Canso Investment Counsel Ltd.Canso Investment Counsel is named after the PBY-5A “Canso” amphibious aircraft. The Canso is the Canadian manufactured variant of the Consolidated PBY 5 naval patrol bomber. We named our firm for the Canso, admiring its ruggedness, endurance and flexibility which we believe are the hallmarks of our investment strategies.
Our methods are not quantitative or fashionable. Our contrary nature is tempered by our risk management discipline. Many years of investing in distressed debt has given us a substantial insight into the value of issuers after default. We spend a lot of time examining issuers and assessing their creditworthiness.
We believe in giving back to the community. We are fortunate to have a successful business and we believe it is our social responsibility to give back. We rank at the top of the Movember leaderboard and run year-round United Way campaigns. Employee participation has been 100% since inception and we strive to maintain that enthusiasm.
Our team exhibits a tremendous wealth of experience and a great depth of knowledge, bringing to bear our combined expertise on every investment decision we make.
Our fixed income approach concentrates on security selection. We believe that fundamental analysis and security selection will add substantial value compared to a more “passive” approach. Fundamental analysis and security selection will add substantial value.
Our investment process is focused on bottom up, fundamental research and security selection. Our prime focus is on our internal credit research. We do not rely on external research and credit rating agencies. With our large staff of credit professionals we believe we have greater research resources than most other investment managers or Canadian investment dealers.
Our investment process begins with a thorough fundamental review of the issuer of a security by the analyst. A team meeting is then held to consider the issue or issuer in question. We encourage active participation by all investment staff and structure the meeting to allow a full and open discussion.
Our portfolios reflect our “bottom up” research emphasis. Rather than identifying likely sectors for investment, we select individual securities with regard to their intrinsic risk and return trade-off. Our portfolios are constructed with little regard for the industry and geographic breakdowns of market indices but our credit limits for individual holdings and ratings categories are always maintained.
No matter how good the credit analysis or the underlying situation of the issuer, there is the potential for disruption to cash flows that cannot be foreseen. Such a disruption can be disastrous for a weaker or lower quality credit. We believe that diversification is key to appropriate corporate bond investment.
In our fiduciary role, we believe environmental, social, and governance (ESG) issues can affect the performance of issuers included in the investment portfolios we manage, but that the effect can vary substantially across issuers. We believe we have an overriding duty to act in the best long-term interests of our clients.
We are a specialty manager of Canadian corporate bond portfolios for some of Canada’s most sophisticated investors. Our long collective experience in credit analysis contributes to our ability to avoid overpriced and risky issuers. We do not avoid risk. We ensure that credit risk is priced appropriately and that our client portfolios are compensated for the risks they assume.
Our institutional clients include major corporations, endowments, insurance companies, unions and universities. We are dedicated to delivering superior investment performance to our clients. Successful investing generates returns over long periods through economic and financial cycles. Our mission is to deliver returns to those who have entrusted us with funds to manage.
In today’s financial markets of low yields and high risk, private investors often risk a substantial portion of their hard-earned capital to try to obtain a reasonable investment income. We can help you obtain your investment goals through a variety of investment strategies. We invest in a wide variety of securities but we look before we leap.
Read our current thoughts on the corporate bond market.
Our most recent observations about the current market conditions and where things could be headed.
Our position on the markets.
As government bond yields hit all time lows, creditworthy issuers are borrowing for the longest terms possible and index duration is now more than a full year longer than pre-Credit Crisis levels. We address the risks of holding longer duration assets and more in the March 2020 edition of the Canso Corporate Bond Newsletter.