Paul Sandhu was chief executive of Toronto-based Marret Asset Management Inc. and among the most talented fixed-income investors of the past several decades. He suffered a horrible accident at his cottage the Saturday before last and tragically succumbed to his wounds.

By David Rosenberg

We lost a Bay Street legend last week, Paul Sandhu, who was chief executive of Toronto-based Marret Asset Management Inc. and among the most talented fixed-income investors of the past several decades. What made him special was not just his depth of knowledge in every corner of the financial markets, but his depth as a human being — warmth, kindness, honesty and sincerity.

He was a senior member of the bond desk at BMO Nesbitt Burns when I joined the investment bank in 1994 as a senior economist. My first ever business trip took place the very next year when the two of us went marketing together in San Francisco. We became friends very quickly; the relationship started the first night of that trip when we dined at this sensational hole-in-the-wall in Chinatown and closed the place down. To this day, I don’t remember ever laughing so hard for so long, and it was the first time we had actually met face to face (he was based in Chicago; I was in Toronto).

We travelled together many times, and to this day I have never seen a bond salesperson take my macro view at a meeting and then creatively explain to the client the most optimal way to express that view in a portfolio. He had that intangible gift of distilling ideas into an actionable investment strategy. I learned a great deal from him in that regard — the value of effective communication. He could have written the Dale Carnegie course on that one.

Over the years, we both left the bank, went our separate ways and carved out successful careers, but we still managed to stay in touch and saw each other time and again over food and wine. As a measure of the man, our conversations never started with the Fed, the latest inflation reading or GDP growth; they always started with talking about our families. He adored his wife, Teresa, and his accomplished sons.

He suffered a horrible accident at his cottage the Saturday before last and tragically succumbed to his wounds. I am in a state of shock as I write this tribute, as is everyone who I have talked to these past few days. My heart and thoughts go out to his family for their enormous loss — it is impossible to find the right words — as well as to the secondary family at the firm he ran, the “Marret Family.”

I was blessed to have known him. He leaves behind an incredible legacy, and he will be sorely missed by everyone he touched in a life that was cut far too short.

David Rosenberg is founder of independent research firm Rosenberg Research & Associates Inc.

Courtesy Financial Times