David Rosenberg to leave Gluskin Sheff to set up his own consulting firm

David Rosenberg, the bearish economist whose morning newsletter is a must-read for many on Bay Street, is leaving money manager Gluskin Sheff & Associates Inc. after more than a decade to launch his own consulting firm.

Rosenberg Research and Associates Inc. will begin publishing in the first quarter of next year, according to a notice on the new firm’s site. Mr. Rosenberg will continue publishing under the Gluskin Sheff banner until then.

“Having already assembled a team of first-rate analysts, David will now be joined by additional economists, macroeconomic modelers and strategists to provide even more in-depth material,” according to the notice. Mr. Rosenberg and Gluskin Sheff did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Mr. Rosenberg won a reputation for prescience by being one of the first to warn of the dangers in the U.S. housing market in the years leading up to the financial crisis. At the time, he was working as chief North American economist at Merrill Lynch and splitting his time between his hometown of Toronto and New York.

Bank of America acquired Merrill Lynch during the financial crisis. After a stint as Bank of America’s chief North American economist, Mr. Rosenberg returned home to Toronto to join Gluskin Sheff in 2009.

As the Great Recession waned, he warned of the possibility of a double-dip recession. He briefly turned more positive in 2013. By late 2016, though, he was once again suggesting that a recession was in the offing.

He has continued to be gloomy about what lies ahead. In 2018, he predicted a recession this year. More recently, he put the odds of a Canadian recession within the next year at 80 per cent.

While his recent recession predictions have not panned out, the core of his investing advice – to buy solid companies with decent dividend yields – has been largely effective.

His daily Breakfast with Dave newsletters are typically sprawling missives that comb through a mountain of economic data from the United States and Canada in search of insights.

In his company’s notice, he thanks Gluskin Sheff for the opportunity to be the firm’s ”economic consigliere” over the past 10 years. Onex Corp., the private-equity firm founded by billionaire Gerry Schwartz, bought Gluskin Sheff in June for about $445-million and took the company private.