Guardian Capital Group is a diversified Canadian financial services company with global reach. The firm’s history of solid performance, innovative ideas and stable leadership has led to growth across all distribution channels.
Guardian Capital LP is an investment manager that brings decades of leadership in institutional asset management. The Guardian portfolios leverage professional, tactical investment management by experienced portfolio managers and asset mix committee.
The investment process is summarized as follows:
Strategic asset allocation targets determine asset allocations for each portfolio.
Guardian Capital’s Asset Mix Committee will determine the need for any tactical tilt depending on their view of the economic cycle and investment fundamentals.
Portfolio asset allocation will be regularly rebalanced to targets.
All positions in underlying funds will be reviewed on a quarterly and as-needed basis.
The Makeup of the Guardian Portfolios
ModernAdvisor offers two portfolio solutions that support the investor journey through sophisticated multi-asset portfolios:
GC One Portfolios are multi-asset solutions with a tactical advantage. These portfolio solutions are constructed using the GC One Equity and GC One Fixed Income Series I components.
Sustainable Fund portfolios are multi-asset solutions that align with core ESG values and are optimized via factor exposures, derivative strategies and liquid alternatives [1]. Sustainable Fund portfolios are constructed using the Sustainable Growth 100 and Sustainable Income 100 Series I components
What makes the Sustainable Funds “Sustainable”?
Investment in underlying funds must meet minimum Sustainable rankings as determined by Sustainalytics (now owned by Morningstar, Inc.)
The Sustainable Funds may make “thematic investments” in underlying funds which hold assets that directly relate to improving social or environment sustainability, such as
Renewable energy
Smart grid infrastructure
Green bonds
Gender diversity
All underlying fund managers must be UN PRI signatories
Equity and Fixed Income allocation of the GC One and Sustainable Fund portfolios
ModernAdvisor offers 10 different variations of both the GC One and Sustainable Fund portfolios; from Risk Level 1 to Risk Level 10. Risk Level 1 is the most conservative, made up of 90% fixed income, liquid alternatives or thematic assets and 10% equity (i.e. stocks). The equity exposure in the portfolios increases in 10% increments per Risk Level. Risk Level 10, the most growth-oriented portfolio, is made up of 100% equities.
The illustration below shows the equity and fixed income allocation for the GC One Portfolios:
The illustration below shows the equity and fixed income allocation for the Sustainable Fund portfolios:
Strategic asset allocation targets are for illustrative purposes only. Figures represent strategic targets only and may be subject to change over time.
Fees
The ModernAdvisor management fee for both Guardian portfolios is 0.85%. We pay a part of our management fee to Guardian Capital for the management of the funds. In addition to our management fee, each fund within the portfolios has a Management Expense Ratio (MER). The average MER of the funds in the portfolios depends on the risk level and is generally around 0.30%.
If you have been referred to ModernAdvisor, you may pay service fees to the referral partner. In most cases, the service fees are for helping you establish your financial goals, providing financial planning guidance, developing overall wealth strategies, tax planning and/or assisting with the opening of your ModernAdvisor account(s).
Each account is also subject to a minimum management fee of $5/month per account or $2.50/month per RESP account.
ModernAdvisor management fee and advisor Service Fee are also subject to GST/HST based on the investor’s province of residence.
Minimum Investment
The minimum investment for Guardian Portfolios is $2,500 per account.
[1] Liquid alternatives allow for the introduction of risk mitigation techniques, such as hedging, in order to reduce exposure to traditional asset markets and drive uncorrelated returns.