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high-net-worth investing

Anthony (Tony) Lacavera, founder and past CEO of wind mobile, is photogaphed at Billy Bishop Toronto City Airport in Toronto, Ontario Monday January 18, 2016.The Globe and Mail

Anthony Lacavera credits his Italian-Canadian parents for instilling in him the importance of saving and investing while he was growing up in Welland, Ont.

It started with money he earned on his paper route and at his street-side lemonade stand. But it was while working at an auto-parts factory as a summer job in his early 20s – after figuring out roughly how much Ford was paying for the truck frames he and his co-workers produced – that Mr. Lacavera decided he wanted to own companies rather than work for them.

Since then, Mr. Lacavera has been buying and selling various businesses through his own investment company, Globalive Capital, including the recent sale of Wind Mobile to Shaw Communications Inc. for $1.6-billion.

Mr. Lacavera, 42, spoke to The Globe about his investing style.

What's in your personal portfolio today?

Globalive is me. I'm a 95-per-cent shareholder. About 80 per cent of it is in safe market investments – stocks, bonds, yield investments, real estate and companies we either control outright or have a very significant influence in. I put those two together because I feel much safer when I have an ability to control or heavily influence an investment. The other 20 per cent is big bets – a lot of early-stage tech ventures. We have a portfolio today of 35 or so technology venture investments. Some of those include Kira Talent, Trace Live Networks and PetBot. I'm a very big supporter of the Toronto and Canadian startup ecosystem.

What's in the 80 per cent?

About 25 per cent is real estate, including REITs, commercial and residential projects. We also have a student housing business in the Niagara area, with about 40 houses that we renovated and converted into multitenant units. We're looking at expanding that business, which we started from scratch about eight years ago. Another 25 per cent is in private equity. It's predominantly telecommunication-type companies, like tower companies outside of Canada. Our goal there is to invest alongside other investors. We also invest in established data centres as everyone moves to the cloud. The other 50 per cent would be very safe stocks, bonds and yield investments diversified across industries and geographies.

Do you have any specific investment criteria for the 'very safe' 50 per cent?

There are no rules on any particular sector, but we steer clear of volatility. There are lower returns, but also much lower risk.

What has been your best investment to date?

Wind Mobile. I started Wind inside Globalive with seed capital that I put in and from there secured a partnership that ultimately led to more than $1-billion in capital coming in, with commitments much bigger than that. Unfortunately, that original investor group had a great deal of regulatory difficulty in Canada. In the end, I can say that it worked out really well. On a pure return basis, it was the best startup I ever did. It was also the biggest effort. It was seven years of my life, heavily committed.

What has been your worst investment to date?

There were two startups in my earlier investing days that were zeros. Those were bad moves. Also, whenever I've branched out into stuff that I don't know – I made a couple of fintech investments that were zeros. I also invested in a chain of hair salons. That was a complete disaster for me. I lost about 50 cents on the dollar with that one. I thought general business acumen would be enough. I always lose, it seems, when I invest in stuff I don't understand.

What's your advice for other investors?

Don't get caught up in the flavour of the day, or whatever is cool or [what] people are paying a lot of attention to. Don't get caught up in that and feeling like you're missing out. Don't chase opportunities like that. I love the expression that investment opportunities are like subway trains where, if you miss one, there's another one coming along in two minutes. I would rather miss it than run to catch it. I used to chase stuff. I don't any more.

This interview has been edited and condensed. For this series, a high-net-worth investor has investable assets of more than $750,000.

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