The Man With A Long View
National Post, Friday, June 28, 2002
Robert Thompson
Montreal - Make no mistake, David Culver is a man who takes the long view in both life and work. He spent 40 years at Alcan Aluminum Inc. - the last 10 as chief executive - before venturing across the street, renting an office and beginning a career as an investment banker.
He has been married to the same woman and lived int he same house in Westmount for his entire adult life.
And he has been a member of the Mount Bruno Golf Club since 1956.
"I've played it all these years and there are still shots I've never hit from places on the course I've never been," says Mr. Culver, 77, bombing along in his sporty Audi S4 en route to Mount Bruno, a Willie Park design that opened in 1919, 25 minutes south of Montreal.
It is a club that remains Establishment Montreal's best-kept secret, just how its members like it. The club doesn't need fresh blood, so avoids the marketing ploys of course rankings and magazine covers, content to remain a sleepy hinterland. It is among the least pretentious golf course in Canada, perfect for Mr. Culver, whose down-to-earth manner is a good part of his charm.
"I've played golf courses all over the world," he says, lacing up his shoes in Mount Bruno's Victorian-style clubhouse. "And this is probably my favourite."
It is a warm and hazy summer day, with a stiff breeze from the south. Mr Culver suggests we walk, and carries his bag.
The former Alcan CEO is remembered as the man who made the aluminum giant one of the country's most successful businesses. The year he left, in 1989, Alcan recorded a net income of US$931-million, at the time the highest recorded by a Canadian company.
He joined Alcan on July 1, 1949, became its chief executive on July 1, 1979 and left on July 1, 1989 to start the private equity fund that became CAI Capital Corp.
A leading figure in Montreal's English business community, Mr. Culver was front and centre in supporting Brian Mulroney's free-trade agreement - a position that put him in the public eye.
"People in the media always asked about my politics," he tell me on the first hole, a 357-yard par 4 that winds through trees to a large, sloping green. "I've always told them I was conservative so I voted Liberal."
When he left Alcan to start what became CAI, he wasn't certain what his new company would invest in or where he would find the money. Questions about his change of career abounded within the Montreal business community: "I went from Who's Who to Who's That in a single day," he tells me after a sliced tee shot, which ends in the right rough.
What he did know was that the investment banking business was due for a change, and he had a role to play. "I'd been watching the purchase of investment banks by commercial banks and thought it would never work," he tells me as we walk to the tee on the fine par 5 second hole. "And I thought, probably unfairly, that the guys leading the investment business were not as big as the guys who had come before them."
Later as he munches an egg-salad sandwich during a break after the ninth hole, he says he hadn't realized his new enterprise would occupy him so fully - until a potential investor told him he'd have to spend 90% of his time on the fund if it was to offer a decent return.
Mr. Culver, with more than 30 investors, set about raising $200 million in 1990 and about as much eight years later. He is now preparing to raise $400 million for CAI's largest fund yet. After posting a 23% net return on the first two funds, including investments in Sunquest Vacations Ltd. and MacDonald Dettwiller & Associates Ltd., raising the latest should be easy.
The fund takes positions in mid-cap companies "that have a need that we can identify," he says while wandering up the 10th hole, a short, downhill par 3 that he will later bogey.
Investors in CAI often take active consulting roles in the companies the fund invests in to make improvements before CAI sells its stake, says Mr. Culver.
"The trick is to buy low, improve the business and then sell," he says, noting CAI is only interested in making "friendly" investments. "We've made a lot of managers at these businesses a lot wealthier than they expected to be."
Advancing years have hurt some aspects of his game and he has yet to shoot a score that matches his age, he says while approaching the tee on the short par 4 11th hole, which features a well-bunkered green. Yet he remains a fine player with an enviable 12 handicap, and has used his love of golf to his advantage in business.
"If a guy is going to cheat and take a stroke here or there, you can never be sure of what he'll do in business," he says.
Our game is relaxed, with Mr. Culver offering me a mulligan late on the long par 3 14th hole, which I put to good use and record a par.
But Mr. Culver is less relaxed when the subject turns to Montreal and sovereignty. He has never considered leaving the city, he says, even during the separatist government of René Lévesque, when English businesses were fleeing the province.
"I was regularly asked by reporters about sovereignty and whether I would leave if it happened," he tells me after stroking home a smooth putt on the 11th hole and making par, one of several he records on the back nine.
"I always told them I'd stay because of the subsidies the government would have to give to keep businesses here. The rich would get richer and the poor would get poorer. And I wasn't one of the poor ones. Those reporters never printed that, you know."
Montreal's multicultural flavour is one of the main reasons Mr. Culver has lived in the city for most of his lief. As Mount Bruno's president in the late 1960's, he was largely responsible for opening the club to Jewish and French-speaking members.
Mr. Culver ends the round with an 82. I manage two strokes better (with the mulligan) on the challenging par 70 layout.
It is clear he loves his golf game. He shows no signs of slowing down, playing 50 games a year, maintaining a rigorous work week at CAI and skiing with his wife Mary, four grown children and six grandchildren. His son Mark works in the business, but Mr. Culver isn't looking to turn over the reins to anyone at this point.
"I want to make CAI a business that will last for 50 or 100 years," he says, heading back to Montreal in rush-hour traffic. "And we're not quite there yet." Spoken like a man who takes longer view.