We run a concentrated portfolio of investments across Western Europe and Canada primarily.

Preferring listed equities and family-controlled companies, we stick to a value investing blueprint—endeavoring the disciplined pursuit of mispriced assets off the beaten path—and back proven owners-operators when they wrestle with temporary setbacks.

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Core Holdings

Upstream Energy

In Canada, Standard controls equity interests tied to an aggregate production of over 140,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day, with a heavy weighting on natural gas drilling in the Alberta Deep Basin. In the midst of an unprecedented dislocation across the sector, Peyto Exploration & Development, Gear Energy and Petrus Resources, all chaired by Don Gray, traded at the time of our investments for a fraction of their proven reserves value and represented ideal vehicles to ride the recovery of energy markets.

Drilling for light oil in Alberta Deep Basin

— Peyto E&D Corp.

300, 600 3rd Ave SW
Calgary, Alberta T2P 0G5

Chairman
Donald Gray
CEO
JP Lachance

— Gear Energy Ltd.

800, 205 5th Avenue SW
Calgary, Alberta T2P 2V7

Chairman
Donald Gray
CEO
Kevin Johnson

— Petrus Resources Ltd.

2400, 240 4th Ave SW
Calgary, Alberta T2P 4H4

Chairman
Donald Gray
CEO
Kenneth Gray

Midstream Energy

Spun off from TC Energy, South Bow owns and operates one of the most strategic, unique and non-reproductible infrastructure in North America: the Keystone liquids pipeline and its adjacent network of assets, spanning 4,900-km across the continent and connecting the stable heavy oil production from the Western Canadian Sedimentary Basin—as well as the Cushing market hub—to the refineries of the Midwest and the Gulf Coast.

— South Bow Corp.

707 5 Street SW
Calgary, Alberta T2P 0Y3

Chairman
Hal Kvisle
CEO
Bevin Wirzba

Industrials

Groupe Guillin is a steadily growing packaging and food safety company controlled by the Guillin family. In the wake of the energy crisis in early 2022, it got tarred with the wrong brush as it faced a terrifying but temporary rise of input costs. In a like manner, run and tightly controlled by flemish entrepreneur Luc Tack—the turnaround artist of Picanol fame—Tessenderlo Chemie sports entrenched competitive positions in each of its subsidiaries and has plenty of leeway to grow in Europe and North America, yet it remains chronically undervalued on both its earning power and sum-of-the-parts basis.

— Groupe Guillin SA

ZI, Av. de Lattre de Tassigny
25 290 Ornans

Chairman
François Guillin
CEO
Sophie Guillin

— Tessenderlo Group NV

Troonstraat 130 rue du Trône
1050 Brussels

Chairman
Stefaan Haspeslagh
CEO
Luc Tack

Distrtibution

A specialist of furniture hardware with 112 centers and soon half of its business in the United States, Québec-based Quincaillerie Richelieu, which caters primarily to a clientele of professionals, sports a pristine M&A record, an unusually high level of employee shareholding, and a thoughtful, value-driven expansion strategy under the guidance of its chief executive officer Richard Lord. In France, century-old distributor of building materials Groupe Samse shares all the same characteristics, but traded at the time of our investment for a single-digit multiple of its earnings despite a remarkable history of growth and returns of capital to shareholders.

— Richelieu Hardware, Ltd.

7900 Henri-Bourassa Bld W
Montreal, Quebec H4S 1V4

Chairman
Sylvie Vachon
CEO
Richard Lord

— Groupe Samse SA

2 rue Raymond Pitet
38100 Grenoble

Chairman
Olivier Malfait
CEO
Laurent Chameroy

Consulting

Founded and led by industry veteran Simon Azoulay, French engineering and IT consulting group Alten tripled its earnings and revenue over the past decade. Notwithstanding its resilient business model, fortress-like balance sheet and prolific M&A strategy, its stock market valuation bore the full force of the severe recession that started in Europe in late 2024, as it fell to less than eight times operating earnings. This is precisely the opportunity Standard had been waiting for to start acquiring shares—for Alten went through many such downturns in the past, only to emerge stronger when the economy recovered.

— Alten SA

40 Avenue André Morizet
92100 Boulogne Billancourt, France

Chairman
Simon Azoulay
CEO
Simon Azoulay

Software

Based in the Netherlands and partially spun out from Mark Leonard’s Constellation Software, which retains oversight and a controlling stake, Topicus intends to replicate its parent holding company’s extraordinarily successful approach to M&A within the European vertical market software sector—a fragmented landscape with scores of hidden champions and less private equity money chasing acquisitions.

— Topicus, Inc.

Singel 25, 7411 HW
Deventer, Holland

Chairman
Robin van Poelje
CEO
Robin van Poelje

Pharmaceuticals

Headed by scientists turned entrepreneurs Jean-Paul and Martine Clozel, Swiss company Idorsia was spun-off from Actelion with a pipeline of eleven compounds, of which four blockbuster materials in late-stage development. The biotech crash and a series of setbacks left it for dead in the eyes of investors, its outstanding assets and leadership notwithstanding. Montreal-based Knight Therapeutics, for its part, is engaged in the licensing business and structured as a carbon copy of Jonathan Goodman’s highly successful first venture, Paladin Labs, but on a greater scale and with a focus on Latin America.

— Idorsia Pharmaceuticals Ltd.

Hegenheimermattweg 91

4123 Allschwil

Chairman
Mathieu Simon
CEO
Jean-Paul Clozel

— Knight Therapeutics Inc.

1055, 3400 de Maisonneuve W
Montreal, Quebec H3Z 3B8

Chairman
Jonathan Goodman
CEO
Samira Sakhia

Venture

Pre-Clinical

With the biotech sector as a whole in severe distress since interest rates went up, Cambridge-based Generation Bio, led by distinguished chief executive officer Geoffrey McDonough whom we have followed since his involvement at Swedish Orphan Biovitrum and Genzyme, saw its enterprise value melting to a quarter of its net cash balance—a level that possibly does no justice to the promising platform of non-viral genetic medicine it is developing.

— Generation Bio Co.

301 Binney Street
Cambridge, MA 02142

Chairman
Jason Rhodes
CEO
Geoff McDonough

Information Technology

The Los Angeles company that used to be presided by the late Berkshire Hathaway’s vice-chairman Charlie Munger, Daily Journal Corporation, had a legacy business, a portfolio of marketable securities and real estate properties that covered virtually its entire valuation at the time of our investment, leaving just a modest multiple on its burgeoning information technology business serving courts in the United States, Canada and Australia.

— Daily Journal Corp.

915 E 1st St.
Los Angeles, CA 90012

Chairman
Steven Myhill-Jones
CEO
Steven Myhill-Jones

Frontier Markets

Exploration & Production

Listed in Canada, active in Tanzania and registered in the British Virgin Islands, natural gas producer Orca Energy serves as the parent of PanAfrican Energy Tanzania. Now controlled by the son of its regretted founder David Lyons, PAET operates the prolific Songo Songo field, partners with national utility Songas, and plays a strategic role in the country’s path to economic development. Orca is our oldest shareholding, and is currently engaged in the process of renewing its licence set to expire in 2026.

— Orca Energy Group Inc.

2.10 Belle House, 1 Hudsons Place
London SW1V 1JT

Chairman
David Ross
CEO
Jay Lyons