Smith Financial Corporation was founded by one of Canada’s leading financial services entrepreneurs and his family. With a long term philosophy shaped by Smith family values, our purpose is to partner with and nurture great companies.
Strength of purpose
Founded on
family and fortitude
As entrepreneurs ourselves, the family behind Smith Financial Corporation understands it takes quiet determination to build successful companies that stand the test of time. We use that knowledge to find promising companies, assess their strength, values and needs, and invest our family’s capital to help great businesses grow and flourish.
OUR VALUES
We are lifetime investors who own businesses for the long run, either outright or in partnership with patient, like minded institutions. By nature, we are fiercely loyal to our partners and independent minded and risk aware as owners but not in a way that stops us from seizing opportunity where others see only challenges. We invest in companies that believe in what we do: respectful relationships, thoughtful customer service, purposeful innovation, hard work and the enduring value of entrepreneurship. By channelling our family values into everything we do, we find our collaborations are more meaningful and our decisions are more strategic.
OUR PORTFOLIO
We are deeply invested in the success of market leading companies that are differentiated by their business models and sustained by the passion and expertise of committed professional managers.
OUR FOUNDER
Stephen Smith founded and is CEO of Smith Financial Corporation, a family enterprise that supports the long term growth and development of its strategic family holdings and the independent boards and management teams at its portfolio companies.
Mr. Smith is one of Canada’s leading financial services entrepreneurs responsible for the development and utilization of various securitization techniques to finance mortgage assets and the architect of the lending industry’s first automated underwriting platform. He was inducted into the Canadian Business Hall of Fame in 2019.
Beyond his many business interests, he is Chair of Historica Canada (creator of Heritage Minutes and publisher of The Canadian Encyclopedia), a Director of the Rideau Hall Foundation and the C.D. Howe Institute. He is also an Honourary Governor of the Royal Ontario Museum.
A graduate of Queen’s University (B.Sc. Hons. Electrical Engineering), and the London School of Economics (M.Sc. Economics), Mr. Smith is a believer the power of education. In 2015, Mr. Smith donated $50 million to Queen’s University in 2015. The Stephen J.R. Smith School of Business at Queen’s University was named in his honour. More recently, in 2023, Mr. Smith donated $100-million to the Faculty of Engineering at Queen’s, now known as Smith Engineering, to further advance STEM education in Canada.
