One suitcase. $150. That’s what Philip Armstrong brought with him from Northern Ireland in 1975. And over the next four decades he became a Canadian investment innovator. He's the 2015 recipient of Morningstar's Career Achievement Award.
Philip Armstrong: When I was in high school, I saw a movie about Canada and it was really someone fishing for salmon. At that time I was into fishing and saw this big salmon being pulled out of the river and thought, I wouldn’t mind going to Canada to fish. And then when I was a given a job opportunity in Canada, I thought back to that movie I had seen in high school and, “OK, let's go, let's try it.”
With the support of his wife Linda, Armstrong made his biggest and boldest career move, becoming a co-founder of Altamira family of mutual funds.
Philip Armstrong: By that time Linda and I were married with two children. We were living north of the city. In August '87 we talked about making an investment in Altamira, and that would mean that we'd have to put a second mortgage on our home. We had a long discussion and we both agreed that that was the right way to go.
Linda Armstrong: Yes, we did. And the crash in October of '87 made a very difficult situation, but we managed to get through it and be very successful.
Philip Armstrong: In retrospect, it was a great decision.
Frank Mersch: Phil Armstrong was president of Altamira. He was somewhat like an air traffic controller, in the sense that there were so many different aircrafts coming in. In this case portfolio managers, staff, client servicing, our major shareholders, Manulife and Almeria and he had to juggle them all, then deal with them on a very calm and rational basis.
Francis D'Andrade: We had a lot of industry firsts that were largely consumer-driven. If I had to say Philip had a strength, it would really be that. People talk about consumer centricity now; that was something he always had in his mind. So we always started with a consumer and worked our way back.
Philip Armstrong: I think, personally, we had a great team of people. We had a great team of investment managers who helped us grow various aspects of the business. But I think what made us really successful is that we focused on the investor, and at that time investors were looking for something different. They were looking at performance. And we also were the first company to put performance numbers into our statements to give investors the idea of actually how they were doing individually. And of course the advent of the Internet was also a big event for us and we were one of the first companies, if not the first company. to create a website, which looking back was pretty basic but it was a very big step for us and the industry at that time.
Armstrong left Altamira in 1999, several years before the company became a National Bank subsidiary. In 2001 he founded Jovian Capital, providing support to independent advisory firms that it acquired. Jovian was also majority owner of Horizons, which became a major player in the rapidly growing exchange-traded funds industry.
Philip Armstrong: Jovian was founded to invest in and grow companies in the financial service sector, that was the main thrust. But one of the other things we did was incubate companies. So we were heavily involved in starting companies in the financial service business. We didn’t try to be a consolidator. We allowed the companies we acquired or we sold to grow independently.
Francis D'Andrade: He's always at the forefront of new trends and new channels and new ways of thinking, and I think Jovian was very much an expression of that.
Armstrong sold Jovian in 2013. He now divides his time between serving on boards and other business activities, and spending time with his family.
Philip Armstrong: When I look at life as a whole, I think I am really proud of the balance I have managed to keep in my life. Because I think it is important to have a balance between business and family.
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