AGF Management says CEO Kevin McCreadie, seen here in an undated handout photo, died suddenly at 64.HO/The Canadian Press
AGF Management Ltd. AGF-B-T announced chief executive officer Kevin McCreadie has died and the asset manager named president Judy Goldring as the new CEO.
On Thursday, AGF said Mr. McCreadie, aged 64, died suddenly. He joined the Toronto-based company 11 years ago from a U.S. bank and shifted AGF’s strategy from equity and fixed-income funds into alternative assets such as infrastructure and private equity. In addition to serving as CEO, he was AGF’s chief investment officer.
“The entire AGF team is devastated by the loss of Kevin, our colleague and leader,” Blake Goldring, AGF’s executive chairman, said in a press release. “His impact on our organization – and the people within it – has been profound and will be lasting.”
AGF is one of the country’s largest independent fund managers, overseeing $53-billion of client assets. Over the past five years, AGF’s share price rose by 158 per cent as Mr. McCreadie’s diversification strategy attracted clients and boosted profits.
Mr. McCreadie was the first CEO at AGF from outside the Goldring family. Warren Goldring co-founded the company in 1957 and served as CEO until 2000, when his son Blake took the reins. The Goldring family controls AGF through a dual-class share structure.
AGF recruited Mr. McCreadie as its chief investment officer in 2014, hiring him away from a job as CEO of PNC Capital Advisors, LLC, the wealth-management division of Pittsburgh-based bank PNC Financial Services Group. In 2018, the AGF board named Mr. McCreadie as CEO and Blake Goldring became executive chair. At the time, AGF oversaw $39-billion in assets.
Judy Goldring, Warren Goldring’s daughter, joined AGF in 1998 as general counsel and held a series of executive roles prior to becoming president and head of global distribution in 2020.
“We have full confidence in Judy’s ability to lead the firm given her profile, vision and demonstrated leadership skills,” Blake Goldring said. “She has the full support of the AGF team and our board of directors.”
Judy Goldring is also chair of the board of directors at the Securities and Investment Management Association, an industry group formerly known as IFIC. She also served as chair of the University of Toronto’s governing council.
Mr. McCreadie’s unexpected death occurred a week after Equitable Bank announced that CEO Andrew Moor died suddenly. The country’s seventh largest bank named chief risk officer Marlene Lenarduzzi as its interim CEO.
Over the past four consecutive quarters, AGF’s growth in assets under management has exceeded the pace of expansion in the domestic mutual-fund industry. In a recent report, analyst Phil Hardie at Bank of Nova Scotia said that under Mr. McCreadie’s leadership, AGF showed the “ability to sustain relatively solid operating momentum in the face of a challenging industry backdrop.”
The company’s growth in assets under management reflected “a combination of solid investment performance, newer fund launches and recent shift in retail investor appetite for European equity exposures,” Mr. Hardie said.
AGF is one of the few remaining independent domestic asset managers, as the sector has consolidated around the banks and a handful of large-fund companies such as Power Financial Corp., which is also family controlled.
AGF expanded by making a series of acquisitions under Blake Goldring and Mr. McCreadie, including purchasing control of Toronto-based private-equity fund manager Kensington Capital Partners for $45-million and a stake in New York-based hedge-fund manager New Holland Capital LLC in 2024. In 2020, AGF acquired Canadian rival Global Strategy Holdings for $438-million.
Last month, Bank of Montreal acquired employee-owned Burgundy Asset Management Ltd. for $625-million, the latest in a long list of wealth-management purchases by Canadian banks. Burgundy has $27-billion in assets under management.