Stop Wondering Who's Behind Your Money. Start Knowing — Personally.

How a Newsletter Became a Firm That Manages $285M+

In 2012, Marc-Antoine Delisle — a CFA charterholder and former portfolio analyst at a Caisse de dépôt-affiliated mandate — was watching something that made his stomach turn.

Retail investors across Quebec were being steered into high-fee mutual funds they didn't understand. Trailer commissions were flowing to advisors who never explained what they cost. Good people were losing thousands of dollars a year — not to bad markets, but to bad advice. The average Canadian equity mutual fund at the time carried a management expense ratio north of 2.1%, silently compounding into hundreds of thousands of dollars in lost retirement savings over a 25-year horizon.

He started writing. A weekly email newsletter called New Life for Your Portfolio. Plain language. No jargon. No sales pitch. Just institutional-grade investment concepts — asset allocation theory, the mathematics of compounding fees, the difference between a real return and a nominal one — broken down for people managing their own savings.

Within eight months, 4,700 subscribers. People weren't just reading — they were replying. Bringing their statements. Asking Marc-Antoine to review their allocations. One subscriber, a dentist from Outremont, drove to his apartment with a shoebox full of account statements and asked, "Can you just do this for me?" The demand was unmistakable.

Mynewlife Investments Inc. was incorporated in the fall of 2012 and registered as a Portfolio Manager with the AMF (Registration No. PMF-2012-0847). The founding principle was radical for the industry: every client should understand exactly what their money is doing and why. No black boxes. No jargon smokescreens. No trailer commissions. A flat, transparent fee structure that today averages just 0.42% all-in — compared to the industry average of 2.1%.

That principle attracted a particular kind of client — professionals, business owners, and pre-retirees who were sophisticated enough to know they were being underserved but didn't have the technical fluency to fix it themselves. Engineers who understood compounding but not Canadian tax law. Physicians who knew their portfolios were bloated with fees but couldn't articulate why. Entrepreneurs planning exits who needed someone to model the tax implications of holding company structures versus direct sales.

Within two years, Nathalie Ouellet joined as Senior Portfolio Manager and Partner, bringing a decade of fixed-income expertise from one of Canada's largest pension mandates. Philippe Tran followed, hired specifically to build the quantitative risk infrastructure that would allow us to stress-test portfolios across seven distinct asset classes and multiple geographies. Camille Bergeron brought financial planning depth — she's the reason our retirement decumulation strategies are built on Monte Carlo projections rather than straight-line assumptions. Julien Marchand added cross-border tax strategy and corporate structuring. Sarah Lavoie built the client operations infrastructure that allows our team to respond to any inquiry within four business hours.

Thirteen years later, we serve over 340 client households across Quebec and Ontario. $285 million in assets under advisement. A 94% client retention rate. 72% of new clients come from referrals — which means the people who know us best are the ones most likely to recommend us. And the newsletter still goes out every Tuesday morning, now to over 12,000 subscribers. You can read the latest on our Research & Insights page.