Manitou Investment Management Ltd.

Clients

Clients are both institutional (endowments/foundations, corporations and pension plans) and private clients.  We believe an exceptional client experience requires two key ingredients: strong investment returns and open and candid communications with clients and the other trusted advisors involved with the management of their financial affairs.

Approach to Equity

Our approach puts risk management and the assessment of quality at the forefront of all investment decisions.  Emphasis is placed on rigorous and independent company research and effective capital allocation.

While our view of risk leads us to emphasize the preservation of capital, our strategy employs a truly concentrated, yet efficiently diversified approach, leading to consistent long-term outperformance. Our strategy tends to underperform bull markets and outperform bear markets.  While we identify a benchmark/index for purposes of comparison, our primary focus is on generating positive absolute returns over the longer term.

We evaluate businesses from the standpoint of an owner rather than that of a stock trader.  We strive to gain superior knowledge about a company, such as its internal workings (culture), industry dynamics, financial strength, competitive advantage and leadership.

Understanding the business, and the industry in which it operates enables us to formulate a solid estimate of its true (intrinsic) value.  We then determine the discount between a company’s stock price and our estimation of its intrinsic value we required before we will purchase of the company.  By paying less than our estimate of a company’s true value we reduce downside risk in the event of unforeseen negative surprises and position ourselves for positive absolute returns.

Our objective is to grow our clients’ capital by outperforming on absolute and relative measures:

1. An absolute return of CPI+6%, net of fees, over a rolling three year period.

2. Exceed the return of the relevant benchmark, net of fees, over a rolling three year period.

3. Perform in the first quartile of both a selected and broader universe of peers.

Key Concepts:

• Concentrated portfolios (<25 names)
• Growing companies trading below their intrinsic value
• Disciplined buy and sell decisions based on price relative to intrinsic value and long term company prospects
• Alpha derived primarily from concentration and disciplined capital allocation
• High active share (typically > 80)
• Low turnover (typically < 30%)
• Low downside capture (typically < 70%)
• Low beta (typically < .75)