John Nicola a financial-services veteran, founded Vancouver-based Nicola Wealth in 1994, which works with high-net-worth families, entrepreneurs, and professionals.
Largely private client, with an investment model divided between public and private equity and debt, and real estate, Nicola Wealth now has $13.6 billion in assets under management with more than 400 employees across Canada.
The company’s growth is a combination of referrals and strategic partnerships and acquisitions, says Danielle Skipp, Managing Director, Ontario.
“In 2022, we acquired an institutional real estate asset manager, Blackwood Partners, based in Toronto and in 2022 we acquired Levine Financial Group, an insurance specialist group that works predominantly with physicians,” says Skipp.
“We also continue to attract established wealth advisors with existing clients to our company and this is fueling our growth in new regions such as Victoria, Calgary, and Toronto.”
As well, the firm expanded services in the traditional brokerage models to include financial planning and “increased allocation to private capital strategies, such as private equity, private debt, and hard-asset real estate,” she adds.
“Nicola Wealth works with families and is itself a ‘family business.’ Skipp says.
“Both John and David [Sung, president] have encouraged their own family members to bring their skill to the shared success of the firm (John’s three sons, Chris Nicola, Jason Nicola and Jared Nicola, and David’s sister (Skipp) all work at Nicola Wealth).”
Nicola Wealth employs a “Share the Pie” model, where advisors, portfolio managers and employees can own equity and share in the firm’s profits, Skipp adds. “Over the past three years we have close to doubled the number of employees who work at Nicola and proudly have approximately 230 shareholders.”
How did Nicola Wealth come to be established?
“I started the firm in 1994 after leaving a financial planning firm where I was the president and a significant shareholder.
The other principal and I had a differing opinion about the future direction and leadership of our company, so I decided to leave and establish my own firm.
When we began, we had a staff of eight people and about $80 million of AUM [assets under management], primarily in mutual funds and term deposits. We were also licensed to sell insurance.”
Where does Nicola Wealth stand today?
We now manage $13.6 billion in AUM, of which $12 billion is private client. Our investment model is roughly equally divided between public and private equity, public and private debt (mortgages, bonds, direct business lending) and real estate (income producing and development in Canada and the U.S.).
Our clients can access private assets that are often limited to large institutional clients. Because advanced financial planning is a key service that we deliver, we are also able to design portfolios to be as tax efficient as possible for clients.”
Could you talk about the Blackwood and Levine Financial purchases?
“In both cases we knew the principals of the firm very well (the three principals of both firms had been clients of ours for many years before we acquired them). We understood their business model and, as their advisors, were very familiar with their financial performance.
Blackwood allowed us to increase our platform in Toronto with a strong real estate team that provided asset management to larger institutional clients. Levine Financial is also based in Toronto and is a specialist insurance provider for thousands of physicians (primarily in Ontario). Now that they are part of our group, they can provide our investment model to their clients.”
How did your early education in math and physics fit with your current role?
“There is very little connection between my education in either high school or university and my current work. In high school I focused on math and physics and received a small scholarship, which paid my first-year tuition at UBC [University of British Columbia]. My majors were math and physics, of course.
I completed three years of both before dropping out without completing my degree. Even though I was quite capable in both areas I had no desire to be either a physicist or math teacher. I would now admit that my math background has proven useful at different times in my career.
I was always able to do well academically, and my parents encouraged my efforts and expected me to achieve top grades. In both elementary school and high school I worked part-time for our family business and was active in high-school sports (basketball and football primarily).”
What later education did you pursue?
Most of my education has come from reading books written by some very insightful people, such as Steven Covey, Jim Collins, Peter Drucker, Simon Sinek, John Maxwell, Scott Peck, and many others.”
What do you think have been key moments in Nicola Wealth’s growth thus far?
“Our first major moment occurred during 2000 when we moved to a fee-based business model from commission-based and changed our licensing from mutual funds and insurance to being a registered portfolio manager. That opened up investment strategies we could execute for clients.
From 1994-2000 our average growth rate was 7-8 per cent per year. Since 2000 to the end of 2022, it has been 22 per cent per year.
The next major moment was in 2005. We had been actively investing in income-producing real estate for clients for the previous five years. The restriction was that each asset we acquired had to be a separate LP and liquidity was limited.
In 2005 we merged all of our LPs into one LP that was designed to be open ended [new investors could come in and others could exit with a one-year request (six months now) to redeem their units]. This also allowed us to make this pool evergreen so over time it has grown into three pools with about $4.5 billion of client equity and more than a hundred assets distributed throughout North America.
This allows new investors to de-risk by having a very diversified portfolio. Since then, we have duplicated this model in mortgages, private equity, private debt, infrastructure, and venture capital.”
Can you talk about your ‘Share the pie” philosophy?
Since we started the firm, we have always had profit sharing. In fact, one of our core values is ‘share the pie.’ We do this with our staff, our community (local and global through philanthropy) and our shareholders (of which we have 180 but started in 1994 with one). This has allowed us to build a very strong corporate culture.
What advice would you give to next generations of Canadian business families?
“Always have a detailed business plan and objectively measure your results against. Have a culture of kaizen (continuous improvement).
Share the pie. This sounds counterintuitive because adding more shareholders appears to be dilutive. However, in my case, my family has 45 per cent of the shares of the company now, compared to 100 per cent in 1994. That 45 per cent is now worth more than 60 times the 100 per cent (not including dividends received). We see profit sharing as an investment, rather than an expense, and we believe we get a very good return on it.
Run a tight ship financially. Use debt sparingly.
Ask the question in your business field: What does the market need that is not being provided now? In our case, we felt that clients wanted and needed advanced financial planning advice along with a truly diversified portfolio of assets typically limited to large pensions and endowments.”
Reponses have been lightly edited for clarity and length.
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