With a career until now spent on the institutional side of the investing industry, mainly in senior and executive roles in the pension fund world, Anik Lanthier brings a unique perspective to Richter Family Office.
As chief investment officer, a newly created position at the century-old firm, Lanthier leads strategic initiatives, shaping and enhancing portfolio construction and investments in Richter’s growing wealth practice.
She started her financial services career as an analyst at the Bank of Canada, was a portfolio manager at Hydro Quebec and then spent 14 years at PSP Investments, one of the “Maple 8” pension funds in Canada. As senior vice-president and global head of capital markets there, she managed a portfolio of nearly $100 billion in public and private equities, fixed income and absolute return strategies.
After leaving PSP, she was president and CIO of public markets at Fiera Capital for almost two years, overseeing more than $160 billion in assets under management, before joining Richter as a partner and CIO in January of 2024.
Richter has a team of almost 700 employees across offices in Montreal, Toronto and Chicago, primarily providing advisory services, but with 50 staff working in wealth management and 70 in family office services.
In conversation with Canadian Family Offices, Lanthier talks about what brought her to Richter, how the company’s investment group is evolving and what her institutional experience offers clients.
Why was this role as CIO created at Richter?
The wealth practice at Richter has existed for about 25 years, but it was not a formalized, dedicated investment group, with one person leading all the different initiatives and responsible for all of the relationships. They’ve grown so much that they needed to evolve to the next level and have a CIO and a formal team in place.
What does your job entail?
They hired me to be responsible for all the investments, from sourcing ideas to doing the due-diligence work, monitoring the investments and everything related to portfolio construction. The investment team manages all the relationships with the different managers and also direct transactions. We’re also responsible for the macro picture, trends and thematics. My team and I also meet with clients.
How is the family office practice set up at Richter?
On the family office side, we have two main pillars. My investment group acts as a CIO to the families. The other group is family office services; it acts as a chief financial officer to the families.
Can you give me an idea of the number of families and the assets you manage?
We have hundreds of families, and we tend to focus on those who have around $20 million and up. The total assets are in the multiple billions.
Why make the switch from pension to family office investing?
The pension fund world—especially the Maple 8 and PSP—was growing like crazy when I joined. And I really like that building phase. I would say the family office world right now is in that space, where it is growing really fast.
Everything has to be put in place and built, and there’s going to be a huge transition of wealth happening from one generation to another. So it’s a dynamic and energizing space right now.
Other factors?
On the institutional side, especially at a pension fund, you have one client, and you rarely meet with your client. So it’s very different, the relationship. The reason why I went to the family office space was to be part of this fast-growing environment and to be closer to the clients.
Clients are wondering, ‘Okay, I’ve invested in all those private alternatives, but my public market is generating a lot more, and it’s very liquid. Do I need privates?’
Anik Lanthier, CIO at Richter
What do you like about portfolio construction?
Portfolio construction brings a framework. We are all humans, we have biases, we have preferences and things that sometimes can be irrational. So when you have a framework, it helps you remove those sorts of biases.
And these things differ from client to client?
Indeed, at PSP, we had only one asset allocation, one asset mix, because we had one client.
At Richter, with each client there are different needs and preferences. But the investment part is very similar, because you’re trying to build optimal portfolios for your desired outcome.
Are there other differences in a family office?
One of the main differences is tax integration. When you’re at a pension fund, you’re in a tax-free environment, so tax is never a consideration. But with these individuals we have to be sure to integrate the tax concepts.
I would say also that it’s a trusted relationship with the client, because at the end of the day, it’s their money, so we want to advise them as best we can on what they should do. But they’re also allowed to have preferences. Some clients might say, ‘I want to invest an amount in climate action.’ Or, ‘I have a bias toward real estate.’ We need to integrate that.
I understand that rather than calling itself a multi-family office (MFO), Richter calls itself a business family office (BFO). What is that?
What we’ve experienced through time is that with very successful entrepreneurs, their family needs and their operating business are very close to one another, so you need to manage these two things in an integrated fashion.
It’s very unusual, a BFO. We’re amongst the only ones in North America capable of doing that. By design, we also do everything that an MFO does.
We think of pension funds as being heavily into alternative investments. Was that a big part of your job at PSP? And is that something you’re bringing to Richter?
I did quite a bit of that at PSP, for sure. Half of the fund was in alternatives—we called them privates. I would say that one of my biggest surprises at Richter was that they did the shift into alternatives a while ago. Retail and ultra-high-net-worth people are catching up to invest in alternatives, but Richter was already there.
Any particular areas of alternatives?
Across the board, from real estate to private credit to private equity to venture cap.
The only place where we’re less exposed than a pension fund would be is in infrastructure. Pension funds invest in infrastructure for inflation reasons and for very long-duration liabilities. There’s less of an appetite for that in the family office space, especially when you consider the after-tax returns.
Any other ways that pension fund investing is different than what you’re doing now?
In pensions, there’s a big appetite for illiquidity because of the long duration and the liabilities. However, with families, some will have a very high appetite for illiquidity, some won’t.
Also, because of their size, there’s a big portion of the market, or of transactions, that are off-limits to big pension funds. This is something that the family office space can do, and it can be very attractive.
Any other observations you have about this new world?
One big observation is that at a pension fund, you’re very focused on what we call alpha, the difference of your return versus the market. In the family office space, this is also a consideration, but at the end of the day, what matters is the total return.
Any predictions about what’s ahead in ultra-high-net-worth investing?
I think it’s going to continue to grow, and it’s growing so fast that we’re seeing more competition. I think we’ll see consolidation—indeed, we’re already seeing some big private-equity shops in the U.S. buying MFOs. Because of that trend, they are migrating a bit toward the pension-fund model, the institutional model, but still being cognizant of the differences about tax, about the relationship with clients and all of that.
Among wealthy families themselves, what are the issues that you’re hearing from them?
I’ve been hearing a lot of people talk about exiting Canada, given the tax environment, a potential wealth tax, all of that. Cybersecurity is something I hear a lot about, because they’re targets, very rich families. And for a lot of them, the transition to the next generation is very key.
How are people feeling about their investments?
One thing that’s interesting is that last year the U.S. public markets did exceptionally well, so clients are wondering, ‘Okay, I’ve invested in all those private alternatives, but my public market is generating a lot more, and it’s very liquid. Do I need privates? And do I need something else than U.S. stocks?’ So this has really been top-of-mind, and it’s a fair question.
Because you’re not going to shoot the lights out with alternatives, right?
Well, I would say that five years ago, people thought the complete opposite. And there’s a flipside, people are worried, ‘Okay, the U.S. markets did that but what does it mean for the future? Are we in a bubble?’ I think the best defense will always be to build a diversified portfolio.
Responses have been lightly edited for clarity and length.
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