Success built on hard work and private assets

David Kitai  00:00:06 

Wealth Professional Canada recently released its 2024 list of 5-Star Advisory Teams selected from a pool of great advisory practices. This list represents some of the best and brightest in the Canadian industry. Hello and welcome to WPTV. My name is David Kitai. And today I’m speaking with one of those winning teams. Marni Harvey and Krissy Morrison are both Senior Investment Advisors at Harvey Morrison Private Wealth, one of WP’s 5-Star Wealth Management Teams. Marni, Krissy. Welcome. 

Marni Harvey  00:00:35 

Thank you.  

Krissy Morrison  00:00:35 

Thank you. 

David Kitai  00:00:36 

It’s a pleasure to have you. So let’s go with the first question and maybe the obvious one, why do you think you were recognized by WP for this honor? 

Krissy Morrison  00:00:45 

Thanks, David. I believe that one of the reasons we were honored is because we do things a little bit differently than most of the other advisory teams that you can find. I think we work harder, maybe not harder than everyone, but we work very hard. We focus a lot on the due diligence of our alternative investments and providing our clients the very best experience. 

David Kitai  00:01:12 

That is a great overview. Marni, anything to add there on why you think you were you were honored? 

Marni Harvey  00:01:16 

I think Chrissy handled it very well. 

David Kitai  00:01:18 

So you talk about differentiation. And you mentioned alts differentiation, of course, we want to get get into adults. But what off the top do you think really differentiates your practice and sets you apart?  

Krissy Morrison  00:01:31 

I think the biggest thing that differentiates what we do is doing what’s right for the client every time whether it’s researching products, finding a firm that matches our core values. And maintaining our approach to meeting clients face to face in a world of digital technology. 

Marni Harvey  00:01:50 

Another way that we differentiate ourselves, as we don’t build portfolios, the way that most advisors do, using just stocks and bonds, we incorporate a lot of private investments, private real estate, private equity, which really helps our clients. Weather financial storms. 

David Kitai  00:02:13 

Yeah, so private assets are always a fascinating topic. And it’s one we talk about a lot. And it’s one that I always want to get into, especially now, because there’s been a bit of change in the private asset landscape. So let’s talk about your process. First and foremost, how do you access those private assets? And what specifically have they done to as you say, weather those those financial storms? 

Marni Harvey  00:02:34 

Great question. Thanks, David. So we are always looking for different private equity options, different private real estate options. And, and obviously, we have a lot of holdings that are core to our clients portfolios that we’re always using. And obviously, I don’t want to give away the secret sauce. And tell you the specifics. But you know, when we went through COVID, and you saw markets decline 35% Well, our clients portfolios didn’t do that. And, you know, it really helps clients sleep at night. Can you imagine retiring when markets are down? 35%? That would be very scary. And I think our approach, you know, how we copy or look at what the large institutional investors do. So things, investments like Canada Pension Plan, Ontario teachers pension plan, these are the largest pools of assets in our country. So we look and see what the big money invests in, and we try to mimic that. And it’s really helped our clients sleep at nights. 

David Kitai  00:03:47 

Yeah. Krissy anything else you want to add on the the alts? Front? 

Krissy Morrison  00:03:52 

No, I think that that is Marni covered that quite well. 

David Kitai  00:03:55 

Excellent. So one additional question all in all, it’s just just, you know, as I kind of mentioned, there has been a bit of a sea change. And it’s mostly to do with with interest rates being higher than they were, you know, in the kind of pre pandemic, immediately post pandemic environment where now we have certainly alternative asset classes, namely real estate and private equity facing more headwinds than they faced before this current rate increase cycle. Have you changed your strategic allocations in alts? At all? Obviously, we don’t want you to give away the store. But are you changing your outlooks towards all, especially as private or as public equity markets start outperforming? And there seems to be a little bit of a shift in that and in the way those assets are kind of playing against each other?  

Marni Harvey  00:04:40 

We’ve looked at adjusting the allocation and to be honest with you, David, we hadn’t decided not to. We’re keeping our allocations the same.  

David Kitai  00:04:49 

Yeah. And can you explain a little bit why just from a client standpoint, sort of why that long term focus, you think is still such a driver of value? 

Marni Harvey  00:04:59 

Well, And that’s that is the big thing is we are investing long term, it’s not a short term game. I mean, you know, you could go and buy your I don’t know, your GameStop or your for your short term. You know, I don’t think that retirement portfolios are long assets that you need for long time horizon need to be guided, and you have to be diligent in your process. And, you know, the fact that we looked at potentially changing our asset allocations percentages, and decided not to, I think the research there is that you really do need to have a certain amount allocated to each sector. And at this point in time, it didn’t make any any sense to change that.  

David Kitai  00:05:48 

Yeah, no, that’s, that’s great. So going beyond alts, what are some of the other issues that you really sort of help your clients address? 

Krissy Morrison  00:05:57 

From a software standpoint? Clients really look to us to guide them through most of their big life events. They’ll call us to discuss just little things even like, should we finance a vehicle? How should we purchase our homes, things like that? Right. So there’s just that guidance on those decisions? There, we also help them creating their wills, are there other considerations that they should look at? That maybe they haven’t thought of? The best part is when they call us though, just with their good news. You know, that’s, we’re very blessed to be able to help our clients through all of their life, circumstances, should it be good news, should it be bad news. And that’s what really makes our job enjoyable.  

David Kitai  00:06:43 

Absolutely. I just being able to participate in some of those wins, I can only imagine it’s just such a such a rewarding part of the work. My next question, though, is about an area that most people don’t find rewarding. And that’s taxes. So you offer some tax planning services, can you go into a little bit of detail about some of the tax planning work that you do for your clients? 

Marni Harvey  00:07:04 

Absolutely. So we work really well with our clients, other advisors, that being their accountants, their lawyers, etc. And so one of the big things that came down in the federal budget recently is the change to the capital gains inclusion rate. So we’ve been reaching out to clients, just letting them know how it may affect them. What should we do, if anything, and you know, I can probably guess that not a lot of other advisors are doing that, being proactive and just going through the steps to make sure that the clients are aware of how these changes could potentially impact them.  

David Kitai  00:07:44 

Proactive communication is an interesting kind of piece that you’ve brought up just them. And it’s something that I think a lot of advisors talk about, because we live in an age of constant communication, we are all being constantly communicated to whether it’s audio a talking head on on an internet video, like myself, or it’s a tick tock video, or it’s emails or texts or the relentless storm, I’m starting to stress myself out, as I say, That’s but how do you manage communication? How do you offer, you know, wisdom and insight and good thoughtful advice without being part of the noise? 

Krissy Morrison  00:08:26 

I think one of the best ways that we’re able to do it is with our note taking. So I’d love to say we remember everything about every one of our clients. But we know that’s not the truth. So we are excellent note takers. So when we talk to a client, we’ll make notes on you know what we spoke about, but then what is the next thing that we need to talk about and when and then we set it up so that we’re reaching out on a very regular basis on topics that are important to them? And then we also use so and we’ll do that via many types of communication, like yes, email is the quickest, easiest way to get out to the masses. But we will pick up the phone, we will meet you in person, we’ll travel where we’re here.  

David Kitai  00:09:15 

Okay. As the one millennial who loves talking on the phone, I do appreciate that that’s there’s nothing like a good phone call that can cut through some of that noise. And it’s, it’s, it’s a great it’s an old fashioned tool, but it works. So, as kind of a final question, you’ve, you’ve won this recognition, you’ve done this great work, and it covers a whole range of areas from those soft skills of communication for the hard skills of, you know, asset management in complex fields like goals. What do you hope that other advisory teams take from the work that you do and what won you this recognition? 

Marni Harvey  00:09:51 

I think it would have to be that clients are number one. And taking care of them is the top priority, because without them we wouldn’t be here. 

David Kitai  00:10:03 

Simple and effective. That is a great note to end on. All I really can say after that is thank you so much Marni and Krissy for sharing your insights and congratulations again on being named to this list.  

Marni Harvey  00:10:17 

Thank you.  

Krissy Morrison  00:10:17 

Thank you, David.  

David Kitai  00:10:19 

For WP TV. I have been David Kitai. Thank you to all of our viewers and have a great rest of your day.