Interview Story - Took Initative

When I was working as a finance manager at Canada Benefits Corp, the company had some excess funds on hand and wanted to use these funds towards the purchase of a new building. Our cash wasn’t sufficient to buy the facility that we wanted, so I was tasked with a special project, to invest this money effectively so that we could finance the purchase.

I saw the opportunity to create a diverse portfolio that would minimize risk and ensure that we had the funds on hand to make each of our financing payments.

First, I worked through the budgeting, projects, and working capital requirements for the company. Understanding this enabled me to develop an appropriate strategy to schedule the maturities of various securities to maximize investment earnings and cover the operating expenses. Based on this information, and our risk profile, I wrote the company’s investment policy and presented it to the board. My goal with this policy was to provide accountability and to the parameters of my investing activities.

Upon their approval, I actively invested the funds over the next 60 months. Then I divided the total amount available for investment into portions that can be invested into short term, intermediate-term, and long term in order to meet our required payments and maximize our long-term returns. While managing these funds, I actively monitored our securities in order to maintain our target portfolio allocation and protect our capital. I understood the market and the types of securities available that are bought and sold. I kept track of the monetary policies and actions of the Bank of Canada and market responses to those actions.

As a result of these efforts, the company earned about $700,000 annually from my investment activities. After that time, we bought the facility as planned. However, instead of putting down an initial cash payment of 20% with a 30-year mortgage, we were able to put a 65% down payment to purchase a building and paid off the balance in 3 years. My contributions were also acknowledged in 2 board meetings.