Canadian Equity

All of our asset classes, including Canadian Equity, are managed by a team of seasoned investment professionals. Leith Wheeler’s Canadian Equity team members are well recognized within the investment community for their depth of knowledge and experience.

What sets our team apart is that we don’t follow the pack.

We feel strongly that in order to add value, our portfolios must look different from the market. We do not include an investment in a client’s portfolio until we have conducted our own detailed, in-house research. Critical to this process is regular communication with the management of companies we own, or in which we plan to invest. It is essential that the goals of management are in line with the interests of shareholders. This means exposure to the risks as well as the rewards of the business. We also have a bias towards conservatively financed companies—it gives us a margin of error if events do not go according to plan.

Like all sensible private investors, we prefer to buy businesses that have some competitive advantage or franchise that will preserve the company’s ability to deliver attractive returns on capital. However, we realize that the market usually recognizes and fully values these types of companies so we focus our efforts on finding solid businesses which may not be fully recognized by the market. Often these businesses may be under some temporary cloud or competitive pressure such that the franchise value is not clear to the market or the business lacks the speculative appeal or fad of the moment.

We take meaningful positions in the companies we buy and have a culture that allows us to be patient until our investment thesis unfolds. In other words, we are not driven by short-term performance or trying to keep up with the market.

Team Members

Bill Dye, CFA, Head of Canadian Equities

David Jiles, CFA, Canadian Equity Analyst

Richard Liley, CFA, Canadian Equity Analyst

Patrick Reddy, CFA, Canadian Equity Analyst

Nick Szucs, CFA, Canadian Equity Analyst

Bob Lau, CFA, Head of Equity Trading

Bill Dye, CFA

Head of Canadian Equities

Bill Dye, who joined Leith Wheeler in May 1985, is an analyst and portfolio manager and a member of the firm’s Management Committee. Bill’s areas of responsibility within the Canadian Equity Committee include Financials, Golds and Precious Metals. In addition to his portfolio management and equity research experience, Bill spent five years as trader of the firm’s bond portfolios.

Bill is a member and past director of CFA Vancouver, a graduate of UBC (B.Comm., Honours, 1985) and holds a Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) designation. He has been a member of the U.B.C. Portfolio Management Foundation Client Committee for several years.