As you may have heard, Tom has a long-standing liver condition known as PSC. It goes back to his youth and has been monitored for over 25 years. While not normal, it has always been stable and hasn’t held him back in his work or personal life.

Unfortunately, Tom’s PSC started to act up in recent months, impacting the condition of his liver. He was placed on a waiting list for a transplant in late April, and that day has finally come. Tom successfully underwent transplant surgery yesterday and is now recovering in the hospital.

While there are inherent risks associated with any form of transplant, the prognosis for liver transplant patients with Tom’s condition is excellent. Many recipients report a complete return to health, fitness, and quality of life and we fully expect that Tom will be one of them. Tom’s age and excellent fitness level work in his favour, and the odds of someone with his physical attributes surviving a transplant are very good – roughly 90%!

If it were up to him, Tom would probably be working from his hospital bed within a few days. But we have taken his laptop away so that he can get the rest he needs to fully recover. We’re not sure how long it will be before Tom is back in the office, but it’s realistic to expect that he will be away until October.

We want to assure you that Tom’s absence will have little impact on Steadyhand’s operations and our funds. Our investment managers will continue to do what they do best (i.e., manage our funds), and our team will continue to run the day-to-day operations of the company. Indeed, the only thing that you may notice ‘on the surface’ is an absence of Tom’s blog postings over the next few weeks.

Even though the structure of Steadyhand allows us to operate very efficiently without Tom, we don’t want to undermine his importance as an experienced senior investment professional. As such, in the event that any pressing investment related decisions need to be made in Tom’s absence, he has assembled an Advisory Board whose purpose is to monitor the investment management side of Steadyhand and to provide guidance to our Chief Operating Officer and the rest of the team. The Board consists of three senior investment professionals – Tony Hamblin, Larry Lunn, and David Knight. If you haven’t heard of these individuals, rest assured that they’re extremely experienced and well respected investment professionals, and we’d be happy to further discuss their credentials with you.

Tom is particularly disappointed that he won’t be able to meet with or speak to existing or prospective clients over the next few weeks, as this is one of the aspects of the job that he enjoys the most. Don’t let this deter you from picking up the phone or dropping by our office for advice, however, as Chris Stephenson or Scott Ronalds would be happy to assist you.

We’ll be sure to provide an update on Tom’s status soon, and we appreciate everyone’s support.

The Steadyhand Team.