Review. Plan. Implement. Repeat.
We know our clients well and build long-term relationships. Doing so ensures that we are able to provide them with the best possible advice and add the most value.
Working with our clients involves an ongoing process.
- Review: We begin by understanding each client’s financial circumstances, including their goals and asset map.
- Plan: We assist our clients in developing the most appropriate financial plan for them. This includes preparing financial projections and developing an asset allocation strategy. While some clients don’t need our planning assistance, most find that it helps them sleep at night.
- Implement: Our expertise is in buying stocks – ownership stakes in publicly traded businesses – at sensible prices. Our one, global portfolio, the Longview Portfolio, is made up of 15 to 25 stocks in high quality companies that we hope to own for many years. If appropriate, we also work with our clients to identify and vet alternative asset partners, to round-out their portfolios.
- Repeat: We meet face to face with our clients at least once every year. In addition to reviewing their investments, we update their financial goals, asset map, financial projection and investment plan.
Along the way, we offer bespoke financial education sessions with our clients and their family members. We believe that everyone should understand the language of investing.
Clear communication and transparent business practices mean that our clients always understand what we are doing on their behalf and why.
Private wealth. Built to last.
We seek to achieve superior after-tax returns while minimizing risk for our clients.
We do so by investing in the shares of publicly listed companies, the best performing asset class over time.
We don’t get flustered by ups and downs in the markets. We expect them. It takes discipline, experience and rigour to ensure our investment decisions aren’t just right for today, but for many years to come.
All investment decisions at Longview are made by our Investment Committee.
Simple, not easy.
We manage a single, global portfolio of stocks, the Longview Portfolio.
Our investment strategy is as follows:
- We buy shares in high quality companies when their stock market values are below our estimate of their economic value.
- We think long term — like business owners, not traders — hoping to own the companies we buy for many years.
- We have a disciplined, repeatable investment process designed to keep bias and emotion out of our decision-making.
- Before being considered for the Longview Portfolio, a company is subject to our own detailed, bottom-up research and checklists.
- We constantly re-evaluate companies in the Longview Portfolio using both qualitative research and quantitative factors.
All our eggs in one high-conviction basket.
The Longview Portfolio is restricted to 15 to 25 companies at any one time, to maximize our ability to outperform.
We have the flexibility to invest around the world, across industries and up and down the size spectrum of companies.
Everyone at Longview is an investor in the Longview Portfolio, alongside our clients. We all own exactly the same stocks in exactly the same weightings.
Outperform.
The investment strategy we follow – owning sensibly priced, high quality companies that can compound for many years – has been proven to work over the long run by Longview and many well-known investors.
We tilt the odds further in our clients’ favour by having:
- One Portfolio: With only one investment portfolio, the Longview Portfolio, we are 100% focused on what all of our clients own.
- Alignment with Clients: Everyone at Longview is invested in the Longview Portfolio alongside our clients, owning the same stocks in the same weightings.
- Rigorous Investment Process: Our unemotional and repeatable process uses both proprietary research and quantitative factors.
- High conviction Investments: We limit the Longview Portfolio to 15 to 25 stocks at any one time.
- Predictable Investments: We focus on relatively predictable businesses and sectors, avoiding, for example, commodity producers.
- Broad Investment Universe: Although our strategy is tightly focused, we invest globally and in companies of all sizes.
We dislike tax.
We recognize that most of our clients live in an after-tax world. We are stingy about taxes and are dedicated to maximizing their after-tax returns:
- Capital gains: The Longview Portfolio has a relatively low turnover of holdings, to defer capital gains tax and maximize the impact of compounding capital on a before-tax basis.
- Tax-loss selling:We engage in the selective selling of stocks, in order to lock-in capital losses for taxable clients.
- Dividends: For taxable clients with segregated accounts, we allocate shares thoughtfully between tax-sheltered and taxable accounts, to minimize taxes on dividends.
Outservice.
We take the trust placed in us by our clients very seriously. We are closely connected with them, building strong relationships. That means we take on no more clients than we can service well.
The people at Longview who manage client relationships are also members of our Investment Committee. There are no intermediaries, we ensure that our clients speak directly with the people responsible for making our investment decisions.
We are nothing without our clients. We take a long-term perspective to relationships and put our clients’ interest first in everything we do, always.
We don’t focus on good days, we focus on good decades.
We’re not afraid of commitment. We believe in and have the patience to build long-term relationships, both with our clients and with the companies in the Longview Portfolio.
The predictability of short term unpredictability.
In the short term, the direction of the stock market is unpredictable.
What is relatively predictable is that, over the long run, the stock market will continue to generate attractive returns. We are confident that the companies in the Longview Portfolio will increase their economic value over time — and that their share prices will follow the value upwards, albeit not in a straight line.
When stock markets misprice a business based on short-term, emotional reactions, we see an opportunity. We cut through the noise, focus on the facts and take the long view.
We’re interested in your future’s future.
Our investment strategy is particularly suited to inter-generational family planning, endowments and charities. Our focus is on safe, long term capital accumulation and the powerful effect of compounding before-tax returns over time.
Our aim is to get to know our clients well and to understand their unique needs. We sit down with our clients regularly, to revisit their goals and to keep them up to date on the Longview Portfolio.
A firm for the future.
Longview is built for the long run. Our team is made up of partners in a growing and successful business. We feel pride in our accomplishments. Our success comes from a combination of our commitment to clients, the temperament of our team, a rigorous investment process and the alignment of our goals with our clients’ goals.
Our custodian.
We do not hold any of our clients’ assets. All client accounts are held in the client’s name by our global custodian, National Bank Independent Network Inc. (NBIN). Each client has a direct contractual relationship with the custodian. Our role is to manage the investments inside the accounts for our clients. We do not receive any compensation from the custodian.
Investing in the Longview Portfolio.
There are two ways to invest in the Longview Portfolio:
- Through one or more segregated accounts, which might include personal taxable accounts, RRSPs, TFSAs, RESPs, corporate accounts and/or charitable foundation accounts.
- By purchasing units in our pooled fund, the Longview Equity Fund, which mirrors the holdings in the Longview Portfolio.
To ensure we have no more clients than we can service well, we have a high minimum account size per family, endowment or charity.
