Do you have any reviews that I could read?
Yes, I am grateful that a few Private Individuals, Accountants as well as Colleagues took the time to leave their reviews on my LinkedIn profile, which can be accessed
here. If you are currently not on LinkedIn and would like to receive a print-out, we would be happy to provide it to you. Please email
leanne.mamchur@cibc.com to receive.
Why Did I Choose CIBC Private Wealth?
In 2020, at my age 40, I completed an industry evaluation and reviewed 10 plus firms for their investment capabilities, platform as well as pricing flexibility. CIBC Private Wealth rose to the top for a variety of reasons:
-
Their firm philosophy is one of improved diversification by removing the self promotion bias. Many times you will have asset managers who promote their own products over that of external firms; whereas I found that CIBC had an unbiased review of all external and internal mandates/managers allowing improvements in this area. This allows me to select the manager that is best suited for your investments whether it is internal or external.
-
The breadth of external managers is vast and spans over 25 separate companies including well renowned pension style institutional managers.
-
The firm allowed for access to the private investment operation including private pools.
-
Given the platform, in addition to the above, a variety of professionally researched options are available beyond that of restricted platforms. This provides an ability to be nimble and adjust to market conditions, including the use of exchange traded funds and/or GICs when recommended.
-
In addition, I wanted a firm with pricing flexibility. Let’s face it, private clients desire differing levels of service, which results in different levels of time requirements. I feel that the pricing should reflect this and I wanted to ensure I would have this level of flexibility. Fair pricing is and will continue to be highly important to me as it impacts success at too high a level to be ignored.
-
Finally, given prior experiences, I sought out a firm that is supportive from a cultural perspective. Our society is in a constant state of flux and I find that CIBC Private Wealth cares deeply about their clients’ interests and builds culture and policies with this at the forefront.
-
I am your advocate supported by a firm now with the mentality and flexibility I can support.
What is my Role as Your Portfolio Manager versus Analysts' Role?
Many of the tools available to portfolio managers today are used based on institutional needs where there is a clearly defined set of objectives to achieve and liabilities to match. An example of this is a pension plan built for many people. You (a private investor), on the other hand, will have uniqueness and therefore a variety of differences in your needs and objectives comparatively. It is my role to understand your unique needs and apply these tools appropriately.
My role as your Portfolio Manager:
-
Continual Wealth Planning conversations and regular reviews
-
Draft, implement & update your Investment Policy Statement to reflect your needs & circumstances
-
Determine appropriate Strategic Asset Allocation (your target portfolio mix)
-
Make Tactical Asset Allocation decisions to shift for temporary needs or market/economic conditions (your actual overall portfolio mix today)
-
Manage taxation (in association with your Professional Accountant)
-
Determine manager & style selection for each asset class
Requires in-depth personalized knowledge of you.
Analysts' Role:
Requires teams of analysts, approximately 50-60 for a globally diversified portfolio.
An asset allocation (portfolio mix) that is appropriate for you is the most important contributor to a successful investment management strategy. Professional money managers and financial analysts take an institutional approach to identify the best opportunities within a particular investment universe. They don’t necessarily know the end user and cannot make decisions based on their particular circumstances. Therefore, my role is to take the expertise and analytical work done by professional money managers and their teams and apply it to your specific needs and constraints.
What Does Fair Pricing Mean?
Too often, the industry ties costs to overall size of the portfolio with little or no consideration for the work involved. A standardized cost structure only serves you if you are a uniform client and fit perfectly in a box. In my view, standardized cost schedules do not represent fair pricing.
Having worked in the industry for over 20 years, I have yet to meet a standard client. As such, costs in my practice are determined by a personalized calculation based on your preferences for the work involved (subject to a firm minimum charge as well as the below maximum).
Costs are based on your service preferences. Transparency is paramount and you will have a full line of site on your customized cost structure prior to engaging my services.
Please note, this is not typically how portfolios are priced as they are normally fully based on a percentage not a set cost, however you will find this to be more aligned to your preferences.
Through CIBC Private Wealth’s excellent pricing flexibility, your portfolio will reflect what you want for service... not an arbitrary percentage.
In addition to setting a flat cost for your relationship with us, for illustrative purposes, below we have included our maximum cost model. We hope this provides you with comfort in knowing that your costs are subject to the below maximums, which are standardized across all of our private clients.
These maximum costs include custody, underlying investment management costs and the cost of our team. The only element not included is the little known Trading Expense Ratio (TER), which would be additive to the above and dependent on the holdings in the portfolio, which differs per client. The portfolio level TER typically ranges from 0.03% to 0.06%.
One other note is that the above schedule was created for a private client relationship (including any account associated with the client, ie: personal accounts, trust accounts, family foundations, corporate accounts, etc). Should you wish to have us manage additional family members, we would be happy to review and advise you on costs depending on the level of work involved for the number of additional clients.
Since our costs are determined by the service you wish to have, the above is simply a guide to the maximum and your personalized costs will be calculated individually.
What is Your Code of Ethics and Conduct?
As a CFA Charterholder I am bound by the CFA Institute's Code of Ethics and Standards of Professional Conduct. For your reference please find the link to the document
here.
As a CFP Professional I must also adhere to the FP Canada Standards Council
™ Standards of Professional Responsibility, including a Code of Ethics which likewise mandates that CFP professionals place their client's interests first. For your reference please find the link to the document
here.
As a licensed Discretionary Portfolio Manager I am also bound by the Code of Ethics of our firm as well as the regulators.
CFA Charterholder (Chartered Financial Analyst) CFP (Certified Financial Planner)
