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Two
Jamaican Chinese |
Raymond Chang:
Raymond Chang is chairman of C I Fund, Canada's eighth largest with nearly Can$30 billion under management and a market valuation of about Can$3 billion.
Chang's personal stake is worth just over Can$300 million.
Under Chang's management,
C I Fund, through a series of acquisitions and an aggressive
grab for market share, has grown from a mutual with a only a
mere Can$3 billion under management to its current size.It was C I's move last December at Canada's third largest mutual fund company, Mackenzie Financial, which led to its eventual acquisition in late January by the market's largest player, Investors Group.
Had C I Fund taken over Mackenzie, it would have become Canada's largest mutual fund company, but having made a firm offer
and started the ball rolling, Chang opted to stay out of a bidding war.
Chang, is the brother of Thalia Lyn, the boss of Island Grill (Jamaica and Miami)
Chang, 52, went to Canada in 1966 and gained an engineering degree, but after that studied accounting and worked in that profession until 1973 when he bought a furniture company which he ran for seven years.
In 1980 Chang sold his company and joined Coopers & Lybrand as a financial consultant, helping small businesses to straighten out their problems.
He later left this job and with a group of partners acquired C I, a small fund management firm, which they grew aggressively into one of Canada's largest.
C I Fund has a staff of about 750 and markets its products both through its direct sales force and via financial retailers.
Michael Lee-Chin:
He works in Burlington, lives in Dundas and just hates traffic jams on the Queen Elizabeth Way. And multimillionaire Michael Lee-Chin has his own helicopter.
The chief executive of Burlington-based mutual fund company AIC Ltd. was the spoiler in the bid to take over Mackenzie Financial.
Rising from humble beginnings as one of nine children born to a Jamaican-Chinese grocer, Lee-Chin has guided AIC from less than $1 million in assets under management when he purchased the company 14 years ago to $14 billion today.
That makes AIC the country's 11th-largest fund firm. But Lee-Chin is still seen as an outsider.
He's a 905er in expensive suits whose flagship AIC Advantage fund rode the wave of cash that flowed into mutual funds in the mid-1990s by investing heavily in fast-rising mutual fund and financial-services stocks.
"Five years ago he was just a little guy,'' said one industry observer. "You talk about the old boys' network? He's definitely nouveau riche.''
That doesn't bother Lee-Chin, a divorced father of three boys who turns 50 last January and still speaks with a Caribbean cadence after three decades in Canada.
He initially came to Hamilton about 30 years ago to study civil engineering and graduated from McMaster University in 1974.
"I've never been in the old boys' club, so I don't know what it's like to be there,'' he said, adding a reference to his Jamaican roots. "If you've never eaten ackee or rice and peas, you'll never miss it.''