by Tom Bradley
Earlier today, CGOV, the manager of the Steadyhand Equity Fund, made an important announcement. The owners of the firm have agreed to sell the business to Fiera Capital.
We know Fiera well, having followed them for a number of years. After speaking with the senior partners at CGOV this morning, and given our familiarity with Fiera, we're confident that Gord O’Reilly (the “O” in CGOV and the lead manager of our fund) will continue to manage our fund the way he always has: by investing in companies with strong balance sheets and leadership, which trade at discounts to CGOV’s estimate of fair value. As part of the transaction, the Fiera stock Gord receives through this deal will be locked up for five years.
The longer-term implications of the deal are harder to measure at this point. For background, Fiera is an independent investment company. A number of investment teams operate under the Fiera umbrella. These teams have autonomy over their investment process but are plugged into the parent for operations, client servicing and sales. The investment teams, rather than the parent, also have final say on which funds they manage and how big they want to grow.
Salman and I will be monitoring the transition closely to get a better understanding of how it may impact clients.
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