Sandro Panella and Cesare Rizzuto – Partners since 2008 and 2011 (Little Italy – Toronto, Ontario)
This week in charts
Tesla’s market-cap drop in perspective
Bloomberg negative-yielding debt index loses its last member
Canadian housing affordability
Inflation category weights
How private markets became an escape from reality
The rage for private investing began in the early 2000s, after the success of the Yale University endowment fund led by David Swensen, who embraced private investments to diversify away from stock and bond markets and stabilise returns in the long run. Swensen’s definition of “long” was decades — not a mere ten years, much less the next turn from bear to bull market. He looked for private managers who were building companies rather than stripping and flipping for a quick profit. Swensen defined his job as generating multigenerational wealth to support Yale, which he assumed to be “immortal”. But his approach also had the potential to free money managers from daily pressure in the markets, and transcend the short-term thinking that was infecting modern capitalism.
What started as a sound idea has become an escape from something else entirely: reality. In return for the promise of superior returns, private funds typically “lock in” client money for up to 10 years, then report to clients much less frequently than public funds do — quarterly at most, not daily. In the new tight money era, with losses spreading across asset classes, private channels have become a way for money managers to conceal losses from clients — typically capital allocators at pension funds or other big savings institutions — who are often content in the dark. They don’t want to face the agonies of daily volatility either.
Alberta sees largest population increase ever: StatsCan data
"I think it would be fair to say that the Alberta economy has been doing reasonably well for the last couple of years, and that's made it more attractive," said Janet Lane of the Canada West Foundation.
Lane, the director of the foundation's Human Capital Centre, says the job market is the first driver of population changes.
"A very close second recently has been the cost of living in Vancouver and Toronto, the cost of housing for young people. It has absolutely been out of reach to be able to buy a home."
British Columbia and Ontario were the two largest sources of migrants within Canada, with about 11,000 and 12,000 people arriving, respectively, from each.
While Alberta led the country in proportional population increases, Ontario by far had the largest increase in sheer numbers.
That province added more than 153,000 net new residents, largely due to international migration, but it lost more people to other provinces than it gained, many of them to Alberta.
This week’s fun finds
Are Mushrooms the Future of Alternative Leather?
MycoWorks eventually focused on creating a material that had the look and feel of leather but was free of animal parts. Called Reishi, after the Japanese name for the genus of mushrooms Mr. Ross first used, it can currently be produced in sheets of six square feet. (MycoWorks declined to disclose pricing except to say that it is currently comparable with exotic hides. As the company continues to grow, they added, MycoWorks will be able to offer some at lower prices.)
The company, whose headquarters are in Emeryville, Calif., has obtained more than 75 patents and now has over 160 employees in the United States, France and Spain. It has also secured collaborations with high-end companies like Hermès and, most recently, the furniture maker Ligne Roset and GM Ventures, the investment arm of General Motors.
In contrast, MycoWorks “can achieve the same quality and performance as animal leathers without the need for any sort of plastics,” Matthew Scullin, MycoWorks’ chief executive, said at a temporary exhibition showroom in New York in the spring. Now too large to rely solely on local farmers for its supply of mycelium, the company has its own strains which “we basically keep in cold storage,” Mr. Scullin said.
The process starts by combining the mycelium with waste from sawmills in trays; as the sawdust decomposes, the mixture begins to develop into a thin sheet. The material can then be customized to meet clients’ specifications, including specific textures, and can include the addition of other fibers, like cotton. The Fine Mycelium, the trademarked name for its patented technology, is then finished by outside tanneries. (The tanning process does not use chromium, historically one of the most polluting parts of leather manufacturing.)
Because the process for creating Reishi has only a few steps, Mr. Scullin said, it has a “low impact” on the environment. In addition, he said, while animal hides vary in size and texture, Reishi is more consistent and predictable for clients.
The Surprisingly Profound Power of Thank-You Notes
Near the end of December, I open my email or pick up a pen, and I begin composing thank-you notes. The messages are usually just a few sentences long: I recap my interactions with the recipient that year, put my finger on what I appreciated, and say I’m grateful. But when I consider whom to thank, I realize the list could go on and on. I try to think of everyone who made my year better: the established journalist who referred me to a radio program, the HR staff who processed my paperwork, the friend who dropped off groceries when I was recovering from COVID. Almost always, I get a note back expressing similar gratitude.
Typically, we’re told to write thank-you notes at specific junctures—after finishing a job interview, receiving a gift, hosting a wedding or another significant function. These notes can be lovely, but they also run the risk of being rote and transactional. We send them because we’re expected to. End-of-year thank-you notes, though, aren’t written out of obligation. Those who get them are reminded unexpectedly that someone is thinking of them—and that their actions haven’t gone unnoticed.
I’d argue that end-of-year thank-you notes are good for the sender too. Looking back on the year, I don’t stop reflecting after thinking about what I’ve accomplished. When I make a mental list of everyone who supported me, I remember that no achievement is the result of my efforts alone. That realization is humbling; it grounds me in gratitude for all I was able to do rather than resentment for what I didn’t or couldn’t do.
Making a New Year’s Resolution? Don’t Go to War With Yourself
“It’s helpful for resolutions to be resilient—ones that you’re going to be able to stick with even when life doesn’t run as perfectly as you planned. I like the idea that Dan Harris, the meditation writer and podcaster, talks about, which is resolving to do things “day-ish”—the notion that you can make your plan for change a lot more sustainable if it’s not so rigid that one missed day spells failure.
“The other thing is just to remember that the difference between not doing anything at all and doing 10 minutes a few times a week is absolute. It’s the same idea as “the best kind of workout to do is the one you’re actually going to do.” If it happens to not be the ideal physical regimen according to science right now, that couldn’t matter less.
“I don’t think there’s anything helpful about resolutions that put you at war with yourself. Often, it’s basically just a resolution to, like, shout even louder at yourself this year until you finally do the things that you think you ought to be doing. That kind of internal combat never works in the end, because you start to resent the person who’s yelling at you to do all these things—even if that person is yourself.”
