Stability, security, growth
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Safety and stability make for a steady stream of reliable returns, Antrim’s Will Granleese explains
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THEY ARE canny folk in Northern Ireland’s county Antrim, used to making nifty deals, spending money sparingly and for good returns. Bill Granleese left the wet, hilly county decades ago for Canada, taking his native wit with him and setting up a mortgage broker and lender, which he named after his home across the ocean.
Antrim Investments now has over $1 billion in assets under management, and 15 independent IIROC dealers have approved Antrim for their product shelves, which is not bad going by any reckoning.
His son, Will Granleese, is now involved in the business. He was in the past a financial advisor, which put him in good stead for taking on the mortgage market. He then moved on to a management training program at TD Bank, which he followed up with an MBA at Dalhousie before taking up the reins at Antrim.
For over 50 years Antrim Investments has been a leader in the private mortgage market. As an IFM, it manages Antrim Balanced Mortgage Fund, which is Canada’s largest residential MIC Fund. Antrim Balanced Mortgage Fund is distributed via independent IIROC investment dealers in Canada.
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“Advisors and portfolio managers love Antrim because they can put the product in a client's fixed-income sleeve and the stock market can blow up and nothing happens to Antrim”
Will Granleese,
Antrim Investments
Antrim Investments passed its fiftieth year in 2022 and offers investors the Antrim Balanced Mortgage Fund, which, as its name suggests, is a balance of first and second mortgages and is very accessible to investors. It is Canada’s largest residential mortgage investment corporation (MIC), and enables investors to put their money into a diversified portfolio of residential and commercial mortgages, which then pays out a steady stream of dividends.
While MICs won’t give investors the dazzling returns of riskier investments, they will provide them with very reasonable rates of return, especially as rates climb. “Probably by next year, we're going to be paying close to seven percent, which is quite high for us in what was a low-interest-rate environment,” Granleese forecasts.
Along with reliable returns, Antrim’s balanced mortgage fund also offers liquidity. Not only can investors plough their money into mortgages and get a higher yield, they can also get their money back when they want to do so.
It also offers professional management. In the past, mortgage
Safety and stability are important themes for Antrim. When it lends money on a mortgage, it does so to a maximum of 75 percent of the appraised value of the unit. So every borrower needs to put in at least 25 percent, though the weighted average loan-to-value in the portfolio is only 59 percent, meaning the average borrower has put down a 40 percent down payment. There are lenders who will lend more, but Antrim is not one of them.
Risk is managed and reduced in a variety of ways by Antrim, including by the type of mortgage it tends to offer, the majority of which are first mortgages. With second mortgages, if the property is sold, the first thing to be paid off is the bank mortgage, followed by the second mortgage.
Antrim has appraisals performed on all its mortgages, and these it only accepts from certain firms, which are carefully quizzed on their valuation reasoning.
Granleese explains, “We interview those firms and tell them, ‘Don't go high, don't go low, give us a realistic value.’ Because, of course, if you're getting a mortgage through a mortgage broker, the mortgage brokers are going to want to try to get the loan approved, so they may try to convince the appraiser that a house is worth more than it actually is.”
There is also the safety that comes in numbers; with so many independently variable mortgages, risk is spread wide and thinned out.
The judicious approach to investment and the carefully calibrated appraisals and mortgage selections have all paid off: it is Antrim’s proud boast that in all its years of managing funds, it has never had a negative return. No wonder its clients can enjoy peaceful nights of sleep as clouds of dividends drift serenely into their bank accounts.
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Less volatility
“Clients are getting toward the end of their investing lifecycle, and with stocks they see that the S&P 500 lost 25% last year, but with the mortgage investment corporation, the key is there’s no volatility”
Will Granleese,
Antrim Investments
Antrim Balanced Mortgage Fund – Historic Performance Series C (F-Class)
0%
2%
4%
6%
8%
Source: National Road Safety Partnership Program
2012
10%
12%
2013
2014
2015
2016
2017
2018
2019
2020
2021
2022
Antrim Balanced Mortgage Fund – Growth of $10,000 Series C (F-Class)
$10,000
$12,500
$15,000
$17,500
$20,000
$22,500
2012
2013
2014
2015
2016
2017
2018
2020
2021
2022
2019
Managing risk
Granleese says, “Advisors and portfolio managers love Antrim because they can put the product in a client's fixed-income sleeve and the stock market can blow up and nothing happens to Antrim, and they are earning something that is paying more than a guaranteed interest deposit.”
He adds, “It's about the stability, but it's also about the yield. And we happen to be one of the only products in Canada that is a mortgage investment corporation and also has T+2 liquidity, so you can buy and sell us two days later, whereas with comparative products, you may only be able to buy and sell on the quarter or semi-annually. It's highly liquid.”
MICs are popular with Canadians, Will Granleese observes. Their safe, steady, no-rocking-the-boat dependability has obvious appeal when markets all around them are jumpy.
Granleese notes, “Clients are getting toward the end of their investing lifecycle, and with stocks they see that the S&P 500 lost 25 per cent last year, but with the mortgage investment corporation, the key is there's no volatility. You don't lose any money, so it really allows people to sleep at night.”
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Copyright © 1996-2023 KM Business Information Canada Ltd.