BC Business
Vancouver-based financier Travelers and its CEO Jim Case look to be well-positioned for the future
“There’s been so many. I’ve done my best to exhaust those from my memory bank,” says Jim Case with a laugh when asked if he ever thought his company, Travelers Financial Group, wouldn’t make it.
Yet, days before our conversation, Case was at the top of a Downtown Vancouver tower cutting a red ribbon to celebrate 40 years in business as well as open Travelers’ new headquarters.
Travelers, recalls Case, started off as a financing option for a large independent office equipment dealer. Then the company started to finance other types of equipment. “It was ongoing acquisitions and expansions,” he says.
Today the company provides capital to a handful of different businesses, including most of Canada’s major banks as well as industrial clients like Yamaha and Ritchie Bros. Travelers has some 280 employees.
It also has managed to grow and merge or sell a number of businesses to its partners, like the auto finance business it sold to Scotiabank in 2006 and the creation of Ritchie Bros. Financial Services in 2010, which it was bought out by the parent company from in 2017.
The company has also managed to expand into the U.S., something that Case is proud of. “It’s not often that Canadian companies find success in the U.S., normally it’s U.S. companies coming to Canada, especially in financial services. We’ve found a niche in U.S.—what we built in Canada we’re applying to the U.S. And the market is roughly anywhere from nine-to-11 times the size of ours. We believe we’ll see significant growth in the U.S. marketplace.”
Interestingly, many of the tough times Case references have occurred when the economy is good. “Business has always grown through periods of economic uncertainty—when others in the lending biz tend to tighten up, we tend to grow,” he says. “Banks provide the majority of capital to small and medium enterprise. So either a sector will grow out of favour because of economic conditions or they might have concentration risk issues—certain sectors like transportation today may not be performing as well. Banks tend to be a bit more systemic in terms of their approach to businesses and sectors and will often follow cycles. We’re not a cycle lender—we tend to do well when people tighten up.”
On the other side of that, “when the economy is doing extremely well and the banks are robust,” he says, “we find that much more competitive.”
As confident as Case is in Travelers’ expansion plans—“we’re looking forward to the next 40 years”—he’s also humble as he reflects on how far the company has come.
“I still can’t believe it,” he says.