Today we are saying goodbye to $TRP. #TC Energy has been in our portfolio pretty much ever since we started buying stocks more than 20 years ago. We liked it for its reliable and annually increasing dividend that served as a bond proxy, but with better tax treatment 1/n Nobody ever expected the business itself to take off. We saw it as huge, lumbering, but mostly going in the right direction, and we didn't see much danger of a dividend cut. The company did that in 1999 and lots of investors never forgave or forgot. 2/n

It is not surprising that media folks are dunking on #Canadian Banks. After all, there are bank crises in Europe and the US; why should we be exempt? They are easy columns to write and carefully couched: "it is possible"; "perhaps"; "we cannot rule out". Weasel words. 1/n The last bank to fail in Canada was Home Bank in 1923. The banking sector was ruthlessly consolidated and now there are only six important banks and three or four small outliers in the country. As a result, each major bank is by definition systemically important in Canada. 2/n

#Onex has thrown in the towel and off-loaded #Gluskin Sheff to #RBC. The fig leaf for Onex: Royal will distribute their private market products. It is an embarrassing and ignominious end to the Onex $445 million acquisition of the then-public Gluskin. 1/n Those with long memories will recall the glory days of G+S when they hosted the Barnes Exhibition at the Art Gallery of Ontario in 1994. It was an over the top coming out party and prepared the company to go public a couple of years later. 2/n

On Oct. 31st I hit the 40 year mark working in financial services. I have been a commercial banker, a private equity financier and for the past 25 or so years, a portfolio manager. As an insurance company ad says, I've learned a thing or two because I've seen a thing or two 1/n I was doing private equity during the DJIA crash in 1987 and bailed out on a cottage purchase I was about to sign that afternoon. I was involved in funding Israeli start-ups in the mid to late '90s when Israel became the country with the 2nd most listings on NASDAQ 2/n

In September, 2004, we were retained by an 81 year old man, who entrusted $1 million to us. During the ensuing 16 yrs he neither added to nor withdrew from his portfolio. This week, I will review his portfolio with him (by phone, sadly). Here are some interesting highlights. The value of the portfolio today is $3,894,334. The money has almost exactly doubled twice, and the compound return including income and fees, has been 9.2%. With no money in and no money out the math is easy and not subject to distortion by time value or money value calculations

In 1982 I worked in the bad loans department of $BMO.CA. This was in the wake of the ultra-high interest rate war on inflation, when prime got up to 22.5%. My job was to call loans and put people out of business. In the fall of 1982, just before the bank's Oct. 31 year end...1/n The Sr. V.P. for credit called us all together. "This" he said, "will be a kitchen-sink quarter. You are to recommend write-offs on any bad loans and fully provisions on any dubious loans. We are going to take massive reserves because it is bad politics to show big profits" 2/n

This is a thread about real-world wealth management, which I have been doing for over 25 yrs. Last week I posted a note about a client whose $200k account is now over $1 million after 22 yrs growth at +8%/yr. The responses were so interesting. Some said "she could just have bought an index and done as well". Others said "think how much more she would have had if she didn't pay fees". Others thought it impossible that the account had done that well over that long a period. So I will address each comment