One of Canada’s most flamboyant and successful money managers is preparing to take Assante Corp. and Wellington West Capital head-on in the sports management field.
Michael Lee-Chin, the CEO of Burlington-based AIC Ltd., has launched AIC Sports and Entertainment, a new division aiming to provide financial advice to top professional athletes and movie stars in the United States.
Perry Douglas, vice president of the new division, confirmed the move Friday, saying it has been in the works since last fall.
Consistent with his go-big-or-go-home attitude, Lee-Chin, whose net worth is estimated at $1.8 billion, has formed a strategic alliance with arguably the best-known lawyer in North America, Johnnie Cochrane, who was largely credited with getting O.J. Simpson acquitted on charges of killing his wife and a friend in 1995.
Cochrane will provide legal services, such as contract and sponsorship negotiation, to complement AIC’s financial offering.
“Johnnie brings a lot to the table. He has the ability to draw in some big-time athletes and entertainers. We want to leverage that,” Douglas says.
Lee-Chin and Cochrane hope to make a big splash by announcing LeBron James, the 18-year-old high school basketball phenom expected to be selected first in the upcoming National Basketball Association, as their first client next month.
Douglas confirmed he has been negotiating with the Akron, Ohio-native for the past few months.
“We are prospecting him. My single most important goal is for LeBron James to be our first client. I usually get my man. Our chances of signing him are significantly high,” he says.
Douglas says the new division is merely an extension of the company’s focus on the high net worth business.
“This is really a niche part of the market. Our long-term goal is to be a dominant force in money management for athletes and entertainers,” he says.
Last October, AIC unveiled its Private Portfolio Counsel program, offering customized segregated portfolios of stocks and bonds to clients with a minimum of $500,000 to invest
Friday’s announcement also provides a geographical link between AIC’s Canadian mutual fund operations, and the National Commercial Bank of Jamaica, which Lee-Chin bought a year ago.
AIC recently received approval to sell its funds in Jamaica and Lee-Chin says he expects there to be a number of other synergies between the three operations.
He says he felt the company would have a much better chance of success in the U.S. market by targeting a niche business rather than the entire mutual fund industry.
He described the potential impact from signing James as “massive.”
“He’ll be bigger than Tiger Woods, bigger than Michael Jordan,” he says.
Cochrane was travelling Friday and was unavailable for comment.
Douglas says you can bet AIC will be playing up Lee-Chin’s humble roots — his first playpen as an infant in Jamaica was a cardboard box — in their pitches to many potential clients.
“He’ll say he started out in the same situation as many of them, but if they work hard, stay disciplined and are passionate about what they do, they will succeed. Those characteristics for success are the same in sports and in finance,” he says.
“A lot of athletes end up broke. They make a lot of money but the ability to save and invest properly is difficult. The fact Mike doesn’t need any of their money is a good thing.”
Douglas notes AIC is hoping to receive regulatory approval in the U.S. as early as next week.
Grant Skinner, president and CEO of Wellington West Pro Ice, which provides a wide variety of financial services to more than 150 National Hockey League players, including Doug Gilmour of the Toronto Maple Leafs and Wade Redden of the Ottawa Senators, says getting into the sports side of the business isn’t easy.
“The work we do is very comprehensive. It’s total involvement, taxes, wills, finances, budgeting, all aspects of their career. It’s very time consuming. What it comes down to is the one-on-one relationship between you and the athlete. They demand you and your time,” he says.