{"id":5044,"date":"2018-04-12T11:43:12","date_gmt":"2018-04-12T15:43:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/business.financialpost.com\/?p=1574409"},"modified":"2018-04-12T11:43:12","modified_gmt":"2018-04-12T15:43:12","slug":"still-fired-up-whats-next-for-investing-legend-and-activist-stephen-jarislowsky","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.lifeinsurance-orleans.ca\/index.php\/2018\/04\/12\/still-fired-up-whats-next-for-investing-legend-and-activist-stephen-jarislowsky\/","title":{"rendered":"Still fired up: What\u2019s next for investing legend and activist Stephen Jarislowsky"},"content":{"rendered":"

By David Dias<\/strong><\/p>\n

Stephen Jarislowsky never set out to make anyone rich, least of all himself. Sure, he\u2019s loaded. Over 63 years, the founder of investment manager Jarislowsky Fraser Ltd. has accumulated a fortune estimated at more than $2 billion. And, yes, he has spent his career helping top pension funds provide their members with cushy retirements, but extravagant wealth was never the goal. \u201cIt was preservation,\u201d Jarislowsky says. \u201cMake sure that these people, after having been our clients for 20, 30, 40, 50 years, would have a period in their lives \u2014 so-called golden years \u2014 without any worries about where the money is going to come from.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jarislowsky admits he could have sprinted and taken more risks, but he chose to run a marathon instead. That race is almost over. On February 12, the still feisty 92-year-old announced he would sell the firm that bears his name to the Bank of Nova Scotia for $950 million. The acquisition will shore up the bank\u2019s relatively weak institutional investment arm, while assuring continuity for investors holding some $40 billion in assets under management.<\/p>\n

Jarislowsky is a legend in Canada\u2019s investment scene. He fled Nazi Germany, immigrated to the United States, joined that nation\u2019s army to fight in the Second World War and then studied engineering at Cornell University and business at Harvard University \u2014 all before co-founding JFL in 1955.<\/p>\n

As a fund manager, Jarislowsky was a pioneer and rabble-rouser. He introduced research techniques that went beyond mere asset valuation and sought to size up the managers themselves. Later on, in the 1990s, he turned his attention to the greed he witnessed in the executive ranks, tangling with titans over what he perceived as corporate wrongdoing.<\/p>\n

Jarislowsky has also argued vociferously in favour of a single national securities commission, something he could use as the JFL transaction seeks approval by various regulators. The bank has offered to pay him in shares, which could expedite matters, but he\u2019s at the mercy of bureaucrats for now. \u201cThere are regulatory issues,\u201d he says. \u201cWe have to get permission from all the securities commissions, and I don\u2019t think you can push civil servants faster than they want to work because they get their backs up and then it takes even longer.\u201d<\/p>\n

Assuming the deal is approved, Jarislowsky doesn\u2019t plan on going anywhere. Scotiabank has assured him that JFL will keep its name and its managers will be left for the most part to their own devices. Scotiabank has also invited Jarislowsky to keep his plant-filled office in the Sherbrooke St. headquarters. \u201cObviously, I\u2019m not the type of person who can sit at home and watch television or do crossword puzzles,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

Though his personal involvement was never a deal-breaker, Jarislowsky says he would not have sold if he felt the bank was going to strip away the corporate culture he worked so hard to build. What has always set JFL apart, he says, is its focus on finding investments supported by great management. \u201cThe data doesn\u2019t mean anything,\u201d he says. \u201cWhat is important in a corporation is the management, and whether the industry is growing or not growing.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jarislowsky, who says he\u2019s been a lifelong student of ethics, also looks for strong governance and an ethical corporate culture when identifying the best long-term investments. He was often dismayed by what he found, so he decided to do something about it. In 2002, he and Claude Lamoureux, then president of the Ontario Teachers\u2019 Pension Plan, founded the Canadian Coalition for Good Governance, which has been instrumental in advancing shareholder rights in Canada.<\/p>\n

Philanthropy is also a part of Jarislowsky\u2019s ethos, and he has, through the Jarislowsky Foundation, provided grants to initiatives in medicine, the arts and education, including the endowment of more than 23 university chairs \u201cOver time, we would like to build a much larger foundation,\u201d he says, so \u201cthat\u2019s an option\u201d for where some of the money from the sale of his business is likely to go.<\/p>\n

Praiseworthy as these achievements may be, Jarislowsky\u2019s proudest is not his philanthropy, nor the significance of his business dealings. It\u2019s the manner in which JFL has conducted its affairs. \u201cWe have never had a lawsuit with any client in 63 years and we don\u2019t know of any complaint to the securities commission in all that time.\u201d<\/p>\n

Six decades without a single client lawsuit. Add that one to the legend. FPM<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

‘I’m not the type of person who can sit at home and watch television or do crosswords,’ says the founder of investment manager Jarislowsky Fraser, now that it has been sold to Scotiabank<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":578,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.lifeinsurance-orleans.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5044"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.lifeinsurance-orleans.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.lifeinsurance-orleans.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.lifeinsurance-orleans.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/578"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.lifeinsurance-orleans.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5044"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blog.lifeinsurance-orleans.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5044\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5046,"href":"https:\/\/blog.lifeinsurance-orleans.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5044\/revisions\/5046"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.lifeinsurance-orleans.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5044"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.lifeinsurance-orleans.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5044"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.lifeinsurance-orleans.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5044"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}