Are you registered with a provincial securities regulator?
Pascal Charpentier, Olivier Langlois St-Laurent and Atnaë Lussier are registered among the Canadian Investment Regulatory Organization (CIRO) for the province of Quebec and our registration is available on their website.
What is the role of iA Private Wealth Inc.?
We are authorized to make purchases and sales for you, but we never have direct access to the money because you open your accounts with our administrator, iA Private Wealth Inc. Only you are authorized to make withdrawals and deposits. iA Private Wealth Inc. is the firm in charge of verifying every transaction in order to ensure that they are compliant.
With over 750 investment advisors across Canada, iA Private Wealth Inc. is full service securities brokerage firm that offers personalized wealth management solutions to individuals and businesses. iA Private Wealth Inc. is an exclusive property subsidiary of Industrial Alliance Insurance and Financial Services Inc. Our parent company, one of the biggest and most important insurance companies, is registered with the Toronto Stock Exchange under the symbol IAG and manages an asset worth over 169 billion as of December 31, 2018. iA Private Wealth Inc. is a member of the Canadian Investor Protection Fund (CIPF) and the Canadian Investment Regulatory Organization (CIRO). iA Private Wealth is a trademark and another name under which iA Private Wealth Inc. operates.
Do you offer insurance services?
We do not offer insurance services, but we can offer references.
Why do business with a private portfolio manager rather than with an advisor from a bank?
- With a private portfolio manager, you benefit from a totally independent professional service, which ensures that decisions are truly being made in your interest, without any pressure or influence from any external authority.
- We individually select the stocks ourselves that we offer you and we are able to explain the reasoning behind our recommendations.
- You pay fees that are lower than the standard fees as there is no middleman between the portfolio manager and you.
Do you take care of registered accounts (RRSP, RESP, TSFA, etc.)?
We can take care of managing all your accounts, whether they are registered accounts or not.
What are your fees?
The only fees that are charged are those relative to our services, which are calculated in a regressive manner according to the amount of the investment. We prioritize flat fees based on a percentage of the managed asset rather than the commissions model. This procedure ensures that decisions are truly made in your interest. Being your investment advisor and your portfolio manager at the same time, you are avoiding duplicating fees and are eliminating all external management fees, which benefits you greatly with regards to market standards. The fees are posted in full transparency on your annual statements and can be tax-deductible for non-registered accounts. Please feel free to contact us for more information.
Must I invest a minimal amount?
We wish to encourage access to the most democratic investment there is by also offering our services to low-volume investors. Please feel free to contact us for more information.
Is it long and complicated to transfer my assets to you if they are currently being managed elsewhere?
The procedure is simpler than most people think. When you decide to entrust us with an asset, we take care of filling out the forms for you so that you only have to revise and add your signature. We then deliver everything to our iA Private Wealth inc. broker who supervises the transfer. We cover the fees at this step. If there are back-end sales charges at your other institutions, they are your responsibility. We must wait 2 to 4 weeks for all transfers to be completed. When changes must be made to your portfolio, we have time to complete them gradually afterwards in a timely matter.
What are the benefits of discretionary management?
A portfolio manager has the qualifications to operate in discretionary mode, meaning without the obligation of obtaining approval from the client for each transaction. The client, of course, remains informed of all transactions. This way of working offers the benefit of simplifying the purchasing and selling procedure, thereby allowing to seize opportunities more promptly as they arise. For the client, discretionary management improves returns by devoting less time and energy as he or she doesn’t have to be contacted before each transaction.
What do you think of investing in mutual funds?
Our clients would not benefit from investing in mutual funds. In fact, by choosing a private portfolio manager, you have the same benefits as with mutual funds (highly skilled portfolio manager that selects stocks, ensures diversification) without having its disadvantages (supplemental fees, subordination to the decisions of other investors, overdiversification, no possibility of contacting the portfolio manager who studies the companies and makes decisions).
What do you think of investing in index funds?
Over the course of the last 10 years, investing in “indexes” has created a powerful tidal wave that has completely shaken up the balance of financial markets. Even if this way of operating seems attractive and offers several benefits, the system is a victim of its popularity. In fact, the capital invested in indexes is divided according to the market capitalization of the companies in question (number of shares X price of the share) and not according to their sales figures. This phenomenon creates a vicious circle in which companies with large capitalizations become more and more capitalized, thus generating the creation of bubbles. Investors then have a false sense of diversification and security when in reality, a very large portion of their investment is actually concentrated in a few big technology companies whose stock is trading at outrageous prices, rendering the investment perilous. To clarify with a historical parallel, in 2000, a cautious investor who invested in the S&P/TSX was possibly not aware that a large portion of his capital was directed towards one single company which occupied a third of the market capitalization of the Canadian index. This company was Nortel…
A private portfolio manager is in a position to sort things out for you in order to only keep rare gems with a high return potential in your portfolio, no matter the trends in the market.