MICHAEL LEE-CHIN

Lee-Chin worked as a road paver in Jamaica before emigrating to Canada in 1970 to study civil engineering at McMaster University. After graduating in 1974, he got into financial services as an investment advisor.

In 1987, he borrowed $500,000 to buy a controlling stake in AIC Limited, a small mutual fund company. He concentrated the fund in Canadian financial services stocks and held them for years.

AIC grew from $800,000 AUM in 1987 to over $15 billion at its peak in the early 2000s. He sold AIC to Manulife Financial in 2009 for reportedly around $500 million.

He then focused on Portland Holdings Inc., his private investment company, which has made major bets in Caribbean banking including National Commercial Bank Jamaica and Sagicor Financial Group. In 2020, he donated $25 million to McMaster University — the school that gave him his start.

Portland Holdings Inc. (private holding company, chairman).

AIC Limited (built to $15B AUM, sold to Manulife 2009). National Commercial Bank Jamaica (major shareholder).

Sagicor Financial Group (significant investor). Columbus Communications (previously held).

Lee-Chin is a textbook concentrated long-term value investor with a Caribbean edge. His investment thesis has three rules: own a few great businesses, use leverage to finance them, and never sell.

He is not a diversifier. He builds a portfolio of 3 to 5 core positions and lets compounding work for decades.

His Caribbean focus — particularly Jamaican and Barbadian banking — was deeply contrarian when he made those bets. Almost no Canadian institutional money was going to Caribbean markets.

He saw mispriced assets with strong fundamentals and a growing regional middle class. He was right.

Building AIC from $800,000 to $15 billion in assets under management between 1987 and the early 2000s. He did it by concentrating in Canadian financial services stocks when others were diversifying.

When he eventually sold to Manulife in 2009, it was one of the largest fund company deals in Canadian history.

AIC's heavy concentration in financial stocks became a liability when the 2008 financial crisis hit hard. AIC lost billions in assets under management as investors fled.

Lee-Chin has acknowledged the fund company that made him a billionaire also became his most public reputational challenge in later years.

His philosophy is simple: identify a great business, use other people's money to acquire it, and hold it forever. He argues true wealth is created by owning businesses, not by trading them.

He has cited the Rockefeller family as his mental model — they did not trade Standard Oil, they owned it. He is skeptical of financial complexity and has said most people fail to build wealth because they move too fast, diversify too much, and don't believe enough in their convictions.

Born January 3, 1951, in Port Antonio, Jamaica. Married Andrea Lee-Chin.

Has three children. His mother Hyacinth worked multiple jobs to support the family in Jamaica.

Lee-Chin has said his mother's sacrifice is his single greatest motivation. He has returned to Jamaica repeatedly as an investor, partly as a tribute to his origins.

McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario — Bachelor of Engineering, Civil Engineering (1974). Chartered Financial Planner designation.

Self-educated investor through decades of practice and reading.

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