Lavelle Lindo, VP, national & strategic relationships, says it’s nothing different than what the average Canadian has gone through when either buying or renting a property. “When speaking to portfolio managers and analysts, after hearing the full story, a number of them at a lot of these large firms have said, ‘Wow, that’s really easy to under-stand, and that’s actually easy for the investor to understand.’ There’s nothing that’s too complicated about what we do and that’s a key selling point. We like to keep it simple to understand and simple to explain.”
Equiton’s mission since it was founded in 2015 has been to make institutional-grade private market real estate investments – which were typically available only to institutional or ultra-high-net-worth investors – accessible to the investing public. An active manager that prides itself on strong governance but also being agile, nimble, and aggressive, Equiton offers funds with a minimum investment starting as low as $5,000.
Its flagship Apartment Fund is pure-play multi-residential and 100 percent Canadian, and has had 77 months of positive returns since inception, performing well through the pandemic and ensuing market volatility and the highest inflation we have seen in decades. The fund is tax-efficient, too, with distributions treated as 100 percent return of capital.
As a pure play, the fund, which targets 8 to 12 percent annual net return, is different from anything else in the market. Lindo says: “People always want to know what they can compare us to. And you know, the answer is, ‘There are no competitors.’ There are companies that do slivers or aspects of what we do, but not the whole piece. We’re also Canadian-based only and that’s a very important distinction as well. Again, it’s very easy to understand and explain when you don’t have to talk about markets we don’t live in.”
Equiton provides other investment opportunities through its Income and Development Fund, which targets a 12 to 16 percent annual net return over a 10-year period, as well as through its real estate development offerings. The company’s philosophy is that, given the huge supply–demand housing imbalance in key markets in Canada, investing in new developments will be a critical strategy for years to come. These opportunities feature different aspects of the real estate asset class – lending, development, commercial, and industrial.
