How an alts platform won a technology award

00:00 That key service offering to be this bridge between the wealth channels and the alternative managers with this tech I think is really been uh really key. So having one sort of location that can be built custom for a wealth manager or on our marketplace that a provides that grounding big picture holistic foundation education that allows a one-stop shopping in terms of evaluating the various managers and and think of it as like a facility where multiple funds are there with the full data rooms and being able to assess that and then the the actual execution.

00:41 Hello and welcome to this special episode of WPTV. My name is David Kitai, senior editor at Wealth Professional. In the wake of our 2026 Wealth Professional Awards, WP is highlighting a few of our award winners, showcasing the insights and approaches that earned them their trophies.

00:55 Today, we're lucky to be joined by Thomas Johnston, managing director and business head for Canada at I Capital. His firm took home the prestigious WealthTech Service Provider of the Year award at the ceremony. Thomas, welcome to WPTV.

01:10 >> Uh, a pleasure, David.

01:11 >> Thomas, the obvious question that occurs just talking about your award is is why do you think you won it? 

01:18 I think it's a combination of a lot of hard work put in over the last five plus years in Canada and then building on what I capital did about 13 years ago starting in the US market to be a bridge between the wealth channel and the alternative managers and to create a service offering that encompasses both creating access feeder vehicles for wealth channels and building a portfolio uh tech solution that is end to end from the moment an adviser wants to research options of various managers facilitate the execution of agreements online avoiding the paperwork back and forth storing all the docs and getting prompted every time there's an event and then having a performance and other auxiliary tools along now with education and risk analytics and I think that key service offering to be this bridge between the wealth channels and the alternative managers with this tech I think is really been uh really key and then of course we've worked and made it work in Canada. Um so I think that's that's probably the the main reasons.

02:28 >> Yeah. So you talk about how you've made it work in Canada. How how have you seen your presence grow in Canada over just the past year?

02:34 >> We've grown quite um briskly. We are now at about almost 15 billion dollars in Canada. And what's nice is it's the depth and breadth. So we've launched 83 funds and we are dealing with about 3,500 advisors from almost 200 wealth channels. Uh and that represents over 80,000 investors and almost 150,000 tickets. So it gives you a sort of sense. And if we look at the last year and a half, we've probably grown 10 billion of that amount. So the the the as we've been expanding both with wealth channels and through products, it's it's grown quite a bit.

03:17 >> Why do you think you have had so much success integrating into the Canadian market? What not to be Canadian specific, but what's so special about this country that that has uh made it right for your success?

03:28 >> A a combination of things. One, on the products that we work with, and I mentioned we've launched 83 funds here. We we very much listened to the channel, right? You know the old win in Rome, you have to take the local inputs and so what are the right structures? There's definitely a preference here for open-end funds. Can we make them mutual fund trust for tax where possible? Listening to the needs on currency management, making sure that the actual cash flows can still be integrated into funds serve. And then on our technology, making sure we're incorporating all the unique elements of a Canadian subdocck, including things now like the bulk discretionary subscription, which is sort of a bit unusual, unique to Canada, not unusual, but just unique to Canada.

04:17 And so being able to do that on portal along with French language and and other features, um, I think all those combinations, tweaking the tech, and also being very thoughtful on product design. I think both of those elements have contributed to the success.

04:34 >> So, so to focus more on that tech side, I mean, where have you innovated and what specific areas of innovation have really allowed you to to stand out in this market?

04:42 >> So, I I've talked on a couple in terms of the currency hedging and having multiple currency. Um, really looking at the minimums, particularly in a discretionary ticket, we can now go down to $2500 as part of a discretionary ticket per investor and $500 for topups. the the mutual fund trust structuring. Um I talked about the bulk discretionary capability being able to have a advisor as PM do one subdocck and then have it apply to a whole bunch of different mandates and investors under that document through an appendicy. So all very good but one area of innovation I think in particular that's really starting to make good traction is we have a risk analytics uh portfolio construction tool called architect I capital architect and what this tool does it's very very advisor friendly it allows an adviser to literally load up their portfolios you know their stocks their bonds the mutual funds the ETFs and then do whatif assessments on various alternative structures. And by the way, some of these don't even have to be high capital funds as long as they have like the monthly returns or quarterly returns. And it'll do a before and after snapshot of the portfolio under 13 investment factors and CFA metrics. And it'll look at how the portfolio would have done.

06:03 And what it does is it helps that advisor holistically understand how alts contribute to a portfolio whether it's for increasing risk diversification whether it's for increasing the alpha whether it's for increasing the income depending on the variety of funds they put in and weights and I think that's very very important and a missing component for a lot of these advisors to make that allocation jump and to feel confident and then to also be able to track06:33 I think you've spoken to this to to a large degree already, but you know, there's this growing appetite for alternatives in the space. I'm I'm curious as to how you've met that and maybe how you've offered different and more specific alts access and alt strategies given how vast this investable universe really is.

06:51 >> I I think a combination of things. One was, you know, listening to the the to the the you to the the the clients, the advisor channel, what offerings they were looking for, what their needs were, incorporating that, and giving them selection. So, you know, 83 funds, 50 of those are open-ended. We see definitely a preference from many, many channels for the evergreen. Um, and then that's across the private equity, the private credit, the real estate, the infrastructure, the hedge funds, that whole gamut. So that's one thing selection and choice by top managers because as we know you know manager selection and alternatives is key. It could be the difference of a 20% return versus zero. Um whereas in traditional strategies it's much more narrowly banded. Um and um so that and and there's more there's lots of studies that top cortile managers have a greater than not chance of being at least top you know half in the next offering. So very very good. Secondly, it's just sort of the approach to the tech and the Canadianization. And then it's been complementing that with education and with um the analytical tools. So, you know, listening to them, creating choice, tweaking the products, adding education and the analytics. I think all those have have been really really key.

08:11 >> You mentioned education. Um, you know, I'm curious about how you've worked to educate adviserss on alts both through, you know, thought leadership from people like yourself, your wholesaler team and again to focus on your award on on the tech platform. How has that really enabled education of advisors?

08:27 >> Education is very much integrated with our tech and we have three sort of levels of education or three perspectives is probably the better way to describe it of education. One is foundational education. So, we've partnered with Kaya to create a curriculum course and it's now offered with groups that are coming on our marketplace for free. Uh, or if there's a custom wealth manager portal, we can create a a custom site for a particular wealth manager just showing the funds they want to put on it. But it's a free curriculum of courses. So, think of a 10 modular course. What are hedge funds?

09:02 What is private equity? What is, you know, how do how what is private how does private credit work? How do they fit into an overall portfolio? An adviser can take these courses online and then get a certificate afterwards and do it at their own pace. Uh so that's one level of education. We do also a quarterly publication called alt
 decoded which I like to think of it as almost like a visual capitalist approach to the whole spectrum of alts broken down into each alt class. What are the elements? What's the size of the market? what are the compelling developments and opportunity sets. So that's there. Um and then we'll do fundsp specific education. So we have a whole group that works with particular managers and almost as a compliance uh check for helping them know their product, what are the features, what are the comparative products and market, the fees, everything ties back to the offering documents. It's a tremendous tool and it really helps on that front.

10:03 And then the last component, you know, foundational on the bottom, the fund specific in the middle is the thought leadership. So we have like a 25 person alt research team that is literally putting out periodic materials what's happening in the market. I mentioned that alts decoded but specifically in each asset class meeting with managers um our our chief investment uh strategist uh Shenoli uh Basak who's um very very good at this. She was an exjournalist many many years ago but will meet with GPS and do pieces on what they're seeing in the market. It's very educational. It's not pushing a product in a um beyond 6040 publication and we're posting just again free content on the web um is very very helpful. And then tied to all of that is that risk analytics at the full continuum on the tool. So education is very very important. you know it is how and why alternatives have a place in a

11:06 client portfolio. Uh again for diversification alpha income and you know each client is different from a risk characteristic perspective such should be the case for their alt allocation where they differ.

11:20 >> We've talked a lot about you know alt strategies alts funds alts access but you know again this award is for a technology platform and you you have built one. So, I guess I'm curious from your perspective, why does the alts universe need a dedicated technology platform? Can't advisers just go to alts fund managers and transact with them and invest in in funds that they want. What what's the the the necessity for that tech platform?

11:45 >> There's a couple of elements. One is the forest from the trees. And so, as an adviser, how do you navigate to them? You know, let alone how do you know what's appropriate for each client? So having one sort of location that can be built custom for a wealth manager or on our marketplace that a provides that grounding big picture holistic foundation education that allows a one-stop shopping in terms of evaluating the various managers and and think of it as like a facility where multiple funds are there with the full data rooms and being able to assess that and then the the actual execution as these are typically accredited investor offerings there's a formal subdocck and so if your average adviser has 200 clients with maybe three accounts each taxable RSP

12:36 RIFF or TFSA you could have 600 accounts per advisor that's a lot of paperwork back and forth going back and forth so with an I capital tech you can basically do the research after the education enter the trades in and then the system will reach out to those end advisors where it's not discretionary get the signatures track what's in progress, track what needs to be changed. So the adviser, if they did 600 trades, might only have five or six that they need to follow up. It'll be recorded on the system. For example, Tom Johnston had a joint account, wasn't co-sign, the things that make it easy. And then once that document's in, there's a document center that allows you host lifestyle uh when you're running that fund to track, you know, the latest subdoc, the latest, you know, uh statements, tax liips all in

13:26 one one place. And then as well as getting performance and you know doing the analytics and standardizing the agreements but all done in a in a a a digital tech portal that integrates uh with the uh wealth managers uh books and record systems. Um and it it it that's I think the the value the tech that brings everything together. look at outcome for a brief moment and and and ask sort of what have you been able to do with your platform and with with these uh funds that you've been able to put through your platform to what have you been able to do to help advisers uh achieve for their practices and for their clients

14:08 >> with with the education which is now made free with the the the uh architect tool which is now made free if they're going in through a portal that's very um attractive right um on the marketplace place that's very attractive. They can they can under get a firm position on how and why they're using it and see from the historical returns of a fund how it would have provided and then having the selection that's been brought to the market um about choosing which manager is right and then meeting with them. So like we will we've done lots of surveys here over the years. 

14:47 What else are there? What attributes are important? Is RSP eligible important? Is Canadian dollar hedging important? Do you prefer open and closed end funds?

14:56 You know, those are really key things. By getting the input of the end users, we're now ensuring that the products being delivered meet them where they want to be, what needs work. Um and so that that's been a key component. And then just being available uh through events in the industry or just even meeting individual advisor teams or working with home office groups to sort of bring solutions to them or just explain the why why a toz evolts or what we're seeing in the market right now and then supplementing that with our thought pieces that we're distributing out people that want to join um uh email lists for all alt decoded for others. I mean there there's a lot of good insights on that.

15:43 >> Final question and really this goes back to the award but but given the achievement, given the recognition, I mean what what do you hope the rest of the industry takes from the fact that you won this award and that you've led as an asset manager on the technology side of the business as well?

15:58 >> And I would almost look at it from two perspectives. The local industry in Canada, I think the takeaway hopefully is two elements. one as a from a tech other tech providers is listen to the end investors terraform to the needs of the Canadian market. It's not a one-sizefits-all. I always like to say to my American colleagues, the steering wheel on the Ford F-150 is on a different side in the UK. And I use that as an analogy for Canada, but I think that's been one of the elements of success. So that's to the tech community, to the internal wealth channel. I I would hope they would take away. Wow. There is this SE selection of services. There's 83 funds. We've got a whole bunch more likely coming that they are coming. I know that. And they're all structured in the right way for Canada.

16:48 They've been, you know, put in place. They're Canadian content. We have low minimums. They're Canadian dollar hedging RS RSP eligible on fund surf. So for the the 3500 that are using it, there's many many more that aren't. I hope they take it away. And then for the rest of the world, I think I'd love them to take away that, hey, Canada, our wealth industry is really second to none. The sophistication we always have.

17:15 I always like to say, you know, we are, for example, Toronto the number one CFA chapter in the world, bigger than New York City, Montreal and Vancouver, Montreal's in the top 10, Vancouver's in the top 20. like this is a and and many many groups across the the you know the the the the great nation of ours. Uh this is a great country and innovation is here and the adoption and integration of uh efficient portfolio construction to kind of get that portfolio up and to the left higher returns with lower risk. That's the whole goal of what you know the whole industry is trying to achieve for its clients whether it's an institutional portfolio manager or a wealth channel that's the key and with I capital bringing these managers structured on a tech it helps achieve the goal that's the takeaway I think I'd love to hopefully um get uh folks to um to see and and and ultimately benefit from.

18:16 >> Well Thomas I think that's an excellent note to end on. So, all I can really say beyond this is thank you so much for for sharing your insights with me and with our audience today.

18:25 >> David, a real pleasure and uh again um much appreciation. We're very grateful for the award. It's a great event. You guys do a great service and um uh we hope to be there in the future as well someday. Yeah. Yeah. Excellent.

18:38 >> Well, I hope you're there, too. And thank you so much for the kind words. And thank you to all of our viewers for WPTV. I've been David Kitai. Have a great rest of your day.