by Tom Bradley

It’s been a wild and wacky year. As I pointed out in a recent Globe & Mail column, 2025 ended up very differently than it began, and certainly tested our team and clients’ conviction and discipline along the way. It was a test for our fund managers because change came fast and unpredictably, abetted by AI and violent policy shifts. But there was more. What was popular in 2025 were assets that are difficult, maybe even impossible, to value. Things like gold, bitcoin, and AI-related businesses. These aspirational assets, as they’re referred to, are all different in their economic role and potential, but share one common trait – they don’t currently produce any cash flow to put a multiple on, and in some cases, are burning through cash.

The challenge of investing in aspirational assets goes beyond an assessment of usefulness and growth potential. Their prices are untethered by the constraints of historical valuation measures and therefore are driven by the mood of investors, a powerful but fickle force. For firms like ours that are attracted to profits, solid balance sheets and reasonable valuations, 2025 was bewildering.

Another challenge is that the foundation on which the economic and market system sits is deteriorating. It doesn’t seem to matter whether the short-term outlook is strong or weak, government and consumer debt keeps accumulating and is approaching unsustainable levels. Government policy is increasingly erratic and short-term in nature. And global leadership in a growing list of technologies is being ceded to China, including EV’s, renewable power, and perhaps in the not-too-distant future, AI and semiconductors.

These things were on our clients’ minds too, but the bigger tests for many of you were behavioural. While we were advising to stay on plan, you were being barraged with a firehose of negativity and uncertainty, both of which are dragging on. There’s been no resolution on how de-globalization will play out or what AI will mean for employment and human interaction.

FOMO was hard to avoid in 2025. The allure of quick riches fueled by volatile markets, a plethora of new products, and the ease of trading on handheld devices was hard to resist. These temptations made it more difficult to stay diversified, as did the wide dispersion of returns between industry sectors and asset types. And to top it all off, we surprised our clients with the sale of Steadyhand to Purpose Unlimited.

If you’re dazed by 2025, you’re not alone. We are too, but it hasn’t dampened our excitement for what’s ahead in 2026. Last year, our team worked tirelessly to analyze the opportunities our Purpose partnership could bring, and to transition our systems and operations (hopefully behind the scenes). There’s more to do on these fronts, and the benefits will be more obvious this year, particularly with regard to our client-facing technology and advice capabilities. Needless to say, it’s been a crazy year. No matter how 2026 plays out, we’re well positioned to take advantage in terms of both investing and serving clients. Happy New Year to you and yours.

I encourage you to read the rest of our Q4 Report, where we provide more details on our specific strategies and what we've been doing in each of our funds.