It a time when only change seems constant in the financial market place, when companies seem to rise and ebb within a matter of only a few years, it is reassuring to reflect on the unusual length and breadth of Midland Walwyn’s history. A business establishment that has been an integral part of the evolution and development of Canadian capital markets, Midland Walwyn is now the nation’s pre-eminent financial services organization serving the individual investor — a company managing billions of dollars in assets for Canadians and creating real value for its thousands of shareholders.

While the names Midland and Walwyn are relatively recent in origin, the date of the Company’s creation extends back to 1883. In that year, Augustus Nanton, a promising young stockbroker from the Toronto offices of Osler and Hammond, was asked to travel west to Winnipeg. There, the Scottish principals of that company were assured, financial services would soon be in demand.

Young Nanton was dispatched forthwith, and it was the right decision. Although Nanton began his western Canadian career amid poor harvests and real estate failures, 42 years later he completed his leadership of the company as Sir Augustus Nanton. A year before his death, he left the thriving firm of Osler, Hammond & Nanton, a diversified provider of financial services, to become president of The Dominion Bank of Toronto.

That was in 1925, a year that saw the creation of Barclay’s Bank in England and Chrysler Corporation in the United States, as well as Britain’s return to the gold standard under Winston Churchill, Chancellor of the Exchequer. It was also the year that saw the incorpo-ration, in London, Ontario, of one of the important antecedents of the present day Midland Walwyn — Midland Securities Limited.

This firm, and other predecessor firms with names like McCuaig Bros., Nay & James, Gardiner & Company, Cochran Hay & Co., S.J. Stodgell & Co., and Walwyn Fisher would all travel separate paths through the tremulous events of the early part of this century — the stock market crash of 1929, “the dirty thirties,” World War II, and the post-war era of growth and prosperity. While events of the long-term would enable each firm to grow and expand, there were periods of economic uncertainty in which times were tough for even entrepreneurially-minded people like investment dealers.

Did the firms’ principals, fighting to save their businesses, ever dream that their companies would grow into an integrated, financial services company with annual revenues of more than $500 million? In some way, they must have. For only such dreams could have sustained them through some of those bleak times.

In the early fifties, however, Canada began a period of economic expansion where the predecessor firms began to thrive. Hard work and good business reputations had begun to attract investors on a larger scale and the forebears of Midland Walwyn were able to capitalize on the growth opportunity through further acquisitions and mergers. Venerable names like Macrae and Company, Atlantic Securities, Mead & Co. and Doherty Roadhouse joined the fold as the Midland and Walwyn family of companies expanded, merged and consolidated.
 

On Midland Walwyn's vast trading floor, buy and sell orders are communicated instantly through a state-of-the-art computer network that facilitates the trading of millions of dollars in Canadian and foreign securities daily.

In 1990, Midland Walwyn Capital Inc. was created at a time of unprecedented deregulation in the Canadian financial services industry. A unique amalgam of regional and market strengths was formed. The new corporate structure combined the disparate yet complementary strengths of four companies, Midland Doherty Financial Corporation, Walwyn Inc., the Scotia Bond Company and Dean Witter Reynolds (Canada) Inc. While continuing to provide corporate finance and institutional equities services to institutional investors, Midland Walwyn has remained committed to providing individual Canadian investors with the widest possible range of products and services, all across Canada.

And today, more than 110 years after the formation of that first investment firm, there are almost a thousand Midland Walwyn Financial Advisers in more than 78 offices across Canada and internationally. From the first office in Winnipeg, the Midland Walwyn family has grown, expanded, and merged itself into one of Canada’s largest financial services organizations serving the individual investor.

The importance of sound financial counsel is greater now than at any time in Canadian history and families who would never have considered the services of financial advisors have come to Midland Walwyn in greater numbers. The Company has responded with innovative products and a commitment to service as the basis for long-term relationships. These include the Asset Management Account, and the innovative Hercules and Atlas mutual funds that provide investors with no-load investment products and well-known third party money managers.

Midland Walwyn now manages more than $17 billion dollars in assets for more than 300,000 individual Canadians as well as institutional investors. Forty years ago, the predecessor companies occupied offices scattered all over Toronto. In 1994, the Company’s disparate Toronto operations have been brought together under one roof. The new headquarters are located in BCE Place, at the heart of Toronto’s financial district, and include the most technologically-advanced trading and sales facilities in the Canadian industry.

From this new vantage point, Midland Walwyn looks to the future with characteristic enthusiasm. Alliances have been formed with the Piper Jaffray Companies in the United States to provide our clients with investment opportunities in the expanded North American free trade market.

Through changes and challenges of all kinds — economic, technological, regulatory, and social — a group of careful and astute investment advisors has guided Canadians for more than 110 years. Their conscientious work, a balance of sensitivity, venture, and precision, has enabled Canadian investors to acquire and protect wealth to safely and profitably pass from generation to generation.

Augustus Nanton, himself, would be proud.