TSE:AGF.B AGF Management Q2 2026 Earnings Report C$19.64 +0.07 (+0.36%) As of 04:00 PM Eastern ProfileEarnings HistoryForecast AGF Management EPS ResultsActual EPSC$0.72Consensus EPS N/ABeat/MissN/AOne Year Ago EPSN/AAGF Management Revenue ResultsActual Revenue$126.70 millionExpected RevenueN/ABeat/MissN/AYoY Revenue GrowthN/AAGF Management Announcement DetailsQuarterQ2 2026Date6/24/2026TimeBefore Market OpensConference Call DateWednesday, June 24, 2026Conference Call Time11:00AM ETConference Call ResourcesConference Call AudioConference Call TranscriptSlide DeckPress ReleaseInterim ReportEarnings HistoryCompany ProfileSlide DeckFull Screen Slide DeckPowered by AGF Management Q2 2026 Earnings Call TranscriptProvided by QuartrJune 24, 2026 ShareLink copied to clipboard.Key Takeaways Positive Sentiment: AGF reported a strong Q2 2026 with adjusted diluted EPS of CAD 0.72, adjusted EBITDA of CAD 64 million, and free cash flow of CAD 36 million. Positive Sentiment: AUM and fee-earning assets rose to CAD 75 billion, up 40% year over year, helped by the inclusion of New Holland Capital and broad growth across the platform. Positive Sentiment: The company highlighted continued momentum in ETF and SMA products, with global AUM up 74% year over year to CAD 4.8 billion and Canadian net flows of CAD 155 million in the quarter. Neutral Sentiment: AGF increased its economic interest in New Holland Capital to 50%, and management expects the transaction to be modestly accretive to earnings as the business scales over time. Neutral Sentiment: While Canadian retail mutual funds posted their eighth straight quarter of positive net sales, sales were only CAD 6 million and management noted some softness tied to seasonality and a more challenging consumer backdrop. AI Generated. May Contain Errors.Conference Call Audio Live Call not available Earnings Conference CallAGF Management Q2 202600:00 / 00:00Speed:1x1.25x1.5x2xThere are 8 speakers on the call. Speaker 600:00:00Thank you for standing by, and welcome to the Q2 2026 AGF Management Limited Earnings Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. After the speaker's presentation, there will be a question and answer session. To ask a question during this session, you will 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, Ken Tsang. Sir, please begin. Speaker 500:00:27Thank you, operator. Good morning, everyone. I'm Ken Tsang, Chief Financial Officer of AGF Management Limited. Today, we will be discussing the financial results for the second quarter of 2026. 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, and Ash Lawrence, Head of AGF Capital Partners. For the question and answer period following the presentation, John Porter, Chief Investment Officer, will also be available to address questions. Slide four 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. Speaker 400:01:13Good morning. Thank you for joining us. Q2 was a strong quarter for AGF. At the end of May, we made a subsequent investment in New Holland Capital, where AGF now owns a 50% economic interest in the company. We are pleased with New Holland Capital's organic growth, with AUM increasing 44% to CAD 11 billion since our initial investment two years ago. With the inclusion of New Holland's AUM of CAD 11 billion, our AUM and fee-earning assets were CAD 75 billion at the end of Q2, up 40% from a year ago. AGF Investments Canadian Retail Mutual Funds reported the eighth consecutive quarter of positive retail mutual fund net sales, with net sales of CAD 6 million in the quarter. Our SMA and ETF business remained strong, with AUM increasing by 74% year-over-year to CAD 4.8 billion. Our Canadian SMA and ETF net flows were CAD 155 million in the quarter. Speaker 400:02:14We reported adjusted diluted EPS of CAD 0.72 and generated CAD 36 million of free cash flow in the quarter. Our balance sheet remained strong with CAD 435 million in the short and long-term investments. Net debt of CAD 51 million, with CAD 145 million available on our credit facility. The strength of our balance sheet and capital position provides us with flexibility to deploy capital thoughtfully in line with our strategic priorities. During the quarter, AGF was added to the Nasdaq Broad Canadian Dividend Achievers Index. This is a testament to our track record of consistent dividend growth and our ongoing focus on returning capital to shareholders. Starting on slide six, 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 to the prior year. Speaker 400:03:10AGF Investments Mutual Fund AUM was CAD 38 billion, up 23% year-over-year, outpacing the industry increase of 20%. The growth of our ETF and SMA AUM globally remained strong, up 74% year-over-year. I will provide more color on our mutual fund, ETFs, and SMA sales in a moment. Segregated accounts and sub-advisory AUM increased by 3% compared to the prior year. We are expecting a CAD 150 million redemption in the pipeline, which is expected to occur in Q3. The redemption is not performance related. It was driven by the relative outperformance of our strategy, causing the client to rebalance the allocation back to target weight. Our AGF Private Wealth AUM increased by 16% compared to prior year, reaching CAD 10 billion. AGF Capital Partners AUM and fee-earning assets were CAD 15.3 billion at the end of the quarter, which included CAD 11 billion from New Holland Capital. Speaker 400:04:11Turning to slide seven, I will provide some details on mutual fund sales. The Canadian mutual fund industry saw positive net sales of approximately CAD 7 billion in the quarter, substantially driven by net flows into fixed income and specialty funds, which included liquid alternatives, crypto, and commodities products. AGF Investments Canadian Retail Mutual Fund delivered its eighth consecutive quarter of positive net sales of CAD 6 million. As previously highlighted, we also continue to see strong flows in our Canadian ETF and SMAs as retail clients look to utilize different investment vehicles to access our investment capabilities. Many of our leading mutual funds are also available via SMAs and ETFs. Accordingly, we are introducing a new view this quarter, combining our Canadian retail mutual fund and ETF and SMA flows to better reflect this overall trend. Speaker 400:05:06As can be seen, our Canadian ETF and SMAs saw positive net flows over the past eight quarters, and we have seen consistent year-over-year growth over the last two years. Turning to slide eight, you can see how the strong sales momentum has driven our ETF and SMA AUM. Our ETF and SMA products globally have grown at 64% on a compounded basis over the last two years, now reaching CAD 4.8 billion. We continue to see consistent growth and momentum across U.S., Canada, and Asia, where many of our strategies are available on leading wealth management platforms. Now let me provide a brief update on our investment performance. 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. Speaker 400:06:00Our one-year performance was in the 42nd percentile, our three-year performance was in the 43rd percentile, and our five-year performance was in the 40th percentile. Approximately 60% of our funds outperformed our peers on a three and five-year basis. I will now pass it over to Ash Lawrence to provide an update on the AGF Capital Partners business. Operator00:06:22Thank you, Judy. Building a diversified alternatives and private markets business remains a strategic imperative and is key to the long-term success of AGF. Over time, AGF Capital Partners will be a driver of growth and contribute to a greater diversification of AGF's assets and client base. AGF formally established AGF Capital Partners as our multi-boutique alternatives business in 2022. Since then, we have made significant progress in the build-out of the business and want to share some key highlights and initiatives from the past year, as well as an overview of the current business profile. In early 2024, we acquired a 51% stake in Kensington Capital Partners, a leading private equity and venture capital manager. We made our initial investment in New Holland, a multi-strategy hedge fund and specialized credit manager. Over the last year, the business has seen tangible growth and a number of business highlights. Operator00:07:22This quarter, we increased our interest in New Holland from 24.9% to 50%, with rights to further increase our stake in subsequent periods. At the beginning of 2026, New Holland launched a specialty finance-focused fund for institutional investors. Additionally, New Holland has also onboarded new institutional investors to its flagship multi-strategy hedge fund, which now has almost CAD 3 billion in assets. Early last year, AGF and New Holland jointly launched the AGF NHC Tactical Alpha Fund, giving eligible Canadian investors access to their flagship mandate. Additionally, New Holland's total AUM is up by 44% since our initial investment in 2024, reaching CAD 11 billion. In the midst of a very difficult private equity environment, Kensington Capital Partners successfully updated the terms of its flagship CAD 1.2 billion Kensington Private Equity Fund to modernize the fund structure and better align the fund terms to the liquidity profile of the underlying investments. Operator00:08:30This resulted in the lifting of the suspension of redemptions in March of this year. Additionally, Kensington acquired a strategic interest in ONE9, a venture capital firm focused on the defense and security sector. Kensington has since launched a sector-specific strategy and grown the team focused on what is quickly becoming a major investment theme with institutional clients. Finally, the AUM of the AGF SAF Private Credit Strategy crossed CAD 250 million, with steady growth driven by both strong performance and flows throughout the past year. As a reminder, our Canadian private debt strategy is focused on non-sponsor-backed borrowers in the lower mid-market and mid-market within Canada. A contributing factor in the future to accelerating the growth of Kensington, New Holland, and the AGF SAF Private Credit Strategy, as well as new managers, is our ability to leverage the organizational support and breadth of the resources at AGF. Operator00:09:31To that end, over the last few years, we have developed internal infrastructure to strengthen the support for our affiliate managers. We've established a dedicated sales team to market our private market strategies to Canadian investors, both retail and institutional. We've built other dedicated functions within AGF to support the business and our affiliates, such as marketing and legal resources. We've provided capital to grow the business alongside investing in numerous funds managed by our affiliate managers. Finally, we remain disciplined in our origination process as we look to grow the platform further with new manager relationships and alternative investment strategies. Over the past three years, we have screened approximately 70 managers and continue to build our presence and relationships to benefit our pipeline. Operator00:10:23It is crucial for us to maintain rigor around our preferred manager profile as we seek the right long-term partnerships that provide us with specialized investment capabilities and marketable track records. AGF Capital Partners now has over CAD 15 billion of AUM and fee-earning assets spanning across various investment strategies, including absolute return, venture capital, private credit, and private equity, both in Canada and the United States. Going forward, we will continue to grow AGF Capital Partners by supporting the growth of our affiliate managers while continuing to look for targeted acquisition opportunities. With that, I will now pass it over to Ken to discuss our financial results. Speaker 500:11:07Thanks, Ash. Slide 10 reflects a summary of our financial results with sequential quarter and year-over-year comparisons. Our financial results in this period 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 64 million, up CAD 34 million from the prior quarter and CAD 25 million from the prior year, mainly driven by higher top-line revenues, which I'll get to in a minute. SG&A was CAD 63 million, down CAD 2 million from the prior quarter and up CAD 3 million from the prior year. The decrease from the prior quarter was attributable to seasonally higher expenses recorded last quarter. The increase from the prior year was mainly due to higher performance-related and AUM-driven expenses. Adjusted net income attributable to equity owners for the current quarter was CAD 47 million, and adjusted diluted EPS was CAD 0.72. Speaker 500:12:10Free cash flows for the quarter was CAD 36 million, which is largely flat to the prior quarter, and CAD 12 million higher than the prior year, mainly due to higher EBITDA from our AGF Investments and AGF Private Wealth businesses. Slide 11 provides a further breakdown of our net revenues. Within AGF Investments and AGF Private Wealth, net management fees were CAD 97 million for the quarter, which is CAD 4 million higher than the prior quarter, driven by higher average AUM and two additional days in the quarter, and CAD 13 million higher than the prior year, driven mainly by higher average AUM. Revenues from AGF Capital Partners was CAD 27 million this quarter, representing a significant increase from the prior quarter and prior year. Speaker 500:12:58The increase versus both comparative periods was mainly due to the CAD 15 million gain on our New Holland transaction, where we exercised certain of our option rights to increase our interest from 25% to 50%. The increase in revenues from our long-term investments this quarter also contributed to the sequential quarter increase. As we have seen in prior quarters, fair value adjustments can be lumpy, but we remain pleased with the long-term performance of these investments. Since inception, these investments have generated returns of over 11% per annum, exceeding our long-term target return of 8%-10%. I would also like to note that with the conversion of our convertible note to equity and subsequent investment in New Holland, we will be accounting for New Holland on an equity accounting basis going forward. Speaker 500:13:51We expect the New Holland transaction to be modestly accretive to earnings in the near term after accounting for performance fees and amortization expenses. The expansion of New Holland's operating leverage is expected to further contribute to earnings growth over time. On slide 12, we outlined adjustments to our EBITDA. As you might recall, M&A transactions in the AGF Capital Partners business gives rise to various liabilities. These liabilities are fair valued each quarter, with the difference flowing through to the P&L. These accruals and fair value adjustments have no immediate cash impact, 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 64 million. Turning to slide 13, I will walk through the yield on our business in terms of basis points. Speaker 500:14:53This 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 the DSC revenues, other income, and any other one-time adjustments. The EBITDA yield this quarter was 28 basis points, which is three or four basis points higher than the prior quarter and the trailing 12 months, highlighting the operating leverage of our business as AUM grows. Turning to slide 14, 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. Speaker 500:15:51Our trailing 12-month free cash flows was CAD 134 million, and our dividends paid as a percentage of free cash flows was 24%. In the same period, we returned CAD 80 million to shareholders, consisting of CAD 32 million in dividends and CAD 47 million in share buybacks. During the quarter, we repurchased over half a million shares under our NCIB. We ended the quarter with net debt of CAD 51 million. We also have CAD 435 million in short-term and long-term investments and have CAD 145 million remaining on 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, share buybacks, as well as investing in areas of growth. Before I pass it back to Judy, let me take a minute on slide 15 to look at our market valuation. Speaker 500:16:51This slide shows our trailing 12-month adjusted EBITDA of CAD 193 million and our enterprise value of approximately CAD 1.3 billion at a 6.9x EV to EBITDA multiple. At 6.9x, our long-term investments are valued at CAD 124 million, a 70% discount against the balance sheet value of CAD 418 million as of Q2. The rest of the business continues to trade at a two-term discount against other traditional asset managers. These suggest a further potential upside to our valuation, despite the strong share price movement over the last few years. When we do see volatility in our stock, we continue to be very active and will continue to look for opportunities to buy back shares opportunistically. I will now pass it back to Judy to close out the presentation. Speaker 400:17:48To sum up this quarter, we continue to make progress against our strategic objectives. AGF Investments and AGF Private Wealth businesses remain strong. Our AUM and fee-earning assets continue to climb, reaching nearly CAD 75 billion, 40% higher from prior year. Our investment performance remains solid, and our sales momentum remains strong. We are excited about the opportunities ahead for New Holland Capital and the continued growth of the AGF Capital Partners business. 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. I would also like to take a moment to thank our entire AGF team for all their hard work. We will now take your questions. Speaker 600:18:51Thank you. If you have a question at this time, please press the star one one on your touch tone telephone. If you wish to remove yourself from the queue, press star one one again. One moment for our questions. Our first question comes from Graham Ryding of TD Securities. Your line is open. Speaker 200:19:49Hello. Good morning. Speaker 400:19:51Morning. Speaker 200:19:53Could we maybe start with just New Holland Capital? Can you give us a feel for the organic growth profile there in terms of net new assets, maybe how that's looked over the last few years? Speaker 400:20:08Sure, Graham. We'll let Ash, won't you take that? Operator00:20:10Hi, Graham. Yeah, for sure I can answer that. They've seen significant growth, from an AUM perspective since we closed our transaction. I think as mentioned in the commentary at the beginning of this call, 40%+ growth. They're now sitting around CAD 11 billion. In USD, that was about $5.5 billion-$8 billion. Largely that is coming from two sources, new fundraising as well as profits that are reinvested within some of their core strategies, namely their flagship multi-strategy that they run as well, which has now reached about CAD 3 billion as well. We're seeing quite a bit of organic growth in their existing portfolio. Also as mentioned, they did launch a specialty finance vehicle at the beginning of this year. Operator00:21:06They're still early days in that, seeing interest on the investor side for that product as well. Speaker 200:21:15Okay. How much of that organic growth is coming from the Dutch pension funds versus North American clients? Operator00:21:25The Dutch SMA is largely related to profits that are being reinvested. I don't have the number exactly in front of me. It is part of it, but not the majority of it. The majority of that capital is fundraising capital from new sources, both in North America and in Europe as well. Speaker 200:21:49Okay, great. On the SMA flows, thank you for breaking those out. Do those include SMA flows from U.S. and international or just Canada? If not, how do those flows from the U.S. and international sort of compare to the CAD 150 million that you're sort of averaging over the last four quarters? Speaker 400:22:17Sure. Thanks, Graham. I'll take that. We don't break out first of all, the number reflects only the Canadian SMA number at this time. We don't break out jurisdictionally whether they're from the U.S. or Canada. We show them in a combined way. We're always open to greater disclosure, we are taking some feedback if that number should be broken out. I guess if you just look at the total AUM number we do show between the SMA and ETF, it's probably equally weighted between Canada and globally outside of Canada. We continue to see some very strong flows in the U.S. as well in particular as we sit on about 10 different platforms and we continue to pursue that strategy. Speaker 200:23:02Okay, great. 10 different platforms. Operator00:23:05Oh, sorry. Speaker 200:23:05Sorry, go ahead. Operator00:23:06Just for added clarity. The AUM that we are showing for ETFs and SMAs, that is an aggregated number. That CAD 4.8 billion represents both Canadian and U.S. SMAs and ETFs. I guess with respect to the flows, the CAD 155 million of SMA flows and ETF flows are strictly on the Canadian side. We have also seen some very strong flows on the U.S. side as well. Speaker 200:23:40Okay. Understood. That CAD 4.8 billion, can you break out for us how much of that is SMA versus ETF? If you don't want to give us specifics, can you sort of give us directionally how we should think about that? Speaker 400:23:54Yeah. We don't break that detail out as well. The majority is SMAs. As we continue to evolve our ETF platform, as you may know, we've launched a few more products in ETFs, we continue to focus on growth in that area, but we don't break out the SMA and ETF split. Speaker 200:24:13Okay. That's it for me. Thank you. Speaker 600:24:17Thank you. One moment for our next question. Our next question will come from the line of Romil Sobti with Jefferies. Your line is open. Please go ahead. Speaker 700:24:29Hi. Thank you for taking the question. My first question is on New Holland as well. Could you just explain what are the remaining options and warrants that you have, and if you're expected to exercise them this year? Operator00:24:42Sure. It is Ash here. Happy to answer that. Post-transaction, we have two warrants, essentially options that are still available to us. One that will take us to a majority ownership. A small amount just to flip us into majority and then another 15% option that will take our ownership up into the 65% range. The first warrant I mentioned, that is exercisable by us at any time. It will trigger certain consent rights that we will need to get in the U.S. before we actually get to our 50.01%. The second warrant is exercisable by us 24 months from now within a window of time. Speaker 700:25:32Okay. If you exercise the first option, would that change the to consolidation instead of the equity method? Operator00:25:45Yes, it would. Yeah. Speaker 700:25:47Okay, got it. My other question was, I wanted to know if you could provide a little bit of more color on the operations of New Holland Capital, like the base management fee rate and the profit margins that you are seeing. Operator00:26:01At the moment, over the last couple of years, NHC overall has undertaken a bunch of meaningful growth investments into their business. They've largely been adding and upgrading skill sets and people as well as building out a trading affiliate. As a result, their fee-related earnings right now are roughly break even. Our expectation and the reason for the exercise of our option is with the bulk of that retooling now complete, we do expect those fee-related earnings to pick up over the next 12-24 months. We feel the platform is now positioned for growth with the investments, both as a result of our capital investment as well as them reinvesting into the business over the last few years. As a reminder, when we talk about the fee-related earnings, we're typically excluding performance fees. They do generate performance fees in almost all of their strategies. Operator00:26:58One way to look at this is on a look-back basis. When we were still in our loan arrangement, we did have a participating interest as part of that structure. Earlier this year, that generated about CAD 4.5 million to AGF at our 25% special interest. Again, this was inclusive of performance fees earned over 2025. Speaker 700:27:22Yeah. Okay. Makes sense. Thank you. Speaker 600:27:29Thank you. As a reminder to ask a question, please press star 11 on your telephone. We have a follow-up question from the line of Gary Ho with Desjardins Securities. Please go ahead. Speaker 100:27:52Okay, great. Maybe just going back to maybe Graham's question on the SMA and ETF flow side. Good momentum. Just wondering if you can elaborate. You said there's 10 partners. Wondering if any of those were added or thoughts on adding new partners onto the platform and which products are you seeing the best flows. Maybe just on the flip side, a bit surprised by the mutual fund net sales of CAD 6 million in the quarter. Just given, I think on the last call you had mentioned kind of quarter to date a CAD 40 million number. Were there outflows in May, and how does the June number kind of look? Speaker 400:28:33Thanks, Gary. Let's start with the mutual fund side. We did see some softening in our sales as did the industry, I think quarter-over-quarter. I would attribute that mostly to seasonality. Year-over-year, despite the strong equity markets, we did see a softening in our sales relative to last year. We think that that was mostly due to the fact that you saw a softening of the economy. There was a higher cost of living, and inflation was certainly in play. We do service a certain segment of the Canadian retail investor base that would be most impacted by that sort of reality and that economic sort of situation. We saw some softening from that. As well, when we looked at the underlying flows, industry saw strong flows in the balance and specialty categories where we have less exposure. Speaker 400:29:23We're talking things like gold, high yield, or crypto. To the extent that we do have specialty mandates where we do have a couple in the high yield space, we did see strong flows which was consistent with industry. We just don't have as much exposure more broadly speaking on that. Month to date has been solid with CAD 25 million in net sales through to the end of yesterday. Speaking to the SMA flows in the industry, we are seeing that that is directionally where the industry is going. We have positioned ourselves working with the head office. Our national accounts team has done a great job in Canada getting on about 10 or 11 different platforms. On those platforms, we're seeing mostly our growth suite of products, whether it be U.S. growth, global select, SMID. Speaker 400:30:08We have energy transition in play as well in certain jurisdictions. We continue to evolve that platform, and I think that that's directionally where the industry is going to go. Speaker 100:30:20Great note. Thanks for that. My next question, just on maybe for Ash, just on the fair value distribution line. We back out the New Holland Capital write-up, let's call it. I get to a number that's just under 2% return on your long-term investments. I know it's small, but just wondering if the 5%-6% return that you highlighted last quarter for this fiscal year, is that still a good number to use for the balance of this year? Operator00:30:53Hi, Gary. Yeah. Yeah, we are still looking on an annualized basis for 2026, something in that 5%-6% range, taking into account the 2.5% markdown we had last quarter. We do expect that over the course of the year, while in certain private markets, it may not be the strongest year, that we still will get to that 5%-6% level. Speaker 100:31:17Anything to call out from the infrastructure assets that drove the fair value loss last quarter? Anything that you've seen in the last couple of months? Operator00:31:25No, that portfolio, at least for the quarter, stabilized from a valuation perspective. We do expect in that portfolio some monetizations to be coming in the next few years. That is a good chunk of that portfolio, not the entire holdings for us, is across two funds, one of which has now hit the 10-year mark. We do expect some monetizations there. I think we should expect, given that some of those assets are now mature, that they won't be yielding the same returns they were earlier in the J-curve. Between the time of now and monetization, we would expect some decrease in performance from a return perspective. We just need to make sure we don't misinterpret that as erosion of performance. It's more just that the assets are mature. Speaker 100:32:17Yeah. Okay, makes sense. Just if I can sneak one more in. John, I believe you're on the call, so good to have you on. Just curious to hear your original thoughts here. What attracted you to the role and things that you can leverage from your prior experience? Speaker 300:32:35Yeah. Thanks, Gary. Appreciate the chance to be here today, and good question. Look, I've been here a bit less than two months, and my focus right now continues to be, as you would expect, on building relationships across the organization. This is a great investment team, it's a great platform, and we're really operating from a position of strength. The question about why I joined, I guess I would give you three main reasons. One is our commitment to investment excellence. The second is the culture of collaboration that has long been emphasized here. Third is the continuous improvement mindset. As I move forward, I think the continuous improvement mindset is something I'm really going to lean into. Speaker 300:33:18We're going to pursue every avenue we can to be even better at delivering world-class risk-adjusted returns for our clients, and I couldn't be more excited to be part of that. Speaker 100:33:30Okay, great. No, thanks for those comments. Speaker 600:33:34Thank you. To ask a question at this time, please press *11 on your telephone. Again, to ask a question, please press *11 on your touch-tone telephone. I am not showing any further questions at this time. Speaker 400:34:02Okay. Thank you. Thank you for your questions. This was another strong quarter for AGF. Our investment performance and sales momentum remain strong. Our strong balance sheet and strong cash flow position provides the flexibility to return capital to shareholders, continue investing in long-term growth, and remain resilient through market conditions. We look forward to our Q3 earnings call on September 23rd, 2026. Speaker 600:34:26Thank you, ladies and gentlemen. This concludes today's conference call. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect. Everyone, have a great day.Read morePowered by Earnings DocumentsSlide DeckPress ReleaseInterim report AGF Management Earnings HeadlinesAGF Management Ltd.: AGF Investments Announces June 2026 Cash Distributions for Certain AGF ETFs and ETF SeriesJune 23 at 11:05 PM | finanznachrichten.deAGF Management Limited (TSE:AGF.B) Given Average Rating of "Moderate Buy" by BrokeragesJune 22 at 4:21 AM | americanbankingnews.comThe Treasury just bought its own debtOn April 16th, the U.S. Treasury executed a $15 billion buyback of its own debt - the largest in history - while former Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson publicly warned of collapsing demand for U.S. bonds. According to Garrett Goggin, CFA, CMT, with 20 years studying gold and debt cycles, this is the moment miners priced for a world that no longer exists stand to benefit most. As natural bond buyers disappear and the Fed steps in, the move in gold may only be beginning.June 24 at 1:00 AM | Golden Portfolio (Ad)How The Investment Story For AGF Management (TSX:AGF.B) Is Evolving Without New Analyst GuidanceJune 7, 2026 | finance.yahoo.comAGF Management Ltd.: AGF Reports May 2026 Assets Under Management and Fee-Earning AssetsJune 6, 2026 | finanznachrichten.deAGF Management Ltd.: AGF Investments Announces Proposed Changes to the Investment Objective of AGF Global Sustainable Growth Equity ETFMay 27, 2026 | finanznachrichten.deSee More AGF Management Headlines Get Earnings Announcements in your inboxWant to stay updated on the latest earnings announcements and upcoming reports for companies like AGF Management? Sign up for Earnings360's daily newsletter to receive timely earnings updates on AGF Management and other key companies, straight to your email. Email Address About AGF ManagementFounded 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.View AGF Management ProfileRead more More Earnings Resources from MarketBeat Earnings Tools Today's Earnings Tomorrow's Earnings Next Week's Earnings Upcoming Earnings Calls Earnings Newsletter Earnings Call Transcripts Earnings Beats & Misses Corporate Guidance Earnings Screener Latest Articles Why KB Home Could Reward Patient Investors LaterWhy nVent Could Be a Long-Term AI Infrastructure WinnerChevron’s Microsoft Deal Turns Natural Gas Into an AI TradeMicron’s Sudden Plunge May Be an AI Buying ChanceMarathon Petroleum Is Back, But Cycles Still MatterLiquid Gold: The AI Cooling Retrofit TradeCopa Holdings May Be the Airline Stock Built to Break Out Upcoming Earnings NIKE (6/30/2026)PepsiCo (7/9/2026)Delta Air Lines (7/9/2026)Fastenal (7/13/2026)Bank of America (7/14/2026)The Goldman Sachs Group (7/14/2026)JPMorgan Chase & Co. 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There are 8 speakers on the call. Speaker 600:00:00Thank you for standing by, and welcome to the Q2 2026 AGF Management Limited Earnings Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. After the speaker's presentation, there will be a question and answer session. To ask a question during this session, you will 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, Ken Tsang. Sir, please begin. Speaker 500:00:27Thank you, operator. Good morning, everyone. I'm Ken Tsang, Chief Financial Officer of AGF Management Limited. Today, we will be discussing the financial results for the second quarter of 2026. 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, and Ash Lawrence, Head of AGF Capital Partners. For the question and answer period following the presentation, John Porter, Chief Investment Officer, will also be available to address questions. Slide four 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. Speaker 400:01:13Good morning. Thank you for joining us. Q2 was a strong quarter for AGF. At the end of May, we made a subsequent investment in New Holland Capital, where AGF now owns a 50% economic interest in the company. We are pleased with New Holland Capital's organic growth, with AUM increasing 44% to CAD 11 billion since our initial investment two years ago. With the inclusion of New Holland's AUM of CAD 11 billion, our AUM and fee-earning assets were CAD 75 billion at the end of Q2, up 40% from a year ago. AGF Investments Canadian Retail Mutual Funds reported the eighth consecutive quarter of positive retail mutual fund net sales, with net sales of CAD 6 million in the quarter. Our SMA and ETF business remained strong, with AUM increasing by 74% year-over-year to CAD 4.8 billion. Our Canadian SMA and ETF net flows were CAD 155 million in the quarter. Speaker 400:02:14We reported adjusted diluted EPS of CAD 0.72 and generated CAD 36 million of free cash flow in the quarter. Our balance sheet remained strong with CAD 435 million in the short and long-term investments. Net debt of CAD 51 million, with CAD 145 million available on our credit facility. The strength of our balance sheet and capital position provides us with flexibility to deploy capital thoughtfully in line with our strategic priorities. During the quarter, AGF was added to the Nasdaq Broad Canadian Dividend Achievers Index. This is a testament to our track record of consistent dividend growth and our ongoing focus on returning capital to shareholders. Starting on slide six, 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 to the prior year. Speaker 400:03:10AGF Investments Mutual Fund AUM was CAD 38 billion, up 23% year-over-year, outpacing the industry increase of 20%. The growth of our ETF and SMA AUM globally remained strong, up 74% year-over-year. I will provide more color on our mutual fund, ETFs, and SMA sales in a moment. Segregated accounts and sub-advisory AUM increased by 3% compared to the prior year. We are expecting a CAD 150 million redemption in the pipeline, which is expected to occur in Q3. The redemption is not performance related. It was driven by the relative outperformance of our strategy, causing the client to rebalance the allocation back to target weight. Our AGF Private Wealth AUM increased by 16% compared to prior year, reaching CAD 10 billion. AGF Capital Partners AUM and fee-earning assets were CAD 15.3 billion at the end of the quarter, which included CAD 11 billion from New Holland Capital. Speaker 400:04:11Turning to slide seven, I will provide some details on mutual fund sales. The Canadian mutual fund industry saw positive net sales of approximately CAD 7 billion in the quarter, substantially driven by net flows into fixed income and specialty funds, which included liquid alternatives, crypto, and commodities products. AGF Investments Canadian Retail Mutual Fund delivered its eighth consecutive quarter of positive net sales of CAD 6 million. As previously highlighted, we also continue to see strong flows in our Canadian ETF and SMAs as retail clients look to utilize different investment vehicles to access our investment capabilities. Many of our leading mutual funds are also available via SMAs and ETFs. Accordingly, we are introducing a new view this quarter, combining our Canadian retail mutual fund and ETF and SMA flows to better reflect this overall trend. Speaker 400:05:06As can be seen, our Canadian ETF and SMAs saw positive net flows over the past eight quarters, and we have seen consistent year-over-year growth over the last two years. Turning to slide eight, you can see how the strong sales momentum has driven our ETF and SMA AUM. Our ETF and SMA products globally have grown at 64% on a compounded basis over the last two years, now reaching CAD 4.8 billion. We continue to see consistent growth and momentum across U.S., Canada, and Asia, where many of our strategies are available on leading wealth management platforms. Now let me provide a brief update on our investment performance. 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. Speaker 400:06:00Our one-year performance was in the 42nd percentile, our three-year performance was in the 43rd percentile, and our five-year performance was in the 40th percentile. Approximately 60% of our funds outperformed our peers on a three and five-year basis. I will now pass it over to Ash Lawrence to provide an update on the AGF Capital Partners business. Operator00:06:22Thank you, Judy. Building a diversified alternatives and private markets business remains a strategic imperative and is key to the long-term success of AGF. Over time, AGF Capital Partners will be a driver of growth and contribute to a greater diversification of AGF's assets and client base. AGF formally established AGF Capital Partners as our multi-boutique alternatives business in 2022. Since then, we have made significant progress in the build-out of the business and want to share some key highlights and initiatives from the past year, as well as an overview of the current business profile. In early 2024, we acquired a 51% stake in Kensington Capital Partners, a leading private equity and venture capital manager. We made our initial investment in New Holland, a multi-strategy hedge fund and specialized credit manager. Over the last year, the business has seen tangible growth and a number of business highlights. Operator00:07:22This quarter, we increased our interest in New Holland from 24.9% to 50%, with rights to further increase our stake in subsequent periods. At the beginning of 2026, New Holland launched a specialty finance-focused fund for institutional investors. Additionally, New Holland has also onboarded new institutional investors to its flagship multi-strategy hedge fund, which now has almost CAD 3 billion in assets. Early last year, AGF and New Holland jointly launched the AGF NHC Tactical Alpha Fund, giving eligible Canadian investors access to their flagship mandate. Additionally, New Holland's total AUM is up by 44% since our initial investment in 2024, reaching CAD 11 billion. In the midst of a very difficult private equity environment, Kensington Capital Partners successfully updated the terms of its flagship CAD 1.2 billion Kensington Private Equity Fund to modernize the fund structure and better align the fund terms to the liquidity profile of the underlying investments. Operator00:08:30This resulted in the lifting of the suspension of redemptions in March of this year. Additionally, Kensington acquired a strategic interest in ONE9, a venture capital firm focused on the defense and security sector. Kensington has since launched a sector-specific strategy and grown the team focused on what is quickly becoming a major investment theme with institutional clients. Finally, the AUM of the AGF SAF Private Credit Strategy crossed CAD 250 million, with steady growth driven by both strong performance and flows throughout the past year. As a reminder, our Canadian private debt strategy is focused on non-sponsor-backed borrowers in the lower mid-market and mid-market within Canada. A contributing factor in the future to accelerating the growth of Kensington, New Holland, and the AGF SAF Private Credit Strategy, as well as new managers, is our ability to leverage the organizational support and breadth of the resources at AGF. Operator00:09:31To that end, over the last few years, we have developed internal infrastructure to strengthen the support for our affiliate managers. We've established a dedicated sales team to market our private market strategies to Canadian investors, both retail and institutional. We've built other dedicated functions within AGF to support the business and our affiliates, such as marketing and legal resources. We've provided capital to grow the business alongside investing in numerous funds managed by our affiliate managers. Finally, we remain disciplined in our origination process as we look to grow the platform further with new manager relationships and alternative investment strategies. Over the past three years, we have screened approximately 70 managers and continue to build our presence and relationships to benefit our pipeline. Operator00:10:23It is crucial for us to maintain rigor around our preferred manager profile as we seek the right long-term partnerships that provide us with specialized investment capabilities and marketable track records. AGF Capital Partners now has over CAD 15 billion of AUM and fee-earning assets spanning across various investment strategies, including absolute return, venture capital, private credit, and private equity, both in Canada and the United States. Going forward, we will continue to grow AGF Capital Partners by supporting the growth of our affiliate managers while continuing to look for targeted acquisition opportunities. With that, I will now pass it over to Ken to discuss our financial results. Speaker 500:11:07Thanks, Ash. Slide 10 reflects a summary of our financial results with sequential quarter and year-over-year comparisons. Our financial results in this period 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 64 million, up CAD 34 million from the prior quarter and CAD 25 million from the prior year, mainly driven by higher top-line revenues, which I'll get to in a minute. SG&A was CAD 63 million, down CAD 2 million from the prior quarter and up CAD 3 million from the prior year. The decrease from the prior quarter was attributable to seasonally higher expenses recorded last quarter. The increase from the prior year was mainly due to higher performance-related and AUM-driven expenses. Adjusted net income attributable to equity owners for the current quarter was CAD 47 million, and adjusted diluted EPS was CAD 0.72. Speaker 500:12:10Free cash flows for the quarter was CAD 36 million, which is largely flat to the prior quarter, and CAD 12 million higher than the prior year, mainly due to higher EBITDA from our AGF Investments and AGF Private Wealth businesses. Slide 11 provides a further breakdown of our net revenues. Within AGF Investments and AGF Private Wealth, net management fees were CAD 97 million for the quarter, which is CAD 4 million higher than the prior quarter, driven by higher average AUM and two additional days in the quarter, and CAD 13 million higher than the prior year, driven mainly by higher average AUM. Revenues from AGF Capital Partners was CAD 27 million this quarter, representing a significant increase from the prior quarter and prior year. Speaker 500:12:58The increase versus both comparative periods was mainly due to the CAD 15 million gain on our New Holland transaction, where we exercised certain of our option rights to increase our interest from 25% to 50%. The increase in revenues from our long-term investments this quarter also contributed to the sequential quarter increase. As we have seen in prior quarters, fair value adjustments can be lumpy, but we remain pleased with the long-term performance of these investments. Since inception, these investments have generated returns of over 11% per annum, exceeding our long-term target return of 8%-10%. I would also like to note that with the conversion of our convertible note to equity and subsequent investment in New Holland, we will be accounting for New Holland on an equity accounting basis going forward. Speaker 500:13:51We expect the New Holland transaction to be modestly accretive to earnings in the near term after accounting for performance fees and amortization expenses. The expansion of New Holland's operating leverage is expected to further contribute to earnings growth over time. On slide 12, we outlined adjustments to our EBITDA. As you might recall, M&A transactions in the AGF Capital Partners business gives rise to various liabilities. These liabilities are fair valued each quarter, with the difference flowing through to the P&L. These accruals and fair value adjustments have no immediate cash impact, 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 64 million. Turning to slide 13, I will walk through the yield on our business in terms of basis points. Speaker 500:14:53This 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 the DSC revenues, other income, and any other one-time adjustments. The EBITDA yield this quarter was 28 basis points, which is three or four basis points higher than the prior quarter and the trailing 12 months, highlighting the operating leverage of our business as AUM grows. Turning to slide 14, 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. Speaker 500:15:51Our trailing 12-month free cash flows was CAD 134 million, and our dividends paid as a percentage of free cash flows was 24%. In the same period, we returned CAD 80 million to shareholders, consisting of CAD 32 million in dividends and CAD 47 million in share buybacks. During the quarter, we repurchased over half a million shares under our NCIB. We ended the quarter with net debt of CAD 51 million. We also have CAD 435 million in short-term and long-term investments and have CAD 145 million remaining on 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, share buybacks, as well as investing in areas of growth. Before I pass it back to Judy, let me take a minute on slide 15 to look at our market valuation. Speaker 500:16:51This slide shows our trailing 12-month adjusted EBITDA of CAD 193 million and our enterprise value of approximately CAD 1.3 billion at a 6.9x EV to EBITDA multiple. At 6.9x, our long-term investments are valued at CAD 124 million, a 70% discount against the balance sheet value of CAD 418 million as of Q2. The rest of the business continues to trade at a two-term discount against other traditional asset managers. These suggest a further potential upside to our valuation, despite the strong share price movement over the last few years. When we do see volatility in our stock, we continue to be very active and will continue to look for opportunities to buy back shares opportunistically. I will now pass it back to Judy to close out the presentation. Speaker 400:17:48To sum up this quarter, we continue to make progress against our strategic objectives. AGF Investments and AGF Private Wealth businesses remain strong. Our AUM and fee-earning assets continue to climb, reaching nearly CAD 75 billion, 40% higher from prior year. Our investment performance remains solid, and our sales momentum remains strong. We are excited about the opportunities ahead for New Holland Capital and the continued growth of the AGF Capital Partners business. 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. I would also like to take a moment to thank our entire AGF team for all their hard work. We will now take your questions. Speaker 600:18:51Thank you. If you have a question at this time, please press the star one one on your touch tone telephone. If you wish to remove yourself from the queue, press star one one again. One moment for our questions. Our first question comes from Graham Ryding of TD Securities. Your line is open. Speaker 200:19:49Hello. Good morning. Speaker 400:19:51Morning. Speaker 200:19:53Could we maybe start with just New Holland Capital? Can you give us a feel for the organic growth profile there in terms of net new assets, maybe how that's looked over the last few years? Speaker 400:20:08Sure, Graham. We'll let Ash, won't you take that? Operator00:20:10Hi, Graham. Yeah, for sure I can answer that. They've seen significant growth, from an AUM perspective since we closed our transaction. I think as mentioned in the commentary at the beginning of this call, 40%+ growth. They're now sitting around CAD 11 billion. In USD, that was about $5.5 billion-$8 billion. Largely that is coming from two sources, new fundraising as well as profits that are reinvested within some of their core strategies, namely their flagship multi-strategy that they run as well, which has now reached about CAD 3 billion as well. We're seeing quite a bit of organic growth in their existing portfolio. Also as mentioned, they did launch a specialty finance vehicle at the beginning of this year. Operator00:21:06They're still early days in that, seeing interest on the investor side for that product as well. Speaker 200:21:15Okay. How much of that organic growth is coming from the Dutch pension funds versus North American clients? Operator00:21:25The Dutch SMA is largely related to profits that are being reinvested. I don't have the number exactly in front of me. It is part of it, but not the majority of it. The majority of that capital is fundraising capital from new sources, both in North America and in Europe as well. Speaker 200:21:49Okay, great. On the SMA flows, thank you for breaking those out. Do those include SMA flows from U.S. and international or just Canada? If not, how do those flows from the U.S. and international sort of compare to the CAD 150 million that you're sort of averaging over the last four quarters? Speaker 400:22:17Sure. Thanks, Graham. I'll take that. We don't break out first of all, the number reflects only the Canadian SMA number at this time. We don't break out jurisdictionally whether they're from the U.S. or Canada. We show them in a combined way. We're always open to greater disclosure, we are taking some feedback if that number should be broken out. I guess if you just look at the total AUM number we do show between the SMA and ETF, it's probably equally weighted between Canada and globally outside of Canada. We continue to see some very strong flows in the U.S. as well in particular as we sit on about 10 different platforms and we continue to pursue that strategy. Speaker 200:23:02Okay, great. 10 different platforms. Operator00:23:05Oh, sorry. Speaker 200:23:05Sorry, go ahead. Operator00:23:06Just for added clarity. The AUM that we are showing for ETFs and SMAs, that is an aggregated number. That CAD 4.8 billion represents both Canadian and U.S. SMAs and ETFs. I guess with respect to the flows, the CAD 155 million of SMA flows and ETF flows are strictly on the Canadian side. We have also seen some very strong flows on the U.S. side as well. Speaker 200:23:40Okay. Understood. That CAD 4.8 billion, can you break out for us how much of that is SMA versus ETF? If you don't want to give us specifics, can you sort of give us directionally how we should think about that? Speaker 400:23:54Yeah. We don't break that detail out as well. The majority is SMAs. As we continue to evolve our ETF platform, as you may know, we've launched a few more products in ETFs, we continue to focus on growth in that area, but we don't break out the SMA and ETF split. Speaker 200:24:13Okay. That's it for me. Thank you. Speaker 600:24:17Thank you. One moment for our next question. Our next question will come from the line of Romil Sobti with Jefferies. Your line is open. Please go ahead. Speaker 700:24:29Hi. Thank you for taking the question. My first question is on New Holland as well. Could you just explain what are the remaining options and warrants that you have, and if you're expected to exercise them this year? Operator00:24:42Sure. It is Ash here. Happy to answer that. Post-transaction, we have two warrants, essentially options that are still available to us. One that will take us to a majority ownership. A small amount just to flip us into majority and then another 15% option that will take our ownership up into the 65% range. The first warrant I mentioned, that is exercisable by us at any time. It will trigger certain consent rights that we will need to get in the U.S. before we actually get to our 50.01%. The second warrant is exercisable by us 24 months from now within a window of time. Speaker 700:25:32Okay. If you exercise the first option, would that change the to consolidation instead of the equity method? Operator00:25:45Yes, it would. Yeah. Speaker 700:25:47Okay, got it. My other question was, I wanted to know if you could provide a little bit of more color on the operations of New Holland Capital, like the base management fee rate and the profit margins that you are seeing. Operator00:26:01At the moment, over the last couple of years, NHC overall has undertaken a bunch of meaningful growth investments into their business. They've largely been adding and upgrading skill sets and people as well as building out a trading affiliate. As a result, their fee-related earnings right now are roughly break even. Our expectation and the reason for the exercise of our option is with the bulk of that retooling now complete, we do expect those fee-related earnings to pick up over the next 12-24 months. We feel the platform is now positioned for growth with the investments, both as a result of our capital investment as well as them reinvesting into the business over the last few years. As a reminder, when we talk about the fee-related earnings, we're typically excluding performance fees. They do generate performance fees in almost all of their strategies. Operator00:26:58One way to look at this is on a look-back basis. When we were still in our loan arrangement, we did have a participating interest as part of that structure. Earlier this year, that generated about CAD 4.5 million to AGF at our 25% special interest. Again, this was inclusive of performance fees earned over 2025. Speaker 700:27:22Yeah. Okay. Makes sense. Thank you. Speaker 600:27:29Thank you. As a reminder to ask a question, please press star 11 on your telephone. We have a follow-up question from the line of Gary Ho with Desjardins Securities. Please go ahead. Speaker 100:27:52Okay, great. Maybe just going back to maybe Graham's question on the SMA and ETF flow side. Good momentum. Just wondering if you can elaborate. You said there's 10 partners. Wondering if any of those were added or thoughts on adding new partners onto the platform and which products are you seeing the best flows. Maybe just on the flip side, a bit surprised by the mutual fund net sales of CAD 6 million in the quarter. Just given, I think on the last call you had mentioned kind of quarter to date a CAD 40 million number. Were there outflows in May, and how does the June number kind of look? Speaker 400:28:33Thanks, Gary. Let's start with the mutual fund side. We did see some softening in our sales as did the industry, I think quarter-over-quarter. I would attribute that mostly to seasonality. Year-over-year, despite the strong equity markets, we did see a softening in our sales relative to last year. We think that that was mostly due to the fact that you saw a softening of the economy. There was a higher cost of living, and inflation was certainly in play. We do service a certain segment of the Canadian retail investor base that would be most impacted by that sort of reality and that economic sort of situation. We saw some softening from that. As well, when we looked at the underlying flows, industry saw strong flows in the balance and specialty categories where we have less exposure. Speaker 400:29:23We're talking things like gold, high yield, or crypto. To the extent that we do have specialty mandates where we do have a couple in the high yield space, we did see strong flows which was consistent with industry. We just don't have as much exposure more broadly speaking on that. Month to date has been solid with CAD 25 million in net sales through to the end of yesterday. Speaking to the SMA flows in the industry, we are seeing that that is directionally where the industry is going. We have positioned ourselves working with the head office. Our national accounts team has done a great job in Canada getting on about 10 or 11 different platforms. On those platforms, we're seeing mostly our growth suite of products, whether it be U.S. growth, global select, SMID. Speaker 400:30:08We have energy transition in play as well in certain jurisdictions. We continue to evolve that platform, and I think that that's directionally where the industry is going to go. Speaker 100:30:20Great note. Thanks for that. My next question, just on maybe for Ash, just on the fair value distribution line. We back out the New Holland Capital write-up, let's call it. I get to a number that's just under 2% return on your long-term investments. I know it's small, but just wondering if the 5%-6% return that you highlighted last quarter for this fiscal year, is that still a good number to use for the balance of this year? Operator00:30:53Hi, Gary. Yeah. Yeah, we are still looking on an annualized basis for 2026, something in that 5%-6% range, taking into account the 2.5% markdown we had last quarter. We do expect that over the course of the year, while in certain private markets, it may not be the strongest year, that we still will get to that 5%-6% level. Speaker 100:31:17Anything to call out from the infrastructure assets that drove the fair value loss last quarter? Anything that you've seen in the last couple of months? Operator00:31:25No, that portfolio, at least for the quarter, stabilized from a valuation perspective. We do expect in that portfolio some monetizations to be coming in the next few years. That is a good chunk of that portfolio, not the entire holdings for us, is across two funds, one of which has now hit the 10-year mark. We do expect some monetizations there. I think we should expect, given that some of those assets are now mature, that they won't be yielding the same returns they were earlier in the J-curve. Between the time of now and monetization, we would expect some decrease in performance from a return perspective. We just need to make sure we don't misinterpret that as erosion of performance. It's more just that the assets are mature. Speaker 100:32:17Yeah. Okay, makes sense. Just if I can sneak one more in. John, I believe you're on the call, so good to have you on. Just curious to hear your original thoughts here. What attracted you to the role and things that you can leverage from your prior experience? Speaker 300:32:35Yeah. Thanks, Gary. Appreciate the chance to be here today, and good question. Look, I've been here a bit less than two months, and my focus right now continues to be, as you would expect, on building relationships across the organization. This is a great investment team, it's a great platform, and we're really operating from a position of strength. The question about why I joined, I guess I would give you three main reasons. One is our commitment to investment excellence. The second is the culture of collaboration that has long been emphasized here. Third is the continuous improvement mindset. As I move forward, I think the continuous improvement mindset is something I'm really going to lean into. Speaker 300:33:18We're going to pursue every avenue we can to be even better at delivering world-class risk-adjusted returns for our clients, and I couldn't be more excited to be part of that. Speaker 100:33:30Okay, great. No, thanks for those comments. Speaker 600:33:34Thank you. To ask a question at this time, please press *11 on your telephone. Again, to ask a question, please press *11 on your touch-tone telephone. I am not showing any further questions at this time. Speaker 400:34:02Okay. Thank you. Thank you for your questions. This was another strong quarter for AGF. Our investment performance and sales momentum remain strong. Our strong balance sheet and strong cash flow position provides the flexibility to return capital to shareholders, continue investing in long-term growth, and remain resilient through market conditions. We look forward to our Q3 earnings call on September 23rd, 2026. Speaker 600:34:26Thank you, ladies and gentlemen. This concludes today's conference call. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect. Everyone, have a great day.Read morePowered by