Canaccord Genuity (CF) is rumoured to be weighing the sale of its UK wealth business, sending shares up 14%. Should a deal materialize, it would follow a series of transactions that brought AUM above $70B…

… which if done at a similar multiple to BMO’s $625M Burgundy deal, would put the price tag around £1B - in-line with a 12-16x multiple on last year’s EBITDA. At a quarter of CF’s revenue, the deal would be material…

… but assuming an adequate price, I’d like it. Everybody’s scrambling for scale in the industry, as evidenced by the $1.7B Guardian and $600M Richardson deals. That makes for a great off ramp for anyone not looking to play the same game.

Zigging when the market is zagging, with the same conviction that makes Strathcona (SCR) and Primaris (PMZ-U) interesting - and with a liquidity preference for minority owner HPS easing in 2026…

❝

We have an ability to take them out. We have to come up with hundreds of millions of dollars to do that. So that’s a very good option. We could IPO the company. We could sell the company.

Daniel Daviau (CEO) - CF Q4’24 call

… an official deal might not be so far away.

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