This Week in Canadian Money: VanEck is entering Canada

A big ETF firm is coming to town. Plus, a Tangerine and an Olive walk into a bar..., Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan invested in a marketplace, and more.

May 01, 2026

Hey, welcome back. And if you’re new, hello and welcome! I’m glad you’re here.

Here are 4 things that caught my eye this week in Canadian money (+ something else that’s notable… hint: it rhymes with Zovereign Vealth Tund. Whatever could that be…)

1. Fairfax reported Q1 results

Net earnings this quarter were down about 26% compared to Q1 2025.

Fairfax is pretty interesting. It’s sort of like the Berkshire Hathaway of Canada:

Insurance is the core part of the business
The strategy: Get upfront cash from insurance premiums → Invest the cash → Build a large portfolio and operate as a holding company

And similar to how Berkshire owns recognizable brands such as Dairy Queen and Duracell, Fairfax has well-known Canadian brands too:

Golf Town
Sleep Country
Sporting Life

And it’s not just in retail. Restaurants, too. It owns Recipe Unlimited (née Cara Operations), which owns chains such as:

Harvey’s
Swiss Chalet
East Side Mario’s
Montana’s

Those are big restaurants. But I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention what I believe to be the crown jewel of their portfolio: Olive Garden 🍝🥗🥖😋

This is fairly new actually. It turns out that:

In July, Recipe Unlimited acquired the 8 Canadian locations of Olive Garden.
In January, they announced plans to expand across the country.1

So there you go - who would have thought an insurance holding company would have something to do with Canadians getting unlimited breadsticks and fettuccine Alfredo.

As I write this, I’m starting to see the big picture with Fairfax:

Play a round of golf using equipment or clothing you bought at one of their stores, like Golf Town or Sporting Life.
↓
Refuel by having dinner at one of their restaurants.
↓
Go to sleep on the bed you bought at Sleep Country.

Activities → Food → Sleep. They capture several aspects of a person’s day.

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2. Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan invested in Vinted

The pension invested through its late-stage venture arm, Teachers’ Venture Growth (TVG).
It was an €880M transaction.
Other investors were part of the deal (including BlackRock).
Vinted is a resale platform valued at €8B. It’s big, but it’s not the only one - there are many other platforms out there such as Depop, Poshmark, and Cache.

Two thoughts:

Variety.
OTPP has invested in a wide range of companies and assets over the years, from SpaceX to British airports to avocado producers. Why not a resale marketplace too?
Resale – especially fashion resale – is a big deal!
Last year, the value of all merchandise sold on Vinted was €10.8B. That’s around $17B! All for second-hand items on just one platform. Think of all the clothes sitting idle in closets and drawers around the world that could be sold. That’s billions of dollars in inventory. Ontario Teachers’ and TVG must see the big opportunity.

3. VanEck is entering Canada

VanEck is an investment management firm with almost US$200B in AUM
They hired for a newly created role: CEO of VanEck Canada

To me, this news means two things:

Canada is worthwhile.
The firm sees opportunity in the country, i.e. it’s a big enough market for them to explore. Maybe more foreign ETF firms will follow?
Talent might be moving around.
VanEck will surely be filling out their team - that likely means a local sales team, new Canadian staff, etc.
My guess is that employees might leave other ETF firms and go to VanEck.

ETF = Exchange-Traded Fund.
Or, Employees Transferring Firms.

4. Tangerine launched a new credit card

It’s the Tangerine Rewards World Elite Mastercard.

There’s three aspects that I want to bring up:

(a) Scene+ partnership

You can earn Scene+ points with this card, which makes complete sense. Let me set the scene:

Scene+ is co-owned by Scotiabank2
Tangerine is owned by Scotiabank

So Scotiabank is combining two of its properties.

Related reads: Neo and Rogers both recently launched new credit cards.

(b) More than movies

Personally, I had always ~~scene~~ seen Scene+ as a movie rewards program (maybe because of those old commercials). Guess I never really paid attention to what else it offers.

Its website lists dining partners, and interestingly, I’m ~~scene~~ seein’ only Recipe/Fairfax-owned restaurants (the same ones mentioned earlier):

logos of restaurants that are partnered with Scene+. Includes Harvey's, Swiss Chalet, East Mario's — Screenshot from Scene+ website. All are brands from Recipe Unlimited (owned by Fairfax).

(c) Gas

And another thing with Scene+ is that it’s rolling out a partnership with Shell. So you’ll be able to redeem your points for gas.

Now, please humour me for a second:

Gas prices are climbing - it’s getting more expensive, forcing us all to tighten our belts.
But luckily with a rewards program, you can go to a restaurant and eat a meal so big you have to loosen your belt, and also earn points in the process.
You can then go to a gas station and redeem those points to cover the cost of your gas.
Ergo, belt loosening helps with belt tightening. ‘Jared’s Paradox’ is what some people are calling this.

And here’s something else that’s notable.

I’m sure you’ve heard about the new sovereign wealth fund. A lot has been said already, so I’ll leave the deep analysis to others.

What I want to point out is how huge the Norway sovereign wealth fund is, which is what this new Canadian fund is being compared to:

🇳🇴 ~$3T
🇨🇦 $25B

Norway’s is over a hundred times bigger (granted, it has had a 30-year head start). It doesn’t make sense to compare the two. Not yet at least…

Making some assumptions here: if no new money is contributed to the Canada Strong Fund and it grows at a consistent 7% per year, it would take only 71 years to catch up.

And that assumes Norway’s fund doesn’t change at all. But there’s Norway that’s happening.

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And here’s last week’s post in case you missed it: