Investment Solutions

At Bellwether, we endeavour to provide investment solutions to meet the needs of High Net Worth (HNW) Individuals, Foundations, Estates and Trusts. More than simply a portfolio manager, we are a wealth manager, offering our clients a more complete service based on our philosophy of tailored solutions. Our team’s extensive knowledge of wealth management strategies (tax, estate and financial planning) as well as our investment management expertise makes us ideally suited to meet the complex needs of investors.

Our investment solutions will be tailored to meet your needs:

Segregated Portfolios – Many HNW investors want to be able to see the individual securities held within their portfolio (a segregated portfolio). The use of a segregated portfolio allows the portfolio manager to tailor the investment solution to the client’s needs at the individual security level. This is more commonly required when a client has specific restrictions they wish to place on the type of companies that we invest in (e.g. the exclusion of companies associated with gambling or the military). When constructing a segregated portfolio for our clients we start with one of our core strategies:

  • Canadian equities – primarily large companies based in Canada;
  • US equities – primarily medium and large US based companies;
  • North American equities – a combination of our Canadian and US equity strategies that is designed to minimize tax while providing broad diversification across all sectors; and
  • Canadian fixed income – typically includes government and corporate bonds as well as preferred shares.

We then determine if the chosen strategy requires further tailoring to meet the client’s objectives. Frequently, our clients hold their investments in a number of distinct account types (e.g. registered, non-registered, trusts, TFSAs, etc.). Often, some of these accounts can be smaller in size and thus are more difficult to properly invest using a segregated portfolio of equities and fixed income. In these situations, we utilize our pooled funds to implement the same strategies that we can deliver using our segregated strategies. In addition, our pooled funds are used for more specialized strategies such as our Canadian Performance and Canadian Small Cap funds.

In practice, portfolios of $1 million or more are typically a combination of segregated investments and pooled funds.

Pooled Fund Portfolios – As noted above, smaller portfolios and specialty strategies are best managed using our proprietary pooled funds. Our funds are explained in detail within our Offering Memorandum and require a minimum initial purchase of $150,000 per investment unless the client is an accredited investor as defined in National Instrument 45-106 Prospectus and Registration Exemptions in which case this minimum purchase amount requirement is not applicable. Pooled Funds may be invested in as part of a Bellwether investment solution and are also available electronically through several investment dealers under the relevant Fundserv codes. Please see our Pooled Fund Investment section for more details

Minimum Asset Requirements – There are minimum asset requirements for both our segregated and pooled fund portfolios. Clients investing less than $1 million with us are normally invested in our pooled funds. Clients with more than $1 million invested with us are often invested in a combination of our segregated strategies and our specialty pooled funds.

Discretionary Portfolio Management – Our relationship with all Bellwether clients is governed by our discretionary portfolio management agreement and Investment Policy Statement. These agreements define the terms and conditions by which we are to manage our clients’ investments. These are detailed documents that also explain the relationship we share with the custodian of your investments. See Protecting Your Investments for more details of our custodial relationship.