You have probably been wondering: now that Gluskin Sheff is gone, what other firm could Onex buy and run into the ground? Nicola Wealth Management has had very high growth in recent years. It currently has 13.6B AUM. And it already has 50% of clients accounts in private assets (including 30% in real estate). Nicola is about "beyond 60/40", ie the "institutional pension approach". I previously reviewed another Vancouver-based firm with high growth and heavy exposure to private markets: Harbourfront Wealth. First things first: Nicola Wealth is way, way better than Harbourfront Wealth in every important regard. But such things are relative.
The growth story
When John Nicola started Nicola Wealth, he had already been an advisor for 20 years. He had just split off from Jim Rogers of Rogers Group Financial (another Vancouver biggie). John had been President, but Jim wanted to control Rogers Group again, so John went on his own. He started Nicola with a book of $80m at age 42. Ten years later, in 2004, the firm was approaching $300m AUM. The firm reached $1B AUM in 2010. Ten years later, it reached $8B. Just in 2021 and 2022, Nicola added a few billions in AUM. It’s the firm with the Big Mo. The firm now has staff of 430. When they had a billion, they had 40 staff. Now, they have 13x as much AUM and 11 times the staff. So the economies of scale are not that great. Today, John Nicola at age 72 is way biglier than his former partner Jim Rogers. Sad!