Reports
Net Income Rises At Acquisition-Hungry CI Financial
The Canada/US-listed group has been on a buying spree, accumulating a number of US wealth management organizations, boosting its AuM in the US by more than twice in 12 months.
Canada-based CI Financial, which has been buying US wealth management firms, last week reported net income attributable to shareholders of C$124.2 million ($102.6 million) in the three months to the end of March this year, against C$120 million a year earlier.
Basic earnings per share rose to C$0.6 from C$0.55 per share, the firm said in a statement.
Total wealth management assets under management have surged over the past year as CI Financial has snapped up a number of US firms, a process chronicled and analyzed here. Total AuM stood at C$102.08 billion, more than doubling from C$44.6 billion. On the US side, the rise has been stratospheric - reaching CS31.01 billion from $461 million.
The firm said that at the end of April, US wealth AuM had risen even further.
“Core to our strategy has been our rapid growth in US wealth management and we continued that momentum in the first quarter with three transactions that have added $39 billion to our US assets (as of April 30, 2021). As CI has grown, it has become more balanced between regions and between asset management and wealth management.
“Our record financial results speak to the tremendous progress we have made in executing on our strategic priorities over the past 15 months,” Kurt MacAlpine, CI’s chief executive, said. “CI has been fundamentally transformed into a much larger, more global firm with increasingly diversified businesses and sources of revenue and earnings.
Adjusted revenue was C$603.2 million in the first quarter of 2021, an increase of 9 per cent from the final three months of 2020 and up 22 per cent from a year earlier.
The revenue rises reflected higher asset levels compared with the prior quarter with contributions from a number of acquired businesses: Doyle Wealth Management, RGT Wealth Advisors, The Roosevelt Investment Group, and Stavis & Cohen Private Wealth. They were acquired effective December 31, 2020.
