George Athanassakos

Dr. George Athanassakos is a Professor of Finance and the Ben Graham Chair in Value Investing at Ivey Business School, which he joined in July 2004. He is also the Founder & Managing Director of The Ben Graham Centre for Value Investing, which he launched in 2006, and the Founder and Managing Director of the Center for the Advancement of Value Investing Education, which he launched in 2008. Prior to joining Ivey, Dr. Athanassakos spent a number of years at various research-related positions with banking and trust companies in Canada and Greece, and taught at York University and Wilfrid Laurier University, where he was professor of Finance and Founder & Director of Laurier's Financial Planning Program. He has a BA in Economics and Business Administration from The School of Industrial Studies of Thessalonica, Greece, and an MA in Economics, an MBA and a PhD in Finance from York University. The Financial Planning Standards Council has bestowed Dr. Athanassakos with the FP Canada™ Fellow distinction for his outstanding contribution to furthering FPSC's mission and for advancing the financial planning profession. Dr. Athanassakos is also a Fellow of the Quality Shareholder Initiative at the Law School of George Washington University in Washington, DC. He is the only Canadian to receive this distinction. Dr. Athanassakos' contribution to value investing was honoured by Woxsen University which has established the George Athanassakos Chair in Value Investing.

Dr. Athanassakos has been ranked among the top 10 researchers in Canada by research published in Financial Management and among the top 10 Canadian professors by the Globe and Mail. He has researched extensively the institutional attributes of the Canadian capital markets, the effect institutional trading and analysts' forecasts have on stock market performance, stock and bond market anomalies and bond and equity valuation issues. He has prepared studies on the Canadian capital markets and industry analyses for Greece and Canada. His cases have been published in Canadian Cases in Financial Accounting, Cases in Hospitality Management and Case Research Journal.

Dr. Athanassakos has offered seminars on traditional valuation and/or value investing valuation to Canadian and US valuator societies, and in Australia, Austria, Chile, Colombia, Cyprus, Denmark, France, Finland, Greece, Italy, Liechtenstein, South Africa, Spain and United Kingdom. He is recipient of teaching awards, such as Ivey’s Teaching Innovation Award and Western University’s USC Teaching Honor Roll, and of numerous research grants from University and Government departments, as well as winner of numerous first prize awards for best research papers, including three times winner (1991, 1994, and 2003) of the Toronto Society of Financial Analysts' Best Research Paper Award Competition. Dr. Athanassakos has served as a member of the Board of Directors of the Financial Planners Standards Council of Canada, a member of the Board of Directors of the Canadian Institute of Financial Planners, a member of the Editorial Board of the Canadian Investment Review, a member of the Research Advisory Board of the Canadian Securities Institute and Clarica Financial Services Research Center, and the VP-Membership and President of the Multinational Finance Society. He has also been in the Program Committees of the Eastern Finance Association, European Financial Management Association, Midwest Finance Association, Multinational Finance Association, Northern Finance Association and Southern Finance Association conferences, among others and served as the Chair and Organizer of the 1999 Multinational Finance Conference in Toronto, Ontario, the Ben Graham Center’s Symposiums on Intelligent Investing (since 2007) in London, Ontario, Crete, Greece and Toronto, Ontario, and the Ben Graham Centre's Value Investing Conferences (since 2012) in Toronto, Ontario. He is currently an editor-in-chief of the Journal of Business and Financial Affairs, an Editor of the Multinational Finance Journal, an editor of the International Journal of Economics and Business Administration, a member of the Editorial Board of the European Research Studies Journal, a member of the Academic Advisory Board of the Financial Planners Standards Council and a member of the Board of Trustees of the Multinational Finance Society.

Dr. Athanassakos has published in numerous journals including Journal of Banking and Finance, Applied Financial Economics, Journal of Business Finance and Accounting, Journal of Financial Research, Financial Analysts' Journal, Canadian Journal of Administrative Sciences, Journal of Economics and Business, Review of Financial Economics, Multinational Finance Journal, Advances in Futures and Options Research and others. His books include Derivatives Fundamentals (available through the Canadian Securities Institute), Equity Valuation: A Guide to Discounted Cash Flow and Relative Valuation Methods and Value Investing: From Theory to Practice – A Guide to the Value Investing Process. Dr. Athanassakos has also written articles for the Financial Post and MoneySense magazine and currently writes, as a guest columnist, about investments and economic and financial topics in The Globe and Mail, Canada's largest daily newspaper, and the Canadian Investment Review.

Education

• BA, Thessalonica, Greece
• MA, York
• MBA, York
• PhD, York

Recent Refereed Articles

• Athanassakos, G., 2022, "Portfolio Rebalancing, Conflicts of Interest of Delegated Investment Management and Seasonality in Canadian Financial Markets", The Journal of Investment Strategies, April 10(4)
• Athanassakos, G.; Ackert, L. F., 2021, "The Value Premium Is NOT Dead in Canada", Journal of International Finance and Economics, June 21(2): 5 - 19.
• Ackert, L.; Athanassakos, G., 2021, "Gamesmanship and Seasonality in U.S. Stock Returns", Journal of Risk and Financial Management, May 14(5): 206 - 217.
• Athanasakou, V.; Athanassakos, G., 2019, "Earnings Quality and Book-to-Market in the Cross Section of Expected Returns", Multinational Finance Journal, December 23(3/4): 169 - 210.
• Athanassakos, G.; Ackert, L. F.; Church, B., 2015, "Individual Psychology and Investment Style", International Journal of Behavioural Accounting and Finance, October 5(2): 175 - 201.
• Athanassakos, G., 2014, "Are negative PE ratio firms different than positive PE firms? The case of interlisted vs. non-interlisted firms in Canada", Journal of Financial Perspectives, December 2(2): 173 - 183.
• Athanassakos, G., 2014, "Separating winners from losers among value and growth stocks in different US exchanges: 1969-2011", Journal of Investment Management, November 12(4): 68 - 104.
• Athanassakos, G., 2013, "Are negative PE and PB ratio firms different?", Journal of Business and Financial Affairs, June 2(1): 1 - 4.
• Athanassakos, G., 2013, "Separating Winners from Losers Among Value and Growth Stocks in Canada: Another Step in the Value Investing Process", Journal of Applied Research in Accounting and Finance, June 8(1): 17 - 40.
• Athanassakos, G., 2012, "Using Historical Financial Statements to Separate Winning from Losing Value Stocks in Canada: Interlisted Vs. Non-Interlisted Stocks", Journal of Business and Financial Affairs, December 1(3): 1 - 9.
• Athanassakos, G., 2011, "The Performance, Pervasiveness and Determinants of Value Premium in Different US Exchanges: 1985-2006", Journal of Investment Management, October 9(3): 33 - 73.
• Athanassakos, G., 2011, "Do Value Investors Add Value?", Journal of Investing, July 20(2): 86 - 100.
• Athanassakos, G., 2010, "Seasonality in Value vs. Growth Stock Returns and the Value Premium", Journal of Financial and Economic Practice, November 10(2): 71 - 94.
• Athanassakos, G.; Ackert, L. F.; Naydenova, B.; Tafkov, I., 2010, "Determinants of Investor Demand for Cross-Listed Firms", Financial Markets, Institutions & Instruments, August 19(3): 245 - 267.
• Athanassakos, G., 2009, "Value vs. Growth Stock Returns and the Value Premium: The Canadian Experience 1985-2005", Canadian Journal of Administrative Sciences, July 26(2): 109 - 129.

Experience

• Professor, School of Business and Economics, Wilfrid Laurier University (1988-2004)
• Lecturer/Assistant Professor, Faculty of Administrative Studies, York University (1986-1987)
• Visiting Scholar (Australia, Chile, Colombia, Denmark, France, Finland, Italy, United Kingdom and Greece) (1994-2007)
• Manager of Economics, Canada Permanent Trust Company (1980-1985)
• Financial Consultant

Research/Course Development

• Value Investing
• Mergers and Acquisitions
• Valuation of Financial Securities
• Institutional Attributes of the Canadian Capital Markets
• Institutional Trading and Stock and Bond Market Performance
• Market Anomalies in the Canadian Equity and Bond Markets
• Analysts' Forecasts