Shaun Hauser is founder and CEO of Wellington-Altus Financial, the parent company to Wellington-Altus Private Counsel, Wellington-Altus USA, Wellington-Altus Insurance, Wellington-Altus Group Solutions, Wellington-Altus Asset Management and Wellington-Altus Private Wealth—the top-rated wealth advisory company (Investment Executive 2023 Brokerage Report Card ) in Canada and one of Canada’s Best Managed Companies. With more than $25 billion in assets under administration and offices across the country, Wellington-Altus identifies with successful entrepreneurial advisors and portfolio managers and their high-net-worth clients.
Russ Alan Prince: Wellington-Altus is rated the number one investment advisory firm in Canada and has experienced explosive growth since its founding in 2017. What factors have led to the firm’s success?
Shaun Hauser: I am glad you asked as I would have answered differently a couple of years ago.
To give proper context, you should know that we started planning for this business well over a year before our launch in 2017. We are big believers in carefully planning our work and then thoughtfully executing that plan. We have a deep understanding of the Canadian and American wealth landscapes and knew then, as we do now, that investments into the digital side of the business—investments that saved advisor teams time and improved efficiency—would be well regarded and inevitably rewarded. We believe we’ve been proven correct on this fact.
We also came to realize that advisors have a lot of fun working here. They appreciate our culture and perspective on servant leadership. I work for our advisors. So do my colleagues on the Executive Committee. The advisors are our bosses, not the other way around. When new advisors join, they feel the energy that comes from an aligned culture of “one team—one dream.” These advisors have already built successful practices but the synergy that comes from joining with like-minded peers gives them opportunities for even further growth. It re-energizes them in a way that carries over into the rest of their lives, positively impacting their clients, their friends, and their families.
Feeling great every day about going to work is our true value proposition. We work on the details very, very hard, but those details are secondary to the way Wellington-Altus makes advisors feel.
Prince: Wellington-Altus offers “the safety of a big bank with the objectivity of independence.” Can you explain what this means and how the firm has attracted top advisors with this perspective?
Hauser: Wellington-Altus is a “cake and eat it too” business model. We custody our assets with National Bank Independent Network, a subsidiary business of the National Bank of Canada, which gives advisors the safety and stability of a major financial institution combined with the flexibility to do whatever they feel is correct in taking care of their clients. There are no sales quotas, cross-selling, or shareholder impositions at Wellington-Altus, so advisors have the freedom to provide advice to clients with no influence on product or platform choice in delivering financial peace of mind.
Prince: How does the Canadian wealth management marketplace compare to the U.S. marketplace?
Hauser: Canada is very similar to the U.S., with some differences, but those differences have very large implications.
One of the distinctions has to do with the brand recognition around banks. The Regional Bank concept, which is large in the U.S., essentially does not exist in Canada. There are six big banks with strong brand loyalty that command the lion’s share of Canadians' investible net worth. Six!
Until recently, Canada did not follow the U.S. trend of migration towards independence. Firms like Wellington-Altus were not considered real threats to banks’ wealth management businesses, and perhaps they are still not. However, factually speaking, Wellington-Altus has out-paced all institutions in asset growth since its genesis in 2017, including banks.
I think the groundswell towards independence is just starting in Canada. It very much feels like the U.S. market 10-15 years ago.
Prince: Is the U.S. RIA model rising in popularity in Canada?
Hauser: The RIA model as constructed and implemented in the U.S. would be very difficult, in fact almost impossible, to replicate in Canada. Simply put, because Canada is 10% the size of the U.S., market, and economies of scale don’t exist here, and the business models differ in how profitability is achieved.
The way we think about our model is very simple: We think and act like a U.S.-based RIA, but we are structured like a wirehouse.
Prince: How has consolidation in the Canadian wealth management industry changed?
Hauser: Historically speaking, banks have been the aggregators of wealth management businesses for the last 40 years or so. The massive expansion of private equity as a global asset class has allowed the creation of a different form of financial partnership for independence in Canada.
Now, businesses like Wellington-Altus can find long-term financial partners who will assist in providing balance sheet capital, allowing businesses like ours to grow beyond our previous limitations.
Private equity partnerships provide businesses like Wellington-Altus with extraordinary short, medium, and long-term opportunities to continue to re-invest back into our model and continue growing at fast rates.
Because of technological advancements, businesses like ours can partner with long-term focused private equity partners like The Cynosure Group, and together, we can offer advisors a platform that can be replicated anywhere in this country.
This bodes very well for our business, and we’re excited about what is to come as we move forward.
Russ Alan Prince is the executive director of Private Wealth and a strategist for family offices and the ultra-wealthy. He has co-authored 70 books in the field, including Making Smart Decisions: How Ultra-Wealthy Families Get Superior Wealth Planning Results.