Taking on the CEO job at Peerage Capital, the Toronto-based family office of Miles Nadal, founder of MDC Partners Inc., was not the initial plan for Trevor Maunder.
Maunder, president and chief executive officer at the business services and private investment firm since 2018, talked to Canadian Family Offices about his career trajectory and some of the quirks of working at a family office.
He also discussed the firm’s strategies, acquisitions and philosophies that have resulted in both corporate and personal growth.
What are key career steps that led to your current role?
“I’m a Chartered Accountant by profession.
I joined Coopers & Lybrand right out of Queen’s University’s commerce program and I absolutely loved it. I actually just played golf recently with my 77-year-old former mentor from the firm. I would still be there if Coopers hadn’t emerged with Price Waterhouse.
When the merger happened, it just became a different place. There was nothing wrong with it, I just felt a little like I was on the outside looking in. It was no longer the easy fit, a place where I saw myself growing and learning in the same way. So, I followed a friend to work with Miles [Nadal, founder of Peerage, and before that, MDC Partners Inc. marketing and communications firm].
In no time, I was working in New York City about four days a week on average. But in the fall of 2006, I said to Miles, ‘I’m going to have to move on with my life. I’ve got two young kids. This is not for me.’
He said, ‘I’ve got a better idea for you. Why don’t we start a family office? You can be the first employee.’ That was how it started and went from there, open to what it could become.
In the end, what made it a success from the start was a really good meeting of the minds. Miles and I were aligned on the big picture and the vision and put the pieces in place around that.
We’ve been going forward ever since. We still have our real estate business and our asset management platform and they’ve grown considerably.
As Peerage took shape and got bigger, we started doing far more. Initially, I was very reluctant about becoming CEO. In fact, we had a search underway for the position.
[Before that] I had worked with [Miles] for a bit. I worked at MDC. I did a whole bunch of things for seven years. Initially, the family office was a fairly loose construct. Our businesses were already private, and we primarily responded to opportunities as they arose.
Today we stick to very focused platforms: real estate, asset management, and storage.”
What are Peerage’s key focus areas and how did these develop?
“Over time, we have developed and defined our approach to the Nadal Family Office and its holdings through Peerage.
Somewhere along the way, probably about 10 years ago, we defined our business philosophy and our investment thesis. We also built out a more complete infrastructure and professionalized our operations.
The foundational consideration, one that still cuts to the heart of everything we do, is finding great partners.
We were in the asset management business once before, and we liked it. We thought there were a lot of really good dynamics that still existed in the asset management business. We thought that the broker-dealer business was very broken within asset management, and there was an opportunity to get involved.
The key to our initial stake in Echelon [Wealth Partners] was the leadership team and what we knew they could accomplish. I don’t think we would have been in the asset management business if we hadn’t found great partners in Rob Furse [then at Echelon] and David Cusson [co-founder of Echelon].
Our real estate platform began with the opportunity to partner with Chestnut Park. If it hadn’t been for Chestnut Park and the wonderful partners there, I am not convinced we would have ever started. This includes the condo pre-construction business, Baker Real Estate, where we were attracted by another wonderful partner. Without Pat Baker, I don’t think we would have been in that business either.
We own a U.S. asset management firm in New York with the management team. We also have a very small private fund, public fund business.
Our third platform is storage, Vaultra Storage. We are probably one of the largest, if not largest, developer of storage and one of the larger owners in the Greater Toronto Area. We have a couple of wonderful partners in that space, as well.”
Can you talk about the way the firm invests?
“As I mentioned, partnerships for us are key.
We have three very large-scale private equity platforms with different control and ownership, and we don’t really do other things. If someone said, ‘Do you want to get into the calculator business?’ I’d say, ‘If it fits into one of our three platforms logically, then we’re willing to look.’
The one thing that has changed about our investment philosophy, though, is on the non-private equity, what we do every day. We’re moving more towards a very liquid passive portfolio.”
What is the size of the firm?
“As a firm, our gross value is probably $1 billion, but we don’t own 100 per cent of the equity of everything. For instance, our operating assets, in our storage business, the lowest we own is one-third and we go up to 100 per cent in others.
As we continue to grow, we face the ever-challenging problem of being able to continue to wrap our hands around everything versus relinquishing some control. That’s where trusted partners come in. That’s the evolution that you face, which I don’t think is any different than any business leader, whether it’s a family office or not.”
Would you say Peerage has a ‘secret sauce’ to its success?
“I would say it has to do with the way we do business. We don’t really look at IRRs [internal rate of return] and we’re not getting paid to flip things. We’re getting, as Miles would say, to [be like] Warren Buffett; to just find good businesses, be patient, and stick through the grind that is required to build these businesses.”
What is it like for you, working in this family office?
Miles has been a big mentor to me. He’s taught me about the entrepreneurial mindset. He is hardwired that way, although it is my role to bridge that passion for startup ventures with the partner/investor approach you have to take with a family office portfolio.
He is a great role model in terms of being open to change. From Miles I have learned to always take the call, to always listen. Every day, you’ve got to re-think what you’re doing and what you think you know.
[The family is] not removed at all. I would say they’re still very actively involved, especially in our real estate services business. On the other two businesses, I would say they’re just really great partners and well-informed shareholders.
I’m the active day-to-day person liaising with our partners. We have other team members who are very active, but otherwise, it’s probably a once- to every-two-week update and that’s it.
I find the most fun part of the job, and I’ll use that term, is I’ll be sitting there and he’ll be looking at me like, ‘Are we talking as friends, as peers, as your boss, as your shareholder?’ We have wonderful and honest discussions.”
Does Peerage stick to certain geographic areas?
Responses have been lightly edited for clarity and length.
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