grimiest bucket shops in Toronto
What are the worst lmm bucket shops you’ve seen in Toronto and why? I saw a US version of this and they said Tobin & Company or Dinan. What’s the most embarrassing shop you’ve seen in toronto?
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Below is the list of bullshit bucket shops in Canada:
-Third Eye
-District Ventures
-Fiera Comox
-Nicola Wealth
-Highline Beta
-Mink Capital
-Panache Ventures
-Overbay Capital
-Plaza Ventures
-Regimen Equity
-Tactico
-Morningside
Fiera Comox, Nicola Wealth and Overbay are legitimate shops no?
Googled Overbay and they seem to have over a billion in AUM
Mink Capital is a family office, they don't hire
Mink is run by that clown with a 90s haircut and YouTube channel where he sounds like he got his balls chopped off.
Can you elaborate more on Morningside? Saw they have an associate posting
Adding to this list:
- Cai capital partners
- Deans Knight Capital Mgmt
- Signal Hill Equity Partners
- Forum Equity Partners
- Private Debt Partners
- Triwest Capital Partners
- vertu capital
- persistence capital partners
Not sure why someone said Fiera Comox. I interviewed with them a few years ago, the firm was relatively new back then. I didn't get an offer, but was impressed by the background of ppl and questions they asked me.
Fiera is just an allocator - a glorified wealth management firm that's one step above Nicola. They commit to the stupidist deals and have run out of dry powder.
This was valuable insight, I had not known of it
Triwest is pretty legit. Not sure they belong on this list.
I found them to be a joke when I spoke with a senior partner there
How is persistence bad ? I interviewed with them before they seemed pretty legit. Lot of ex BMO, and cibc guys working for them.
I believe these are zombie funds who have either very limited to no dry powder left / have not been having traction with fund raising. If you haven't raised a fund that clearly means something is off, no,,?
Agreed nothing wrong with persistence except the pay is garbage.
How is Vertu, Forum and Triwest bad?
Unless the poster above knows something I don’t, I think Vertu is fine - just a young firm and small, might be a while until they raise a real fund. Leadership seems decent, but pension fund backgrounds might get discounted by potential LPs.
From what I have heard Forum is more of a family office that might not grow super quickly, but could be wrong on that. Forum also doesn’t seem to have a senior team with a real track record leading other firms, which means it might take a while for it to really grow. In my opinion, both of those would be much better choices than Signal Hill or Triwest, which have not raised funds in forever and don’t seem to be doing very well from an outsider’s perspective.
Not sure the hate on Vertu, Forum and Triwest also. All are somewhat niche players, but decent players in their space. Vertu is a LMM Canadian tech shop, Forum is historically really a Real Estate and Infrastructure shop, and Triwest is one of the few legit GPs in the west side of Canada. All seem to have decent juniors + mid-level with decent backgrounds. Obviously these are not comparable to Onex, Birch Hill or CPPIB, but I wouldn't knock anyone for working there.
TriWest is pretty legit and active on the deal front at least in Western Canada. Maybe because they do not deal with big companies/brand names you think that they are inactive?
TriWest is a real fund - they have institutional LPs from what I’ve heard
CEIL Capital - guys there don’t understand what a NWC adjustment is. Impression I got was they rip off retiring founders of small companies who don’t know to run a proper sale process
Firepower capital is a bucket shop. Kensington Capital is a retail fund and allocator
What do you think of Kirchner group?
no clue about them
Kensington doesn't have as bad of a name as the others. Kensington is a fund of funds that makes allocations to top tier Canadian funds like Onex and Birch Hill. But you are correct, their access point is very retail/HNW oriented. Still, I think some of the other names mentioned are substantially worse.
Yeah I wouldn’t say Kensington is bad. They are an allocator, but their VC team has done some cool stuff too
Agentis Capital - terrible culture; tons of turnover; boring (not really IB) work
They made me do a math test one time. They’re open right now and I still won’t apply for them. It seems like it’s a quant job with an IB title versus an actual IB job.
Pay is great tho
Heard horrible things about the culture, super toxic, and they have a revolving door of juniors hence why they’re constantly posting jobs for analysts. I am not working rn and I wouldn’t apply to them.
How great? glassdoor is saying 125 Analyst base. Is that accurate this year? What about bonus?
Yeah super weird juniors. Toxic seniors. Sweaty af. And hiring process is dumb and unorganized. Not a “quant” shop, but work is primarily:
1. PPP advisory, which is usually housed under DCM or project finance in other banks, so not really IB work. Firm actually competes quite well in this area vs big 5 even without underwriting capabilities; advised on a few notable multi billion deals.
2. LMM buyside advisory for infra sponsors. Basically outsourced model monkey work.
Exits are ok, but you’re stuck in infra. Pretty nice pay, even this year I hear. Consider if you have no other offers and/or do not care about your well-being.
What do you mean by weird juniors and being sweaty? I applied to Agentis and want to know more about what I could be getting into
What about their Principal Investing arm? Any insight?
Well said.
Pays well, takes non-targets, but would be silly to say the firm doesn't punch above its weight in some regards. I'm sure the seniors are rolling in it, like at Fort Capital, and juniors have exited Agentis to like Evercore and the like because they do grind and do get solid enough reps.
I would never consider the firm unless it's your only offer and you are willing to suffer and leverage it to go elsewhere afterwards.
How is it not really IB?
80% of the work is advising consortiums on PPP bids for like CAD 1m fees, which are 100% success based. They do some buyside M&A work but its usually small. Haven't ever seen them on a sell-side.
Shit I’m interviewing with them. They’re saying they will relocate London analysts to Toronto, not exactly hiring in Europe. Why’s it not IB work? I know the culture is trash tho
Panache Ventures constant LinkedIn shit posting drives me wild. Super active by some girl with a marketing background that went to a preppy Toronto all girls private school. What knowledge she has of VC is beyond me
I know of her. Wont dox but it’s a bs shop. They have the funds — but have never heard of them as a shop. 100 mill in CAD is nothing to sneer at, especially for pre seed and a new firm. But their activity doesn’t seem strong.
That’s kinda the VC play - most VC shops do these posts to generate inbounds / get awareness from founders who do the same posts. Panache is just a classic small Canadian VC, and the space is underdeveloped short of iNovia / Portage / Georgian.
I’d also challenge you to find any Toronto finance firm not riddled with private school kids from UCC / RSGC / Branksome / BSS. I know who you’re referring to and she is perfectly nice / smart - not sure why you’re singling her out
Just annoying AF? Knows nothing about investing yet is all of a sudden an expert cause of daddy's money
Third eye has some solid ppl working there. Why are they bad? Why don't these folks leave If they are as grimey as someone above claimed?
Google the CEO. Serious legal issues.
Did he get into a sex assault case?
I know two of the principals at third eye l (strictly acquaintances though) and they are super smart, so was surprised to see third eye on the list. But yep I did google the CEO, not good optics. Everyone has a past though - even the founder of Apollo
People at Third Eye are very odd, had a chat with one of the guys there once upon a time and can’t say it was a place I’d even remotely consider working.
The grimiest of them all is a group called Setter Capital. Legit employs a few Nigerian scam artists. Boiler room type environment where employees can't take a lunch break and have mandatory weekend work. Word was that he was forcing junior staff into the office everyday during the height of COVID. Dudes brother runs an even sketchier firm called Optimize, but I think they rebranded to Overbay. Basically also a broker but claims to be a fund manager with aum.
Can anyone confirm ^
It's a fine line. There are a ton of shops where the team has serious pedigree but they can't close shit. Some of them aren't even close to competitive on bids. Couple of names on these lists that check that box.
Ivest Consumer Partners
Keep this thread alive. I heard Northleaf and Nicola outsource a lot of their deal flow to other managers and then use a holding company to hide the exposure.
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