manager, Mandeville Private Client

Firm: Mandeville Private Client
Position: Portfolio manager
Years in wealth management: 12
Years as a portfolio manager: 2.5
Certifications: CIM, CFA Level 2 candidate

It's common in the advisory business for people to follow in their parents’ footsteps. It’s a tough profession to start out in, and mentorship is important. When Sean Moir started his career as an advisor 12 years ago, his father, John, served as his mentor; the two still work together as a team at Mandeville.

The younger Moir obtained his portfolio manager designation just over two years ago, and although he has no regrets, he does have some frustration with what that role entails in the information age.

“We often spend too much time talking to our partners about why certain things they’ve read online aren’t in their best interest, and we have to keep them focused on their own scenario and away from the myriad of noise and opinions that exist. If you type anything into Google, you’ll find someone’s opinion backing the bias of your search. This makes it incredibly difficult to tune out and calm your mind as an investor. There’s always something new to factor, accept or dismiss – it never ends, and it raises our collective anxiety.”

That anxiety flared up in early February when the markets took a tumble. But the correction wasn’t necessarily a bad thing – Moir saw it as a wake-up call for investors. 

“We take a very conservative and measured approach to building portfolios, and rapid increases of values for stocks, especially those not earning a real return as a business, are very dangerous”

“We were quite happy to have some of the exuberance that had taken hold from November through January come out of the market,” he says. “We take a very conservative and measured approach to building portfolios, and rapid increases of values for stocks, especially those not earning a real return as a business, are very dangerous.”

The bond markets are another potential minefield, which is why Moir elects to leave fixed-income decisions to third-party global unconstrained managers. As a portfolio manager, he says, it’s important to know when to delegate. 

“The fixed-income market is very different from the equity market – there’s no public exchange, and there are billion-dollar deals done between large institutions that may not even cross the average investor’s screen,” he says. “The CPP or an insurance company is buying at spreads the average investor doesn’t comprehend.”

As a result, Moir ensures that his allocation is in an unconstrained investment vehicle of government/corporate bonds and bank loans of various credit ratings. While fixed income is an important part of any portfolio, there’s a lot more to asset allocation these days than a traditional 60-40 mix.

“What we seek to do is build portfolios that consist of negative correlation, whether that’s the difference between growth stocks and value stocks, the difference between equities and government credit, or – as is the calling card of Mandeville Private Client – the difference between publicly traded equity or debt and private equity or debt.”