Students at Joseph L. Rotman School of Management at the University of Toronto will be learning much more about value investing thanks to a $3 million gift from John Watson, managing partner of Sprucegrove Investment Management Ltd.

Sprucegrove provides investment management advice, mainly in the specialized area of global equity management.

The donation establishes the John H. Watson Chair in Value Investing, the first of its kind at a Canadian business school. Value investing, a bargain-hunter’s approach to picking stocks, is the search for companies whose share prices are undervalued.


Finance professor Eric Kirzner, a leading authority on investment finance who has been with the U of T since 1989, has been named the inaugural chair holder.

“When I looked at the landscape of Canadian business education, I saw very few students who even knew what value investing was — never mind having expertise in the field. This initiative aims to address that need,” said Watson in a news release.

Watson’s gift will bring enhanced research and teaching, expanded course offerings, additional seminars and guest speakers and the opportunity to attract new faculty. As chair holder, Kirzner will conduct research and teach, and will work collaboratively with the Bonham Centre for Finance and U of T’s Capital Markets Institute, both located at the Rotman School.

Roger Martin, dean of the Rotman School of Management, said the new chair will greatly augment the teaching and research platform around value investing. “We believe that boosting this area of our curriculum will have long-term benefits for the Canadian economy as a whole. Producing highly trained security analysts is essential to the development and enhancement of capital markets in Canada, which is in the public interest,” he added.