Barry Hirowatari, BSc, CIM, FCSI
Senior Portfolio Manager
Direct Phone: (604) 854-4308
Barry is a Senior Portfolio Manager at Aventine Management Group responsible for lead Portfolio Management on the BTH Tactical Growth Fund and the AlphaDelta Tactical Growth Fund. Additionally he works directly with a select group of families to deliver separately managed account solutions across a variety of mandates. Barry is a member of Aventine’s investment strategy committee.
Prior to joining Aventine Management in 2010, Barry held the titles of Director, Vice President and Portfolio Manager with RBC Dominion Securities. Barry earned the FCSI (Fellow of the Canadian Securities Institute) designation in 1991, CIM (Canadian Investment Manager) designation in 1993 and obtained certification as a Portfolio Manager in 1998. Barry successfully managed a discretionary investment practice for over 10 years prior to the launch of the BTH Fund. During this time he executed investment policy on a discretionary basis for over $90 million of client assets under management and oversaw a practice with total client assets in excess of $160 million.
Barry gets excited for earnings season. His tactical approach to investing looks to identify companies with superior earnings performance and this two week window when most public companies report their quarterly results is an opportunity to update his scorecard. Separating winners from losers is key to Barry’s process. He is a strong believer that companies with superior earnings growth will have outperforming stock prices. As a result, he is fascinated by innovative or disruptive business models and is continually searching for companies that can deliver outsized profits by creating new market niches or evolving conventional ones.
For someone who spends so much time thinking about the future, his investment process is firmly tied to the philosophies of past investing legends like Peter Lynch and Paul Tudor Jones. He is an advocate of “boots on the ground” research and regularly visits his portfolio companies to try products, chat with customers and meet managers. He never averages down and he uses a hard-wired, technical sell discipline that seeks to preserve capital in bear markets.
Barry is an avid cyclist and fitness enthusiast, but he chuckles that his triathlon days are now well behind him. He and his family are active in the community and volunteer for several local organizations in the Greater Vancouver area. In contrast to the high flying companies he loves to own in his BTH Fund, Barry keeps both feet planted squarely on the ground. There are some qualities he shares with them however – a passion for excellence and a desire for growth.
