IGM Financial Inc

TSX:IGM

Earnings Call Analysis

IGM Financial Reports Strong Growth and Strategic Investments in Q3

IGM Financial's Q3 earnings highlight a solid performance with adjusted EPS of $1.03, up 12% year-over-year. Total client assets rose 23% to $462 billion. IG Wealth Management achieved a 19% increase in assets under administration, driven by client acquisition and market growth. The company generated $3.4 billion in gross inflows, showing client confidence returning. With a 4% expense growth guidance for 2024, IGM is focused on strategic investments while maintaining a robust $160 million capital return to shareholders through dividends and buybacks. Overall, the company anticipates continued growth amidst a favorable market environment.

Strong Performance in Third Quarter

In the third quarter of 2024, IGM Financial reported adjusted earnings per share of $1.03, marking a 12% increase year-over-year and standing as the second-best Q3 adjusted EPS on record. The overall client assets surged by 23% year-over-year, reaching $462 billion, with each segment achieving record asset levels.

Wealth Management Success

IG Wealth Management, a main segment of IGM, recorded an impressive asset under administration (AUA) of $136.4 billion, up 19% year-over-year and gaining 5.2% in the quarter. Notably, inflows from new clients reached $1 billion, with high net worth and mass affluent segments constituting approximately 75% of these new client inflows.

Positive Investor Sentiment and Market Conditions

The current operating environment showed significant improvement, evidenced by client investment returns exceeding 5% during the quarter. Over the trailing twelve months, clients experienced average returns surpassing 20%. The company expects this positive trend to continue, largely driven by an improving macroeconomic environment, such as lower inflation and stabilizing interest rates.

Strategic Investments and Capital Return

IGM Financial returned $160 million to shareholders through dividends and share repurchase programs, which remains an active initiative. The company’s strategic investments now represent approximately $5.9 billion in value, including a notable increase in the fair value of Wealthsimple, reflecting ongoing confidence in their growth trajectory.

Expense Management and Future Guidance

Operating expenses for 2024 are projected to grow around 4%, consistent with past guidance. As for 2025, initial discussions suggest a similar trajectory, emphasizing the company's commitment to reinvesting in technology and operational improvements to sustain growth.

Remarkable Growth in Mackenzie Investments

Mackenzie Investments reported AUM at a record high of $212 billion, an increase of 13.8% year-over-year. Strong sales momentum is anticipated, especially following an increase in gross sales by 20% in Q3 and 30% in October, indicating a positive shift in investor confidence.

Challenges and Future Focus

Despite overall positive performance, some boutiques within Mackenzie are facing challenges in net sales due to underperformance in certain funds. Addressing this gap is crucial for maintaining market competitiveness. The emphasis is on enhancing the range and quality of available investment products to better meet client needs.

Adviser Engagement and Client Experience

IG Wealth Management has improved its ranking in adviser perception studies, with significant progress made in enhancing client engagement. The focus on expanding share of wallet with existing clients and attracting new advisers continues to be a strategic priority, indicative of a long-term growth outlook.

Earnings Call Transcript 2024-Q3

[Operator]

Thank you for standing by. This is the conference operator. Welcome to the IGM Financial Third Quarter 2024 Analyst Call and Webcast. [Operator Instructions] The conference is being recorded.

I would now like to turn the conference over to Kyle Martens, Treasurer and Head of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

[Kyle Martens, executive]

Thank you, Betsy, and good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us for our third quarter earnings call.

Joining me on the call today, we have James O'Sullivan, President and CEO of IGM Financial; Damon Murchison, President and CEO of IG Wealth Management; Luke Gould, President and CEO of Mackenzie Investments; and Keith Potter, Executive Vice President and CFO of IGM Financial.

Before we get started, I would like to draw your attention to our cautions concerning forward-looking statements on Slide 3 of the presentation. Slides 4 and 5 summarize the non-IFRS financial measures and other financial measures used in this material. And on Slide 6, we provide a list of documents that are available on our website related to our third quarter results.

I'll now turn it over to James.

[James O'Sullivan, executive]

Thank you, Kyle, and good morning, everyone.

Turning to Slide 9. We continue to execute on our growth strategy across IGM, and we demonstrated great progress during the third quarter. Adjusted earnings per share for the quarter were $1.03, up 12% year-over-year and our second best adjusted Q3 EPS on record. Total client assets, including our proportionate share of strategic investments, increased 23% year-over-year to $462 billion at the end of September, with each of the companies achieving all-time record high asset levels.

Wealth managers, IG Wealth, Wealthsimple and Rockefeller continue to execute on their strategies to deliver their client value promise, acquiring new client relationships and driving scale through asset expansion. Specifically, on IG Wealth, I am particularly pleased with the growing evidence that they have successfully pivoted to delivering financial planning and investment management services to high net worth Canadians. Many years of investment are now clearly bearing fruit.

Asset managers, Mackenzie, ChinaAMC and Northleaf continue to drive strong asset growth, leveraging their competitive advantages to deliver relevant investment solutions to retail and institutional clients in Canada and across the globe. Damon and Luke will speak on these points in a moment, while Keith will also speak to how Wealthsimple's ongoing success drove an increase in the fair value of our ownership position in the company. We continue to invest to drive further growth, while returning $160 million of capital to our shareholders through our attractive dividend and our share buyback program, which continues to be active.

Turning to the current operating environment for our businesses, starting with recent financial market conditions on Slide 10. Both equity and fixed income markets continued to reflect and support improvements in investor sentiment. Our clients achieved investment returns of over 5% during the quarter. On an LTM basis, our clients experienced an average return of over 20%. This is an important point that emphasizes the value of long-term client relationships centered around financial planning and advice, especially considering the uncertainty that clients faced over that period.

Continuing on Slide 11. The operating environment in Canada continued to improve during the quarter with positive long-term mutual fund net sales overall. With improving investor sentiment, lower inflation and moderating interest rates, the macro industry backdrop is likely on the cusp of becoming a tailwind for our Canadian retail-focused businesses after what has been a challenging 2-year period. We continue to expect gradual improvement to persist over the coming quarters, provided financial markets remain steady and interest rate cuts continue to alleviate some of the pressure felt by Canadian households over the past 2 years.

On Slide 12, you'll see how our year-over-year earnings growth was driven by both the Wealth Management and Asset Management segments, up 10% and 16%, respectively.

I want to pause on Slide 13 to emphasize the strong double-digit-plus asset growth across each of our businesses, which together drove the 23% increase at the consolidated IGM level. Each of our Wealth and Asset Management businesses are executing well and driving growth within their unique industry context, and the horizontal connectivity across these businesses continues to unlock new learnings and opportunities to add value for our clients and other stakeholders.

With that, I'll turn the call over to Damon, who will speak to the performance in our Wealth Management segment. Damon?

[Damon Murchison, executive]

Thank you, James, and good morning, everyone. Turning to Slide 15 and Wealth Management's third quarter highlights, including IG Wealth, Rockefeller and Wealthsimple. During the quarter, we saw record high ending AUM&A as well as third quarter records for total new client and existing client gross inflows. The record existing client inflows are important. We have proven our ability to acquire new clients through various market conditions. This quarter, we also demonstrated our investments are supporting our ability to expand share of wallet with our existing clients. This is an outcome that we're focused on and expect to continue going forward.

Focusing in on the numbers, IG Wealth ended the quarter with AUA of $136.4 billion, up a solid 19% year-over-year and up 5.2% during the third quarter, driven by financial markets. Within that figure, 1 million-plus clients now represent $58.3 billion or 43% of our AUM&A, up 43% from a year ago. Gross inflows during the quarter were $3.4 billion, with gross sales into IGM product at $3.3 billion.

Net inflows from the quarter were $330 million and were $144 million during October. Net sales into IGM product were $313 million for the quarter and $177 million during October. It's now 3 of the last 4 months where net sales have exceeded net inflows. As we spoke to, while interest rates and cash balances are rising, we knew that this point would come as our advisers work with their clients, we are confident that we will see clients continue to actively dollar average cost back into the markets driving net sales.

Total gross inflows from newly acquired clients were $1 billion with the mass affluent and high net worth segments representing almost 3/4 of these inflows. We continue to see strength in our insurance business and positive progress within our mortgage business. And once again, this year, we ranked as leaders amongst our peers in the Investment Executive Dealers' Report Card. Both Rockefeller and Wealthsimple had very strong quarters, and I'll speak to both in the coming slides.

Turning to Slide 16. You can see IG's Q3 flows. As you can see on the left, both October and Q3 represented our best gross inflows on record, while on the right-hand side, you can see a continuation of positive momentum in both our net inflows and IGM product net sales. As clients dollar average cost back into the market, we are now seeing decreases in cash, GICs and HISAs. This quarter proves that we have and continue to make the right investments to allow our advisers to work with their clients to build, quantify, preserve and distribute wealth as we move towards a more positive operating environment.

Turn to Slide 17, 2 brief comments here. The top left, you will see an increase of approximately 11% in gross inflows, which is complemented by a year-over-year decrease in our gross outflows rate, the first decrease since Q1 '22. In the middle of the top, you can see the decrease in cash, GICs and HISA balances.

Turning to Slide 18. As mentioned, the $1 billion of gross inflows from newly acquired clients during the third quarter represented our best third quarter for new client acquisition in our history. We continue to execute well on growing our AUM&A within our target market. We fully expect to see further progress as Canadians' needs for financial planning advice continues to rise.

Turning to Slide 19, an illustration of our progress within our targeted client segments. In 2018, we directed our focus to mass affluent and high net worth clients, focusing on our investments, partnerships and business processes to support these 2 important segments. Through new clients and expanding our share of wallet with existing clients, both of these segments now represent AUM&A, which is well above $50 billion. The mass affluent and high net worth clients now represent 83% of our AUM&A, up from 69% at the end of 2018. Correspondingly, these 2 important segments now represent 37% of our total clients, up from 23% over the same period. We expect to see a continuation of this growth as we build our business to align with the industry's wealth drivers.

Turning to Slide 20. We've introduced a new slide here, which focuses on our mortgage and insurance business. While there are no new disclosures on this slide, it's important to surface these metrics as we show the important progress that we're making in both businesses, businesses that complement the needs of our target segments and support our expansion for share of wallet. We'll continue to provide updates for these businesses on a quarterly basis.

Moving to Slide 21. IG Wealth ranked extremely well in the Investment Executive 2024 Dealers' Report Card, including a Net Promoter Score that continues to place us among the top half when compared to the full-service brokerage arms of the big 5 banks. While overall we continue to rank above average versus our peers, this slide also illustrates the categories where IG ranked in the #1 position. These are meaningful as these categories represent where we have invested to build capabilities to elevate our adviser and client experience against the mass affluent and high net worth segments.

Turning to Slide 22, some updates on Rockefeller's progress. Client assets are up 33% year-over-year and 6% during the quarter, driven by strong inorganic and organic growth. Over the last 12 months, organic growth has driven $6.8 billion in client assets. Rockefeller also continues to add to their private adviser network with 52 new advisers being added over the last 12 months.

Turning to Slide 23 and Wealthsimple. It was another record-setting quarter of AUA growth at Wealthsimple. Wealthsimple's AUA increased by $8.5 billion during the quarter, ending with over $52 billion in assets, up 20% sequentially and 109% on a year-over-year basis. Client count also expanded by 16% year-over-year to 2.6 million Canadians.

With that, I'll turn it over to Luke Gould.

[Luke Gould, executive]

Great. Thank you, Damon, and good morning, everyone. Turning to Page 25, you'll see a few highlights for Mackenzie and Asset Management for the quarter. Record high AUM of $212 billion is up 13.8% in the last year and 5% in the quarter, driven by continuing strong client returns. We're pleased to see improving investor confidence in the quarter with meaningful year-over-year improvement in gross to net sales. Net redemptions of $296 million in the quarter compared to $700 million last year, and we saw similar improvements in October and positive net sales of $52 million in the month.

We received the results of the 2024 Adviser Perception Study in September, and we're proud of the results. Our overall score improved, and we saw improvements across many dimensions. We remain #2 in adviser sales penetration, the percentage of advisers actively selling our products, and we are #2 across all 3 adviser types, brokers, planners and insurers. We also maintained our #2 rank on brand. Our overall score remains #2 relative to large players. And of the 22 rated firms, we ranked #4 this year, down from third last year as a result of a smaller firm newly included in the study.

In the fourth section, we had a busy launch cycle this period focused on active equity ETFs and quant. We launched 4 active equity ETFs in the period in places where we have strong capabilities in relevant spaces. This brings our total of year-to-date active ETF launches to 8, and this complements our successful active fixed income ETF offerings, which we introduced in 2016 to 2018. We also launched 3 mandates advised by our global quant equity boutique in the period, and we've launched 9 year-to-date for this boutique as we trailblazed quant investing in retail with our very strong Boston-based quant team.

In the bottom left, you can see we established a partnership with CGI during the period on back-office processing to ensure an industry-leading client experience. Through this expanded partnership with CGI, we will automate and improve our platform to ensure a leading client experience for the thousands of advisers and over 1 million retail clients who rely on our plan administration and processing capabilities. This partnership builds on our proven track record of partnering to leverage the scale and expertise of global leaders. And we're proud to partner with CGI, a Canadian firm with such strong capabilities and similar values to our own as an employer.

During the quarter, we continue to see strong net sales at ChinaAMC, where long-term investment fund AUM is up 46% in the year and 23% in the quarter. Noteworthy in the quarter, obviously, was government stimulus focused on domestic equity markets, which led to solid investment returns at the end of the quarter, with equity markets up 25% in the last week of the quarter and about 15% during the full quarter. Also noteworthy was continued market share gains at ChinaAMC, driven by their KRW 96 billion or around $18 billion in net flows this quarter. And in the bottom right, you can see Northleaf continues its trend of averaging around $1 billion in fundraising each quarter. And this quarter, they raised $1.5 billion and nearly $5 billion over last year, diversified across their private equity, private credit and infrastructure offerings.

Turning to Page 26, you can see the trended history of Mackenzie's net flows. As mentioned, we started to see our year-over-year gross sales improvements with a 20% improvement in Q3 and a 30% improvement in October. This has been accompanied by a peak in redemption rates, and we see net sales starting to improve in the context of an improving industry environment. While we have year-over-year net sales declines within a few of our larger boutiques with softer near-term investment performance, which I'll view, we are seeing very good sales momentum in many of our other offerings that have very compelling performance within very large categories.

Turning to Page 27, just a few quick remarks. In the top right, you can see that overall Morningstar ratings at September 30 by share of assets remains relatively consistent with June 30. In the table on the bottom left, you can see we have seen improvements in both retail and institutional investment fund net sales. I want to call it institutional, where institutional investment funds have been quite strong with improvements through our partnerships with Primerica, Laurentian and Wealthsimple. And while retail started to improve, it remains in net redemptions and slightly behind the industry net sales rate as we referenced in the last slide.

Turning to Page 28, you can see our performance in net sales for our retail mutual funds and ETFs by boutique. As we spoke to last quarter, we are seeing some short-term relative underperformance within our Bluewater and Greenchip boutiques, though I will reiterate, gross sales remains resilient, and these boutiques continue to manage in line with their disciplined approaches and continue to have very strong long-term track records. Across other boutiques, I'd highlight the growing net sales within the global quant equity and the global equity and income boutiques, where we have very compelling performance within very large product categories. I'd also highlight on the top right, the strong performance of our Putnam-advised U.S. All-Cap growth mandate, which is included in this column and is a very strong 5-star fund.

Turning to Page 29. You can see the regular view of the Chinese investment fund industry. On the left-hand side at the bottom, you can see that the third quarter saw slight net redemptions overall driven by money market funds, and this was partially offset by long-term fund net sales of KRW 59 billion. Industry long-term fund AUM grew by 6% during the quarter and is up 18% year-over-year. And I'd highlight, while domestic equity markets generally increased by 15% in the quarter, driven by the government stimulus, over 55% of industry long-term fund assets are actually fixed income. And so that muted part of the increase that you'd expect from the stock market increases. On the right, you can see ChinaAMC's continued strong market position, ranked #2 in both long-term funds and overall investment funds with very good increases in market share in the quarter and in the last year.

Turning to Page 30, you can see continued growth in ChinaAMC's AUM with investment fund assets up 11% in the quarter and 34% year-over-year. Total investment fund net flows in the quarter were KRW 30 billion. And as mentioned earlier, long-term fund net flows were KRW 96 billion or CAD 18 billion. As reviewed at Investor Day by our CEO, Yimei Li, ChinaAMC is the market leader in ETFs in the Chinese domestic industry and strong flows to ETFs in the period was a key contributor to these strong net sales.

And on Page 31, you can see another quarter of continued strong growth at Northleaf with $1.5 billion in new commitments in the quarter and $4.8 billion over the last 12 months. The fundraising during the quarter was well diversified across Canadian and international investors and spread fairly equally across private credit, private equity and infrastructure investments.

I'll now turn the call over to Keith Potter.

[Keith Potter, executive]

Thank you, Luke, and good morning, everyone.

On Slide 33, you can see key highlights for Q3. As James commented, adjusted EPS was $1.03, excluding other items of Lifeco. And adjusted earnings are up 12% year-over-year, our second highest third quarter on record. We returned $160 million to shareholders in the quarter through the quarterly dividend and continue to be active with our NCIB program, repurchasing $27 million in shares. With the continued exceptional performance of Wealthsimple, which Damon spoke to already, we have marked up the fair value of our investment by 46% to $1.2 billion. I'll speak more to this on a later slide.

Turning to Slide 34. You can see our AUM&A and flows coming off a strong first half for market returns and asset growth. Q3 got off to a rocky start, but ended up almost 5% with average assets increasing by a respectable 3.1%, and on a trailing 12-month basis, average AUM&A is up approximately 7%.

Turning to Slide 35, we have our consolidated earnings, up 12% year-over-year and 11% sequentially. On point 2, as guided last quarter, our operations and support and business development expenses were up 5.1%. And on a year-to-date basis, expenses are up 3.5%, and we continue to guide to 4% growth for the full year over 2023, and we look forward to providing our 2025 expense guidance on the February call.

On Slide 36, we present the key profitability drivers for IG Wealth. I highlight a couple of points here. On the left, you can see average AUM&A was up 3.7% over last quarter. And on the right, the advisory fee rate is in line with our guidance and reflects the quarterly increase in market returns as clients moved up wealth bands. This includes our continued success with the acquisition of mass affluent and high net worth clients and strong flows from existing clients that Damon spoke to.

On Slide 37, IG overall earnings were $125.5 million in Q3, up 10.8% year-over-year and 12.3% sequentially. And on point 1, advisory and product and program fees were up year-over-year and relative to last quarter, driven by AUM&A growth. On point 2, other financial planning revenues reflect continued strong performance in the insurance business and are impacted by fair value adjustments in the mortgage business. During the quarter, the downward movement of swap rates drove a negative fair value adjustment of approximately $4 million from hedges on mortgages pending sale that did not qualify for hedge accounting, but were effective economically. The insurance business had another quarter of growth relative to Q3 2023, and it was in line with our expectations following a very strong growth in the first half of the year. And as a reminder, other product commissions will move in a similar direction as revenue, and you can see in the table under point 2 that this was 64% of revenue this quarter.

Moving to Slide 38. We have Mackenzie's AUM by client and product type as well as net revenue rates. On the left, you can see average AUM is up 2.8%. And on the right, all rates remain relatively unchanged versus last quarter.

Turning to Slide 39. You can see Mackenzie's earnings of $59.4 million is up 5.1% year-over-year and 6.3% sequentially. With higher AUM, net asset management fees are up year-over-year and relative to Q2, and higher net investment income reflects seed capital returns from positive market growth in the quarter.

Slide 40 has ChinaAMC results. First, on the left, AUM increased 9.2% versus last quarter, and growth came from very strong market returns in the last few days of September. And given the timing of the market rally, average AUM increased by only 2% in the quarter. And on the right, you can see ChinaAMC's earnings of $32.9 million. As called out in the slide, the late quarter market rally resulted in positive fair value adjustments from seed capital. There were also some other onetime items impacting the quarter. And adjusting for this, Q3 earnings would have been more in line with Q2.

Slide 41 has earnings contributions from companies in each segment. A couple of comments. First, Rockefeller was close to breakeven this quarter and expect to see continued progress toward positive earnings. And Northleaf earnings of $2.7 million are up from 2023 and also reflect continued investment in the business.

Slide 42 provides a summary view of earnings and ownership and value of our strategic investments by segment. On Wealthsimple, we have revised the fair value upward based on public peer valuations and revisions to revenue expectations. And in addition, and as noted in our press release, our valuation of Wealthsimple is also informed by a secondary transaction with a third-party investor that is expected to close in the fourth quarter.

From an IGM valuation perspective, our strategic investments now represent approximately $5.9 billion in value. And as a reminder, Wealthsimple is fair value through OCI, and Rockefeller currently does not contribute to earnings, but both have significant value.

Slide 43 highlights execution against our capital allocation priorities. We continue to execute on our share repurchases during the quarter, while maintaining financial flexibility with leverage remaining at 1.6x and unallocated capital increasing to approximately $450 million during the quarter.

That concludes my remarks. And I'll turn it over for questions.

[Operator]

[Operator Instructions] The first question today comes from Tom MacKinnon with BMO.

[Tom MacKinnon, analyst]

A question with respect to -- if you can give us any indication as to what you're thinking about for the expense guide for 2025. It might be a little bit premature, but is the 4% that you had sort of guided for, for 2024, what would -- is there any -- maybe you can give us some color as to whether that should apply for 2025 as well? And how that might be related to -- if we had better markets or worse markets, how that might impact what you'd be thinking about for the expense guide for 2025?

[Keith Potter, executive]

Great, Tom, it's Keith here. Yes, we're currently working through the 2025 plan, and we'll share more details in February. But we have been pretty consistent commenting that in the next couple of years, we do expect to invest in the business as we have this year. And I think, as you're thinking about 2024 and modeling, 2024 expense guidance, like you mentioned, 4% is -- we're going to be in a reasonable range to that. So that would be a good assumption as you think through 2025. To the extent that we continue to have market rally or we continue with that perspective, and as we've demonstrated in the past with extreme volatility in the marketplace, we make decisions at that point in time depending on the circumstances, but we are committed to growing and strengthening our businesses.

[Tom MacKinnon, analyst]

Where do you see the most investments needed in the business?

[Keith Potter, executive]

Yes. I think there's a few areas. Technology continues to be an area of investment. Luke commented on our back office expansion with CGI. We commented on middle office in the past. So we're going to continue to see investments there. At IG Wealth Management, it would be similar for adviser client platforms. We have a leading technology platform for advisers today, and we'll continue with that. And then there's also a commitment to build out our mortgage banking and insurance platforms.

[Tom MacKinnon, analyst]

And have those investments kind of picked up more so than this 4% that you would have guided to for 2024?

[Keith Potter, executive]

Tom, we're achieving what we want to achieve in terms of investments in these parts of our business within that guidance that we provided in 2024. It's just finding efficiencies along the way and reinvesting those to achieve these investments in these areas.

[Operator]

The next question comes from Graham Ryding with TD Securities.

[Graham Ryding, analyst]

Maybe what can you share -- with the increase in value for the Wealthsimple stake, what can you share about the secondary transaction, if anything? I know it closes next quarter, but is there any detail that you can provide there? And then secondly, like of the 3 factors that you cited, peer multiples, then performance of the business and then this third-party transaction, which ones or which one would have had the biggest sort of impact on the fair value increase?

[Keith Potter, executive]

Graham, it's Keith again here. Yes, in terms of the fair value increase, maybe the last point, the first thing we look to is an identifiable transaction. It is a meaningful third-party transaction. And you can think about the value that we're placing on Wealthsimple being right on top of that particular transaction. Having said that, we do look at the performance of the company, revenue expectations, as well as just what's happening in the industry in terms of market multiples, and it's all aligned. But really, the value that we put on Wealthsimple is very much in line with the third-party transaction.

[Graham Ryding, analyst]

Okay. That's helpful. You did -- at IG Wealth, you flagged that, I think, 43% of the assets that are being held by households with greater than $1 million in sort of household assets. Is there much change to that sort of overall client mix or AUA mix year-over-year? I know there's been a big change since 2018, but what about more on the near-term, has there been much progress on that front?

[Damon Murchison, executive]

Yes, Graham, it's Damon here. So we've been making steady progress over the last 4 years on this. And quite frankly, it's just accelerating. So when you take a look at our success in both mass affluent and high net worth, we are doing -- our advisers are doing a great job at, first of all, identifying them; second of all, about sharing what we do as an organization and our value proposition and then bringing them in-house. We're also doing a very good job at recruiting advisers. It's something that we don't talk a lot about, but this is a destination of choice for a lot of advisers that are looking to focus on true financial planning for their costs. So I would say to you, over the last 12 months, we've made significant progress.

[Graham Ryding, analyst]

Okay. So that 43% of assets that are in households greater than $1 million, that's slightly higher than what it was last year?

[Damon Murchison, executive]

It is definitely higher than it was last year.

[Graham Ryding, analyst]

And then -- great. And then my next question would just be for Luke. It looks like your ETF sales are solid. Your mutual fund sales long-term fund, they tend to be -- they seem to be lagging the industry long-term fund sales trend. And maybe just what needs to happen in your view to get that -- those Mackenzie mutual fund flows to sort of catch up? Is it heavily dependent on the performance here at Bluewater and Greenchip? Or is it more than that?

[Luke Gould, executive]

Thanks, Graham. On Page 28, you can see the boutiques. And I remind, we have this boutique approach. And again, we believe it inhibits a whole bunch of things like group think, which are very good and gives us a diversified roster to have something relevant and compelling for all client needs and in all market environments.

Right now, you hit the nail on the head. We've got some softness in Bluewater and in Greenchip in terms of flows. And that's what we need is for the places we have strength in places with compelling performance in relevant categories to overtake it, and we're starting to see that happen. So we've got both of those tailwinds, one being an improving industry environment, combined with a bunch of stuff on the shelf that has some real compelling performance in really relevant categories. So we think we are on the right track, but those are the 2 things that's going to take right now.

[Operator]

[Operator Instructions] The next question comes from Jaeme Gloyn with NBF.

[Jaeme Gloyn, analyst]

Yes, I just wanted to dig in a little bit more on that Mackenzie question again. Obviously, like #2 brand in Canada, #2 sales penetration. Like we've heard about the Bluewater and Greenchip, I think, for a few quarters now. But like where is the gap here? Like why is it lagging so significantly over the last few -- like a few quarters here, basically since 2024 relative to the industry?

[James O'Sullivan, executive]

Good question, Jaeme. So right now, we've got about 6% of our assets in 5-star funds. And when you look at flows right now in this quarter and the last one, flows have been extremely concentrated within very few products in the industry. Right now, we're very fortunate with our global quant equity team, global equity and income team, and [ quant advice ] mandates. We have some very strong performance in these categories, and we're pushing. But right now, if you wanted one single tagline is, we don't have as many 5-star funds as we typically do, and there has been a lot of concentration in a very few key mandates in the industry.

[Jaeme Gloyn, analyst]

Okay. And is there anything from like, let's say, like a distribution channel where you're seeing that miss the rest of the industry?

[James O'Sullivan, executive]

Yes, not at all. We feel we're well set up in terms of distribution. We like where we're at. I'd also highlight, if you look at kind of our peers' net sales rates and how they travel, with our boutique approach, and we don't take it for granted, we've got the most resilient net sales in the industry. And so right now, we're lagging by a little bit the industry rate. But for most players in the industry, it's kind of feast or famine in relation to us. So we've got a very resilient net sales. We're always very close to the industry rate in good times and bad times. And right now, we are focused on getting back above the industry net sales rate, and we are pushing on the things that are most compelling in this environment.

[Jaeme Gloyn, analyst]

Yes. So just on what you said there, like the feast or famine, could you just give us a little bit more color in terms of like who's feasting and who's starving out there, assuming Mackenzie is kind of in the middle?

[James O'Sullivan, executive]

Yes. I'd say we're very close to the industry, right. Right now, Fidelity is doing very well. They've got -- they're the industry leader, and they've got very strong performance in a lot of mandates, a lot of 5-star funds, and so they've captured a lot of the flows in the last period, if you look. PIMCO is another fund company that's obviously done quite well, and Dynamics had success in their premium yield offering. So we're focused on what we do well. We've got a very broad offering. And yes, there's been some very concentrated flows in the industry in the last 2 quarters.

[Jaeme Gloyn, analyst]

Okay. Understood. Then a quick one for the IG Wealth. Net Promoter Score looks pretty good relative to the big 6 banks. Has that been consistent? Has that improved over the last few years? Can you give us a bit more of a time line on how that Net Promoter Score has progressed?

[Damon Murchison, executive]

Yes, Jamie, it's Damon. I believe over the last few years, we've seen very strong Net Promoter Scores relative to what the banks have been producing on the full-service brokerage side. So if you take a look at it, I would say, in 2022, we started to make a move. 2023 was quite strong. And in 2024, it's also quite strong. So, I'd start with 2022, so it's a build. It follows kind of what we've been doing and the build of our platform, the build of our advice capabilities and what we're doing at the organization.

[Jaeme Gloyn, analyst]

Okay. Great. And then, last one for Keith. Just to refresh on the dividend payout ratio. I believe you've kind of said you want to see it get to adjusted cash earnings of 60% or below. Is that something you'll look at more on like a retroactive, so looking backwards as opposed to maybe looking out at the next year and having some more confidence in markets and the potential earnings coming off of that -- cash earnings coming off of that. So what's your frame of mind? Is it looking backwards? Or will you look forward in terms of thinking about that dividend?

[Keith Potter, executive]

Jaeme, it's Keith here. Yes, we're currently at about 68% on an adjusted basis, looking at LTM. That's historically how we've looked at it when we've said we obviously approach the Board and have that conversation. But I would say, we look at it -- we look at a number of factors. We look at the past, the future running off of the current run rate. But I think when we start getting closer to 60%, we'll be looking at from a number of different dynamics.

[James O'Sullivan, executive]

Jaeme, it's James. Look, I would just add that it continues to be my view that we need more growth more than we need more yield. And so you should expect our focus to continue to be in growing EPS.

[Operator]

This concludes our question-and-answer session. I would like to turn the conference back over to Kyle Martens for any closing remarks.

[Kyle Martens, executive]

Thank you, Betsy. And we'd just like to thank everyone once again for joining us on the call this morning, and wish everyone a good weekend here. Thanks, Betsy. And with that, we'll end today's conference call.

[Operator]

This brings an end to today's conference call. You may disconnect your lines. Thank you for participating, and have a pleasant day.