Fund manager Bristol Gate Capital Partners Inc. is importing a new leader, hiring former investment banking executive Richard Talbot as its new chief executive officer.
Toronto-based Bristol Gate was founded in 2006 by veteran mutual-fund executives Richard Hamm and Peter Simmie, and focuses on owning shares in U.S. and Canadian companies that significantly increase their dividends over time. The firm currently has $1.1-billion in assets under administration, and a mix of individual and institutional investor clients.
Mr. Talbot joined Bristol Gate in June after spending three decades at RBC Dominion Securities Inc., most recently as the investment bank’s chief operating officer. He was also the firm’s global co-head of research and a top-ranked telecommunications analyst. Mr. Talbot is also active in the financial community, with volunteer work that includes leading the advisory council at the CFA Society Toronto.
With Mr. Talbot’s arrival, Mr. Hamm moved from CEO to executive chairman at Bristol Gate. Prior to launching the firm, Mr. Hamm was a senior executive at Trimark Investment Management Inc. Mr. Simmie continues in his role as chief investment officer.
In the past two months, Bristol Gate also hired Izet Elmazi as a senior portfolio manager – he was at Goodman & Co. Investment Counsel – and chief compliance officer Katie Taylor, who was with Burgundy Asset Management Ltd.
Bristol Gate combines old-fashioned number-crunching with cutting-edge analytics – the company calls its approach “predictive machine learning.” In a news release announcing his appointment, Mr. Talbot said: “By marrying data science with fundamental analysis, Bristol Gate is able to achieve high conviction on companies with superior growth prospects.”
The flagship Bristol Gate fund for individual investors, launched in 2009, has turned in a 17.1-per-cent annualized return since inception, ahead of a 16.4-per-cent return from the comparable benchmark, which is the gross return on the S&P 500 index.
Looking ahead, Bristol Gate wants to use this strong performance to launch new products, including a larger portfolio of exchange-traded funds or ETFs. The firm launched its first ETFs in February, with one fund focused on Canadian companies and the other on U.S. equities.
Andrew Willis