Alain Guillot

Life, Leadership, and Money Matters

042 Randy Cass: Subscription-based robo-advisor

Randy CassRandy Cass is the CEO and founder of Nest Wealth, Canada’s #1 robo-advisor.

I am a do-it-yourself kind of investor, but if a family member or a friend asks me who could help them with their investments, I would not hesitate to recommend Randy Cass and his firm Nest Wealth.

A robo-advisor is a firm that provides financial advice or investment management service online, performed by software algorithms to reduce cost and to reduce the input of human emotions which could be detrimental to one’s portfolio.  A robo-advisor automatically allocates, manages, and optimize clients’ assets with zero human intervention.

Nest Wealth is based out of Toronto, with a team of about 45 people.

Randy had about 25-years of experience in the financial service industry.

He went to law school only to discover, after graduation, that he didn’t want to be a lawyer.

While working in law, he started an investment club, where they invested in penny stocks. He lost money most of the time.

I discovered that penny stocks were not the best way to get rich

One of the worst thing that could happen to you is to buy penny stocks when you are young and it goes well.

Canadians only had three choices when it comes to investing

  1. Do it yourself, but the vast majority of Canadians don’t want to do that.
  2. Full-service advisors, but some firms are not willing to service Canadians unless they have a minimum of one million dollars in assets.
  3. High expense ratio mutual funds sold by the major banks and the majority of commission-based financial advisors.

Robo-advisor is the other option

  • How about all the stuff that all the high net-worth individuals get
  • A relationship with portfolio managers
  • A customized portfolio
  • A sophisticated asset mix
  • A fiduciary relationship

Nest Wealth can offer a better value proposition because it doesn’t have all the legacy cost of:

  • Huge office in downtown Toronto,
  • A team MBA, CFA stock analysts,
  • Huge marketing expenses,
  • Trailer fees of 1% payable to the adviser for keeping the account current

Fee structure of Nest Wealth

Nest Wealth has some of the lowest fees in the country. Starting from as low as $20 a month, Nest Wealth offers a professionally managed portfolio with no account minimums. 

  • Under 75K, $20 per month
  • 75K to Under 150K, $40 per month
  • 150K & Above, $80 per month

Your portfolio under commission-based “Free advice”

Let’s imagine a  1 million portfolio with commission-based mutual funds. At 2.5$ management fee that would be $25,000 (Free is very expensive).

The same $1,000,000 portfolio managed by a financial adviser who charges 1% of assets. That would be $10,000

The same $1,000,000 portfolio managed by Nest Wealth. That would be only $960. And it’s always the same cost, whether it’s one million or 10 million, the cost is always $960.

Nest Wealth client demographics

  • 47 years old
  • $175,000 of assets

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3 responses to “042 Randy Cass: Subscription-based robo-advisor”

  1. […] 042 Randy Cass: Subscription-based robo-advisor starting at $20/month […]

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  3. […] The CEO of Nest Wealth, Canada’s best robot adviser; […]