This not by way of kompromat or schadenfreude - in fact, you are not even allowed to smirk, but it is my duty as Bay Street’s newspaper of record to look into former Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s links to the investment world. In an interview this past summer, he claimed that he’s in the “investment business.” Considering that he’s been appointed in late 2024 to chair the $160B Alberta Investment Management Corp, that is certainly true. He is also Chairman and co-founder of Vision One, a value-oriented activist hedge fund. He's also the Father of the beloved TFSA.
Vision One has assets of some US $180m. Founded in 2022, it’s based in Miami. The key investment genius is one Courtney Mather. His focus is on undervalued mid-sized public companies, primarily within the industrial and consumer sectors, with market values typically ranging from $2 billion to $10 billion. He is the former head of US loan trading at Goldman Sachs, who then worked 6 years at Carl Icahn’s publicly traded holdco. During his tenure, Icahn Enterprises dropped by about 50% and today the stock is down over 90%. I am not suggesting it’s all Courtney’s fault, but the Icahn mystique has taken a beating in recent years.
Vision One’s most visible activist engagement to date has been with department chain Kohl’s. It announced it had built a stake in the company in February 2024 and went activist. Its primary demand was that the company sell itself. Since then, the stock has dropped about 37% vs the S&P 500 being up 34%. Womp-womp. Kohl’s is sometimes a meme stock (because it’s heavily shorted, so liable to short squeezes.)
Anyways, money managers should not be evaluated based on a small sampling of their decisions. On the surface, Vision One seems like a dedicated value manager, buying boring businesses with horrible charts like Chemours.
And CIO Courtney Maher does seem to manage to get nominated on boards in many of his campaigns. But, as best as I can figure, the fund has not set the world on fire whether in asset inflows or performance. Vision One has an offshore vehicle in the Cayman Islands, which of course, doesn’t mean anything. (The media loves to demonize small offshore islands, even though Ontario itself is considered a secrecy jurisdiction and tax-neutral if you pick the right vehicle, such as a TFSA).
Harper’s main business is Harper & Associates, which is described as a “global consultancy and investment advisory business.” I thought he was less commercially-minded than Brian Mulroney, but he has built a nice portfolio of grandee-ships. He’s on the board of Couche-Tard and Colliers (both of which are known as “compounder” stocks). He’s an advisor to Prime Movers Lab, a US venture capital firm that invests in ventures involving scientific breakthroughs, such as bringing back commercial supersonic flight. He’s a Partner of Awz Ventures, a Canadian-Israeli VC with ties to intelligences agencies. He had previously been associated with 8VC, Joe Lonsdale’s investment firm. Joe Lonsdale is most known for being a co-founder of Palantir.
Stephen Harper seems to be more active on the speaker circuit these days. On the tariff war, he has said this country "should diversify its trade and export markets." Wow, I wish I had thought of that first. He said “I am in the investment business now, to use a business term….we’ve been grossly overweight the US.” Incidentally, “overweight” is also an expression we use a lot in my business, trolling.
You might know I am a purist. But I don't want to get in trouble, so I found this tweet by Brad Dunkley that captures my sentiment. Brad is such a rabble-rouser.
