SLC Personnel Changes on the Canadian Mortgage Team

Plan sponsors don’t need to take any immediate action as a result of this update.

SLC Management (SLC) recently announced that Michael Andrews, leader of the Canadian Mortgage team and Portfolio Manager (PM) on the SLC Management Canadian Commercial Mortgage (Commercial Mortgage) Fund, departed the firm as part of an organizational re-structuring. Ross Strowger, Senior PM, will now oversee the Canadian Mortgages team, in addition to his current responsibilities for Canadian real estate. Phil Dougherty, Managing Director, who has co-managed the Commercial Mortgage fund alongside Andrews since 2019, is now the sole PM.

Andrews was the most senior member of the Canadian Mortgages team, with over twenty years of tenure at SLC. He had been a PM on the Commercial Mortgage fund since 2018. Dougherty first joined SLC in 2011 and has 17 years of investment experience. While Andrews was the more senior individual, SLC stated that Dougherty had conducted much of the day-to-day portfolio management duties and Andrews had gravitated more towards a business development role. The PM focuses on overseeing, approving, and allocating large deals and managing the risk exposures within the fund. SLC will be looking to hire a PM or Associate PM to support Dougherty.

Sun Life GRS Investment Solutions team view

We have confidence in Dougherty, and the success of the Commercial Mortgage fund tends to be as reliant on mortgage origination and monitoring, as portfolio management. We support the addition of a co-PM to provide support and longer-term continuity and succession planning. As a result of the changes, we have placed the Commercial Mortgages Fund under Additional Monitoring (least severe category) on the GRS Investment Solutions Watch List. We will continue to monitor the team and strategy and provide further updates if needed.