About Lawrence
Lawrence Krimker is a Toronto-based entrepreneur, business leader, and investor. His accolades include winning EY Entrepreneur of the Year and leading a company that won Canadian Small Business of the Year. Having exited his former business in 2023 — which he founded in 2013 and grew to over $2B in assets in 10 years — Lawrence Krimker now concentrates his energy investing in businesses and industries he can bring value to. As a strategic investor, he’s grown his capital in numerous ways.
INVESTING STRATEGIES
Investing for Lawrence Krimker falls into two distinct categories: active investing and passive investing. Active investing, for Lawrence, is when he takes an active role in the company he invests in. Passive investing, on the other hand, is where Mr. Krimker lets his money work under the supervision of others.
- Active investing: acquiring companies
- Active investing: minority shareholder
- Passive investing: in companies
- Passive investing: in portfolios
ACTIVE INVESTING
Acquiring companies
Investing to buy companies that could complement his other businesses is necessarily the most hands-on type of investing. For Krimker, this type of investing strategy has been a critical part of his significant business success. When you acquire a business, you fold it into your own business operations.
For an example of this type of investing in practice, as the former Founder and CEO of Simply Group, Krimker’s purchase of SNAP Financial was a considerable investment — and it paid off. Knowing he wanted to take his company into the specialty finance space, he identified home renovation loans and the buy-now-pay-later model as areas for growth. Simply Group already had phenomenal infrastructure in pace with people, processes, systems, and expertise, and by acquiring SNAP, Krimker was able to add value on both sides of the deal, improve the overall performance of both companies and their services, and ultimately increase revenue.
Minority shareholder
Investing to become a minority owner in another company also has Krimker involved in the running of the businesses he invests in, but in a backseat role. When he invests in this way, Krimker brings not just capital, but also his skills, expertise, and relationships. In these cases, Krimker usually becomes a minority shareholder with a board role in the company, where he can bring strategic value to the table to increase the companies’ profits.
An example of this type of investing would be his investment in Magnum Nutraceuticals in the supplements space. Before investing, he did his research to see if he would be a good fit — he looked at operational expertise within the existing management, at company cash flow, and at the ways he could bring value from an advisory perspective. One reason Magnum appealed to him is his passion for exercise, supplements, and wellness. For minority shareholder investments like this to work, Krimker needs to understand the business — either as an industry expert or as an expert user of the product/service.
PASSIVE INVESTING
Investing in companies
Expertise is always a critical factor for investing. You need to know the ins and outs of an industry if you’re going to invest your money into it. If there’s an area of curiosity for Krimker where he lacks expertise, he leans on his network of industry experts to guide his investments in that area. Whether that’s investing in industries like cryptocurrency, cannabis, robotics, mining, bio-tech, or space exploration — all areas Krimker has investments — he trusts expert advisors to guide his decision-making. This type of investing is passive because you invest capital in companies, but they run their company as they see fit. To ensure he’s making good decisions with this type of investing, Krimker takes recommendations from members of his expert network.
Investing in portfolios
Finally, there’s portfolio investing. To manage his net worth, Krimker has a family office which employs expert advisors to invest his capital within the mandates he provides. This might be what a lot of people think of when they think of “investing”, where you’re effectively self-managing your funds in passive portfolios.
Investing philosophies
Make your money work for you
“I think of every dollar I have as a soldier in an army. They’ve all got work to do. I think about sending them off to recruit more soldiers — you want to grow your army. I don’t blindly send my soldiers out to battle unless I know they’re going to win the war. You need to be strategic with your battles and you can’t be strategic unless you deeply understand the industry you’re investing in.”
If you have money, invest it
“You have to invest money when you have money. Money sitting idle is just burning, it’s losing its value. Whether you invest in private companies or you go to a broker and invest in the markets, you need to invest. If you have capital, you’re either going to spend it or you’re going to invest it — and I’d rather not spend it, I’d rather have it grow.”
Trust your experts and do your research
“When I’ve ‘missed’ with my investments, it’s because I didn’t listen to the experts I trust. Not to say that experts can predict the future, but they understand their industry and they’re careful. You fail when you get sucked into short-term thinking, get sucked into trying to ‘keep up with the Joneses’, get sucked into FOMO — you take the wrong advice from the wrong people, you don’t do your usual checks, you jump in and you get burned. More often than not, when you chase quick wins, you don’t end up winning.”
It’s a lifetime of knowledge and relationships
“I’ve been really fortunate in my career to have developed really good friendships and relationships with people who have gone on to do great things in their own industries. This isn’t about ‘get rich quick,’ this has been 20 years in the making, building and maintaining relationships with people I can trust and who trust me. I’ve helped people and invested in people with time and respect, and because of that I’ve got people I can rely on in to provide me with their expertise in different industries.”
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