CI Financial Corp

TSX:CIX

Earnings Call Analysis

CI Financial's Strong Q3 Performance Ahead of Strategic Growth Plans

CI Financial's third quarter showcased impressive results, with adjusted EPS rising 8% to $0.97. Adjusted EBITDA reached a record $271 million, marking a 42% margin, fueled by robust demand and successful acquisitions totaling $164 million. Global assets climbed 6% to $518 billion, bolstered by positive market conditions. The U.S. Wealth Management segment reported 44% EBITDA margins and consistent organic growth. Aiming for further integration by 2026, CI remains well-positioned within its strategic objectives including launching innovations like the Global AI ETF, which rapidly accumulated nearly $900 million in assets.

Solid Performance in Q3 2024

CI Financial's third quarter results showcased a robust performance, with adjusted earnings per share (EPS) climbing 8% sequentially to a record of $0.97. This growth was underpinned by strong revenue, disciplined operating expenses, and a lower share count, despite facing increased interest costs. For the quarter, adjusted EBITDA per share reached $1.85, a remarkable 10% increase from Q2.

Strong Cash Flow and Strategic Investments

The company reported free cash flow of $1.32 per share, marking yet another record. CI Financial actively engaged in mergers and acquisitions (M&A), deploying $164 million towards new deals and settling existing acquisition obligations. Additionally, the company executed substantial share repurchases, demonstrating a robust commitment to returning value to shareholders, including a $30 million dividend payout.

Growth in Assets and Positive Flows

Global assets under management rose by 6% to $518 billion, driven by favorable market conditions and positive flows across CI's business segments. The Canadian retail channel net flows turned positive, indicating reduced redemption activities and affirming the resilience of CI's wealth management operations.

Expansion of Wealth Management and M&A Activity

CI's focus on growing its wealth management capabilities continues to yield results, with the recent acquisitions of Byron Financial and Emerald Multi-Family Office, adding over $8 billion in client assets. In October, additional growth was achieved with the acquisition of Ensemble Capital, further asserting CI's presence in the U.S. high-net-worth market.

Continued Improvement in Investment Performance

The investment segment has seen significant enhancements, evidenced by CI being awarded 16 Lipper awards this year, marking the second consecutive year as Canada's most awarded fund manager. Furthermore, over 70% of CI's assets have outperformed peers over the past three years, which has boosted investor interest and contributed to overall growth.

Future Guidance and Margins

Looking ahead, CI anticipates maintaining a margin expansion trajectory, as evidenced by U.S. Wealth segment margins hitting a record 44%. Additionally, guidance indicates continued weakness in interest and lease finance expenses, expected to range between $59 million to $60 million for Q4, providing a clearer picture for future capital allocations.

Focus on Strategic Growth and Integration

CI management underscores the importance of local scale and integration efforts. Consolidation in office real estate and technology integration is crucial, with plans to finalize these integrations by 2026. The steady progression in these areas is expected to drive further margin expansion and operational efficiencies.

Implications for Investors

For investors, CI Financial represents a compelling opportunity, with strong fundamentals, disciplined capital allocation, and promising growth prospects in the U.S. wealth management sector. The company's strategic M&A initiatives, combined with a focus on integration and performance improvement, position it well for long-term value creation.

Earnings Call Transcript 2024-Q3

[Operator]

Hello, everyone, and welcome to the CI Financial Q3 2024 Earnings Call. My name is Nadia. I'll be coordinating the call today. [Operator Instructions]

I will now hand over to your host, Kurt MacAlpine, CEO, to begin. Kurt, please go ahead.

[Kurt MacAlpine, executive]

Good morning, everyone, and welcome to CI Financial's third quarter earnings call. Joining me is our CFO, Amit Muni. Together, we will cover the following: an overview of the highlights of the quarter, a review of our financial performance during the quarter, a discussion of strategic progress across our operating segments, then we will take your questions.

CI Financial reported strong third quarter results with records across several key metrics. Adjusted EPS grew 8% sequentially to a record $0.97, reflecting top line growth, well-controlled SG&A and a lower share count, partially offset by higher interest costs. Adjusted EBITDA per share attributable to shareholders increased 10% from Q2 to a record of $1.85 per share, while free cash flow of $1.32 per share also represented a record.

Capital allocation remained balanced and active during the quarter. We deployed $164 million towards M&A, including new deals and the settlement of existing acquisition obligations. We remained active with share repurchases, completing a 5 million shares substantial issuer bid in July and buying back 680,000 shares with the restart of our NCIB. We continue to opportunistically reduce our debt with open market repurchases of $16 million of our 2051 notes at a sizable discount to par. And we returned $30 million to shareholders through our dividend.

Investor sentiment and risk appetite appears to be gradually improving. Our Canadian retail channel net flows turned positive as we saw the benefit of reduced redemption activity across balanced and equity funds. Our wealth businesses in both Canada and the U.S. continued to generate positive flows, highlighting their quality and resiliency.

We also continued to execute against our 3 strategic priorities to modernize asset management, expand wealth management and globalize the company.

The significant improvements in investment performance since integrating our platform continues. Just last week, we were recognized with 16 Lipper awards. This marks the second consecutive year that CI has been the most awarded fund manager in Canada.

We completed the previously announced acquisitions of Byron Financial and Emerald Multi-Family Office at the end of July, adding over $8 billion of client assets to Corient. In October, we added an additional $2.4 billion through the acquisition of Ensemble Capital, a San Francisco-based high and ultra-high-net-worth wealth manager.

The combination of M&A, underlying organic growth and market tailwinds and margin expansion drove an 8% sequential increase in adjusted EBITDA for the segment.

I'll now turn the call over to Amit to discuss our financial results in more detail.

[Amit Muni, executive]

Thank you, Kurt, and good morning, everyone. Turning to Slide 4, our global assets ended the quarter up 6% to $518 billion, driven by positive markets, flows across all 3 of our business segments and acquisitions in our U.S. segment.

Turning to our financial results on the next slide, I'll focus my comments on our adjusted results. Adjusted net income was $141 million or $0.97 per share for the quarter. Adjusted EBITDA increased to $271 million for the quarter, and our adjusted EBITDA margin expanded to 42%. Included in the quarter was a performance fee for $7 million or $0.04 a share, which was generated by our Asset Management segment.

Turning to the next slide, I'll highlight the segment results and key drivers of EBITDA and margins. Asset Management EBITDA increased to $172 million for the quarter and margins expanded to 62.3%, partly due to the performance fee, as well as controlled spending in the business. Canada Wealth EBITDA increased to $19 million and margins expanded to 8.4% due to higher revenues. In the U.S., pre-NCI EBITDA increased to $123.7 million and margins expanded to 44%, reflecting operating leverage in the business. Compared to the third quarter of last year, U.S. EBITDA increased 24%, which is greater than the investor group's preferred return.

For purposes of modeling noncontrolling interest of our U.S. segment for future quarters, we estimate noncontrolling interest of 37% of U.S. adjusted EBITDA when calculating our U.S. segment adjusted EBITDA. For purposes of modeling noncontrolling interest for our U.S. segment's contribution to EPS, we estimate noncontrolling interest of 30% of U.S. segment adjusted EBITDA.

Turning to the next slide, I'll walk through the changes in revenue. Revenues increased to $755 million in the quarter. Asset Management revenues were a net $6 million due to positive markets and the performance fee, partly offset by fluctuations in other gains and losses. Canada and U.S. wealth management fees increased due to higher asset levels from positive flows and positive markets. Acquisitions in the U.S. added $8 million in revenue in the quarter.

Turning to the next slide, we can review major changes in expenses. On a comparable basis, total expenses increased less than 1%. SG&A decreased due to lower discretionary spending -- discretionary-related spending, reflecting operating discipline, partly offset by higher marketing to support our 3 business segments' revenue growth. Advisor and dealer fees increased due to higher revenue earned in our Canada Wealth segment. Interest expense increased due to the new bond offering, as well as borrowings to fund our acquisition-related obligation payments and stock buybacks.

Looking forward to the next quarter, we anticipate interest and lease finance expenses to be in the range of $59 million to $60 million in Q4. Also a reminder, from last quarter, we expect depreciation -- higher depreciation and amortization of $19 million to $20 million in Q4, reflecting the impact from integration capital expenditures.

Turning to Slide 9, we can review our debt and leverage. Net debt increased to $3.6 billion, reflecting the new bonds we issued in the quarter, partly offset by bond buybacks, maturities, lower borrowings on our credit facility and positive FX movement on our U.S.-denominated bonds. Our net leverage declined to 3.3x on a reported basis.

Turning to Slide 10, I'll review our segment obligations. As we have previously discussed, Canada and the U.S. have different capital priorities. The table on the right of the slide reflects the cash, debt and M&A obligations for Canada and the U.S. at the end of the third quarter. The U.S. has borrowed $175 million from Canada to primarily fund acquisition-related payments. The U.S. also has $154 million in contingent consideration obligations. Canada has $66 million remaining to pay off for U.S. acquisitions. These will be fully paid off early next year. Canada also has $74 million in other acquisition obligations, of which, about half of that was already settled in October.

Thank you, and let me turn the call back to Kurt.

[Kurt MacAlpine, executive]

Thanks, Amit. We continue to rapidly scale our U.S. Wealth Management business. Since the minority investment in Corient in May 2023, the business has grown EBITDA at a 27% compound annual growth rate. EBITDA growth has been driven by a combination of organic growth, our integration efforts driving synergy capture, a favorable market backdrop and consecutive quarters of strong M&A.

As we discussed in recent quarters, we are nearing the completion of major real estate integrations. Following the consolidation of our New York City offices last quarter, we moved into new space in Boston and Chicago this quarter. Consolidation of office space is important for elevating the client experience, while driving collaboration, culture and unity across Corient.

M&A has picked up in the last several months. We've now closed 5 transactions since April, including the previously announced additions of Byron Financial and Emerald Multi-Family Office, as well as Ensemble Capital, which we closed at the end of October. As a result of the integration progress we've made, all of these deals were rebranded and fully integrated into Corient at close, driving benefits for clients and synergies for our business.

Our investment team is generating consistently strong performance. This performance outcome is a result of the hard work we undertook to dismantle the multi-boutique structure and build a fully-integrated at-scale institutional-grade investment platform. For the fifth quarter in a row, more than 70% of assets are outperforming peers on a 3-year basis. Importantly, the strong performance is spread across numerous funds and several asset classes. Over 90% of our balanced funds are outperforming peers with a significant portion ranked in the top quartile. With redemption pressure easing, we are well positioned to grow disproportionately in that asset class.

While CI has not been historically known for our stand-alone fixed-income funds, performance has been excellent with over 80% of assets beating peers over the 3 and 5-year periods, including 80% in the top quartile over 5 years. This strong performance is beginning to drive inflows, particularly into our unconstrained and global investment-grade bond funds.

The transformation of our investment business and the consistent results we are delivering are getting recognized. As I mentioned in my opening remarks, CI was the most awarded fund manager in Canada for the second consecutive year.

We continue to make progress executing against our stated 2024 strategic priorities. In Asset Management, we've been active on the product front, while streamlining our existing lineup and launching innovative new strategies, including the Global AI ETF, which has quickly scaled to nearly $900 million in assets since it launched in May.

During the quarter, we made enhancements to our innovative private market solution to further broaden its appeal as we continue to educate advisors on the merits of the asset class and garner platform approvals.

In Canadian Wealth, we continue to have success recruiting advisors to both our Assante and Aligned Capital businesses. We also continue to scale our custody business and leverage technology to provide a better client experience. We are working towards onboarding the remainder of our wealth assets and are having conversations with a number of third parties.

At Corient, we're making progress against our strategic plan, and the investments we've made to scale and fully integrate our business are reflected in our financial results. Our EBITDA grew 8% quarter-over-quarter, our net flows remain strong, and our solutions and alternatives offerings are growing rapidly. Margins in the business are also showing the benefit of our integration efforts with adjusted EBITDA margins up 158 basis points in the first 3 quarters of the year.

We're proud of the recent progress we've made in each of our business segments and very excited about what the future holds. We thank you for your interest in CI, and we'd be happy to take your questions.

[Operator]

[Operator Instructions] And the first question goes to Kyle Voigt of KBW.

[Kyle Voigt, analyst]

So, first question, on the U.S. Wealth segment, you've done a really nice job expanding EBITDA margins there. I think margins hit 44% this quarter, which is a record. I know you've been active over the past couple of years integrating the platform, consolidating vendor relationships. I guess, in terms of what is left to do, it looks like there's some more to do on the real estate consolidation side. I'm assuming maybe some more to do in terms of technology integrations. Can you just go over what's left to complete the full integration of the business? And I guess, the heart of the question here is, how much more margin expansion is still left? And outside of that, how do you think about organic incremental EBITDA margins in the segment on a normal course basis?

[Kurt MacAlpine, executive]

Great. Thanks for the question, Kyle. So, your assumption around the 2 major areas of what's left from an integrating the platform standpoint are spot on. So, real estate integrations, as you're seeing, we're working through those and getting to the back end of those in relatively short order. And we have -- we're in the final stages of our technology integration, primarily the unification of our portfolio accounting solution that will take place over the course of 2025. From there, there's always opportunities as we continue to grow and scale the business. We've set up the operating platform in a way that, that has a lot of positive operating leverage. So, we do anticipate to continue to see margin expansions even after the completion or the finalization of our integration efforts.

[Kyle Voigt, analyst]

Okay. Great. And then, second question, we're sitting here, equity markets are near all-time highs. It seems like we're primed to start seeing the [ ECA ] markets open back up in 2025. Can you just remind us of the structure of the preferred equity instrument? Do you have the ability to repay that prior to 2026? And would you be willing to head down the IPO path as soon as next year if the markets were to cooperate?

[Kurt MacAlpine, executive]

Sure. So, there's a lot of flexibility in terms of the structure itself. As it relates to the timing for the IPO markets, kind of the opportune time to look at the separation of the business and pursue the Corient IPO would probably be sometime in early to mid-2026. So as you mentioned, we've been laser focused heads-down on driving maximum integration, maximum growth, really setting up the business to continue to scale, which we've done. But we'll continue to keep an eye on markets, see how the IPO market unfolds, and then look at the timing as it relates to all those factors.

[Operator]

The next question goes to Aria Samarzadeh of Jefferies.

[Aria Samarzadeh-Vajdehfar, analyst]

With the recent Creative Planning transaction being reported at 23x EBITDA, can you talk a little bit about how you think about this transaction and how you believe Corient compares in terms of margin profile, high-net-worth mix or geographic reach? Is there any reason that you can justify a premium or a discount for Corient versus the recent Creative Planning transaction?

[Kurt MacAlpine, executive]

Yes. Thanks for the question, Aria. I'd rather kind of not compare and contrast our business to others. But when I look at the business that we've built, so 5 years ago today, the Corient business didn't exist, right? So we outlined an ambitious strategy to enter the U.S. market and really scale that business up. In the span of 5 years, I'm quite confident to say we have the fastest-growing kind of wealth platform by far. I believe we have the leading integrated ultra-high and high-net-worth. Aria, as you've seen, our operating margins and our growth, I think, they're both very attractive. So, if you look at a fully-integrated, at-scale ultra-high and high-net-worth wealth management business, I think there's a lot of desirability for a business with those characteristics. And I would just -- that would be kind of my high-level take on the business is we feel very, very good with what we've built. To tie it to Kyle's question, we're continuing to finalize the integration, and our combination of our organic growth and our M&A remains very strong. So we're very pleased with where we're at right now and continuing just to progress the business going forward.

[Aria Samarzadeh-Vajdehfar, analyst]

Okay. And then, the second question I have is, you're operating at a pro forma dividend payout ratio that's much lower than when you last increased your dividend. And then, thanks to the aggressive share repurchases, a nice increase can be sustained without increasing your dividend obligation. With your yield now lagging peers, how should we think about dividend growth and the factors that management is weighing before making an increase decision?

[Kurt MacAlpine, executive]

Yes, it's a great question. We're -- at the Board level, we're constantly looking at our capital allocation strategy, and we're really trying to strike the balance between obviously continuing to pay our dividend and look at flexibility to increase that over time. We're looking at weighing share buybacks against deleveraging with the Canadian business cash flow. And as everyone saw and heard in Amit's remarks, we've made great strides at reducing Canada's obligations to the U.S. business, and those will fully run off within the next little less than 2 months. And then, the U.S. business, the focus there is continuing to reinvest that cash flow to grow the Corient platform overall. So we're looking at it dynamically. We're constantly evaluating the appropriate trade-off across all of those different capital allocation priorities.

[Operator]

The next question goes to Nik Priebe of CIBC.

[Nikolaus Priebe, analyst]

Okay. So, adjusted SG&A was flat sequentially, but the share price was up pretty sharply in the quarter. Can you just remind me, do you fully hedge your exposure to any unvested share-based comp? It doesn't look like you've adjusted for any associated compensation true-up in the quarter, but I just wanted to clarify that.

[Amit Muni, executive]

Nik, it's Amit. Yes, we do hedge that. Yes, Nik, we do hedge that. We go out and buy the shares that do cover the stock grants that we do.

[Nikolaus Priebe, analyst]

Got it. Okay. So that's why we don't see the variability there. And then, there's also a performance fee, I think, that was called out in the quarter. Can you just give us a bit of color on which strategy that came from?

[Amit Muni, executive]

Yes. So that's an invest -- that came from an investment that we have from one of our Australian -- our Australian business that we have in Monroe. They generated a performance fee this quarter. It's variable. It's sort of one time a year. So I would just caution, don't put that into your run rate models.

[Kurt MacAlpine, executive]

Yes. The only other thing I'd just add on that is, obviously, as we continue to expand our offering away from traditional asset classes into more alternatives, the opportunity for these to become more recurring across the range of strategies we've launched does increase.

[Nikolaus Priebe, analyst]

And maybe just staying in that same vein, you've got the Liquid Alt suite. I don't think it's a large component of your AUM today. But is there a performance fee component that you would expect to recognize in the fourth quarter from a seasonality standpoint? Like, is that something that we should expect?

[Kurt MacAlpine, executive]

Nothing at this time, no.

[Operator]

[Operator Instructions] And the next question goes to Graham Ryding of TD Securities.

[Graham Ryding, analyst]

I came on the call a bit late, so I apologize if you talked about this. But anything on the expense front that you would call out that helped your margins this quarter? Or would you say this is a reasonable margin to build from? And I'm sort of more focused on the U.S. business, but I'll take any commentary overall.

[Amit Muni, executive]

So, specifically, as it relates to the U.S. business, I think it's a reasonable quarter for comparison. There was nothing kind of unusual that drove lower expenses that you'd have to make adjustments to.

[Graham Ryding, analyst]

Okay. On your -- the Canadian Wealth side, with onboarding the remaining Canadian wealth assets into your custody business, what's the sort of timing that you're expecting there? And will we see a noticeable EBITDA or margin impact in your Canadian Wealth business when that plays out?

[Kurt MacAlpine, executive]

Yes. So first on timing, and then, Amit, you can cover the margin piece. We anticipate onboarding the remainder of our own wealth assets sometime within the next 12 months -- probably in the next 10 months. So we're targeting conversion date kind of late in the third quarter, early in the fourth quarter for the remainder.

[Amit Muni, executive]

And Graham, on the margin expansion, once we do get those custody assets onto the platform, as Kurt said, we do expect to see slight margin expansion, not as much as we saw on the line conversion, but we do expect to see margin expansion once the Assante assets come on to the platform. And then, we also have, obviously, other third parties that we can bring on as well.

[Graham Ryding, analyst]

Okay. Understood. And my last question would just be, organic growth from flows at Corient, any update there? And are you seeing clients get more constructive and start to move away from cash and into investing again?

[Kurt MacAlpine, executive]

Yes. I'd say organic growth at Corient remains consistently strong. In terms of rebalancing and repositioning portfolios, we're starting to see some of that across the board, as well as people repositioning into equity markets, driving more interest in alternative strategies and things like that, so becoming a little more opportunistic.

[Graham Ryding, analyst]

Okay. And you used to give us an organic sort of flows rate. Is that something that we will get in the future? Or are you moving away from providing that metric?

[Kurt MacAlpine, executive]

Yes, we do. We've just done it episodically. So, on the wealth side, we're -- but yes, it is something we will continue to provide periodic guidance on or updates on.

[Operator]

And the final question goes to Tom MacKinnon of BMO Capital.

[Tom MacKinnon, analyst]

A question really with respect -- as you move towards a potential IPO of Corient here, and then you have sort of the Corient IPO, you have Canadian business. What do you -- at the end of the day, where do you think the Australian business lands? Do you -- I mean, it's a long way, it's away, and it's not that huge. So any thoughts with respect to what that adds? And is there any opportunity? How are you thinking about that business going forward?

[Kurt MacAlpine, executive]

Yes. It's -- so, as it relates to our Australian business, it's a business we've had for a number of years now. As you mentioned, it's very small in scale and a very small contributor to our $500-plus billion asset base. The way we think about -- without kind of addressing that specifically, the way we think about deployment of capital and effectively growing our businesses is, we're looking for local scale. So we're huge proponents of building scale in local markets. So, as you saw, when we entered the U.S., it wasn't an entry into the U.S. to dip our toe in the water. We wanted to really build up critical scale in that market. We've done that. We see phenomenal opportunities to continue to grow. We also have, obviously, tremendous scale in Canadian Asset Management, and our Canadian Wealth business in the last few years has more than doubled in assets as well. So when we think about the deployment of our capital across our business segments, the priorities would certainly be the Canadian and U.S. businesses as the primary means of investment for us.

[Tom MacKinnon, analyst]

So, it's not -- if you're not investing in it, is it sufficient enough to grow? Is it core, or is it non-core?

[Kurt MacAlpine, executive]

It is. Yes, it would be -- it depends on how you define core and non-core. It would be non-core because it's a fraction of the size of our business, right? We're talking approximately 1% -- a little more than 1% of our total asset base. So, in that sense, it would be non-core. But it is a self-sufficient business that contributes to our earnings. My point was, just as we think about the next new dollar of capital to deploy, we see greater opportunities to generate a return, continuing to add scale into the U.S. and Canadian business lines.

[Operator]

We have no further questions. I'll hand the call back over to Kurt for any closing comments.

[Kurt MacAlpine, executive]

I just want to thank everyone for participating, and we look forward to the call next quarter.

[Operator]

Thank you. This now concludes today's call. Thank you all for joining. You may now disconnect your lines.