This article is part of our Beyond the Family Business series.
Hosted by Luke-Hansen MacDonald, a second-generation family business leader, “Beyond the Family Business” has established itself as one of the most thoughtful and engaging podcasts about family enterprise in Canada. In the podcast, which Canadian Family Offices is sharing with readers every two weeks, Hansen-MacDonald interviews leaders in the family enterprise space to explore lessons they have learned and their successes and challenges behind the headlines. Last month, Hansen-MacDonald interviewed Ian Wilson, president of Wilson Fuel Co. Ltd., a company whose roots in Atlantic Canada go back eight generations.
This newest episode features Jeffrey McCain, a member of the third generation of the McCain family of McCain Foods and president of Woodward Capital, an investment firm based in Toronto. In conversation with Hansen-MacDonald, McCain shares:
- How he followed his own career path outside the iconic family food business.
- Why a business family is different from a family business.
- How he and his siblings manage intra- and intergenerational family dynamics.
- The advice his grandfather Wallace McCain gave him about philanthropy.
Transcript
Luke: Hi, welcome to Beyond the Family Business, a podcast in partnership with Canadian Family Offices, where we dive into the stories, lessons and opportunities that come with managing a family enterprise. This episode is brought to you by BMO Private Wealth, where your family’s legacy, values and vision are always front and center.
My guest today is Jeffrey McCain. He’s the third generation of the McCain Foods family and president of Woodward Capital. Jeffrey and I discuss his own journey and the invaluable experience he got working on Wall Street at Goldman Sachs. He also explains why he decided to rejoin the family business and change his focus to mid-size private equity and the unique and differentiated position that family offices like his have in the world of private equity. And lastly, he shares some amazing advice that his grandfather Wallace McCain gave to him as a young boy on the topic of philanthropy.
You’re not going to want to miss this one. This is beyond the Family Business podcast. Let’s jump into it.
Luke: I always start off with the same three questions: Who are you? Where are you from? And what do you do?
Jeffrey: Okay. Well, first, thanks for having me on the pod.
Luke: Absolutely.
Jeffrey: Great to be here, and always good to see you. So, I’m Jeffrey McCain. Jeffrey William Scott McCain. That’s a bit of a mouthful. From New Brunswick. I was born in Grand Falls, which is a small town not too far from Florenceville, which is the origins of, where our family business is from. And that’s kind of how I always describe myself as being someone from New Brunswick, but who grew up in Toronto. I moved to Toronto in the nineties, so I feel like, it’s like a tale of two cities almost, where I grew up in one city, but always identified with the roots of another one.
Luke: Very fair.
Jeffrey: And what do I do now?
Luke: Yes.
Jeffrey: That’s a good question. I feel like I wear a few hats. We’re probably going to get into that today.
Luke: Absolutely.
Jeffrey: But for now, one of my main roles of—there’s two main roles. The first would be running Woodward Capital, which I started September/October-ish of 2022. So that was actually when I moved back to Canada, had graduated from grad school and did my MBA at London Business School, moved back and there was a bit of a “what’s next” moment. And then I launched this search fund at the time, which it’s not really a search fund anymore, it’s more of a HoldCo. which houses a number of personal investments that I’ve made. And I’ve been spending a lot of time on that over the last couple of years.
Lately though, getting more pulled into some family office stuff that we’re doing, which, um, has been a lot of fun. There’s some fun theses we’re kind of co-developing on that front, and that’s actually taking up more of my time lately. And I think that’ll continue to be the case going forward. It’ll be more of a balancing act. Woodward Capital is going to continue to exist, but I’m also going to take a more active role within kind of family office investing.
Luke: Cool. Awesome. I hope we can touch on a whole bunch of that.
Jeffrey: Yeah. I know I threw a lot at you there.
Luke: So, it’s obvious because of your last name, but what is the original family business and when was it founded?
Jeffrey: So, the original family business is McCain Foods. It was founded in 1957 by my grandfather, Wallace McCain and his brother Harrison, with the support of his two other brothers, the four founding families. And, it was a frozen potato business. Started in the late fifties.
Luke: Very cool.
Jeffrey: And that’s the origin.
Luke: And it started in Florenceville?
Jeffrey: It was started in Florenceville, yeah.
Luke: Yeah. Very cool. One of the most prolific Atlantic Canadian success stories. So, I love the fact that I get to interview you. And that business has obviously grown massively today. What generation is the McCain family in today now with that business?
Jeffrey: So, we’re in G4. I think the oldest of my cousins, one of my second cousins, I think his eldest is maybe 20 now. The age span is pretty significant, because if you think about the youngest from G3 is roughly the same age.
Luke: Wow.
Jeffrey: It’s always, kind of, G3, G4, G5 where it starts to get a little muddied between the, the generations. But for me and my siblings, we’re all in our thirties. The vast majority of my cousins are in a small bandwidth of probably about 10 years, or 95% of us are roughly similar age.
Luke: And you’re G3?
Jeffrey: I’m G3, yeah.
Luke: But G4 is now
Jeffrey: G4 is like creeping up on us here. They’re getting older. In our case, G4 within my branch, within my family, the oldest is 6 years old. So, there’s still plenty of time to grow.
Luke: Very cool. And what are your earliest memories of that family business of McCain Foods?
Jeffrey: Yeah, it’s funny because I was thinking about this a little bit earlier, and I almost frame it as like, when is the moment of consciousness for me of what does this thing mean and what is it all about? I don’t know that I can specifically pinpoint it to a moment, but I definitely remember being very young when I started to realize that these things we were pulling out of the freezer had some meaning. And that there always was kind of stories being told about them. And it was made pretty obvious to me at a young age that I had some kind of connection to it. You know, I was maybe not able to read the bag at that time, but it was like, this is ours, we made this down the street, kind of storytelling. And eventually, when I was able to read, you’re like, “oh, that’s my last name on the bag.” And so, I think that the identity with the business started at a pretty young age. It became common knowledge, if you will. I can’t pinpoint it to a specific moment, but we have a long history of dinner table conversations, talking about the business. So, I don’t really know anything else. That was very normal for me growing up.
Luke: Very fair. As many family businesses are like that. So, building on that, as you were growing up, did you always want to, not necessarily work in McCain foods, but did you always want to work with family? Or did you want to go do your own thing?
Jeffrey: It’s a really good question. Working with family was very normal for me, right? Had I grown up in a different environment, I’m sure that, perhaps that would’ve been a weird concept, like working in business with a sibling, an older brother or younger brother and sister, what have you. But for me, that was just super normal. There was no other way of doing it. Right? Like, you kind of grew up all being privy to the same conversations, growing up in the same sandbox. And so, it was really normal to think about working with siblings, cousins as just sort of a natural path going forward.
But, I will say that, growing up, I wasn’t really actually encouraged to work directly in the business as an operator, right? I think my dad had a different lens of what he was thinking for us, in our lifetimes of what we would want to be doing when we’re older, that I think it’s a bit of a misconception of some family businesses that it’s assumed that you will work in the business or that you have to work in the business. Now, I know that there’s many examples where that is the case, for me, it was anecdotally kind of the opposite. It was like, you’re not going to work in the business. But what you are going to do is something, and what you need to prepare for is to be a good shareholder and owner and maybe director someday if that’s what the family wants from me. And that was more of the expectation as opposed to “Hey, you’re gonna be working with your siblings in the family business, and when you graduate, you’re gonna go do that.”
Now, I did work at McCain Foods for a summer, in sales, after my second year at Western. And that was a really, really fun experience for me. I traveled all over southeastern Ontario, really enjoyed that. But there was a bit of a sheep herding effect, that is common at Ivy Business School, where you kind of go into these two lanes: consulting or investment banking. It was very common to do that.
And I kind of ended up swimming in that direction and went down the investment banking path.
So that was the first point where I was like, “oh, I’m gonna go off and do my own thing. Not only do my own thing, but I’m leaving Canada to do that thing.” I think that was the first step out of the fold, if you will.
Luke: Yeah. It’s very interesting about the idea of your family didn’t push you to be in, because you’re right, there’s so many different examples of families where it’s the expectation, but I’ve also interviewed quite a few people that have the exact opposite, and they’re almost pushed away from being in the family business. And I remember when I was talking to your dad, he made the point of how important it is to not expect your children to go in the family business. And they need to figure out their own thing. And I asked him something around, how do you measure yourself as a parent? And he was like, it’s all about how happy your kids are and how fulfilled they are they have to do something, but how happy they are with doing that thing. And so that really resonated with me as he spoke from the heart about it, and I was like, I gotta remember that for my own kids. That’s a great, great piece of advice.
Jeffrey: Yeah. Fair enough.
Luke: So then, you took the path of iBanking. Where did you go?
Jeffrey: So, this is shortly after I graduated, finished my four years at Western, two years of Poli sci, then two years at the Ivy Business School. I moved to New York after I graduated, a couple months after I graduated, and started at a boutique investment bank called Atlas Advisors, which actually has gotten smaller over time. There were four partners, and some of them retired over time. And the firm itself, actually started to get smaller. But when I joined, it was about 25 – 30 bankers, boutique M&A shop. So your typical, we’re doing a lot of different things, but all within an M&A lens of advising companies on buying, selling businesses, raising capital and basically strategic finance for these clients. So that was a really, really interesting training ground. I was there for a few years. Then I kind of, as is sort of normal in the investment banking world in New York, you kind of pivot after a few years. You either go to another bank or maybe you go to a corporate development role or private equity. So I took a little bit of a, a dual path where I started talking to some private equity firms but also interviewing with some other investment banks. And I thought, why just choose one, I probably should talk to a lot of different people. And came across an opportunity to join the Sponsor M&A group at Goldman Sachs. Now, that was a really small team when I first joined, it was 12 bankers. There were just a few folks, led by this guy named David Kamo, and it was just timing. I happened to reach out when an associate had recently quit. And sometimes outreach plus effort equals luck. And it was one of those situations, and it just seemed like a really good opportunity because most of their clients were private equity firms. This was the sponsor coverage group within this bank, part of the M&A group. It’s also Goldman Sachs in New York. So, it’s got a decent reputation as a learning ground.
Luke: I’ve heard of them before.
Jeffrey: Yeah, a couple folks have heard of them here and there. And I thought, you know what? I gotta jump on this. Like, am I gonna be here forever? Probably not. In fact, actually, I remember, it really dawned on me that reality when the person who hired me from HR said, I expect you to be here at least two years. Can you please do that? And I was like, I can do that. And so I was there for a few years and had a wonderful experience. And that team experienced like startup level growth. It was crazy. There was a lot of deal activity. It was a really wonderful learning opportunity for me, but I felt like it, by the time I left, it was a different animal than the one I had joined. And for me, I was getting to that seven-year point of investment banking and thought, I think it’s time for me to take the off ramp. You kind of go all in, or you take the off ramp on the highway. And for me, the off ramp was grad school. I thought, you know what, I’ve always wanted to live in London. I’m gonna go there for a couple years, do my MBA, have a great time, learn a ton and figure out what’s next after that.
Luke: Cool.
Jeffrey: I also was tired, after seven years of that.
Luke: Yeah. Very Fair. Especially in New York City, I can imagine.
Jeffrey: A little bit burnt out.
Luke: Yeah. So, then you went and did your masters?
Jeffrey: I did. Yeah.
Luke: And so you lived in London a couple years.
Jeffrey: Yeah.
Luke: And then after that, what did you do?
Jeffrey: So after that, I graduated from LBS, London Business School. Met amazing people, had a wonderful time there. Didn’t actually do any sort of working in London, because I left a few months after I graduated. Came back to Toronto, and this concept of search funds, it’s really been taking off over the last decade, but within the MBA community in Canada, the US, and in Europe it’s really well known as a career path. And to be honest, for better or worse, there’s a lot of, a lot of pros that came from my experience on Wall Street, but my personal bandwidth or ability to work for someone else was rapidly diminished over that period of time. I thought, I gotta do something on my own. I was feeling like a bit more of a entrepreneurial or operator itch to get out there and get my hands into something. And a search fund is just a perfect vehicle to do that. I mean, it’s just a fancy way of saying, I’m going to actually dedicate myself full time to finding a small business to invest in, be involved in the operations, and try to grow this thing, right? And to me, that just seemed like a really natural fit.
You know, I was not a startup guy. Like, I did it an internship in California during my MBA and it was at a FinTech business, and it was a great learning experience, but I realized I’m not a startup guy. It’s not an environment that I thrive in. And that idea of hiring your first employee and building the product, not that exciting to me. I’m more like, take something that’s working and inject some steroids into that and really have some fun.
Luke: Yeah. Absolutely. So, now you are running Woodward Capital. What is Woodward Capital today?
Jeffrey: So, there’s a lot of things that have my last name on it. And I wanted to do something that was moving away from that, as my own thing a little bit, but pay homage in a different way. So Woodward is my mom’s maiden name.
Luke: Oh, awesome.
Jeffrey: That’s where Woodward comes from. So, Woodward Capital. And the genesis there was, there’s these wonderful small to medium sized businesses out there that are founded by, in many cases, family businesses, founder owned and operated companies that have a succession event that is coming, or that they’re planning for, right? And again, we’re just talking about this, like the assumption that there’s a family member that is willing or wants to or has the qualifications to take over. It’s a super wide spectrum out there of whether that works or doesn’t work, right?
Luke: Yeah, absolutely.
Jeffrey: And so for me, I thought, I’m just going to spend time looking for those types of businesses where I can take the legacy of something amazing that’s been built by someone else and give it that next generation of life, right? Am I going to own the business for 50 years? Maybe yes, maybe no. But for me, that was an exciting opportunity to really execute on that vision, with a lot of baby boomers that are sort of retiring and don’t really know what to do with their businesses in many cases.
And so for me, that was a natural fit, and this is very common knowledge in the search fund world. I’m not really saying anything revolutionary here, but it works.
Luke: But still quite interesting. Absolutely. Big time. And so now that you’re in that world, when you look back at your time working outside the family business, obviously it had a big impact on you. What were some of the biggest things that you learned from that external experience that have benefited you now working in the family business?
Jeffrey: It’s such a good question, because when I think about my role in the business, right? You get that, sort of, outside lens kind of coming back, right? I had never, basically all of my twenties were learning experiences outside of Canada. I was in the US and then the UK and I kind of came back and thought, wow, I’ve never been a working adult in Toronto, right? Could barely even lease a car. I didn’t have a credit history as an employed person in Canada. It was starting fresh and this outside lens that I was kind of taking a look at on everything, including the family business.
And kind of came to this realization, especially having the benefit of meeting some amazing people that come from an incredibly diverse set of family businesses at London business school. Like, that is a melting pot of people that come from family businesses, from the Middle East, from Latin America, from Asia, from North America. It’s just really really interesting. And I felt like we were, as G3s, as part of this ecosystem, at least me, my two older sisters, my dad, I felt like we were that first generation, like a G1 that was moving from a family business to a business family, if you will. And that was especially true to me, just on a personal side of things, because I’m not an operator in the business, right?
We’ve got an incredible management team, and employees that are dedicated to the business. They’re working in the factory floors every day, in sales and finance and HR and marketing and supply chain, and we’re so lucky to have them as part of the family, right? But I’m not an operator in the business on a day-to-day basis. So when I think about my relationship, it’s more of a, alright, I gotta be a good steward of this. That’s, that’s my role here. Is to be part of the multi-generational shift that happens every 25, 30 years, where you’ve kind of got the next generation that continues to be involved in either working in the business or being owners in the business, right? But in the meantime, what am I gonna do? Right, Luke? There’s, there’s a lot to do. I’ve got the search fund thing, you know, I invested as a minority investor in a bunch of other search fund deals and the institutional search funds themselves and as the majority owner in a couple of businesses as well. But outside of that, what are we going to do here that’s going to be kind of crafting our story, right? What is our legacy going to be in this? And so, I have the relationship with the business and just a lot of pride that comes from that. And being part of that family and the legacy that I’ve been passed down, and very blessed to be part of that. But the reality is that we all want to do our own things and plant our own flags too, right?
Luke: Yep. Absolutely.
Jeffrey: And so I think that it’s that, how do you shift from being in the family business to being generally a business family? And I did actually have a little bit of a benefit of watching this from afar in some capacity, because in 2012, my dad partnered with the Sobey family in founding, with some great partners, C4 Capital, which we’ve talked about a little bit in the past. And over time, my role in that organization has increased. I was just sort of hearing about it second-hand, and then I was a board observer for a number of years. I kind of had to step away from that when I was at Goldman ’cause they’re really strict on compliance and conflicts. But as soon as I got back to Canada, I was like, I gotta get my hands back in this. And that was really my first direct line of sight of, hey, like we can invest in these great businesses, and we’ve got all this experience and this network and this know-how, and we need to be applying this to other great Canadian companies that we think we can grow, right?
And that was that first moment of dawning again, like a new consciousness of wait a second, maybe this is something that I could do longer term, if I can be more involved in this and find ways to grow this, then it actually quite well matches my background, right? Like the investment banking side of things, experience working with private equity firms. Suddenly these all became very translatable. And so, for me it was a bit of a natural fit of, okay, I’m on the outside, but now that we’re here, what do we do.
Luke: For sure. Cool. That’s a perfect segue into my next question. So, I feel like the anticipations building up of what you’re doing next. Can you speak a bit about what are some of those investments you made? Or what’s a recent investment you’ve made in Woodwork Capital?
Jeffrey: Sure. So the most recent ones: I’ve made two investments in the HVAC space, and also the most recent majority acquisition was a business based in Thornhill called Design Air. And that’s a 50+ year old business that I acquired last year. And so, not an HVAC guy, as I’ve described. So I don’t have a formal educational background in the trades, but these types of businesses that are sort of essential services type companies, whether that’s plumbing, electrical, contracting, commercial and industrial services, those are all under the essential category. And they’re wonderful businesses. Again, this is very well known in the independent sponsor private equity search fund space, but for me, it just felt like that’s where I wanted to go, right? I was always of the view that when I was working on Wall Street, it’s a very white-collar environment, but I’m just as comfortable, if not more comfortable with hanging out with the Ford F150s and getting stuff done, right?
And so for me, I was like, I probably should operate a business that’s more like that, right? That might be a really good fit for this new phase of actually digging into the operations, right? Let’s try that on for size and see how it fits. And so I invested in those companies, and I think I’m honestly gonna do more of the same. Luke, honestly, there’s still so many opportunities to grow that. These are very fragmented markets. There’s a lot of mom and pops out there. And I think there’s just great ways to build scale, build a regional, national, maybe someday international champions of these companies that are doing great things. And I just like being part of it. I think it’s been a really good fit for the fund, and the thesis might change a little bit over time, but I’m pretty excited about what we’re doing so far.
Luke: Awesome. No, it’s great that you’ve lined on, I think sometimes there can be the shiny object thing where you’re going in a bunch of different directions. It’s great to hear, it sounds like you’ve really dialed in on what you want to focus on. So I think that makes a great deal of sense. I guess I would also ask, when you’re doing a deal like that, are you going in and you’re taking it over completely and you’re running it? Or are you partnering with the existing operator? Or how, how does that typically work?
Jeffrey: So, it’s a great question because the way that this played out, honestly, I’m really lucky, Luke, because the original thesis when I launched Woodward Capital was, I’m going to buy one company. And it’s actually a good reminder,
I probably should make some updates on the website as to what we’re doing, and it’s more of a holding company than it is a search fund now. But the reality was that that was the plan. That was my honest ambition when I started this thing. Okay. I’m going to find one business, put some capital into it, and take over as the CEO. When I realized, when you start digging in here, yeah, there’s plenty of situations where you can do that, but there’s also lots of other ones where, wait a second, mom or dad wants to sell the business, the son or daughter is in the company. They’re doing a pretty good job. Do I skip it because I don’t get to be the CEO? That makes no sense. Like a good business is a good business. And if you’ve got a wonderful operating partner from day one, that’s a green flag. You should, you should take advantage of that opportunity. And so I saw just broadly in the ecosystem, some of these traditional search fund deals that were falling through the cracks. Because the whole point was you launched this fund, your people are backing you to be the CEO.
So if you are not the CEO, what are we doing here? And so that was a real missing link, I thought there’s something wrong here, right?
And so for me, I think getting, involved in the business, I was always willing to do it, but I really was like, let’s let the chips fall as they will on this. I’m not gonna force myself into a specific position. So, long story short, that business I bought has a wonderful GM in it, and he handles a lot of the day-to-day. I’m actually getting more involved over time. But that first day transition, like I had a someone there day to day to really keep this thing moving forward. And that’s been really good for me, because I can focus on “okay, well where does this go?” That old adage of, are you spending time working in the business or working on the business? A lot of search fund CEOs are immediately in the business. I’m trying to straddle that a little bit differently and say, actually, I really also wanna work on the business. Which could mean M&A, bringing in sales functions, marketing functions that are non-existent. Right? Hard to do that when you’re on project sites every day with the hard hat on. It’s really hard to do that when you’re putting out the daily fires.
Luke: A hundred percent. I think that’s a really, really smart approach to it. We were talking a bit about EOS before. And part of that concept is you have the visionary and the integrator, you know, sort of the person who’s boots on the ground doing the day-to-day operations versus that person that’s looking out in the future of sort of, here’s where we need to go next, M&A, strategy, et cetera. So, makes a great deal of sense.
I wonder if you can share a little bit about, you’ve now had a pretty well diversified career. You’ve worked in Wall Street, which a lot of people can’t say that That’s an incredible thing by itself. You’ve got to live internationally. You’re well educated, and now you’re working in the family business. Can you speak about a specific challenge that you’ve had professionally over your lifetime that had a big impact on you as a leader or as a business person?
Jeffrey: Yeah. It’s a great question. I don’t know if there’s one specific moment, but many domino pieces that kind of led to where I am today. To be honest, this culture, at least within my family, I’m not going to speak broadly about the McCains, but within my family for sure, and my two siblings and my dad, you know, there was this expectation that we weren’t working in the business, right? Like, it’s like you’re not going to do that. You’re going to do something, whatever that is, because the doing nothing is not an option was very much hammered into us at a young age. So that was for sure a given. But the, what are we going to do next is, is one that I’ve always struggled with. And the first time where I kind of came to that pivot point, if you will, of where that resulted in a pretty altering life decision was after I graduated from Western, which was, I wasn’t some Excel math wizard that found the finance classes easy, right? I actually, I did fine in them, but was an average student, but liked the subject matter a lot. And so this was the first time where I thought, I’m gonna do something because it’s hard, not because it’s easy. And that was that. Okay, I’m going to get out of this ecosystem, do my own thing in New York and going to work my ass off candidly, but it’s going to be worth it. Because the training ground is going to be incredible.
And so I think that that was the first kind of major moment of, hey, we can carve our own paths outside of the family business too, and still be part of the family business, and really proud to be part of it and on committees and engage in shareholder education and do all of the things. One of the options in the multiple choices, sorry, can I have all of the above please? You know, like, I, I like the menu. Maybe I’ll have two starters instead of the main, but I’d really like all of the above, please. And so, when I started to realize that I could probably do that over time, that was a major move in my framing of how I wanted my career to go. And then when I was in the UK that was the next step of, all right, after I graduate, I gotta get into a business now. I’ve been talking about these businesses and meeting with CEOs and CFOs and talking about all these big deals and really interesting subject matter and great learning opportunity, but I haven’t done anything. Like, I really wanted to get in there and do some stuff. Because it always felt like in that advisory world that you’re full-on on something and then it’s just kind of done. Like, you finish an engagement, and you wrap up the project and you’re like, okay, good luck on the implementation. And you don’t really know where it goes from there sometimes. That’s the part where I was feeling like a gap in my career, and I wanted to dive in on that. And so I think that was another big moment in the domino effect of what are we going to do next year?
But in terms of where we are today, I think now it just feels like a lot of this stuff has been a natural evolution. I don’t know if there was ever a, oh, you have to do this, or this needs to be done now. It felt like free flowing. Which I’m really glad it played out that way.
Jake: Yeah, no kidding. That’s sort of the ideal situation as you slowly bolt on more knowledge and experience and everything like that. So, no, that’s very interesting. Shifting gears a little bit, you mentioned at the start, that you’re quite involved in the family office. Can you speak a little bit about, outside of Woodward Capital, what is the sort of family office activity that you spend time on?
Jeffrey: So, this is one of the other hats I’ve been wearing lately. And to be honest, I think that role expands from here, right? Woodward Capital will continue to exist because that’s where I do all my personal investing, and I’m really proud of what we’ve done so far, and I want to do more of that going forward. But if you can park that for a second, there’s still a lot going on in the family office. And so my two siblings and I have a lot of different files, right? Like, I’ve been very involved in the private equity investing we’ve done to date as a family. One of my sisters is on the Holdco board of McCain Foods, and so she’s very involved in that file. And my other sister is on the foundation board of McCain Foods as well. And so everybody’s doing some really interesting things, but we have our files and that all folds into the family office, right? And we also came to the realization that we’re incredibly proud of the team and everything that’s going on at C4 Capital. But we also know that there might be some opportunities out there where the more traditional private equity style of investing is not necessarily the right fit for that company or that person, or that founder or that family member, right?
And so what are we good at as a family office? Well, we’re pretty decent, or we’re trying to be pretty decent about multi-generational ownership, right? So long term for many folks is 3 to 5 years. Like, that’s super long term. If you are at any standard corporate finance conference, when they’re talking about long term, they’re talking about like one year plus. That’s short term for me. Like 3 years is short term. 5 years is short term. I’m like, what about the 25, 30-year increments? So, if I’ve got a 35-year window of investing, active investing horizon, which I think roughly I do, maybe I’ll wanna step off the gas a little bit in my seventies, but let’s call it 30, 35 years of being really, really full-on in this and having some fun. That’s a long investing period. And there might be some companies out there operating businesses that want that type of evergreen permanent equity family office style partner. And that’s who we want to, ultimately do deals with. Might be a little bit of a needle in a haystack exercise but we’re going to do our darn best to find them.
Luke: I think it’s a pretty attractive pitch to somebody finding that long-term patient capital. I think that’s where family offices play a really key role in the equity market, is that. And there’s some people that, they claim they’re that, but they don’t really do it. But I think having that truly patient capital, as you said, it can be a very attractive thing. Now it’s not for everybody. But I think it’s worth the wait to try to find that needle in the haystack. So can you speak a little bit about, where you and your siblings, you’re now actively in the family business, your dad is still active, but like my dad, is probably starting to take a bit of a step back and get to enjoy his life as they should. Where do you and your siblings want to take the family legacy or your branch of the family legacy?
Jeffrey: It’s a great question. Not being an operator in the business, there’s a secondary door that you kind of go through, right? Which is, if you’re all under the tent here, there’s management, there’s family, and then there’s owners, and there’s people that can play in all of these different buckets.
Luke: Mm-hmm.
Jeffrey: I’m more of the family member and owner / shareholder category, because I’m not working in sales at McCain or finance or corporate development or what have you. There’s wonderful people doing that. And so, when I think about where does it go from here, really my responsibility is the stewardship piece, right? Like that’s also the biggest challenge in any family business, right? Is how do we have successful multi-generational transfers and keep this thing going and really refine. You can make adjustments over time and mistakes get made, and you work through those things. But ultimately there is a culture that exists somewhere in that organization that has really fueled the success, right? And it’s your responsibility, as an engaged family member, owner, shareholder, maybe director someday, to really make sure that that culture stays intact. And that’s going to be the fuel. That is gonna be the guiding light for the next CEO, CFO, senior leadership team, and will funnel all the way down to everybody in the organization. There’s over 20,000 people in the organization, and they are relying on us as family members and owners of the company to keep this thing moving in the right direction and do the right thing. And so that’s gonna be my mission, right? And I’m excited about that. It is a big responsibility, but it’s gonna be. You have to have a framing of, look, let’s try to have some fun with this too, right? Like, this is something to be incredibly proud of. And so our job and our biggest challenge is preserving that and growing that over time, right? Because as soon as you, if you’re not moving forward, you’re effectively moving two steps backwards is just generally how I view it. So we gotta keep this thing moving forward. And what that means at the granular level is the company and the holding company board, which takes on some of the secondary order effects of next generation training and engagement and that type of stuff that serves really, the family has done a wonderful job of setting up programs, educational programs, engagement programs, and full modules on various topic areas in the business to get really comfortable with the various operations of the business. And then a whole long list of subject matters that we participate in. And you can choose to, to take part in those. And that’s a two-year program. Like, it’s been a two-year program.
Luke: Wow. And that’s specifically for family members?
Jeffrey: Yeah. And, really, it’s G3s right now. Like, this is the age stuff I was telling you about before. It makes sense to kind of do this at a phase of your career where you can actually dedicate some weekends. And that it’s really that in-between age where you don’t have too many kids that are taking up too many priorities, but if you do, you’re finding a way to balance it somehow with supportive spouses and all of that stuff. Somehow it works. But that is a effectively a two year training program that I’ve taken part of and my siblings have taken part of, and lots of my cousins.
Luke: And that’s just to become a good steward of the business? Wow. Yeah. That’s incredible. I don’t know if I’ve ever heard of a family being that thoughtful and proactive for stewardship. I think that’s pretty incredible.
Jeffrey: I think it’s stewardship and profitable growth or being of a growth mindset is all part of it. But then when it translated, there’s also all of these different subject areas that a lot of shareholders, owners, family members want to engage in. But they might not have done MBAs, they might not have a corporate development background. Maybe they were operators in some other company, some other industry. But they want to learn. So you have to find ways where they can engage with the business in their own way. It’s not good enough to say, this is how you will engage with the business. Here’s the template, read it. If you don’t like it, then find something else to do. That’s not a good enough answer, in my opinion. So there’s lots of different ways for people to get comfortable and find opportunities to support the business on committees, summer internships, all of these different ways where we should really be supporting that. Because that is actually a key ingredient to next gen engagement in the business.
Right. It’s like, well when did their moment of consciousness happen, where they’re like, wait a second, I’m part of this thing. My last name might not be attached to it, but in my case it is. And, so you’re thinking, alright, where do we go from here? And if you don’t have things to, to chew on and ways to feel like you’re part of this under the tent, then we have failed in some capacity. And I’m not sure that that was done very well in the past. And so we need to fix that, right. Going forward, everyone on equal footing for finding ways for different people with different backgrounds, different skill sets, different ambitions to sink their teeth into this. Because ultimately that’s gonna be the only way you keep this thing together, right? Is if you have those leaders in the business that care. And they’re stewards, right?
Luke: I think that that is probably the most important point of this whole discussion that you’ve been having this whole time, is taking on the responsibility you have of championing that and ensuring that multi generation, because that is how it works, right? You’re now the steward for the next generation.
Jeffrey: Yep.
Luke: And if you don’t give a s**t, then it all falls apart no matter whatever did or didn’t work before. So it’s really awesome to hear that you are so focused on that and you understand it in great detail, the importance of how do you engage people that may not want to do exactly what you did. You’re lucky you wanted to go into investment banking, but people have all kinds of different interests and whatnot. So building on that, you had mentioned your sister’s involved on the foundation as an example.
And I’d asked your dad this question, and I kind of want to ask you the same one. Your family is unbelievably generous. Like, it’s crazy. How many times I’m going somewhere in Nova Scotia or Atlantic Canada, and there’ll be a gym on a school that you guys donated money to. Then I’m in the middle of a small town. Like, what the hell is this? How are they so generous? Their reach is so far. It’s awesome. It sets a benchmark for other people to aspire to. So, I really look up to it and what your family’s done, but there are many philosophies of philanthropic giving. How do you see that impact on community? How do you look at that and maybe what impact you wanna make, and is it focused? Is it broad? Is it, you know, et cetera?
Jeffrey: I would say, in some ways – it’s a great question by the way – and I kind of wish this was talked about more, to be honest. Like, I think this is really important stuff. And I always remember this, you know, my grandfather kind of talking about this dinner table conversations growing up, and I was lucky to have 20 years with him, just under 20 years with him, before he passed away. And those were instrumental, right? And a lot of the lessons I was lucky to have, sort of translate down to my parents and ultimately how we think about philanthropic giving. But I always remember Grampy talking about, “It’s a lot of fun to make money. It’s even more fun giving it away.” Right? And kind of finding ways where you can really put a stamp on impact in your own ways and saying, this is an initiative that I really care about and I really want to move the agenda forward on this. And the only way to do that is to get in there and dig in, right? And I think that’s just true of life in general.
So when I think about the philanthropic efforts of the family, it’s twofold, right? There’s what we’re doing at the Mc McCain foundation level, which has lots of engagement from family members, including my oldest sister. Within sort of the family office context, or how my dad has shaped this up is, or supported it really with an actual structured process, is this idea that the mom and dad foundation that’s going to do X, Y, and Z and then this is just, you know, his personal view, but I happen to agree with it as well, and my siblings happen to agree with it, and you’re going to do that as well. It’s a bit antiquated. Right? Like, I get that, and that was maybe your thing in 1975, but where does that bring us to today? We have different issues. You know, we’re growing up seeing different things, like most of the stuff that’s in our faces is growing inequalities, and …
Luke: … housing crisis, et cetera
Jeffrey: and housing crisis, climate crisis. Things that are sort of really kind of hitting us in the face and we know we’re going to have to deal with in our lifetime. And so you’re like, okay, well I wanna dig in on those things. So I think when you’re thinking about multi-generational businesses, but also multi-generational philanthropy, I subscribe to the view of, let’s have structures that allow for people to really dig in on things that they’re passionate about. Because we know that the results are by and large gonna be good, because they’re gonna be doing it out of personal motivated reasons, or a set of reasons.
Luke: They actually give a damn about it.
Jeffrey: They give a damn. Right. They’re like, I’m doing this ’cause I care about this cause, right? And in my foundation, I’ve spent a lot of time since I got it set up. My wife and I, Shantel, have been working really hard to think through where some of the areas we want to spend our time, and ultimately put some capital to work to support those things. And one of them is, and this just kind of goes back to my original days – this idea of philanthropy was really rooted from both of my parents. And the housing and homelessness issue is one that is really disheartening to me. And I find it really difficult to reconcile that, right? And so there’s lots of structural reasons about, well, how did we get here and what are we doing about it? And there’s different philosophical views around is it the band aid solution of, do we build the house or do we tackle the structural issue that has led to the situation that caused this person to be struggling at this time. Right? And so we’re finding ways to insert into that equation, from hopefully multiple angles. We’re gonna start in one place. But, you know, St. Felix is one of the organizations we chose to support and doing some work lately with St. Mike’s Hospital that is really on the ground with some of these people that come in, in dire needs off of the streets, dealing with injuries, ailments, pharmaceutical needs. They just need help. Right? And so how are we gonna engage in ways where we can actually make a difference? I think this is something that I care about. I’m still figuring out how I’m gonna be able to do that, but you can copy paste this micro story I’ve just shared. You know, my siblings have other ambitions and passions too, and it’s, I think that idea of letting us do what we’re passionate about will lead to really good results. That being said, we all grew up in the same sandbox, Luke, and there’s a lot of stuff we care about equally.
Luke: Yeah. For sure.
Jeffrey: And so there’s nothing precluding us from saying, Hey, actually, all three of our foundations, me and my two older sisters, we’re gonna support this cause, or these causes in an equal way. I do think that’s coming as well.
Luke: Yeah. That’s awesome.
Jeffrey: I don’t know if that answered your question, or my typical tangent or ..
Luke: No, it perfectly answered my question. No, it’s perfect. It fits with your previous comment about the multi-generational ownership or stewardship thing of you gotta figure out ways to engage people. And it’s the same thing with giving. You gotta figure out ways to engage people so they actually give a damn, and then it’ll be that much more effective versus just handing money out, not thinking about where it’s going. So I think that’s a perfect answer and it’s on brand with what you’ve been saying.
We’re running tight on time. I think the last question I really want to ask is, you have a great relationship, it sounds like, with your sisters. I have a brother, I understand the dynamics of working with siblings, et cetera. And it’s a big passion of mine to be, similar to what you said about multi-generational success, is to know my role in ensuring the relationship of my brother stays healthy, et cetera. And, you know, we fight as brothers occasionally, but we’ve become much closer over time. And it dawned on me, my parents won’t be around and he’s the only person I share this story and experience with, it made it even more important to me. Can you speak a little bit about how do you find that balance with your siblings and keep that relationship strong?
Jeffrey: Such a good question. I think about this constantly because we’re all in Toronto, we all live in the same neighbourhood. I actually bought a house to be close to my oldest sister in Roncy, and then my other sister lived really close by there too. And we’re just beginning the process of trying to pull her in by the rope to get a little bit closer to our neighbourhood, but it’s like a four minute walk away. And fortunately my wife loves that neighborhood too, so it was very easy. But funny enough, all my cousins, my first cousins that live in Toronto are in this neighborhood as well. Right.
Luke: I used to live there too.
Jeffrey: Yeah. You were also in the West End in Roncy and, in fact, my cousin Hilary just moved, she’s on the same street as me actually soon.
Luke: Oh, that’s awesome.
Jeffrey: So she moved in a couple weeks ago and, this idea of being close to family, close to siblings, how do you manage that? It’s not always perfect. I mean, you get into the squabbles and there’s challenges at times, but the reality is that we all want the same things. Right? But we go about it different ways. And so if you can make sure that you are zooming out to the end goal. Oh, it’s like, actually we really do want the same things here. I just might have a slightly different path about how I thought would be best to achieve that goal or how to get there. We’ve always been family members, we will be shareholders in a vehicle together, that will be the structure going forward for our investment in our legacy family business, McCain, but also, presumably all these private equity investments that hopefully grow over time and that there’s lots of things to engage on there too. But we’ll be in that together as well. And so there’s lots of opportunities for us to be bumping shoulders, bumping elbows. And we kind of came to that realization in the last few years, especially since I was sort of the missing link that was just floating around in the US and the UK and I finally came home, came to my senses.
And, what we did actually was, all right, if we’re going to professionalize the working relationship, especially when we’re engaging in these rather serious files, let’s bring in a third party that is going to help remove some of the sandbox stigmas that we attach to each other. Previous behaviors, misconceptions, things that are not good to bring into a boardroom. We’re gonna need some help to really start again on what are the family relationships and what are the working relationships and how do they coexist in a healthy, productive, constructive way. And so that is a process, it’s a learning experience. We hired some consultants to help do that. They are awesome. And, we’re making great progress. Just had a meeting yesterday with them for two hours. We’re locking in more and more. The reality is that on this new fund that we’re going to launch in the family office, that they will probably show up to a whole bunch of committee, investment committee meetings, board meetings for maybe a decent period of time, as observers. Right. To say like, this is how you’re showing up. This is how you’re treating your sibling. It’s one thing to have independence that which we will bring into the room, but the dynamics might still be complicated. And that’s okay.
This is family. This is family business. Everybody goes through this, whether you have a family business or not, you still might have complicated relationships. Fortunately I’m just lucky that we’re starting from a baseline of incredible respect and support and love for each other. So, you’re like, okay, we got a good thing going now, but we gotta keep that good. And that requires a lot of TLC, a little tender love and care and actually also process and support and maybe a third party adult in the room that is gonna keep people accountable. And so I think that that’s been really healthy for us. When I talk to people about going down a journey of starting a family office, I less frequently talk about, well, how do you think you’re gonna invest your capital? Is it gonna be 10% in bonds and 20% in private equity and whatever, whatever. I’m like, how are the family dynamics gonna work? Because a great investment strategy really falls apart if a sibling leaves. Or, if things get complicated and you have decision paralysis because you can’t be in the same room together. That’s obviously not going to lead to good outcomes over the long term. And so, let’s start with the family stuff first. Create process and structure around it and then try to apply it with healthy decision-making processes to all of these other more mechanical decision-making things around investing and operating and how we want to structure things. And then, well in theory, my hope is that it’ll work out well.
But we’re just on that journey. We’re just kind of getting started. I think there’s a lot of progress to still be made, but we’re starting from a really good baseline. So I’m excited about it.
Luke: That is a very thoughtful answer. I really appreciate your time. Thank you so much.
Jeffrey: Alright. Thanks for having me, Luke. Good to see you buddy.
Luke: Alright. Thank you so much for watching. This is Beyond the Family Business podcast.
Please like and subscribe. Alright. Talk to you soon.
Disclaimer: This podcast is sponsored by BMO Private Wealth. The information provided in this podcast is for informational purposes only and does not constitute financial, investment, or professional advice. The views expressed by the host and guests are their own and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of any organization or company. Always consult with a qualified financial advisor or professional before making any investment decisions.
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