ISSUE 01 / IAN QUINT
001Ian Quint
Still DrivingPast theFirst One
Brasswater’s portfolio spans more than 13 million square feet. Ian Quint’s first independent deal was a nearly empty shopping centre in Longueuil, bought with two partners who lent him his share of the equity. Across two conversations, he explains how he chooses buildings, chooses partners and measures success now that he is a father.
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01The First Deal
The First One
Ian Quint still drives past his first deal. It is a shopping centre in Longueuil, about 170,000 square feet by his estimate, on roughly 600,000 square feet of land. When he bought it, in December 2014, there were almost no tenants left. It was falling apart.
Two partners lent him his share of the equity. His experience was in developing industrial properties from the ground up. Buying an existing shopping centre was new territory, but he saw a specific advantage: in his assessment, the land alone was worth more than the purchase price.
He and his partners renovated the façade, brought in tenants and, over time, filled the centre. They added two buildings on the land. In the first conversation, he said he still owned the property and had refinanced it more than three times.
02Before Real Estate
The Day After the Bar Exam
“I didn't know what I wanted to do necessarily, but I knew what I didn't want to do.”
Law school at Osgoode Hall was a way not to waste time while he worked it out; being a lawyer, he already knew, was not it. His mother had spent three years telling her friends he would be one.
While he studied, a family member with a small real estate portfolio lost the man who did his construction, management and leasing, and called Ian's father. The day after his New York bar exam, he started in that office.
03The Apprenticeship
Four People in the Office
The office had maybe four people in it, and for ten years Ian Quint was one of them. He did the development. He did the construction, and got a general contractor's licence so he could build. He did the leasing, the management, the advertising and the marketing.
It was a family member's operation, small in the way that mattered. "It was small enough that they were relying on me to do everything. So I got a lot of experience very quickly, and the size of the operation was the key factor."
His advice to anyone who wants in follows from those ten years: "find somewhere that's a small operation where you could touch all these things and learn from experience" rather than at some large corporation where you are relegated to being "a small cog in a huge machine".
At a large company, he added, they will probably tell you to stay in your lane.
He left, in his telling, partly because the portfolio was industrial only, on one or two streets in the same city, and partly because of "a particular situation with a family member that I wanted to extract myself from." He does not describe himself as someone who dreamed of starting a business: "It was kind of almost like I had no choice."
More than a year after the first conversation, asked what had shocked him when he started on his own: "I actually thought it would be more difficult." It had not been. "It was easier because I was so well prepared."
Starting from nothing, he allowed, still takes a lot. Ten years, four people, every job. That is what he walked into Longueuil with.
Brasswater
From the first deal
to a larger portfolio.
- The first deal
- 2014
- Assets under management
- $2.5B
- Sq. ft. acquired and developed
- 13M+
- Sq. ft. of land for development
- 13M
Longueuil, bought with borrowed equity
His figure, in his second conversation with The Vault MTL
Company website, checked October 6, 2026
Additional land, same company page
The portfolio / Architecture
The buildings.
The former Holt Renfrew building, bought and renovated: retail at street level, the company upstairs, everyone under one roof for the first time.
04How He Reads A Deal
Six Seconds
Show Ian Quint a deal and he will look at two or three numbers. "That's something I can determine in 6 seconds."
"If me and you could buy a building and we're gonna make a billion dollars, but you're gonna be a terrible partner and I lose even one night's sleep, it's not worth it for me."
Counting, he said, would mean his ego was choosing. Buying a building, he said, proves nothing about whether it was bought well.
“Actually, the only thing it means is that you paid more than anybody else was willing to pay for it.”
The Quint Test
Four questions,
drawn from two conversations.
Can I make my money when I buy it?
Can I see it in two or three numbers?
Will I sleep at night?
Do I want these people beside me?
05What Scale Changed
Under One Roof
Brasswater ran out of two offices, one in Westmount and one in Saint-Laurent, with every file travelling between them. "Construction, operations, leasing, legal." Every department touches every deal, which is part of why he says working from home never worked there and the week has always been five days in the office.
Everyone now works under one roof, on Sherbrooke Street in the former Holt Renfrew building, which the company bought and renovated, offices upstairs and retail at street level. "It's much less challenging now to work together."
Scale has bought him access: he can pick up the phone, ask for a meeting with someone whose brain he wants to pick, and get it. It has also bought debt, payroll and responsibility for the families behind the payroll. "The bigger your business grows, the more you're a slave to it."
“So you gain some freedom and you lose some freedom. You can't have it all.”
Ian Quint
After the conversations
What Happened Next
One Per Cent
"The Ian today that you're interviewing versus maybe 2 years ago, I would say I'm a lot less killer instinct and gut and a lot more — I don't want to use the word softer, but I think a lot more mindful and thoughtful."
“Will my daughterbe proud of me?”
The change reaches into places a portfolio does not, including which charities the company gives to. Brasswater always gave, he said. "I was giving just to give. Now there is intent behind it."
As of the first conversation, Ian Quint still owned the shopping centre in Longueuil, had refinanced it, by his count, more than three times, and still drove past it wondering about the man who bought it with borrowed equity and no retail contacts.