Ugo Bizzarri, founder of Hazelview Investments, has received a lifetime achievement award from Rental Housing Canada. The award came after he relinquished his CEO duties, promoting long-time Hazelview senior executives Corrado Russo and Michael Tsourinos to newly created Co-CEO positions and becoming the company’s executive chair. In this interview, Bizzarri discusses what the award means to him, recalls the launch and growth of Timbercreek Asset Management initially, the spin-off and expansion of Hazelview, and the transition into his new role.

Stewart: What does the Rental Housing Canada Lifetime Achievement Award mean to you?

Bizzarri: Well, I think it was a big honour to get it. I do think the lifetime achievement Award is not just a reflection of just one person, but of everything that we’ve done at Hazelview over the years. There’s a lot of people that go into a lifetime achievement award from, property manager, leasing guys, to investors, to partners, to people here, the team. It’s really a team effort, and it’s a good recognition for the team, I would say.

Stewart: How did Hazelview start up?

Bizzarri: Hazelview morphed into two companies. It originally was Timbercreek and morphed into Hazelview, but we started in 1999.

Stewart: Initially, what sparked your interest in real estate?

Bizzarri: It’s funny you say that. I graduated from the University of Western Ontario [now Western University] Business School got hired out school from Ontario Teachers’ [Pension Plan.] And frankly, they just put me into real estate and I started to fall in love with the asset class from my early days at Ontario Teachers’ in 1993 and sort of sparked my love for real estate. And then we started moving forward in different asset classes, I really, really liked the apartments as an asset class and then started our business in the apartment sector back in 1999. So, it was a little bit of luck. But I’ve always liked real estate. It seems to be something tangible, something you can put your hands to, something that makes sense, easily makes sense to me for the long run. I’ve always been an investor or a person thinking in the long term. And, real estate fits my sort of personality more than anything I’ve seen.

Stewart: How does it fit your personality? I knew you were going to ask that. I think my philosophy has always been to look for long-term trends that can outlast market cycles. And rather than trying to predict the market, I like to focus on earning opportunities and gaps that create value over time. And, real estate has that cycle. It’s a long term, it’s not a one-to-two year investment, it’s a 10-to-20-year investment. And finding those gems and those things, it’s a long-term vision of investing. And, I think real estate fits that. That’s what I mean by my personality. I’m more of a long-term thinker versus a short-term market timer.

Stewart: Where did you go from Teachers’?

Bizzarri: We started Timbercreek, which was the predecessor of Hazelview. we really bought our first building in January 15, 2000, a small little building in Oakville, 15 units. We raised some capital from family and friends and we started buying one building at a time. So, our first building was in Oakville, small 15-unit building where I went to collect the rent. I went to do laundry, I did the maintenance, I snow-shovelled. And from there, we started one building at a time.

Stewart: What motivated you to start up Timbercreek/Hazelview?

Bizzarri: I wanted to build something on my own. I wanted to build a company, and I felt that apartments filled my makeup of investing in the long term. I always wanted to do something on my own and I felt that the apartments was the way to go to start to do that. My motivation was really to run my own company and build something from scratch. It’s really about working together and building a long-term team and building a company that can last over time. I always wanted to do something like that. I was fortunate enough to do it.

Stewart: If you don’t mind, could you give me an idea of roughly how much you started out with?

Bizzarri: Well, our first building was $1 million dollars. How about that? And then we’ve grown that over time. We have bought over 34,000 units. We grew the company to about $12 billion dollars in [Assets Under Management.] So, it’s grown over time. Not our personal capital, we have a lot of investors. From a building of $1 million dollars to a diverse pool of assets over 26 years. We bought the first building in Oakville. Then we started finding some more assets in London, Ont. Then we moved to Montreal. We just kept finding good investment opportunities to build, we raised capital as we went along from there. Sol then we built our own property management team because we ran the properties ourselves. So, we went from buying multi-family to then in 2007, 2008, we launched a private-debt business. In 2010-11, we launched public securities, public stocks. So over time, we just kept adding different avenues of real estate to the company. And, we kept attracting some really good people to be a good part of the team, we started diversifying into different asset classes. Then we started diversifying into development. So, it really grew one asset at a time, and finding investors that felt that real estate was a great long-term investment for them.

Stewart: How did Timbercreek morph into Hazelview?

Bizzarri: I had a partner, Blair Tamblyn, where we did Timbercreek together. Then back in 2020, we wanted to split the company up. So basically, Timbercreek became more focused on private debt, and Hazelview became more focused on direct real estate and public securities and a little bit of debt, too. But we split up the company, all the same clients, all the same properties. We just switched the name. And, I just split up with my partner in 2020 at the time. But a lot of the same people, a lot of the same investments remain. That’s how we changed in 2020. March 9th, we split, and March 9th, we had lockdown in COVID. Do you remember those days? I do.

Stewart: You did not retain an ownership interest in Timbercreek?

Hazelview: No, I did not.

Stewart: How did Hazelview evolve following that separation?

Bizzarri: We kept focusing on the same things that we were doing. When we split, we were about $11 billion between Timbercreek. We split into two different companies. Hazelview was $7 billion. We grew back up to about $12 billion during the next four or five years. Really, the evolution was basically to keep focused on what we think are great investments, and we focused on, fundamentally, multi family. We thought it was a great long-term investment. And, we just kept focusing on that. It really maintained the same disciplines that we had at Timbercreek, but just a little bit more focused on the direct real estate side.

Stewart: What has enabled Hazelview to grow the way it has?

Bizzarri: Fundamentally, it’s been our team. I think we have a great team here. I’m very proud of the team that we have here. Real estate is not just about buildings. It’s about investments. But in order to execute on your strategies, you have to have a really good team. Here, people think as owners. They’re entrepreneurs. We take responsibility for everything that we do. We really believe in what we’re doinga and the teamwork. I’ve had people with me here for over 25 years. Our success as a business, as a company, is really watching these talented people grow, take leadership roles, and achieve great things. If you have the right team, you can achieve a lot during your career.

Stewart: Approximately how many employees do you have now?

Bizzarri: Now, we have probably about 350 people.

Stewart: Who are some of the other investors involved in Hazelview now?

Bizzarri: We manage money for institutions, private families, individuals. Retail money. It’s a conglomerate of various investors. I can’t go into details of each one. But we manage money for a lot of different organizations. The company is owned by employees. Every person here is an employee. That employee is a shareholder in Hazelview, and we’re an employee-owned company.

Stewart: Shifting to your own recent move, why did you decide to transition to the executive chair role?

Bizzarri: Mike’s been with me 24 years. Corrado’s been with me for plus 30 years. I’ve always thought about succession planning and I thought it was the right time for them to step up. They’re great leaders. I have full confidence in them. You need to always plan for the future, and this is the step for planning the future. I’m still very much involved in the business. I’m going to be working on the business versus in the business.

Stewart: Are you still involved with the company on a daily basis?

Bizzarri: I’m still here on a daily basis, but I’m the founder. I’m the executive chair. I help them. I spearhead the investment committee here at Hazelview. I’m involved in major strategic directions of the company. But the day-to-day operations, day-to-day decision-making, is Corrado and Mike now.

Stewart: What has the new role been like for you?

We’re just working through it. It’s very early stages but, look, I’m enjoying it. I’m enjoying watching Mike and Corrado’s leadership roles, taking the reins. And, I’m enjoying watching the company grow through that. I think we’re on the next phase of growth, and I think there’s going to be big growth at Hazelview. I’m going to enjoy it from an executive chair versus the CEO.

Stewart: You just touched on this a moment ago, but where do you see Hazelview going in the future?

Bizzarri: I think there’s going to be some tremendous growth for Hazelview in the future. I think we’re going to be very focused on multi-family, growing the business, finding really good investments that can make our investors happy, growing the team here, keeping the team. Look, I don’t know where the future lies exactly for Hazelview, but I do believe that we have a great team here. Real estate’s been having, I would say, a hard time for the last two or three years. I think that real estate will be rebounding, and I think we’re well-poised as a company to take advantage of the rebound in the real estate sector. I think that’s all we can do. I think this is a great time to build new apartment buildings. Housing, reliable housing is something that we need in Canada. We’re partnering up with governments, institutions. We’re partnering up with different contractors and partners to really build robust housing, to build communities and, really, to provide residents with great places for them to not only be proud, but also to call home. I think we’re doing all our part, and I think multi-family is a long-term thing, and I think you have to start building today in order to satisfy the needs of the future. I think housing is one of the critical factors that makes Canada a strong country, and we need very good housing.

Pictured: Ugo Bizzarri, founder and executive chair of Hazelview.

Photo: Courtesy of Hazelview