Portfolio manager Tony Genua is back. Here’s how he finds the next hot growth stock

Over his 40-year career, portfolio manager Tony Genua built a reputation as a steadfast believer in growth investing. In July, he came out of a brief retirement to join Ninepoint Partners LP where, as a partner and senior portfolio manager, he’ll oversee the Global Select Fund, which aims to harness the growth potential of a concentrated portfolio of international companies . The Financial Post caught up with Genua to discuss how he’ll manage the fund, his stock-picking philosophy and where he sees opportunities in the market.

FP: You left AGF Investments at the end of 2024. What drew you out of retirement and led you to Ninepoint?

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Tony Genua: Whatever I was doing before retirement, I continued to do during retirement. That included actively following market developments through activities such as reading newspapers, looking on the internet and keeping in touch with people in the industry.

I had breakfast at the same place once a week, and I asked people to join me (I got the idea from a strategist in the United States). That kept me in touch with what was going on, so I thought it was the right place and the right time for me to join Ninepoint.

It was the right place because Ninepoint has a unique approach to active management , and I believe my investment philosophy and self-disciplined buying are also unique and perhaps the essential reason why I did well with the funds I managed during my 20-year tenure at AGF.

More importantly, I’m able to once again team up with people with whom I worked more closely than anybody else, (former AGF colleagues and current Ninepoint portfolio managers ) Sam Mitter and Jonathan Lo.

FP: The Ninepoint Global Select Fund was launched last September as an actively managed, “high conviction” portfolio. Can you explain to readers what that means?

Genua: When it comes to the parameters of the fund, I don’t really have to change anything, in that it’s a concentrated, high-conviction portfolio.

Typically, the (number of) holdings are in the 30s. It could be a little bit lower; it could be a little higher, but it would never be more than 45. A lot of people would say, “Isn’t that taking on too much risk?” Well, when you think about the Dow Jones Industrial Average having 30 constituents, tracking the S&P 500 with its 500 stocks, they deviate on occasion, but you have to ensure that you not only have high conviction, but you have diversification .

Diversification comes not only from sector diversification — because the portfolio will always have at least eight of the 11 sectors represented — but, in the case of a global portfolio, via representation in different countries. I think it’s a lot easier to follow 30 or so stocks than it is to follow 70 or 80.

FP: What’s your style when it comes to stock picking, research and analysis?