Tye Bousada taken over Mike Katchen
Tye Bousada is in his forties, but he founded three separate billion-dollar investment firms before turning 38. (the official cutoff for whiz kids, as decreed by the Ryerson School of Journalism). Tye, like Katchen, attended the Ivey School of Business.
Tye began his career as a salesman for Procter and Gamble before switching to the Ontario Teachers Pension Plan, where he became one of their youngest portfolio managers in history at age 28. Then, he took over management of the Trimark Fund, which had previously been overseen by the legend Bob Krembil.
In the end, with Krembil’s support, Tye co-founded EdgePoint Wealth, where he now serves as a key portfolio manager. The company was founded from nothing in 2008 and now manages approximately $30 billion in assets, primarily from retail investors.
EdgePoint is financially secure, charging 1% in fees, and employing approximately 70 people (and no wasteful sub-scale offices in London and New York). Tye once traveled to the United Kingdom and accumulated several hundred million AUM. This is how he operates. And he didn’t even have to write a tedious blog post about Margaret Atwood’s financial habits. (It was an institutional mandate).
If you are the sentimental type who cares about social good, the firm claims to have generated over $6 billion in gains for clients, net of fees, to date. I haven’t analyzed EdgePoint’s returns in detail, but they appear to outperform benchmarks thus far. I completely agree with their buy-and-hold philosophy; they are likely one of the closest Canadian adherents to the Buffett strategy.
Wealthsimple is your best bet if you need a Halal strategy, as they offer the most funds. They describe themselves as an investment-driven company (as opposed to an asset accumulation company)…if they applied themselves to marketing, they could raise substantial funds.
EdgePoint Wealth Management (the management firm behind the funds) has been officially valued at $1.2 billion and has distributed $300 million in dividends since its inception. Therefore, it is a unicorn, whereas Wealthsimple, despite its accomplishments, is not. Based on my information, Bousada likely owns at least 20% of all of that, if not more.
The ROB article revealed that Katchen has obtained a mortgage and purchased her first home. Our man Bousada is a significantly larger player in the real estate market. In 1999, at the age of 28, he co-founded Timbercreek Asset Management, a global asset manager that specializes in real estate and other alternative investments.
Timbercreek manages in excess of $10 billion in assets (though tragically, it has more than 600 employees, as real estate is labour-intensive). Even more frightening is the fact that the company has 19 offices worldwide. I hope they are still able to break even.
Before a few years ago, Tye was a significant shareholder and advisor at Timbercreek, despite not being the company’s driving force. (It appears he is no longer a shareholder as of 2016) Additionally, Tye resides in a King City country estate that Katchen would kill for.
Cymbria, a publicly traded closed-end fund, is the other billion-dollar investment firm with which Tye is affiliated. Cymbria raised $234 million in 2008 for EdgePoint to manage; it was their first fund. Additionally, Cymbria owns a 20% stake in EdgePoint (the manager) for which it paid only $500,000, resulting in a near $300 million payoff for shareholders to date. (I talked about some of this in an earlier piece on Bob Krembil).
Overall, Tye and his investment team have generated hundreds of millions of dollars in value for Cymbria’s shareholders, and the company now has more than a billion dollars in capital. Cymbria’s success is inextricably linked to EdgePoint’s, so you could say that I am including Cymbria as a third homerun for the sake of a catchy title.
This is partially accurate, but Cymbria is its own entity and is just beginning to implement a Berkshire-style acquisition strategy. This will be the subject of my next blog post.
As far as I can recall, he has never been featured on the cover of a magazine. However, he is responsible for the creation of three profitable, multibillion-dollar enterprises in the span of 20 years. At OPM Wire, we have not yet figured out picture technology, so for the sake of completeness, I should mention that Tye Bousada is as attractive as Michael Katchen, albeit in a more traditional, less boyish way. Katchen, eat your heart out!
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