IGM Financial Inc.

Welcome to the IGM Financial 3rd Quarter 2023 Analyst Call and Webcast. As a reminder, all participants are in listen-only mode and the conference is being recorded. After the presentation, there'll be an opportunity to ask questions. To join the question queue, you may press star, then 1 on your telephone keypad. Should you need assistance during the conference call, you may signal an operator by pressing star, then 0. I would now like to turn the conference over to Kyle Martins, Treasurer and Head of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Thank you, Ariel, and good morning, everyone, and welcome to IGEM Financial's 2023 third quarter earnings call. Joining me on the call today are James O'Sullivan, President and CEO of IGEM Financial, Damon Murchison, President and CEO of IG Wealth Management, Luke Gould, President and CEO of McKinsey Investments, Financial. Before we get started, I would like to draw your attention to our cautions concerning four looking statements on slide three of the presentation. Slides four and five summarize non-IFRS financial measures and other financial measures that are used in this material. On slide six, we provide a list of documents that are available on our website related to iGEM Financial's third quarter results. I'll turn it over to James.

All right, thank you, Kyle. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us once again. We'll start with slide eight to cover some of the highlights for the third quarter. Adjusted EPS of 88 cents, up sequentially, and driven by strong results in our core businesses, IG Wealth and McKenzie. Our operating companies, AUM&A, stood at about 253 billion at the end of September, Now when we add our proportionate share of our strategic investments AUM&A, that was $400 billion at the end of Q3, up a full 32% year over year. The increase was driven by organic growth at our operating companies and strategic investments, as well as through the assets added with our doubling of our equity interest in China AMC and the acquisition of our 20.5% equity interest in Rockefeller Capital Management. Our reported net outflows were $549 million during the quarter. While not included in this metric, we do think it important to note the strong growth in our other businesses. For example, Northleaf had $1.3 billion of new commitments during the quarter, and China AMC generated a truly remarkable investment fund's net flows of approximately $15 billion in Canadian dollar terms during the quarter. Year-to-date growth in our operations, support and business development expenses has been managed to just 0.6%. This truly is a testament to our continued prudent expense management as well as of finding efficiencies across the organization and thoughtfully using these savings to fund attractive growth initiatives. As we work through the last quarter of 2023, we are reiterating our full year expense growth guidance of no more than 2%. Finally, in about a month, we look forward to hosting the investment community at our investor day in downtown Toronto. Turning to slide nine, while the first half of 2023 delivered positive client returns driven by generally strong equity and fixed income markets, the third quarter put a halt to this momentum as economic uncertainty once again took hold. The October markets have proven no more favorable and we expect volatility and uncertainty over the balance of the year and into the beginning of 2024. Turning to slide 10, the industry operating environment remained soft during the third quarter. As the combined effects of recent marked volatility, the impact of higher interest rates and high inflation continued to weigh on sentiment and savings levels. Canadians are reviewing their financial picture in light of elevated interest rates. Paying down floating rate and other high-cost debt is being prioritized by many Canadians across wealth segments. Savings are also being consumed to support consumption during this period of higher inflation. We expect these factors to continue as headwinds for overall industry net sales during the coming quarters. However, our businesses continue to compete well through this environment where good financial planning and financial advice is highly valued. Slide 11 presents IGM's consolidated average AUM&A and earnings results, both of which I spoke to in my opening comments. Slide 12 highlights earnings across our core operating companies and strategic investments. I'd remind that our earnings pickup from China AMC and LIFCO, excuse me, include the impact of the transactions that closed earlier this year, where we doubled our ownership position in China AMC and decreased our stake in Great West LIFCO to 2.4%. Our earnings pickup for LifeCo continues to be based on consensus estimates, and this quarter includes an $8 million true-up for last quarter as LifeCo continues to report after IGM Financial. Turning to slide 13, Q3 ending AUM&A at our operating companies was up 6% over the past 12 months. The growth in our proportionate share of our strategic investments AUM&A includes both the investments we've made in recent quarters as well as strong underlying asset growth at each of these companies. I'd note that China AMC's AUM grew by approximately 5% over the last year in local currency. However, this increase was offset by the depreciation of the relative to the Canadian dollar over the same time period. Slide 14 breaks down IGM's net flows by company along with Northleaf's fundraising activity during the third quarter. Turning to slide 15, I want to remind our stakeholders of our upcoming Investor Day on December 5th in downtown Toronto. The half-day event beginning in the morning We'll focus on the strategy of IGM, its core wealth and asset management companies, IG Wealth and McKinsey, and our four strategic investment companies, Wealth Managers Rockefeller Capital Management and Wealthsimple, and Asset Managers China AMC and Northleaf. We look forward to showcasing how well we are positioned for sustainable, profitable growth. Please visit IGM's Investor Relations website to register. We look forward to your participation, either in person or virtually. With that, I'll turn the call over to Damon.