Nicola Wealth is set to announce Tuesday that John Nicola will retire from his role as chief executive officer by the end of 2025, when he will assume the position of executive chair of the board.Courtesy of manufacturer
John Nicola, founder and chief executive officer of independent money manager Nicola Wealth Management Ltd., is launching a year-long retirement path as he prepares to pass the torch over to his son, Chris Nicola.
Nicola Wealth is set to announce Tuesday that John Nicola will retire from his role as chief executive officer by the end of 2025, when he will assume the position of executive chair of the board. In preparation for the executive shuffle, Chris Nicola, currently chief strategy officer at Nicola Wealth, has been appointed president, effective immediately. He is replacing David Sung, who has moved into the role of executive vice-chair and president of institutional.
“This transition is not about stepping back, but rather focusing on areas where I can continue to provide strategic insight and mentorship to ensure the firm’s long-term success,” Mr. Nicola said.
And that strategy, he says, involves maintaining the Vancouver-based company as a privately-owned, independent business.
Over the past 30 years, Mr. Nicola has received plenty of offers from competitors looking to buy. But he said in an interview with The Globe that the company has been independently strong and does not require any capital to continue on its growth trajectory. Today, Nicola Wealth has more than $16.1-billion in assets under management with 180 advisers, associates and insurance professional in seven offices across Canada.
“We have consistently been growing 20 per cent annually since 2000,” he added. “This year, it will be about 16 per cent as we get bigger – but if we continue on this trajectory, we will hit about $140-billion to $150-billion in assets in a dozen or so years.”
Chris Nicola was first introduced to the company during his university years, when he was studying computer science engineering and helped build the company’s technology platform. In 2015, he founded an online advice business, Wealth Bar Financial Services Inc., which was sold to investment giant CI Financial Corp. in 2019. In 2021, Chris was appointed Nicola’s chief technology officer.
Stepping into the role as president, Chris says he is focused on continuing to keep up the pace of the growth across Canada.
“We have already grown exponentially in the number of advisers we have and the number of assets we manage, but we want to continue to look at how we can scale that nationally,” he said in an interview.
“We have a very strong advice platform that is combined with an asset model that is broadly diversified similar to what a Canadian pension fund would be and that is a model that you don’t really get access to easily. "
An industry veteran of more than 50 years, John Nicola said he stumbled into the financial services industry in 1974 after the lead singer of the rock band he was playing in recommended he look at the insurance industry to start making more money.
“I was 22 years old and was playing the bass guitar in a rock band but I couldn’t sing and I couldn’t write music,” Mr. Nicola said in an interview. “But I managed the band’s finances and was pretty good at it.”
In 1974, he joined Metropolitan Life Inc. as an insurance adviser. Within a year, he says, he quickly rose as a top salesperson and doubled his rock-band salary.
A year later, Mr. Nicola branched off as an independent insurance adviser before being recruited by Rogers Group, a mutual fund dealer where he began a business and estate planning division. Five years later, in 1989, he was appointed president of Rogers Group.
But in 1994, he had the idea to build an independent wealth manager that would bring advisers on as shareholders. He launched Nicola Wealth with $80-million in assets.
In 2000 he decided to “blow up” his business model that had been heavily built around mutual fund commissions, and relaunch the entire company as a fee-based investment counsellor. From there, he added an asset management business to focus on blending private-market assets into client portfolios with using funds that invest in real estate, private equity and infrastructure.
In recent years, the company has also been acquiring niche wealth management businesses and advisers. Last year, Nicola Wealth scooped up a $1-billion adviser team from Gluskin Sheff + Associates, the asset manager shut down by Onex Corp. after the departure of top adviser teams. Nicola Wealth bought institutional real estate asset manager Blackwood Partners in 2020 and Levine Financial Group, which specializes in insurance for physicians, in 2021.
Other appointments on Tuesday include Nicola Wealth’s chief financial officer, Bijal Patel moving into the role of chief investment officer, while Vanessa Flockton will take on the role of president of private wealth. Nicola Wealth’s chief operating officer, Jamie Duncan, will transition out of her role over the next year to move into the company’s philanthropy business. Ms. Duncan will remain on the board of directors.