Hexavest Inc.

Hexavest Inc. is an investment management company based out of Montral, Canada. The company was established in 2004 by six founding partners who decided to unite their efforts in building a “dynamic and stimulating environment that would enable them to focus on generating value added for their clients.” Hexavest is currently headed by CIO and President Vital Proulx and has 44 employees, 14 of which are investment professionals. The company utilizes a top down investment approach and seeks to analyze macroeconomics factors and identify excesses at the stock selection level. Hexavest conducts its research in house and has developed various quantitative models aimed at supporting its fundamental research. The company also conducts ongoing risk monitoring on a daily basis, keeping its active risk tracking error between 3% to 5%, and benchmarking its performance against various MSCI, S&P 500, and S&P/TSX indexes. Hexavest invests most heavily in the utilities and telecommunications sector, which alone makes up almost a fifth of its total asset allocations, and also invests in the consumer staples, finance, health care, consumer discretionary, information technology, and materials sectors, among others to a lesser degree, in order of decreasing allocation. The company currently holds over $16 billion in total assets under management spread across approximately 184 accounts, all of which are discretionary. Both of Hexavest’s total number of accounts and total assets under management have been increasing in recent years with its total number of accounts growing from 41 to its current amount today and its total managed assets growing from $800 million back in 2010 to over 20 times that amount today. The company mainly caters to pooled investment vehicles, which alone makes up over a third of its entire client base, and also provides services to pension and profit sharing plans, investment advisors, investment companies, and state or municipal entities, among others to a lesser degree, in order of decreasing clientele. Hexavest’s strategies currently includes Global Equities, International Equities, U.S. Equities, Canadian Equities, and Emerging Market Equities.