Company Summary
Founded in 1974, Mawer is a privately owned, independent investment manager with a team of over 100 people. We manage in excess of $17.1 billion in assets for a broad range of individual and institutional investors across a variety of global asset classes.
Experience
The Firm is one of Canada’s most experienced portfolio managers. Through building resilient portfolios, we have safely and profitably navigated our clients through the high inflation environment of the 1970s, the oil shocks of 1979 and 1986, the high interest rate environment of the early 1980s, the market crash of 1987, the end of the Cold War, the Japanese market bubble of the late 1980s, the Gulf War, the Asian Crisis, two Quebec referenda, the Russian currency crisis and the demise of Long Term Capital of 1998, the Tech bubble of the late 1990s, the Terrorist attacks of 2001, and the Credit Crisis of 2008/2009. Throughout, we have provided consistent, steady portfolio management for our clients based on a solid, proven investment philosophy and disciplined processes.
Mission Statement
Mawer Investment Management Ltd.’s mission is to prudently build clients’ investment assets by providing independent investment counseling services to individuals, retirement plans, foundations, and not-for-profit organizations.
Vision Statement
Mawer Investment Management Ltd.’s vision is to be a top tier investment counsellor, widely known for its professional and disciplined investment approach, its ethics, and the superior treatment of clients, employees and other stakeholders.
Core Values
Integrity
We act with integrity above all else through honest and complete communication; effective listening; accepting responsibility; and keeping agreements.
Client Satisfaction
We strive to be “best in class, first time right, on time, every time.” We will achieve client satisfaction through our client reporting and client service standards and in our actions and behaviours.
Excellence
We are committed to excellence, a process and mindset that pushes one to continually perform at the highest level one possibly can. Excellence is a work in progress and fuelled by a continuous desire to learn and improve.
Long Term Perspective
We continually balance the short term demands that challenge our long term perspective in investing for our clients, managing our business, the treatment of our employees and the interaction with our community.
Source: Mawer Investment Management
Unique Value Proposition
Investment Approach
Equities
Mawer Investment Management Ltd. systematically creates broadly diversified portfolios of wealth-creating companies, with excellent management teams, bought at discounts to their intrinsic values.
There are five key ideas in this investment approach that should be highlighted.
Wealth-Creating Companies
We focus only on companies that create wealth, or those that deliver a return on capital greater than their cost of capital over time. We believe that this is the main reason to assume investment risk. It implies that we do not buy companies just because they are “cheap” and that we will ignore those companies which do not offer the prospect of earning a satisfactory return on invested capital.
Excellent Management
An excellent management team is experienced and educated in regards to the company’s business operations. We conduct interviews with the management, and, if possible, suppliers and customers to determine whether the management team is capable of maintaining the growth and competitive advantages of their firm.
Discount to Intrinsic Value
Once we have identified a wealth-creating company, we try to buy it at a discount to its intrinsic value, or the price an objective, well-informed businessperson would pay for the company. It is not enough to know that a company is wealth-creating. One must also know how much wealth it is expected to create in order to know how much to pay for a share of the enterprise. Our primary tool for estimating intrinsic value is a discounted cash flow model.
Broadly Diversified Portfolios
Given our concern with investment risk, and not just investment return, our portfolios are broadly diversified by industry and economic sensitivity. Please note, though, that we are not driven by our exposure relative to underlying index weights.
Systematic Process
Following this investment approach systematically is what should enable us to take advantage of the market opportunities identified in our investment philosophy. We believe that a systematic approach ensures discipline, enhances efficiency, minimizes errors and reduces risk.
Fixed Income
Mawer exploits inefficiently priced areas of the Canadian bond market through the flexible application of sector allocation, security selection and trading strategies.
There are three keys to our strategy that should be highlighted.
Sector Allocation Strategy
We typically overweight those sectors of the fixed income market that provide attractive yields relative to Government of Canada bonds. That is, we generally emphasize investment grade corporate, provincial, and municipal bonds.
Security Selection Strategy
We actively seek attractively priced securities using in-house credit analysis. Credit risk is also researched and monitored using dealer research and credit rating agency reports from Standard & Poor’s and Dominion Bond Rating Service. Credit risk is integral to our style as we seek opportunities to pick-up yield through security selection without sacrifice of credit quality.
Trading Strategies
We monitor bond markets in an effort to identify and exploit mispriced securities. These anomaly areas of the market may hold potential investment opportunities. We utilize the internal sources of our research team and strong, focused dealer relationships to generate investment ideas and execute on them.
Source: Mawer Investment Management
AUM ($Bil)
40
Year Founded
1974
Key Personnel
Jamie Hyndman, Director of Strategic Business Development
Beth Hamilton-Keen, Director of Investment Counselling
Olivia Woo, Director, Private Client Investment Counsellor
Address
603- 7th Avenue S.W., Suite 900
Calgary, Alberta
T2P 2T5