Fiera Capital announces change to its Global Management Structure

Fiera Capital Corporation, a leading independent asset management firm, has announced a change to its global management structure, effective July 2020.

Fiera Capital will shift away from a geographically focused operating model, to a global approach, pursuant to which Fiera Capital will now organise its business activities across three operating groups: Public Markets, Private Markets and Private Wealth, instead of its existing regional structure, the firm said in a press release.

Jean-Philippe Lemay, in addition to his current role as Global President and Chief Operating Officer, will lead the Public Markets group. John Valentini, President and CEO of Fiera Private Alternative Investments will lead the Private Markets Group, a role he is currently assuming as part of his functions.

And finally, Peter Stock, currently Executive Vice President, Strategic Development, will assume the lead of the Private Wealth Group and will be based in New York City. Peter Stock has been with Fiera Capital since 2011. He was instrumental in building Fiera Capital's presence in the United States and has been actively involved in corporate development initiatives over the last decade.

This new management structure that encompasses many of Fiera Capital's key business functions, will now be re-aligned along global reporting lines. While Fiera Capital expects to generate cost synergies by reducing redundancies and increasing operating efficiency, savings generated in 2020 will be redeployed during the current fiscal year to certain key functions, in order to help accelerate future growth.  Expected cost savings should be realised in 2021 and beyond, most notably within the Public Markets operating group. Additional investment will also be made in structuring and developing an integrated Global Distribution function across both Public and Private Markets asset classes, in order to offer holistic and diversified investment solutions to our Institutional clients and Strategic Partnerships on a global basis.

The creation of a Global Private Wealth group is also expected to leverage existing best practices on a global basis and enhance operating scalability of Fiera Capital's Private Wealth operations. Fiera Capital expects all the foregoing actions to translate into positive contribution to earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) in the range of CAD5 million to CAD10 million starting in the 2021 financial year.

Jean-Guy Desjardins, Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive Officer, Fiera Capital, said: “Fiera Capital has been guided by its values of integrity, innovation, investment excellence, collaboration and ambition since its creation in 2003. Our new global management structure aims to build on the strength of this existing foundation by driving increased collaboration and partnership between our investment and distribution teams in order to fully deploy our extensive suite of investment capabilities for the ultimate benefit of our clients.”

“Our new structure will better equip our global leadership team to have better line of sight on key business challenges and opportunities, thereby allowing them to scale solutions on a global basis and accelerate the execution of our 2022 strategic plan,” Desjardins continued.

Jean-Philippe Lemay, Global President and Chief Operating Officer, Fiera Capital, said: “We are excited to announce this important evolution of our global operating structure which is the result of a thorough review of our operations initiated as part of our 2022 strategic plan and is not related to the current COVID-19 situation. Over the last few years, we significantly added to our competitive suite of public and private market investment strategies through organic initiatives and strategic acquisitions. The new structure announced today will allow us to leverage the at-scale operating model of our successful Canadian business more broadly and remove operational duplication to create a stronger, more synergistic and more unified Fiera Capital.”

“By capitalising on our robust investment platform, integrating our distribution model globally and continuing to invest in our technology platforms, we are making great strides to deliver investment excellence as a trusted investment advisor to our clients and improve Fiera Capital's long-term business and financial performance,” he added.

Fiera Capital expects to record severance and restructuring related charges in the range of CAD19 million to CAD21 million before taxes during the second quarter of 2020.