Trapeze Asset Management review: asset management

In the opinion of this former client, the Abramsons provide high stakes gambling services, not asset management - and when it comes down to it, they will prioritize sounding clever over acting wisely, and protect their own interests over those of their clients.

- Ignored both the warning signs and the actual 2008 downfall and kept clients "all in" a small cap portfolio that saw many loose 50-90% of managed assets.

- To save their license, they admitted to the Ontario Securities Commission in 2012 that they had breached regulations by misjudging both their clients' appetite for risk and the risk inherent to individual securities. To save their fortunes, they denied wrongdoing to clients approaching them for a settlement.

- Agreed in an OSC settlement that their "value investment" approach is "not generally accepted as a means to determine the risk level of securities" - and turned around a month later to say, "we're as stingy as the next value guy when it comes to making sure there's a margin of safety within our investments." What margin of safety was behind a 90% loss?

- Continued to market themselves as "experts", even after these massive losses.

- More recently, doubled down on their fondness for playing the odds by investing in a company that produces digital poker and casino products.

It takes a special kind of company to learn from their mistakes and to take responsibility for their negative impact on others. Trapeze does not seem to be among them.