Canaccord Genuity Wealth Management’s new chief investment manager, Michel Perera, is a master of re-invention, marrying his global, top-down view of the investment world with the discretionary manager’s bottom-up creativity.
To an outsider, his decision to join Canaccord Genuity after 19 years at one of the biggest global financial institutions, JP Morgan Private Bank, might seem unexpected.
But this is not the first time Perera has re-invented himself. At JP Morgan, he went from being the bank’s only London-based discretionary manager to launching and managing mutual funds for private clients, and later becoming chief strategist for Europe, the Middle East and Africa.
So why join Canaccord Genuity? Perera concedes he knew little about the firm before joining but was charmed by the people he met at his interview who appeared to “live and breathe investments”.
“They challenged me during the interview process in a way I might have been expecting from a large firm with a big name,” he says. “I thought, if these are the people I’m going to work with, I relish the intellectual challenge of being kept on my toes.”
He adds: “Everybody comes up with ideas. We have about 100 people involved in the investment process. Each member of staff who covers clients is both a relationship manager and an investment adviser at the same time.”
