The results came out in the same week that the Toronto-listed group said it was to be taken private by a Middle East-based sovereign wealth fund.

Canada’s CI Financial, which this week announced that it is being taken private by a Middle East sovereign wealth fund, yesterday reported preliminary total assets of C$525.3 billion ($374.9 billion), as at 31 October. The figure rose 24.9 per cent on a year earlier.

The overall figure is made up of asset management assets of $136.1 billion, Canadian wealth management assets of C$100.4 billion, Canadian custody assets of C$32.3 billion, and US wealth management assets of C$256.5 billion, it said in a statement.

As previously reported on 31 October 2024, Corient, CI’s US wealth management subsidiary, completed the acquisition of registered investment advisor Ensemble Capital Management, LLC of San Francisco, adding assets of about C$2.4 billion ($1.8 billion).

Earlier this week, Toronto-listed CI Financial said it was being taken private in a C$4.7 billion deal with Abu Dhabi-based Mubadala Capital giving the group a C$12.1 billion enterprise value. It appears that Mubadala is following the playbook of Clayton, Dubilier & Rice, the private equity house that acquired Focus Financial private last summer, taking it off public markets.

CI Financial has made its name in the North American wealth sector as a large buyer of RIAs in recent years, although it subsequently sold a minority stake in its US business, now known as Corient, adopting the moniker in August 2023. This business will operate independently under that brand. 

Since CI Financial entered the US RIA sector in 2020, it has become one of the industry’s fastest-growing wealth platforms through acquisitions and organic growth. The Canadian interloper stunned the American RIA business in 2020 and 2021, gobbling up over two dozen high quality advisory firms with more than $175 billion in assets under management.