The past few years have been a whirlwind for Tim Pinnington. The 42-year-old head of TD Mutual Funds has held four different senior executive posts in three different countries since joining TD Bank Financial Group in 2000.

“We’ve had six Christmases in a row in a different house,” says Pinnington, who is married with two young sons. Today, he’s happy to be settled back in Toronto, his hometown, and running the country’s fourth-largest mutual fund company. “I’m committed to this business,” he says.

Pinnington’s peripatetic career at TD has its roots in the TD Bank-Canada Trust merger of 1999, when he was Canada Trust’s vice president of strategic planning. He joined TD the next year and was charged with managing the integration of the two giant financial services firms. In late 2001, he was assigned to Britain, where he led the bank’s European discount brokerage business, TD Waterhouse Services Europe. Then, in April 2004, he replaced Frank Petrilli as president and CEO of discount broker TD Waterhouse USA in New York.

Last summer, TD sold TD Waterhouse USA to Ameritrade Holding Corp., and in October, Pinnington moved back to Toronto to replace Steve Geist (see “People Briefs” at right) as president of TD Mutual Funds.

“It has been going great,” says Pinnington of his latest role. “We’re trying to make TD Mutual Funds the best fund family around.”

With more than $45.3 billion in assets under management as of June 2006, a jump of 14.5% over the previous year, TD Mutual Funds trails only IGM Financial Inc., RBC Asset Management Inc. and CI Investments Ltd. in total money managed.

For Pinnington, a key component of TD Mutual Funds’ growth is the “huge push” the firm has made over the past few years to distribute its funds via the independent advisor channel, something the other banks have sought to do as well. Today, Pinnington says, half of all TD fund sales come through third-party advisors.

“Among the banks, TD Mutual Funds appears to have been the most successful at penetrating the independent advisor channel,” says Dan Hallett, president of Dan Hallett & Associates Inc., an independent investment research firm based in Windsor, Ont.

According to Pinnington, advisors are looking for a variety of product choices, flexibility of load structures and top-notch support — all things TD Mutual Funds aims to provide.

In September, pending regulatory approval, TD Mutual Funds plans to introduce 10 new funds. Five will be currency-hedged versions of existing U.S. stock funds. The other five comprise a corporate bond capital-yield fund, an international equity growth fund and three new global funds: TD Global Multi-Cap, TD Global Value and TD Global Dividend. Each of the 10 new funds will have investor, advisor and F-series versions.

“For years, TD Mutual Funds has struggled a bit with its global funds,” Hallett says. “I think global offerings have long been a challenge for a lot of the banks.”

TD Mutual Funds is also planning to offer a second low-load option for its advisor-series funds, giving advisors further choice in fee structure.

Pinnington says there has been a shift over the past 10 years from mutual funds being regarded as a “bought” product to today being regarded as a “sold” or “advised” product. Whereas a decade ago a consumer would simply walk into a bank and choose among a list of funds, he or she is now looking for guidance and support in making choices.

“It strikes me that there is more uncertainty among investors in today’s low-rate environment,” he says. “They’re turning to financial planners, investment advisors and in-branch advisors for guidance.”

Pinnington feels TD Mutual Funds’ strongest suit is in its core products — Canadian equity and fixed-income funds. And he extols the virtues of the company’s managed asset program, known as TD MAPs. Last November, TD Mutual Funds launched a premium MAP portfolio, offering lower costs to investors with minimum investments of $250,000.

“Managed products are a growing segment for the mutual fund market,” Pinnington says.

The vagabond nature of Pinnington’s career over the past several years is an echo of his earliest days. Born in London, Ont., he spent the first eight years of his life travelling with his family, living the life of an army brat, before they settled down in Toronto.

He earned a bachelor’s degree in industrial engineering from the University of Toronto in 1987 and an MBA from Harvard Business School in 1992.

@page_break@For 10 years, Pinnington worked for international strategic consulting business Monitor Co. before landing with Canada Trust in 1998. When TD bought Canada Trust the next year, he was asked to manage the integration of the two firms.

“It took the guts of two years, from late1999 to late 2001. At one time, we had 1,200 people working on the integration effort,” he says.

What was it like to be involved in the only merger involving one of the Big Six banks in recent memory?

Extremely complex, he answers: “There are millions of customers; everything has to rebranded. I learned you can’t communicate enough, you can’t plan enough.”

In Britain, Pinnington guided another integration, this time the merger of three major discount brokers TD had purchased in northern England into TD Waterhouse Investor Services Europe.

But it wasn’t a smooth ride. Pinnington had to steer the company through the rough waters of a continuing technology bust and investor uncertainty in the aftermath of the terrorist attacks on New York. Still, he looks on his time in England as decidedly positive.

“It was my first opportunity to run a business,” says Pinnington, who lived just outside Manchester during his time in Britain. “It was a great experience.”

In June 2004, he moved to New York to run TD Bank’s online brokerage business, TD Waterhouse USA.

“The online brokerage business is much bigger in the U.S. It’s a tough business, very competitive,” he says. “Every company competes aggressively. And we did, too.”

Pinnington says the possibility TD Waterhouse USA would merge with another firm was something that was constantly hovering overhead. His focus, however, was on running the business. He left the deal-making to the top brass in Toronto.

Now back on Bay Street, Pinnington hasn’t been shy about leading TD Mutual Funds. Among other changes, he dropped the firm’s exchange-traded funds from its list of offerings earlier this year, saying that the margins were too tight to justify continuing. “I made the decision, and I stand by it,” he says. IE