Earlier this month, Fortune was acquired by a group of investors led by a venture capital firm Globalive founded by Canadian entrepreneur Anthony Lacavera and appointed a brand new board.
Getting the page from the fair playbook, my timeline thinks it finds an underserved niche in Canadian loans: Alt-A borrowers such as entrepreneurs, contractors and new immigrants looking for custom solutions.
“We know through our own data that Canadian customers have higher net worth, higher income and better credit scores than typical Prime borrowers, but they don’t bring T4, so they’re hard to handle and more difficult to approve.” Canadian Mortgage Trends.
He added: “This is our field of expertise; we are really good at it, which is why we have been everywhere in the past few years to get very good representation from brokers across the country.”
The pain of early growth and the hub of brokers
The American National People was originally established in the late 2016 to meet the needs of Chinese immigration to Canada.
Leonard joined CFO in 2018. “Banks stumbled upon the door. However, the products we offer are more attractive to a broad audience than just Chinese Canadian communities.”
After Leonard was promoted to CEO with his newly appointed Chief Operating Officer and Chief Marketing Officer Barry Ferguson, he set out to attract a wider audience of entrepreneurs, new immigrants and self-employed Canadians, making brokers at the heart of his strategy.
“I immediately signed distribution arrangements with all the major players, including the English-speaking partitions of the DLC and M3 groups,” Ferguson explained. “We did the same with all the larger regional players, TMG, premiere mortgages, etc.”
Leonard said the new strategy has received a positive response from brokers and the bank is in the profitability front until unexpected challenges.
In 2023, then-Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland ordered three founding shareholders to divest their shares with the bank and their ties to the Communist Party of China, depriving them of their shares and relationships with the bank, a huge destruction.
A new chapter supported by new capital
Despite setbacks, Fortune retains a solid foundation for all regulatory approvals required to operate as Plan I Bank, as well as a niche product gains appeal and broker partnerships.
“We actually got in touch to get some advice from Anthony Lacaffera, founder of Wind Mobile and CEO of Globalive Capital,” Leonard said. “He likes what we are doing, and we establish ourselves as a new challenger (with the challenger that was fair 20 years ago) because we built a niche for ourselves where banks didn’t serve, and he made a proposal to acquire the bank.”
According to Leonard, the acquisition provides banks with room for strategic investment before returning to the market to raise further growth capital.
“Digital innovation is something we pride ourselves on, and we strengthen our technology and cybersecurity teams as well as our digital innovation group as well as the banking group,” he said. “We will continue to identify the right individuals to bring banks into the areas of growth in key areas.”
Prior to the acquisition, publicly available records showed that as of the end of April, the bank had $516 million in managed assets, including $360 million in residential mortgages and $40 million in non-residential mortgages.
“Our future has remained in our lane,” Leonard said. “We will enhance our products over time, but I just want to drive faster in that lane.”
Leonard, with new capital and a new leadership team, believes that wealth can now not only achieve profitability, but also consolidate its role in serving Alt-A customers with everything the lender is looking for, rather than T4.
“If you start a new bank, or gain control of a small bank, there are many opportunities to leverage the development of technology to provide Canadian consumers with larger financial services and products,” said John Webster, the bank’s newly appointed board chairman. “Globalive brings together a group of very accomplished Canadian value investors who are determined to have been in the banking industry for a long time and really grow something.”
Re-pushing to broker space
Webster has worked in the mortgage industry for 37 years, including serving as president and CEO of the Maple Trust and the Scotia Mortgage Authority.
“I think what I need to be a good partner to be an agent,” he told him. CMT. “We will focus on the origins of mortgages and provide very effective and reliable services to brokers.”
Webster said the bank’s priorities will ensure brokers have a deep understanding of their product suite and are underwritten and efficiently underwritten. He also hints at the future of Alt loan products that are “more flexible and fully focused on customers”.
Webster believes that as open banking remains in Canada, small, technology-focused small challenger banks will gain a better position to take advantage of the expected regulatory changes and introduce new and vibrant lending products faster than traditional institutions.
“[Brokers] “There will be a lot of letters in ways they wouldn’t have in the past. Most importantly, you have a new competitive advantage with a big broker-centric ambition and as we grow and start researching the communities we can provide for brokers, there will be more good news as we move forward, as we move forward.”
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Anthony LacaveraBarry FergusonBrokerChrystia Freeland Jared Lindzon John John Webster Lenders Paul Paul Leonard Devallyone
Last modified: July 21, 2025
