Canaccord Genuity Group Inc. ($CF)

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for standing by. I'd like to welcome everyone to the Canaccord Genuity Group Inc. Fiscal 2026 Fourth Quarter Results Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] As a reminder, this conference call is being broadcast live online and recorded. I would now like to turn the conference call over to Mr. Dan Daviau, Chairman and CEO. Please go ahead, Mr. Daviau.

Thank you, operator, and welcome to everyone joining today's call. As always, I'm joined by our Chief Financial Officer, Nadine Ahn. Our remarks today are complementary to our earnings release, MD&A and supplemental financials, copies of which have been made available for download on SEDAR us and on the Investor Relations section of our website at cgf.com. Within our update, certain reported information has been adjusted to exclude significant items to provide a transparent and comparative view of our operating performance. These adjustment items are non-IFRS measures. Please refer to our notice regarding forward-looking statements and the description of non-IFRS measures that appear in our MD&A. And with that, let's discuss the fourth quarter and fiscal 2026 results. [indiscernible] began on a constructive note, with the markets rising in January on strong earnings and enthusiasm around AI-driven productivity, balance of the 3-month period is geopolitical conflict sharp moves in oil, bond and currencies and a rotation away from growth in technology weighed on investor confidence. Gold prices also reflected the broader volatility, reaching a record high in January before entering a multi-week sell-off and declining nearly 17% by quarter end. Against this backdrop, our teams remain focused on disciplined execution, supporting a solid quarterly result and a strong finish to the fiscal year. Firm-wide revenue of $613 million was 33% year-over-year, representing our third highest quarterly revenue on record. For the full fiscal year, revenue reached a record $2.2 billion, reflecting an operating model designed to protect shareholder value across market cycles. The fourth quarter revenue contribution from our capital market division increased by 37% year-over-year. This reflected stronger investment banking and commission and fees revenue led by our Canadian and Australian businesses, where mining sector activity remained robust, although modestly below the exceptional levels achieved in the prior quarter. Our Canadian business also delivered an exceptional advisory result in the quarter. For fiscal 2026, Capital markets revenue increased to its highest level since fiscal 2022. The -- this performance reflected robust underwriting activity in Australia, strong underwriting and advisory activity in Canada and disciplined execution across our global platform. We continue to rank among the league table leaders in our target sectors and continue to maintain our position as the most active mid-market dealer globally. During the year, we participated in 472 capital-raising transactions, raising more than $63 billion for growth companies, a 70% increase over the prior year. Our Wealth Management division delivered its tenth consecutive quarter of revenue growth, which brought fiscal 2026 revenue earned by this division to a record $1.1 billion, up 24% and from fiscal 2025. Growth in the 3- and 12-month period was led by stronger commission and fee revenue, reflecting higher client engagement levels as market conditions improved. Results in our Canadian and Australian business also been based revenue, particularly from new issue activity, which typically carries higher margins but is more market dependent. While this has been a positive contributor in recent quarters, margin progression in these businesses may moderate as activity levels normalize. We ended the year with record client assets of $148 billion, up 23% year-over-year, driven by market appreciation, strong organic net inflows and the addition of Wilson Advisory in Australia. We continue platform through targeted recruitment, expanded product capabilities and selective acquisitions strengthening our ability to attract and retain assets, drive net inflows and improve the quality of earnings over time. Across the organization, we continue to manage expenses carefully, while maintaining disciplined investment in areas that support long-term growth. Excluding significant items, firm-wide pretax net income increased 176% year-over-year to $89 million in the fourth quarter and adjusted diluted earning per share rose to 300% to $0.48. For the full year, adjusted diluted earnings per share were $1.26, and up 107%, reflecting stronger operating leverage and improved profitability across the platform. Throughout the year, we took deliberate steps to allocate resources and capital to the areas where we can deliver the greatest value to clients and compete most effectively. In Australia, the Wilsons Advisory acquisition materially strengthened our platform, adding 60 advisers and establishing a truly national wealth management footprint. Bringing complementary talent and relationships to our capital markets business in the region. In the U.S., the acquisition of CRC enabled the formation of our new energy transformation group. Deepening our capabilities in the higher-growth advisory segments while strengthening our offering for sustainability sector clients and related mandates across our broader sector platform. And with that, I will turn things over to Nadine.

Thank you, Dan, and good morning, everyone. As Dan mentioned, we delivered very strong fourth quarter results and capped the year with record revenue and materially improved profitability. Firm-wide pretax net income for the fourth fiscal quarter increased 176% year-over-year to $89 million, bringing full year pretax net income to $263 million up 76% from fiscal 2025. This translates to adjusted diluted earnings per share of $0.48 in the quarter, up 300% year-over-year and $1.26 for fiscal 2026, an increase of 107% over the prior year. While a more supportive market backdrop contributed to top line growth, operating discipline drove significantly stronger profitability. For fiscal 2026, our pretax operating margin improved by 3.5 percentage points compared to fiscal 2025. Firm-wide noncompensation expenses, excluding significant items, were $155 million in the fourth quarter and $601 million for fiscal 2026. With the full year increase reflecting acquisition-related growth, higher activity levels and continued investment in our platforms. Our non-compensation expense ratio improved by 5.6 percentage points year-over-year to 27.2%. The Compensation expense increased with stronger performance across the organization in addition to changes in our revenue mix, -- while share-based compensation increased year-over-year primarily due to mark-to-market changes in the valuation of certain awards. Our firm-wide compensation ratio was 60.9% for fiscal 2026. Turning to business unit performance. Capital Markets contributed adjusted pretax net income of $58 million in the fourth quarter, bringing the fiscal 2026 contribution to $141 million, an increase of 222% from the prior year. The adjusted pretax profit margin in this division was 20% in the fourth quarter, driven by stronger revenue and improved operating leverage. Fiscal 2026 margin was 13.5% and up 8.2 percentage points from the prior year. On a consolidated basis, capital markets revenue increased 37% year-over-year to $292 million in the fourth quarter and 26% to $1 billion for fiscal 2026. The year-over-year increase in the quarter was driven primarily by higher investment banking revenue, up 161% along with stronger advisory and commissions and fees revenue. Activity in the metals and mining sector continued to support stronger performance in Canada and Australia, where we have established sector depth. We are also seeing improvement across our other core sectors, although the pace and consistency of activity remain more variable, particularly in the U.S. and U.K. Advisory revenue was $119 million in the fourth quarter, up 32% year-over-year, with our U.S. operations remaining the largest contributor and Canada delivering a particularly strong quarter. For fiscal 2026, advisory revenue of $312 million represented the third highest annual result on record for this business line. Commissions and fees revenue increased 26% year-over-year to $53 million in the quarter and by 25% for the full year, while trading revenue declined materially, primarily due to the sale of the U.S. wholesale market making business. With the sale of that business and the addition of CRC, the revenue mix and earnings quality of our U.S. capital markets franchise improved during fiscal 2026 and we expect those changes to support stronger margin performance over time. Turning to Wealth Management. Revenue of $307 million in the fourth quarter and $1.1 billion for fiscal 2026 represented year-over-year increases of 28% and 24%, respectively, and new records for each period. Fourth quarter revenue growth was driven primarily by commissions and fees revenue of $248 million, up 30% year-over-year, reflecting higher contributions from all geographies as well as higher investment banking revenue in Canada and Australia. For the fiscal year, we recorded meaningful increases in all regions. Enhanced performance in Australia also reflected contributions from our acquisition of Wilson Advisory, which was completed in the second half of our fiscal year. The adjusted pretax net income for our Global Wealth Management division increased 10% year-over-year to $45 million in the fourth quarter, bringing the full year contribution to $195 million up 31% from fiscal 2025. The U.K. remained the largest contributor to wealth management earnings in the 3- and 12-month periods, while Canada delivered strong year-over-year improvement and Australia continued to scale following the Wilsons acquisition. As Dan noted, Canada and Australia produced particularly strong operating leverage, while margins in the U.K. and Crown dependencies declined modestly. This reflected higher general and administrative and development costs to support growth initiatives as well as higher compensation ratio driven by increased fixed compensation to support higher head count. Client assets ended the year at a record $148 billion, up 23% year-over-year. Growth was driven by market appreciation, acquisitions and positive net inflows across the platform. In the U.K. and Crown dependencies, client assets finished the year at $74 billion or GBP 40 billion in local currency, up 7% and 8% year-over-year, respectively. Supported by market growth and positive net new asset flows. Client assets in Canada reached a new record of $56 billion, up 30% year-over-year, reflecting higher market values positive net flows and enhanced adviser productivity. The average book per investment adviser team grew 29% year-over-year. Buying assets in Australia reached a new record of $18 billion, increasing $10 billion or 113% year-over-year with approximately $7 billion of that increase attributable to Wilsons Advisory. Across the wealth platform, increased scale, improving asset levels and continued investment in growth initiatives position the business well as we move into fiscal 2027. Although margin progression will continue to vary by geography depending on investment levels and revenue mix. During the fourth quarter, in connection with the completion of the Wilsons acquisition, the holding company for Australian operations completed a rights offering. As expected, this reduced our ownership percentage in the Australian business with our beneficial ownership decreasing from 65% to 52.4%. For accounting purposes, our ownership as of March 31 is reflected at 54.6%, which includes shares held in an employee trust controlled by the Australian holding company compared to 68.4% a year ago. Turning to the balance sheet. We ended the year with cash and cash equivalents of $2 billion and working capital of $787 million, maintaining ample liquidity to support regulatory requirements, strategic priorities and ongoing business activity. For fiscal 2027, we expect our firm-wide pretax operating margin to improve by low single digits, supported by continued progress against our strategic priorities, improvements in operating leverage and ongoing firm-wide expense discipline. With that, I'll turn things back to Dan.

Thank you, Nadine. Our fourth quarter performance and the momentum we carried through fiscal 2026, which reflected strong execution, broader contributions across the platform and materially improved profit or of that performance is our partnership culture supports a long-term approach to servicing clients and driving value for our fellow shareholders. In Wealth Management, our priorities remains deepen fee-based relationships and continue to improve operative investments to support long-term growth and a stronger recurring revenue mix. We expect conditions across our core capital markets activities to remain broadly supportive, recognizing that geopolitical uncertainty, market volatility and shifts in investor sentiment could affect the pace and timing of activity. We have good visibility on strong advisory pipelines in Canada and the U.S., and our outlook for corporate financing remains constructive. -- supported by improving activity levels across our core focus sectors. We also continue to evaluate strategic opportunities with the objective of maximizing long-term value for our shareholders while maintaining continuity and high standards of service for our clients. As previously disclosed, this includes our ongoing assessment of a range of strategic options for our wealth management business in the U.K. and Crown dependencies. To date, our activities have been limited to discussions and assessment of potential opportunities, and we expect this work to continue on an ongoing basis with no fixed time line for completion. The business remains a meaningful contributor to our financial performance, and we continue to see value in its role within our global wealth management operation. Having said that, I would direct you to the full statement included in last night's quarterly press release, and we will not be commenting further on this matter. Overall, the structural improvements we've made in our capital markets business, together with disciplined execution and selective investment in our wealth management platform leaves us well positioned to capture market share and support continued earnings momentum. Reflecting this confidence in our outlook, our Board has approved a 17.6% increase to our quarterly common share dividend to $0.10 per share as disclosed in last night's release. With that, Nadine and I would be pleased to take your questions. Operator, you may open the lines.

[Operator Instructions] First question comes from the line of Stephen Boland from Raymond James.

Daviau, you threw a lot of numbers out there on expenses. I'm wondering if you could maybe just separate the Canada and U.S. expenses and the improvement. Obviously, the Canadian expenses even quarter-over-quarter were pretty flat non-compensation I'm talking about -- so is that just a combination of -- you guys are working on a lot of projects on technology, compliance. Maybe just start with Canada first that this is kind of the flat run rate that we can expect. Obviously, you could grow, you're going to probably incur more expensive. I'm just trying to get a bit of a breakdown on Canada, and then may I have a specific question on U.S. expenses as well.

Sure. Thank you. So in terms of Canada, yes, we were running at a bit of an elevated -- we did have some onetime costs in there related to some pro fees given some of the activities we were engaging in from a strategic perspective. But in addition, we were running at probably a higher technology cost base due to some of our vendor contracts that we are working on remmitting in terms of -- into fiscal 2027. So for Canada, we do expect to see continued margin improvement, particularly in the wealth management business. In capital market you would expect that we would have seen the operating margin improvement. Costs did come down. We've been managing particularly in discretionary areas managing our travel and expense. So our productivity actually improved quite significantly in Canada on our capital market side of things. So from a run rate perspective, you would expect to see the Canadian wealth some decrease there related to some of our business-related non-comp expenses.

You sold the trading because of soft so we're getting, I guess, used to a new run rate. But is it the same story in the U.S. that you had some elevated obviously through the remediation onetime costs as well as the trading business, like how structural is this run rate now for this quarter? Because there was a meaningful?

Yes. A lot of that would have been driven, as you noted, off of the sale of our wholesale market main business, so the trading costs coming down there as well as our interest costs as it relates to the dividend positions. Going forward, though, in addition to the IEG removal, we expect to see given our elevated pro fees as we had completed our remediation work in the U.S. So we expect to see that move to a more normalized run rate that we would have seen a number of years ago. So that's going to benefit from a margin perspective overall. In addition, we'll start to see, given the revenue mix shift, in particular, we expect to see that margin improvement going into fiscal 2027. I would say, an improvement in the mid-single digits on that margin concerted focus area going forward in that regard.

Okay. I appreciate that. And Dan 1 for you, I guess. The -- in your outlook, I kind of -- and maybe I'm just reading this a little bit different, but kind of a mixed message about the outlook in terms of I'm not sure if it's the economy, the ability to capital raise, but it's a little bit more negative at the beginning. And then the last part, it was very kind of like positive for mid-market capital-raising advisory. And so I'm just trying to get maybe in your own words, like what your outlook is just say, for the next 12 months.

Yes. I think -- and you know better than most. I mean capital markets is difficult to predict even in a good time. We obviously have great visibility on M&A. The equity business is more difficult to predict, particularly in volatile markets. We've got wars going on. We've got the economies flying around. We've got a trade negotiation coming up. So if you're hearing some cautiousness. It's just nobody knows. Our M&A pipeline continues to be really strong. Some of that stuff gets pushed off occasionally, depending on what's happening in cross-border wars and all that kind of stuff. But our M&A pipeline continues to be really strong. We feel pretty confident there. And the new issue pipeline. In addition to everything else I said, is heavily concentrated into the mining sector. You can see that. I mean half Nadine roughly this quarter of our business is tied to the mining sector in Canada and Australia. And when you got that kind of exposure, you -- not that I have any reason not to be super excited by it, but you just would express some cautiousness around that. So I think we feel reasonably good about our business, reasonably good about our numbers, but it's just a tough business to predict unlike our wealth business, which is an incredibly easy business to predict.

Your next question comes from Jeff Fenwick from ATB Cormark.

I wanted to start off asking about the Canadian wealth management unit there. client inflows have been a very material contributor over the last year and quite an impressive result overall. Just wondering, was there something that was done there operationally or from a program perspective around maybe a new CRM platform or assistance with client are reach that assisted that? Or were the levers being pulled there or maybe it was just more related to the fact the market was doing very well and not just encouraged the inflows as well. But any color you could offer there?

In fairness, it's probably both, Jeff. But the -- we have an immense number of programs going around to increase our net organic assets. We obviously get our assets from three ways. We recruit advisers. That growth has been not significant this year, continues, but it hasn't been the primary driver. The market increase obviously drives assets, and it's been a good year in the market. And then finally, net organic flows of the cheapest way to grow your business is net organic flows of your existing advisers grow. So we give them a lot of tools. to increase their business. We've got a very phenomenal group of advisers who are incredibly entrepreneurial, who are materially increasing their operations. You've seen the average size of book per adviser grow substantially this year. That's not all market that's mainly net new assets. So we've got a great business there, and we've got a great set of tools, and we've got a great set of partners who will continue to grow. You haven't seen an increase so much in the number of teams because it's just the cycle of bigger advisers for smaller advisers. We're not looking to add a bunch of real estate and stuff like that. So that strategy continues to play out the way it has played out for the last decade, to be honest. So continue to be very excited by our Canadian wealth business and the prospects in front of it. And you can see that reflected in the numbers. And as Nadine mentioned on the cost, we continue to spend money there. That's -- when you see those costs not going down, it's because we're investing in that side of the business, and we'll continue to invest in that side of the business.

Okay. That's helpful color. And then maybe I'll circle back on to the OpEx discussion here. Maybe in the U.K., that's 1 where we've seen the G&A line sort of progressively creep higher here. Maybe some commentary on that where the focus has been there and what we can expect going forward?

Yes. In the U.K., I mean, we've built out quite a bit in terms of our tools to support our advisers there as well. So that continues to be an investment that we make within the firm. Also, we noted that there was some increased head count just in terms of as we not only take on new acquisitions, but also upskill some of our complement in terms of helping to manage the size and scale of the business that we have right now. You would have noticed that some of the onetime cost items that we had come through, particularly in the fourth quarter did have a negative impact on margins. We do expect that to rebound into fiscal 2027. There's a huge focus on costs and as well as looking for increased productivity and efficiency with these tools that we've brought in. So for U.K., I would say that the expectation is that we will start to revert back to those healthier margins that you used to seeing in that business into fiscal '27.

Yes. And again, just like our Canadian business, we're investing in growth in that business, net organic asset growth to Nadine's point that doesn't come free. You invest in tools, you invest in technology, invest in people. So you're seeing those investments play out on the cost side in the U.K. a little bit. But as Nadine also noted, we have invested already. So you'd expect those costs to come down.

Okay. And then maybe 1 more. On the compensation front, I believe there's a certain cadence around the recycle some of that into purchasing units in the partners LP, can you just remind us of that? I mean, it expanded its position in Canaccord ownership overall by a fair amount last year? And is there sort of a similar cycle that we can play out here?

The policy of the Board having just got through the Board meetings is there's a repayment of those loans that go on every year. Those are fully recourse interest bearing loans. These aren't anything other than that and the loans help people buy partnership units. The partnership -- the partnership in turn, buys equity of Canaccord Genuity. That equity stays inside that partnership, and it's kind of -- I don't want to say gone forever, but it stays inside the partnership. So we're up to about 14%. There will be a loan repayment this year that's already happening as we speak through the bonus through bonuses being paid to people. So they're repaying their loans. Those loans will be recycled again. That partnership will increase its ownership in Canaccord Genuity again this year. Last year, it was about 2%. This year, it will be about the same number. That's the plan for the foreseeable future as that partnership will continue to accumulate stock of the underlying company. Does that answer your question?

Yes, that's helpful. And then maybe I'll just squeeze a quick 1 in there as well on OpEx. Emits about Australia. I mean we've had only really 1 quarter after the Wilson acquisition there. is the OpEx in the quarter there somewhat representative of the run rate going forward? Or were there some somatic costs there as you integrate that business?

Yes. There were definitely some increased cost as it related to the Wilson acquisition, Visas has been fully integrated now. So we do expect that the margin expansion, just given the scale of that business will start to improve closer to what you would see from a peer average.

Yes. You remember, this business started at a $1 billion business 5 years ago. We're up to $18 billion. We're starting to achieve scale. It's not the $5 billion we are in Canada, whatever, but it's starting to get the scale that we're looking for. So margins will improve in that business over time.

Your next question comes from Graham Ryding from TD Securities.

I guess start with U.K. Wealth. It looks like the AUM there was flat quarter-over-quarter, up 8% year-over-year in constant currency. It seems to have underperformed the FTSE market as a benchmark, and it's the growth profile there is lower than your other platforms in Canada, Australia. Any color or anything to call out for why you're seeing lower growth in U.K. wealth?

I think in terms of the U.K. market overall, it's been struggling a bit. But I think going forward, the focus that we had not only from some of the discussion we've had around the tools we're bringing in from our advisers is really around growing the net new assets. Obviously, we've been growing the business significantly through M&A and integrating those quite well. And the focus now as we start to build out our planning business in conjunction with the rest of the team that we expect to see that improvement in our net new asset growth, which will start to see that trajectory. Start to really amplify.

Yes. Graham, 2 points, and we should give you better details on this, and my apologies. But there's 2 points to note. We have integrated a couple of acquisitions and ultimately, when we integrate these acquisitions and we know we're losing some assets like we exceptionalized that in our internal management reporting, but we know we're losing like intentionally losing some assets, so to speak. So you don't see that in our public members. You just see the flat assets, but our own internal numbers would reflect higher growth than that, #1. #2, the portfolios aren't just U.K.-based portfolios. There's -- these are fully managed portfolios, right, with international equities, fixed income, so we'll have to give you the proportions of that so that you can do the right analysis. But we don't think this business is flat. We don't think this business is shrinking. Our management benchmark show this business to continue to increase. And in fact, in Q4, had a phenomenally good Q4 in terms of net new assets and growth. So we feel pretty excited about the business where it sits today.

Okay. And then in your presentation, you do show 4% -- 4.2% organic flows and then you flag a negative 2.1% as exceptional. Is that what you're talking about?

Yes. Is that exactly what I'm talking about.

Yes. Understood. -- maybe the acquisition of CRC was quite sizable, CAD 130 million. What is the earnings contribution that you expect from that platform? And then -- just any sort of high-level color on where, in particular, that platform is quite strong and why you think this is a good investment.

Yes. So first of all, on the acquisition, I think you know acquisition -- I know you know how acquisition accounting works. -- a huge portion of that purchase price is earn-out purchase price. You take a provision for it at the beginning. If they hit it great, if they don't, you take it back. So and that's a balance sheet item, not an income statement item. So the actual purchase price was significantly less than half. of that amount. So that's the first thing. And you hope to hit the earnout because it's free money, so to speak. So you're strongly encouraged for that. That's the first thing. The second thing -- they are in the energy transition space is the way we defined it at our organization, you can say it's sustainability or whatever. And either we're geniuses or we got lucky, but that energy transition space is massive right now and continues to grow. AI data centers, crypto, like these things all need power. And it's not all just traditional power, there's a lot of different types of power. And that's where these guys are particularly strong and particularly active. So the business is very robust, when we first entered into our original loan agreement with these people, which was our new partners, which is I don't know more than 18 months ago, a long time ago, we had lent them some money to buy out their initial partners when we entered into that deal compared to what they're doing today, they're probably doing 50% more revenue than they were doing back then. So it's been a very positive experience. It will continue to be a very positive experience. Their existing run rates right now. We closed the deal in December Nadine or the January close, like the performance has been very good and will continue to be strong. We anticipate that more than offsetting the lost revenue from the principal trading business that we sold and quite frankly, at a margin at a margin level that would be more significant than what we lost. That's not a big bar to climb over. But -- so we see it materially helping not only our U.S. business and our M&A franchise in the U.S., but there's incredible synergies between that business and the rest of our global footprint into Canada. Everyone is going through the same energy transition, whether it's Canada, the U.K., ultimately Australia. So we see a really good partnership there, but they're going flat out on just existing North American business right now.

Okay. Great. Appreciate the color. So I don't want to hold you to any hard numbers, but did you say you expect us to replace your wholesale trading business, which I think was sort of running at about $30 million a quarter?

No, I wasn't running at $30 million a quarter. I wish it was -- maybe there was a quarter or 2 where it was running at. CAD 30 million a quarter, [ 20 ]. No, still not. It wasn't -- that business is volatile, it ups and down quarters. But no, that's a business that's going to do our CRC business, the business that we bought, like that's -- I'm trying to maybe give me an even eye. So we'll get back to you . Suppose to be answering that question. I can answer it. I'm just not allowed to.

There are no further questions. I'll turn the call back over to Mr. Daviau.

Well, thanks, everyone, for joining today. And again, thanks for your continued support. Graham and others were available for future questions on the quarter as needed. Otherwise, we're going to update you not too far away. Just given this was our year-end, we'll be reporting again in early August. So look forward to talking to everyone then. If you can close the lines, operator, that would be great.

Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes today's conference call. Thank you for participating. Please disconnect your lines.