Does Spending Time in the Minors Pay Off? Winner of The 2016 CFA Society Toronto & Hillsdale Canadian Investment Research Award

TORONTO, Feb. 17, 2016 /CNW/ - CFA Society Toronto and Hillsdale Investment Management Inc. are pleased to announce the winners of the 2016 Canadian Investment Research Award. The award winning paper "Does Spending Time in the Minors Pay Off?" was submitted by Michele Meoli, J. Ari Pandes, Michael J. Robinson, CFA, and Silvio Vismara.

CFA Society Toronto and Hillsdale Investment Management Inc. will award a $10,000 prize to the winners on February 25, 2016 at CFA Society Toronto's 7^th Annual Awards Reception. The research paper was selected by a panel of judges from among 19 very competitive manuscripts submitted by academics from top business schools in the world as well as practitioners of leading investment firms in Canada.

"My co-authors and I are very pleased to receive the 2016 CFA Society Toronto and Hillsdale Canadian Investment Research Award as recognition of the contribution our paper makes to better understanding the nature of the financing of growth-oriented firms in Canada. As Canadian firms work to increase their international competitiveness, it is vital that these firms better understand their available financing alternatives. In addition, our research provides insights into the regulatory framework that has allowed Canada to develop an effective junior public equity market while so many other countries have struggled to create this type of market", said Michael Robinson, CFA.

The abstract of the paper: "This paper compares the performance of firms that first go public on the Toronto Venture Stock Exchange (TSX-V) and then graduate to the senior Toronto Stock Exchange (TSX), to the performance of VC-backed firms that directly have an IPO on the TSX. Controlling for potential selection biases stemming from the original decision to list on the TSX-V rather than receiving a VC injection, as well as from the subsequent listing decision on the TSX, we find TSX-V graduations on average outperform VC-backed IPOs by 31.2 percentage points in the three years following the TSX listing. Overall, our results indicate that the TSX-V is an effective "incubator" market for developing firms, and thus provide important policy and regulatory insights."

"The authors have discovered that Canadian public firms graduating from the TSX Venture Exchange perform better than VC-backed firms after listing on the TSX Stock Exchange. This is a huge win for public markets and supports the role of the TSX Venture Exchange as an important training ground for great Canadian companies." said Chris Guthrie, CFA, President and CEO, Hillsdale Investment Management Inc.

"At its roots, Hillsdale believes in and supports applied investment research. We are so proud to be working with CFA Society Toronto on this award initiative and this year's winning paper clearly illustrates the high caliber of submissions." said Harry Marmer, CFA, Executive Vice President, Hillsdale Investment Management Inc.

To view a copy of the paper click here.

Note to editors: The authors will give a brief overview of their findings at the Awards Ceremony on February 25, 2016. The Awards Reception will be held from 4:30pm - 6:30pm at KPMG, 333 Bay Street, Suite 4600, Toronto. The event is open to the media who can register by emailing [email protected]. Interviews are available upon request by emailing [email protected].

About the Winners
Michele Meoli is Assistant Professor of Corporate Finance at the Department of Engineering, University of Bergamo, Vice-Director of the CISAlpino Institute for Comparative Studies in Europe (CCSE), University of Bergamo and University of Augsburg, Coordinator of the Higher Education Research for Italy (Here4I). His research interests include Corporate Governance, Corporate Finance, Higher Education and Science Policy. He is author of articles in journals such as Journal of Corporate Finance, Journal of Banking and Finance, Corporate Governance: An International Review, Higher Education Policy, and the Journal of Technology Transfer.

Ari Pandes is an Assistant Professor of Finance at the University of Calgary's Haskayne School of Business, where he teaches courses at both the MBA and senior undergraduate levels. Ari's research focuses primarily on issues in empirical corporate finance and entrepreneurial finance, with specific interests in securities issuance, investment banking, financing decisions, and private equity. He has presented his research at top international Finance conferences, at various universities internationally, and at the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and the Bank of Canada.

Michael Robinson, CFA, is an Associate Professor of Finance at the Haskayne School of Business at the University of Calgary. He teaches B. Comm, MBA, EMBA and Executive Education courses within Haskayne, and founded the Calgary Portfolio Management Trust over 20 years ago to provide specialized investment management training to a select group of Haskayne B. Comm and MBA students. In the past, he has served on the board of a number of private, public, non-profit, and industry association boards, and has been the Academic Director for Haskayne's Directors' Education Program since its inception in 2004.

Silvio Vismara is an Associate Professor of Corporate Finance at the University of Bergamo, Italy. He is Research Fellow at the School of Public and Environmental Affairs of the Indiana University (USA) and Adjunct Professor at the University of Augsburg (Germany). His research activity covers mainly initial public offerings and crowdfunding. Silvio is associate editor of Small Business Economics and of Financial Review, a member of the Editorial Review Board of Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice and of Journal of Industrial and Business Economics.

About Hillsdale Investment Management Inc.
Founded in 1996, Hillsdale is an independent Canadian investment boutique, providing a full range of traditional equity and alternative investment strategies to both institutional and individual investors. Hillsdale manages a spectrum of long only, long/short and custom designed strategies employing a core investment style carefully implemented using an adaptive multi-strategy, risk controlled process.

About CFA Society Toronto
CFA Society Toronto supports the professional and business development of more than 8,500 CFA® charterholders in Toronto, making it the second largest CFA Society in the world. It provides members with a local perspective on a global designation, including: educational programs, sponsored events, job postings, quarterly newsletters, a comprehensive affinity program and networking opportunities. A not-for-profit organization, CFA Society Toronto is affiliated with CFA Institute, the global body that administers the Chartered Financial Analyst® curriculum and sets voluntary, ethics-based performance-reporting standards for the investment industry. CFA Society Toronto's members are leaders in ethics in the financial community. For more information, please refer to www.cfatoronto.ca.

SOURCE CFA Society Toronto

Media Contact: Jonathan Mai, CFA Society Toronto, [phone] x 235 [email protected]