About the Institute

The Michael Lee-Chin & Family Institute for Strategic Business Studies is housed within the DeGroote School of Business at McMaster University. Formerly known as the AIC Institute for Strategic Business Studies, the Institute was renamed when AIC’s Canadian retail investment business was sold. Its mission is to advance the state of knowledge, technical skills, and discipline for performing strategic business valuation for investment purposes. It also disseminates these advances to the academic and professional communities and students.

The Michael Lee-Chin & Family Institute for Strategic Business Studies was made possible through the generosity of Michael Lee-Chin, a Jamaican-Canadian and former McMaster University graduate. Michael immigrated to Canada in 1970, and through the tenets of his value system — commitment, discipline, perseverance, passion, and others — he rose to success and prominence and became one of Canada’s most successful entrepreneurs.

He founded AIC Limited, Canada’s largest privately owned mutual fund company. In addition to providing funds for the construction of the Michael Lee-Chin & Family Wing at McMaster University’s DeGroote School of Business, the donation also created a Chair in Investment and Portfolio Management, two professorships, and a student scholarship fund.

Under the leadership of the Director of the Institute, Dr. Ronald J. Balvers, the Michael Lee-Chin & Family Institute continues its focus on investigation into the creation of value in an enterprise. This mandate strives to provide business professionals with the techniques and expertise to understand and assess more fully, business strategies and the tangible and intangible assets that contribute to their value.

Any inquiries regarding the Michael Lee-Chin & Family Institute should be forwarded to Dr. Ronald J. Balvers.

Mission & Vision

The Institute’s mission is to advance the state of knowledge, technical skills, and discipline for performing strategic business valuation for investment purposes. It also disseminates these advances to the academic and professional communities and students.

In support of this mission, three key objectives have been formulated for the Institute:

Research: Encourage the development of a broad program of research on strategic business studies and the creation and measurement of value in an enterprise
Education: Provide future business professionals with the techniques and expertise to assess and understand businesses, business strategies, and the tangible and intangible assets that contribute to their value
Outreach: Provide information on an ongoing basis to academic and professional communities and to students about the Institute’s programs and activities

The primary means to accomplish this mission are:

Research

An endowed research chair
The Michael Lee-Chin & Family Professorship in Strategic Business Studies
A program of research grants to encourage inter-disciplinary scholarly research activities in the areas of creation and measurement of value in a business enterprise or organization

Education

Endowed professorships
MBA specialization in Strategic Business Valuation
Scholarships for students in the Strategic Business Valuation specialization
In September 2010, The Canadian Institute of Chartered Business Valuators (CICBV) and the DeGroote School of Business at McMaster University signed an agreement that allows MBA graduates from the School of Business who have specialized in Strategic Business Valuation to earn advanced standing in the CICBV Program of Studies towards becoming a Chartered Business Valuator (CBV)

Outreach

An Advisory Board has been formed, composed of professionals and academics with expertise and interest in the broad area of strategic business studies.
Strategic Business Valuation was added as a theme at the 28th McMaster World Congress in January 2007.

Michael Lee-Chin

The Michael Lee-Chin & Family Institute for Strategic Business Studies was made possible through the vision and generosity of Michael Lee-Chin, Chairman of Portland Holdings Inc.

Michael Lee-Chin is a graduate of McMaster University with a degree in Civil Engineering. He entered the financial services industry in 1977 as a financial advisor. In 1987, he acquired AIC Limited, and over the years, he took the organization from $1 million to approximately $8 billion in assets under management in 2007. Upon acquiring AIC, Michael assumed the positions of Chairman and Chief Executive Officer.

Michael has distinct beliefs regarding wealth creation, role model-ship, and his firm’s investment strategy. AIC’s goal is to create long-term wealth for investors. To achieve that objective, Michael looked for role models — those business people who created wealth in society by owning one or two businesses. For this reason, Michael established AIC’s investment philosophy of buying a few excellent businesses in long-term growth sectors and holding these businesses for the long term to help AIC investors prosper by preserving and growing their capital and minimizing taxes. He sums up this philosophy with the words: Buy. Hold. And Prosper.™

As a result of his investment philosophy, AIC was at one point the largest privately held mutual fund company in Canada. Michael was named Entrepreneur of the Year in 1997. In 2002, he earned the Harry Jerome Award for a decade of achievement. Michael has been profiled in Forbes, Fortune, Canadian Business, Black Enterprise, National Post, and Time magazines.

Under his stewardship in 2002, AIC purchased 75% of the National Commercial Bank (NCB), Jamaica’s only indigenous bank. Today NCB is Jamaica’s largest bank with 52 branches and offices in Cayman and the U.K. In November 2003, Michael received an honorary Doctor of Laws degree from McMaster University in recognition of his business success and philanthropic initiatives, and in July 2004 was honoured by Time magazine as one of Canada’s Heroes and one of the country’s most intriguing and inspiring citizens. In June 2006, he received an honorary Juris Doctor degree from the University of Toronto.

Michael Lee-Chin & Family Endowment Gift

The purpose of the Michael Lee-Chin & Family gift is to support the Institute for Strategic Business Studies at the DeGroote School of Business at McMaster University.

Through the generous gift to the University, three endowed funds result from the Michael Lee-Chin & Family gift:

A fund supports a Chair in Investment and Portfolio Management.
A separate fund supports two Professorships, and
A third fund supports student scholarships.

The Chair and Professorship roles are to contribute significantly to the general body of knowledge on business strategy dealing with concepts such as business valuation, business excellence, and growth.

In addition, more focused research will add significantly to our understanding of investment and portfolio management.

The Michael Lee-Chin & Family Professorships are intended to create a synergy between business theory and business practice. The approach here is to bring real-life cases and examples to the classroom and work on projects that add value to the education and training the students receive in this program.

Advisory Board

The members of the Advisory Board for the Michael Lee-Chin & Family Institute for Strategic Business Valuation are:

Wayne C. Fox
Chairman & Director, XFO Private Asset Solutions Inc

Ian Hardacre
Head of Canadian Equities, Trimark Investments

Abigail Payne
Professor, Department of Economics, University of Melbourne
Director, Melbourne Institute

For more information, Read Biography

Sally Gunz
Professor Emeritus, Business Law and Ethics
School of Accountancy, University of Waterloo

For more information, Read Biography