Merlin Chouinard

Merlin Chouinard is a Canadian financial-services entrepreneur best known as the founder and long-time head of Saskatoon-based Sentinel Financial Group. Investment Executive reported in 2005 that he entered the life insurance industry around 1969 while waiting for a commercial pilot job, became a field agent after five years, and in 1975 became manager of a Saskatoon branch for the former Mony Life of Canada, building it into the company’s largest Canadian branch.

After Mony Life closed its career system in 1980, Chouinard formed his own managing general agency, Sentinel Life Management Corp., in 1981. Over time he added Sentinel Financial Group / Sentinel Financial Management Corp., a mutual fund dealership formed in 1995, and Sentinel Mortgage Corp., established around 2001. Sentinel’s current site describes Sentinel Life Management Corp. as incorporated in 1981 and Sentinel Financial Management Corp. as formed in 1995.

Chouinard was active in industry advocacy. Independent Financial Brokers of Canada elected him president in August 2005, and Investment Executive reported that he was re-elected for a second term in 2006. He used that platform to argue for advisor independence and against what he viewed as overly burdensome regulation of insurance and mutual fund advisors.

In September 2016, Connect Financial Services, representing purchasers Kang Family Assets Ltd., acquired Sentinel Financial Group through a share acquisition. Investment Executive described Chouinard at the time as Sentinel’s president and owner and reported that he planned to remain president for three years to assist with the transition. In January 2017, Sentinel and Regency Advisory announced Sentinel Regency Group Benefits Corp.; Investment Executive reported that Chouinard remained Sentinel’s president at that time.

• No public source reviewed verifies Chouinard as an active angel investor, seed investor, or operator of a venture fund. The available record supports a profile centered on financial-services entrepreneurship, advisor distribution, insurance, mutual funds, mortgages, and private/exempt investment products.
• Sentinel’s current private-investments page says it aims to bring exempt-market/private-equity opportunities to investors through a selected product shelf and experienced dealing representatives. Listed opportunity categories include mortgage, apartment REIT, music royalties, self-storage, dental services, service-industry infrastructure, lending/energy/equity income products, mining flow-through investments, and pre-IPO opportunities.
• Chouinard’s public comments emphasize independence, client relationships, and regulatory practicality. In 2009, he said: “The whole aspect of entrepreneurship, independence, personal professional autonomy — is getting lost.”
• In the 2016 Sentinel sale, Chouinard framed his decision around continuity for staff, advisors, and the Sentinel brand; he said he had “many, many opportunities” to sell but wanted the right fit, and noted that mutual fund dealers needed scale because “critical mass is becoming desperately important.”