AGF Management Q4 2025 Earnings Report

AGF Management EPS Results

• Actual EPS: C$0.62
• Consensus EPS: N/A
• Beat/Miss: N/A
• One Year Ago EPS: N/A

AGF Management Revenue Results

• Actual Revenue: $120.30 million
• Expected Revenue: N/A
• Beat/Miss: N/A
• YoY Revenue Growth: N/A

AGF Management Announcement Details

• Quarter: Q4 2025
• Date: 1/27/2026
• Time: After Market Closes
• Conference Call Date: Tuesday, January 27, 2026
• Conference Call Time: 11:00AM ET

Founded in 1957, AGF Management (TSE:AGF.B) (AGF) is an independent and globally diverse asset management firm. Our companies deliver excellence in investing in the public and private markets through three business lines: AGF Investments, AGF Capital Partners and AGF Private Wealth. AGF brings a disciplined approach, focused on incorporating sound, responsible and sustainable corporate practices. The firm's collective investment expertise, driven by its fundamental, quantitative and private investing capabilities, extends globally to a wide range of clients, from financial advisors and their clients to high-net worth and institutional investors including pension plans, corporate plans, sovereign wealth funds, endowments and foundations. Headquartered in Toronto, Canada, AGF has investment operations and client servicing teams on the ground in North America and Europe. With over $60 billion in total assets under management and fee-earning assets, AGF serves more than 820,000 investors.

AGF Management Q4 2025 Earnings Call Transcript

Key Takeaways

• Positive Sentiment: AGF's assets under management and fee‑earning assets topped CAD 60 billion (up 13% YoY), with strong retail mutual fund net sales (CAD 282M in Q4, ~CAD 950M for FY) and ETF/SMA AUM of ~CAD 4.1B (strong multi‑year growth).
• Positive Sentiment: Financial performance was solid — adjusted EBITDA of CAD 186M (+12% YoY), adjusted diluted EPS CAD 1.93 (+16% YoY), trailing‑12M free cash flow CAD 118M, and CAD 449M in short/long‑term investments with CAD 208M available on the credit facility.
• Negative Sentiment: Adjusted SG&A for the year was CAD 252M, above prior guidance due to higher performance‑based compensation, and management is guiding ~CAD 256M for 2026, which could pressure margins if revenue growth slows.
• Negative Sentiment: Client concentration and institutional outflows pose near‑term risk — a CAD 700M institutional redemption was completed in December and a previously disclosed CAD 500M redemption remains scheduled, reducing institutional AUM and related revenues.
• Neutral Sentiment: Key corporate items remain unresolved — management is evaluating conversion of a convertible note with New Holland (decision expected H1) and Kensington's private equity fund remains under a redemption suspension with a 10bp fee concession and potential future valuation impacts.

Presentation

[Operator]

Thank you for standing by. Welcome to the fourth quarter 2025 AGF Management Limited earnings conference call. At this time, all participants are in listen-only mode. After the speaker's presentation, there will be a question-and-answer session. To ask a question during the session, you need to press star one one on your telephone. As a reminder, this call is being recorded. I would now like to introduce your host for today's conference, Mr. Tsang. You may begin.

[Ken Tsang, CFO at AGF Management Limited]

Thank you, Operator, and good morning, everyone. I'm Ken Tsang, Chief Financial Officer of AGF Management Limited. Today, we will be discussing the financial results for the fourth quarter and fiscal year 2025. Slides supporting today's call and webcast can be found in the investor relations section of AGF.com. Also speaking on the call today will be Judy Goldring, Chief Executive Officer. For the Q&A period following the presentation, Ash Lawrence, head of AGF Capital Partners, and David Stonehouse, interim Chief Investment Officer, will also be available to address questions. Slide 4 provides the agenda for today's call. After the prepared remarks, we will be happy to take questions. With that, I will now turn the call over to Judy.

[Judy Goldring, CEO at AGF Management Limited]

Good morning, and thank you for joining us. AGF had another outstanding year in 2025, where we made very strong progress against our strategic objectives. Our AUM and fee-earning assets crossed over CAD 60 billion at the end of Q4, up 13% from a year ago. In Q4, we reported retail mutual fund net sales of CAD 282 million, or 0.8% of mutual fund AUM in the quarter, outpacing the Canadian mutual fund industry of 0.5%. For the full year, our retail mutual fund net sales were close to CAD 1 billion. Our ETF and SMA AUM remained strong, increasing by 63% year-over-year to CAD 4 billion. AGF was named as one of Greater Toronto's Top Employers for 2026, our second time winning this award, and our funds also received various recognitions for outstanding investment performance throughout the year.

[Judy Goldring, CEO at AGF Management Limited]

Turning to our financial results, adjusted EBITDA for the year was CAD 186 million, which is 12% higher than prior year. Our adjusted diluted EPS was CAD 0.62 for the quarter and CAD 1.93 for the year. In addition, we have CAD 449 million in short and long-term investments on our balance sheet, net cash of CAD 6 million, with CAD 208 million remaining on our credit facility. We have capital available and flexibility in our capital allocation strategy. Finally, we also paid a CAD 0.125 per share dividend for Q4 2025. Starting on slide 6, we will provide updates on our business performance. On this slide, we break down our total AUM and fee-earning assets in the categories disclosed in our MD&A and show comparisons for the prior year. AGF Investments' mutual fund AUM was CAD 35 billion, up 14% year-over-year, outpacing the industry increase of 12%.

[Judy Goldring, CEO at AGF Management Limited]

The growth of our ETF and SMA AUM remained strong. I'll provide more color on our mutual fund sales and ETF and SMA AUM in a moment. Segregated accounts and sub-advisory AUM increased by 3% compared to the prior year. Subsequent to year-end, we received a redemption notice from an institutional client for CAD 700 million. The redemption was driven by government-mandated change in their investment oversight process. The redemption was completed in December 2025. We continue to see strong interest in our strategies in the institutional space, with prospects and growth and momentum with a number of existing clients. Our private wealth AUM increased by 11% compared to prior year to CAD 9.5 billion. Our AGF Capital Partners AUM and fee-earning assets were CAD 4.6 billion at the end of the year.

[Judy Goldring, CEO at AGF Management Limited]

As a reminder, New Holland Capital's AUM of approximately CAD 10 billion is not consolidated into AGF's total AUM and fee-earning assets at this time. Now, turning to slide seven, I'll provide some details on the mutual fund sales. The Canadian mutual fund industry saw net positive sales in the quarter of CAD 12 billion, or 0.5% of AUM in the quarter. AGF Investments' retail mutual fund sales continued to outpace the industry and achieved CAD 282 million of net sales in the quarter. We outpaced the industry in each of the quarters in 2025. On a full-year basis, our retail mutual fund net sales for the year was CAD 950 million, or 2.9% of AUM, which is double the industry's average of 1.4%, and a significant improvement against net redemptions of CAD 204 million in the prior year.

[Judy Goldring, CEO at AGF Management Limited]

The strength of our retail mutual fund sales reflects the successful execution of our distribution and marketing strategy, supported by strong investment performance. Notably, all distribution channels delivered net positive sales this quarter, underscoring the broad-based momentum across our platform. Now, let me provide a brief update on our investment performance, which continues to be strong. AGF Investments measures mutual fund performance by comparing gross returns before fees relative to peers within the same category, with the first percentile being the best possible performance. Our one-year performance was in the 43rd percentile, our three-year performance was in the 52nd percentile, and our five-year performance was in the 41st percentile. More than half of our funds are outperforming our peers on a three- and five-year basis. We continue our global search for a permanent CIO.

[Judy Goldring, CEO at AGF Management Limited]

In the interim, I am confident in the strength of our investment team, the Office of the CIO structure, and the leadership of David Stonehouse as our interim CIO. Turning now to slide eight. Slide eight shows our ETF and SMA AUM. The AUM in this category is CAD 4.1 billion and has grown 68% on a compounded basis over the last two years. Included in this number are Canadian and U.S.-listed ETFs and SMA platforms globally. We have seen consistent growth and momentum in our SMA vehicles across the U.S., Canada, and Asia, where many of our strategies are available on leading wealth management platforms. I will now pass it over to Ken to discuss our financial results.

[Ken Tsang, CFO at AGF Management Limited]

Thanks, Judy. Slide nine reflects a summary of our financial results with sequential quarter and annual year-over-year comparisons. The financial results in these periods are adjusted to exclude severance, corporate development, non-cash acquisition-related expenses, as well as other adjustments as noted in our MD&A. Adjusted EBITDA for the quarter was CAD 52 million, which is CAD 6 million higher than Q3, mainly driven by higher income from our long-term investments. SG&A was CAD 68 million, up CAD 7 million from the previous quarter. The increase from Q3 was mainly due to the timing of our non-compensation expenses and higher performance-based compensation, which is not fully determinable until the end of Q4 when payouts are finalized. On a full-year basis, our adjusted SG&A was CAD 252 million, exceeding our guidance of CAD 240 million, driven primarily by higher performance-based compensation.

[Ken Tsang, CFO at AGF Management Limited]

We believe that the level of performance-based compensation is appropriate, considering the significant improvement in business performance and the successful execution of our strategic priorities during the year. Today, we are guiding adjusted SG&A expense of CAD 256 million in 2026. As a reminder, our SG&A guidance includes a reset of performance-based compensations to baseline levels and does not include costs related to acquisitions. Adjusted net income attributable to equity owners for the current quarter was CAD 41 million, and adjusted EPS was CAD 0.62. The increase versus prior quarter was partly attributable to a lower effective tax rate in Q4 due to the lower rate on some of our Q4 P&L items and more effective utilization of our tax allowances. Our effective tax rate for the year was 22%. Free cash flows for the quarter were CAD 32 million and CAD 118 million for the year, which is CAD 22 million higher than 2024.

[Ken Tsang, CFO at AGF Management Limited]

Slide 10 provides a further breakdown of our net revenues. Within our traditional asset and wealth management businesses, net management fees were CAD 95 million for the quarter, which is CAD 6 million higher than the prior quarter. This growth was primarily driven by higher AUM levels. Revenues from AGF Capital Partners were CAD 22 million this quarter, which increased by CAD 7 million against the prior quarter, driven by revenues from long-term investments. While fair value adjustments on investments can be lumpy, we remain conservative in our guidance and target annual returns of roughly 8%-10%. On slide 11, we outline adjustments to our EBITDA. As you may recall, M&A transactions in the AGF Capital Partners business give rise to various LTIP contingent consideration and put obligation liabilities. These liabilities are fair valued each quarter, with a difference flowing through to the P&L.

[Ken Tsang, CFO at AGF Management Limited]

These accruals and fair value adjustments have no immediate cash impact and create noise quarterly, which is why we've adjusted for these items to facilitate easier comparison of quarterly results. Adjusting for these items, along with severance and other adjustments, our adjusted EBITDA for this quarter is CAD 52 million. Turning to slide 12, I will walk through the yield on our business in terms of basis points. This slide shows our average AUM, net management fees, adjusted SG&A, and EBITDA as basis points on our average AUM in the current quarter, previous quarter, and trailing 12 months. This view excludes AUM and related results from AGF Capital Partners, as well as DSC revenues, other income, and any other one-time adjustments. The EBITDA yield this quarter was 24 basis points, which is broadly consistent with prior quarter and the trailing 12 months.

[Ken Tsang, CFO at AGF Management Limited]

Turning to slide 13, I will discuss our free cash flows and capital uses. This slide represents the last five quarters of consolidated free cash flows on a trailing 12-month basis, as shown by the orange bars on the chart. The black line represents the percentage of free cash flows that was paid out as dividends. Our trailing 12-month free cash flows were CAD 118 million, and our dividend paid as a percentage of free cash flows was 27%. In the same period, we returned CAD 56 million to shareholders, consisting of CAD 31 million in dividends and CAD 25 million in share buybacks. During the quarter, we repurchased over 500,000 shares under our NCIB, and for the full year, we repurchased a total of 2 million shares. We ended the quarter with net cash of CAD 6 million.

[Ken Tsang, CFO at AGF Management Limited]

We also have CAD 449 million in short-term and long-term investments and have CAD 208 million remaining in our credit facility, which provides credit to a maximum of CAD 250 million. Our future capital allocation will be balanced and includes returning capital to shareholders in the form of dividends and share buybacks, as well as investing in areas of growth. Before I pass it back to Judy, let me take a minute on slide 14 to look at our valuation. AGF's market price has increased by approximately 25% in fiscal 2025. AGF's current price is approximately CAD 17, which translates to an enterprise value of approximately CAD 1.1 billion. Taken into account our CAD 449 million of short-term and long-term investments with a conservative 10% discount, our remaining enterprise value is about CAD 682 million.

[Ken Tsang, CFO at AGF Management Limited]

This implies a 5x EV to EBITDA multiple on our fiscal year 2025 adjusted EBITDA, excluding income from our long-term and short-term investments. Comparing this multiple to those of other traditional and alternative asset managers and recent M&A transactions would suggest further potential upside to our valuation. I will now pass it back to Judy to close out the presentation.

[Judy Goldring, CEO at AGF Management Limited]

Thanks, Ken. 2025 was a strong year for us, where we have achieved or exceeded many of our fiscal targets. Our AUM and fee-earning assets continued to climb, reaching over CAD 60 billion, 13% higher from prior year. Our investment performance remained solid. Our sales momentum remained strong and continues to outpace the industry. We remain disciplined in our expense management while investing for growth. The strength of our balance sheet and capital position will provide us with flexibility in our capital allocation strategy and the resilience to weather different market environments. Our strong business momentum translated into strong financial results, with adjusted EBITDA reaching CAD 186 million, which is 12% higher compared to the prior year, and adjusted diluted EPS of CAD 1.93, which is 16% higher than the prior year.

[Judy Goldring, CEO at AGF Management Limited]

As we move into fiscal 2026, we are committed to building on this momentum and remain focused on our four strategic priorities, which are to deliver consistent and repeatable investment performance, maintain sales momentum, and penetrate high-growth distribution channels, continue to build a diversified private capital and alternatives business, and meet our core expense guidance while continuing to invest in key growth areas. I would also like to take a moment to thank our AGF team for all that they've done in the year. We will now take your questions.

[Operator]

Thank you. If you have any questions at this time, please press the star one key on your touch-tone telephone. If you would like to remove yourself from the queue, please press star one again. One moment for our first question. Our first question will come from the line of John Aiken from Jefferies. Your line is open.

[John Aiken, Analyst at Jefferies]

Good morning. Ash, I was hoping that you could give us a bit of an update in terms of where things sit at Kensington in terms of the suspension of redemptions and if you give us a little bit of color in terms of what impact this is having on the business?

[Ash Lawrence, Head of AGF Capital Partners at AGF Management Limited]

Sure. Happy to do that. So maybe just as a reminder, at Kensington, the Kensington Private Equity Fund suspended their redemptions in late September. Since that time, they've been working hard on a number of fronts, including generating liquidity in the portfolio, but in an orderly fashion. The suspension was implemented to avoid forced sales, to avoid discounted prices, and sort of remove the redemption pressure in order to preserve value in the fund. This, of course, takes some time to actually generate the liquidity down below at the investment level. We are optimistic as we've started to see a thaw in the M&A market really over the last quarter of last year, and we're hopeful that we can benefit from that within the fund over the course of 2026 with an increase in activity across the industry.

[Ash Lawrence, Head of AGF Capital Partners at AGF Management Limited]

We'll continue to work with unit holders and be transparent on the progress we're making there. As it relates to the impact on financials, the suspension really has minimal impact on our financials. It does preserve the NAV of the fund. There was a 10 basis points concession given on the fee base while the fund was in suspension, so that does have an impact. What we are seeing is some impacts around redemptions that went out in the first half of last year before the suspension, both on AUM and obviously on revenue coming from Kensington. And then as we move through some of these processes to generate liquidity, we are likely to see some valuation impacts, which again would flow through to AUM and thus revenue.

[John Aiken, Analyst at Jefferies]

Thanks for the call, Ash. Just as a follow-on, can you give us an update in terms of where you sit in your thinking on the convertible note that you hold with New Holland?

[Ash Lawrence, Head of AGF Capital Partners at AGF Management Limited]

Yeah, absolutely. So we completed our initial transaction with New Holland almost two years ago. So that option for our first exercise opens in February, so it is coming up. Maybe just a very quick recap of the last two years. We've been quite pleased with the partnership with New Holland, both from the perspective of our broader collaboration with them on a number of things, the cultural fit, as well as the performance of a number of their strategies that they run. Since our transaction, we've seen their AUM grow around 40% from about $5 billion to about $7 billion. As a reminder, we don't consolidate that quite yet because of our ownership level and the debt position. So we are actively evaluating that conversion of our debt and the exercise of the additional ownership right now.

[Ash Lawrence, Head of AGF Capital Partners at AGF Management Limited]

There'll be more to come on this in the first half of the year, but we have been looking at that for a number of months now and working with NHC to try and evaluate the process and make a decision.

[John Aiken, Analyst at Jefferies]

Great. Thanks. I'll re-queue.

[Operator]

Thank you. One moment for our next question. Our next question will come from the line of Bart Dziarski from RBC Capital Markets. Your line is open.

[Bart Dziarski, Analyst at RBC Capital Markets]

Thanks. Good morning. Thanks for taking the question. Just wanted to get some color on the CIO process, how that's coming along, and any updates on that front?

[Judy Goldring, CEO at AGF Management Limited]

Yep. Thanks, Bart. It is a dynamic and active process. I think we started talking about this in August, September. It does take some time to make sure we're going to find the right candidate, but I'm very confident in the team today as it stands. Certainly, as soon as we have information to share, we will share it.

[Bart Dziarski, Analyst at RBC Capital Markets]

Okay. Great. Thanks, Judy. And then on the SMA and ETF strength, just wanted to dive into that a little bit more. So you called out success in the SMAs in Asia, U.S., Canada, and then ETFs in North America. Could you maybe give us some more color as to what's driving that? Where are you seeing the wins on the ground and how sustainable that is going forward?

[Judy Goldring, CEO at AGF Management Limited]

Sure. I think the SMA and ETF AUM growth, as we talked about, has seen a CAGR of 68% over the last couple of years. That is on the backs of great performance, but also a strategy within our sales distributions team in the United States and internationally to focus on getting on different platforms. And so in the United States, we're on a number of platforms which are just available to the RIA channels and allow for distribution opportunities throughout the U.S. And then, as I mentioned, specifically in Asia, we're on a platform there. And we just continue to work that distribution opportunity, and we're just seeing the success flow from that. Again, in Canada too, we are on pretty much every significant dealer platform, which again provides us the opportunity to make our offerings available to the advisor channel.

[Judy Goldring, CEO at AGF Management Limited]

With the strong performance on most of our mandates that are on those platforms, we've seen the flows come through.

[Ken Tsang, CFO at AGF Management Limited]

Bart, I'll just add that we also made a decision last year as we were looking at the capital plan to expand sales and marketing both in Canada and the States. And so I think that's had a good effect in terms of driving net sales across our various products and channels.

[Bart Dziarski, Analyst at RBC Capital Markets]

Great. Very helpful. Thanks.

[Operator]

Thank you. One moment for our next question. Our next question will come from the line of Michael McCue from TD Securities. Your line is open.

[Michael McCue, Analyst at TD Securities]

Hi, good morning. So you flagged the CAD 700 million institutional redemption in December and just wanted to confirm that that was, if that is separate from the CAD 500 million redemption that was flagged on the Q4 call, sorry, the Q3 call, if those are incremental and if that CAD 500 million redemption has come through subsequent to reporting the December AUM and just where we stand on institutional AUM and if anything is any inflows in the pipeline.

[Judy Goldring, CEO at AGF Management Limited]

Oh, sure. Yeah. Just to clarify, we previously did disclose in Q3 that a client of the CAD 500 million client that you referenced that they were planning to redeem, they actually will be redeeming by the end of this month. So it has not yet come through in our Q4 numbers. And to clarify as well, the redemption notice that you saw, we were notified of that redemption in Q4 for CAD 700 million. That redemption has come through before the end of December 2025. There are no further institutional redemptions that we are anticipating beyond what we have disclosed. We do continue to see strong flows, as I mentioned, as we shift most of our institutional targets towards the SMA and platform-oriented distribution strategy. And we continue to see strong flows in that.

[Michael McCue, Analyst at TD Securities]

Great. Thanks. That actually leads nicely into the next question. Just wondering if you'd be able to quantify anything on the SMA front. Obviously, great AUM growth over the last two years, getting on more distribution channels. Would you provide any quantifiable flows metrics for the SMA business?

[Ken Tsang, CFO at AGF Management Limited]

Yeah. I mean, just maybe to add to that, I mean, obviously, the SMA revenues will, sorry, the SMA flows will add to revenues. I think one thing to note, though, is that the SMA product itself actually has virtually zero marginal cost of delivery. And as a consequence, any incremental revenues we do see there, which are more in line with sort of institutional levels of revenue rates, would drop directly to the bottom line from an EBITDA perspective.

[Michael McCue, Analyst at TD Securities]

Okay. Great. Thanks. And I'll just squeeze one more flows-related one in quickly. Just how are retail flows sitting quarter to date? We're almost two-thirds of the way through the quarter now. Do you have an update on that?

[Judy Goldring, CEO at AGF Management Limited]

Yep. Sure. Quarter to date, we're sitting at CAD 90 million in net positive sales. And we're seeing flows across a variety of our product offerings. And we are certainly optimistic and cautiously optimistic about the RSP season as well.

[Michael McCue, Analyst at TD Securities]

Okay. Great. Thanks very much, I'll re-queue.

[Operator]

Thank you. One moment for our next question. Once again, that's star one one for questions. Our next question will come from the line of Tom MacKinnon from BMO Capital Markets. Your line is open.

[Tom MacKinnon, Analyst at BMO Capital Markets]

Yeah. Thanks very much. Good morning. Question with respect to slide 12. Just looking at the net management fee rate, 70 basis points, it's the same this quarter as it was in the trailing 12 months. I haven't seen that in at least the last eight quarters where you've been able to maintain that flat. And I'm surprised that it was still relatively flat just given the growth in the ETF and SMA. Was there anything unusual, like any outside success fees? And then maybe you can just remind us as to what you see in terms of an outlook for that 70 beeps. I think you used to talk about some compression. If you can just highlight that for us. Thanks.

[Ken Tsang, CFO at AGF Management Limited]

Sure. Yeah. Hi, Tom. It's Ken here. Great question. No, we are just maybe to answer the last part of your question first. We do continue to see, I'll call it a 2 basis point decrease in net management fee bps on a year-over-year basis. And in fact, if you looked at Q4 of this year relative to Q4 of last year, that did actually trend out to about 2 basis points. I would say Q4 probably a little bit higher in terms of management fee bps just because we did have some timing of fund expenses that were a bit lower this quarter. But yeah, the long-term trajectory continues to remain at roughly about 2 basis points just given the product mix that we're seeing.

[Ken Tsang, CFO at AGF Management Limited]

Of course, obviously, these are revenue bps, but we do, as a whole, drive incremental aggregate revenues as flows continue to follow from the various products that we're selling.

[Tom MacKinnon, Analyst at BMO Capital Markets]

Okay. Thanks.

[Operator]

Thank you. I'm not showing any further questions at this time. I'm going to like to turn the call over to Judy for any closing remarks.

[Judy Goldring, CEO at AGF Management Limited]

Thank you very much for your questions. As we noted, this was another strong quarter and another strong year for AGF. Our investment performance and sales momentum remain strong. Our strong balance sheet and strong cash flow positions us well to return capital to our shareholders while also continuing to invest in the long-term growth of AGF. Thank you again for attending today, and we look forward to our Q1 earnings call on April 14th, 2026.

[Operator]

Thank you, ladies and gentlemen. This concludes today's conference. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect. Everyone, have a great day.

Participants

Executives

• Ash Lawrence, Head of AGF Capital Partners
• Judy Goldring, CEO
• Ken Tsang, CFO

Analysts

• Bart Dziarski, Analyst at RBC Capital Markets
• John Aiken, Analyst at Jefferies
• Michael McCue, Analyst at TD Securities
• Tom MacKinnon, Analyst at BMO Capital Markets