Neil McIver of McIver Capital Management (Richardson GMP) is part of Wealth Professional Canada's Portfolio Management Powerhouses 2017
Director of wealth management and portfolio manager
MCIVER CAPITAL MANAGEMENT (RICHARDSON GMP)
Years in the industry: 24
Years as a PM: 8
Industry accreditations: CIM
Typical clients: Retired business owners
As the founder of McIver Capital Management at Richardson GMP, Neil McIver has observed certain similarities in the investors who come through his door, regardless of their asset size or risk tolerance. “All clients share a sincere desire for transparency,” he says. “At a minimum, they all want to understand at least the basics of the investment process used to manage their money, as well as to understand our motivation and how we are paid.”
Transparency is a word that gets thrown around a lot in the wealth management business, but in McIver’s view, efforts so far have fallen short. “I think we need to provide complete cost transparency to the client, not just reporting commission or compensation,” he says. “For instance, the new IIROC fee-reporting regulations do not cover much of the investment industry and do not cover management expense ratios on mutual and pooled funds.”
Greater transparency helps build trust – an essential ingredient in the portfolio manager/client relationship. It can be a leap of faith for some people to entrust their financial wellbeing to another person, especially as many of those using a discretionary manager tend to be successful business owners and professionals with strong opinions of their own. “It is about explaining to clients the difference between what we are capable of doing for them versus what the majority of the investment industry can do for them,” McIver says. “Similarly, it is explaining our fiduciary responsibility to clients versus the agency duty owed to clients by most salespeople.”
McIver recognizes that for clients, the priority will always be on returns and protecting capital, and in that respect, he and his team are proud of their ability to build portfolios that expose clients to
the least amount of risk for their desired growth level. “We have an excellent third-party audited track record, which clearly shows the standard deviation each model portfolio has experienced,” he says. “It shows the perfectly linear relationship between the returns each growth-oriented portfolio has experienced and the volatility. It is the flawless intersection of math, science and reality.”
MCIVER CAPITAL MANAGEMENT (RICHARDSON GMP)
Years in the industry: 24
Years as a PM: 8
Industry accreditations: CIM
Typical clients: Retired business owners
As the founder of McIver Capital Management at Richardson GMP, Neil McIver has observed certain similarities in the investors who come through his door, regardless of their asset size or risk tolerance. “All clients share a sincere desire for transparency,” he says. “At a minimum, they all want to understand at least the basics of the investment process used to manage their money, as well as to understand our motivation and how we are paid.”
Transparency is a word that gets thrown around a lot in the wealth management business, but in McIver’s view, efforts so far have fallen short. “I think we need to provide complete cost transparency to the client, not just reporting commission or compensation,” he says. “For instance, the new IIROC fee-reporting regulations do not cover much of the investment industry and do not cover management expense ratios on mutual and pooled funds.”
Greater transparency helps build trust – an essential ingredient in the portfolio manager/client relationship. It can be a leap of faith for some people to entrust their financial wellbeing to another person, especially as many of those using a discretionary manager tend to be successful business owners and professionals with strong opinions of their own. “It is about explaining to clients the difference between what we are capable of doing for them versus what the majority of the investment industry can do for them,” McIver says. “Similarly, it is explaining our fiduciary responsibility to clients versus the agency duty owed to clients by most salespeople.”
McIver recognizes that for clients, the priority will always be on returns and protecting capital, and in that respect, he and his team are proud of their ability to build portfolios that expose clients to
the least amount of risk for their desired growth level. “We have an excellent third-party audited track record, which clearly shows the standard deviation each model portfolio has experienced,” he says. “It shows the perfectly linear relationship between the returns each growth-oriented portfolio has experienced and the volatility. It is the flawless intersection of math, science and reality.”
