Canaccord Genuity Gr (TSX:CF) released fourth-quarter financial results and hosted an earnings call on Thursday. Read the complete transcript below.
This transcript is brought to you by Benzinga APIs. For real-time access to our entire catalog, please visit https://www.benzinga.com/apis/ for a consultation.
Access the full call at https://app.webinar.net/XQbKkwXlNwL
Summary
CF Industries Holdings, Inc. reported Q4 revenue of $613 million, marking a 33% year-over-year increase, and full fiscal year revenue reached a record $2.2 billion.
The capital markets division saw a 37% year-over-year increase in Q4 revenue due to strong investment banking and advisory results, particularly in Canada and Australia.
Wealth management revenue hit $1.1 billion for fiscal 2026, up 24% from the previous year, driven by higher client engagement and transaction-based revenue.
Firm-wide pre-tax net income rose by 176% year-over-year in Q4 to $89 million, and adjusted diluted EPS increased by 300% to $0.48 in the same period.
The company completed significant acquisitions, including Wilson Advisory in Australia and CRC in the US, enhancing its capital markets and energy transformation capabilities.
Client assets reached a record $148 billion, up 23% year-over-year, supported by market appreciation and organic inflows.
Future guidance suggests low single-digit improvement in pre-tax operating margin for fiscal 2027, with continued focus on strategic priorities and expense discipline.
A 17.6% increase in the quarterly common share dividend to $0.10 per share was approved, reflecting confidence in the company's outlook.
Full Transcript
OPERATOR
Good morning ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for standing by. I'd like to welcome everyone to the Canaccord Genuity Group Inc. Fiscal 2026 Fourth Quarter Results Conference Call. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. Following the speaker's prepared remarks, there will be a question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question during this time, simply press Star then the number one on your telephone keypad.
If you would like to withdraw your question, please press Star then the number two. If you have any difficulties hearing the conference, please press Star then zero for operator assistance at any time. As a reminder, this conference call is being broadcast live online and recorded. I will now like to turn the conference call over to Mr. Dan Davio., Chairman and CEO. Please go ahead Mr. Davio.
Dan Davio (Chairman and CEO)
Thank you Operator and welcome to everyone joining today's call. As always, I'm joined by our Chief Financial Officer Nadine Ahn. Our remarks today are complimentary to our Earnings release, MD&A and Supplemental Financials, copies of which have been made available for download on SEDAR plus and on the Investor Relations section of our [email protected]. Within our update, certain reported information has been adjusted to exclude significant items to provide a transparent and comparative view of our operating performance.
These adjustment items are non IFRS measures. Please refer to our notice regarding forward looking statements and the description of non IFRS measures that appear in our MD&A. And with that let's discuss the fourth quarter and fiscal 2026 results. Q4 began on a constructive note with the markets rising in January on strong earnings and enthusiasm around AI driven productivity. Sentiment weakened over the balance of the three month period as geopolitical conflict, sharp moves in oil bond and currencies and a rotation away from growth in technology weighed on investor confidence.
Gold prices also reflected the broader volatility, reaching a record high in January before entering a multi week sell off and declining nearly 17% by quarter end. Against this backdrop, our teams remained focused on disciplined execution, supporting a solid quarterly result and a strong finish to the fiscal year. Firm wide revenue of $613 million for the three month period increased 33% year over year, representing our third highest quarterly revenue on record.
For the full fiscal year, revenue reached a record $2.2 billion reflecting an operating model designed to protect shareholder value across market cycles. The fourth quarter revenue contribution from our capital markets division increased by 37% year over year. This reflected stronger investment banking and commission and fees revenue led by our Canadian and Australian businesses where mining sector activity remained robust although modestly below the exceptional levels achieved in the prior quarter.
Our Canadian business also delivered an exceptional advisory result in the quarter. For fiscal 2026, capital markets revenue increased to its highest level since fiscal 2022. This performance reflected robust underwriting activity in Australia, strong underwriting and advisory activity in Canada and disciplined execution across our global platform. We continue to rank among the league table leaders in our target sectors and continue to maintain our position as the most active mid market dealer globally.
During the year we participated in 472 capital raising transactions raising more than $63 billion for growth companies, a 70% increase over the prior year. Our wealth management division delivered its 10th consecutive quarter of revenue growth which brought fiscal 20 revenue earned by this division to a record $1.1 billion, up 24% from fiscal 2025. Growth in the three and 12 month period was led by stronger commission and fee revenue reflecting higher client engagement levels as market conditions improved.
Results in our Canadian and Australian business also benefited from elevated transaction based revenue, particularly from new issue activity which typically carries higher margins but is more market-dependent. While this has been a positive contributor in recent quarters, margin progression in these businesses may moderate as activity levels normalize. We ended the year with record client assets of $148 billion up 23% year over year driven by market appreciation, strong organic net inflows and the addition of Wilson Advisory.
We continue to invest in and scale this platform through targeted recruitment, expanded product capabilities and selective acquisitions, strengthening our ability to attract and retain assets, drive net inflows and improve the quality of earnings over time across the organization. We continue to manage expenses carefully while maintaining disciplined investment in areas that support long term growth excluding significant items. Firm wide pre tax net income increased 176% year over year to $89 million in the fourth quarter and adjusted diluted earnings per share rose 300% to 48 cents for the full year.
Adjusted diluted earnings per share were $1.26 up 107% reflecting stronger operating leverage and improved profitability across the platform. Throughout the year we took deliberate steps to allocate resources and capital to the areas where we can deliver the greatest value to clients and compete most effectively. In Australia, the Wilsons advisory acquisition materially strengthened our platform, adding 60 advisors and establishing a truly national wealth management footprint, bringing complementary talent and relationships to our capital markets business in the region.
In the US the acquisition of CRC enabled the formation of our new Energy Transformation Group, deepening our capabilities in higher growth advisory segments while strengthening our offering for sustainability sector clients and related mandates across our broader sector platform. And with that I will turn things over to Nadine.
Nadine Ahn (Chief Financial Officer)
Thank you Dan and good morning everyone. As Dan mentioned, we delivered very strong fourth quarter results and capped the year with record revenue and materially improved profitability. Firm wide pre tax net income for the fourth fiscal quarter increased 176% year-over-year to $89 million, bringing full year pre tax net income to $263 million, up 76% from fiscal 2025. This translated to adjusted diluted earnings per share of $0.48 in the quarter up 300% year-over-year and $1.26 for fiscal 2026, an increase of 107% over the prior year.
While a more supportive market backdrop contributed to top line growth, operating discipline drove significantly stronger profitability for fiscal 2026. Our pre tax operating margin improved by 3.5 percentage points compared to fiscal 2025. Firm wide non compensation expenses excluding significant items were $155 million in the fourth quarter and $601 million for fiscal 2026, with the full year increase reflecting acquisition related growth, higher activity levels and continued investment in our platforms.
Our non compensation expense ratio improved by 5.6 percentage points year-over-year to 27.2%. Compensation expense increased with stronger performance across the organization in addition to changes in our revenue mix, while share based compensation increased year-over-year primarily due to mark to market changes in the valuation of certain awards. Our firm wide compensation ratio was 60.9% for fiscal 2026. Turning to business unit performance, capital markets contributed adjusted pre tax net income of $58 million in the fourth quarter, bringing the fiscal 2026 contribution to $141 million, an increase of 222% from the prior year.
The adjusted pretax profit margin in this division was 20% in the fourth quarter, driven by stronger revenue and improved operating leverage. Fiscal 2026 margin was 13.5%, up 8.2 percentage points from the prior year. On a consolidated basis, capital markets revenue increased 37% year-over-year to $292 million in the fourth quarter and 26% to $1 billion for fiscal 2026. The year-over-year increase in the quarter was driven primarily by higher investment banking revenue up 161% along with stronger advisory and commissions and fees.
Revenue activity in the metals and mining sector continues to support stronger performance in Canada and Australia where we have established sector depth. We are also seeing improvement across our other core sectors, although the pace and consistency of activity remain more variable, particularly in the US and U.K. advisory revenue was $119 million in the fourth quarter up 32% year-over-year, with our US operations remaining the largest contributor and Canada delivering a particularly strong quarter for fiscal 2026.
Advisory revenue of $312 million represented the third highest annual result on record for this business line. Commissions and FEES revenue increased 26% year-over-year to $53 million in the quarter and by 25% for the full year while trading revenue declined materially primarily due to the sale of the US Wholesale market making business. With the sale of that business and the addition of CRC, the revenue mix and earnings quality of our US capital markets franchise improved during fiscal 2026 and we expect those changes to support stronger margin performance over time.
Turning to wealth management revenue of $307 million in the fourth quarter and $1.1 billion for fiscal 2026 represented year-over-year increases of 28% and 24% respectively and new records for each period. Fourth quarter revenue growth was driven primarily by commissions and FEES revenue of $248 million up 30% year-over-year, reflecting higher contributions from all geographies as well as higher investment banking revenue in Canada and Australia.
For the fiscal year we recorded meaningful increases in all regions. Enhanced performance in Australia also reflected contributions from our acquisition of Wilson Advisory which was completed in the second half of our fiscal year. The adjusted pre tax net income for our Global wealth management division increased 10% year-over-year to $45 million in the fourth quarter bringing the full year contribution to $195 million up 31% from fiscal 2025. The U.K.
remained the largest contributor to wealth management earnings in the 3 and 12 month periods while Canada delivered strong year-over-year improvement and Australia continued to scale following the Wilsons acquisition. As Dan noted, Canada and Australia produced particularly strong operating leverage while margins in the U.K. and Crown dependencies declined modestly. This reflected higher general and administrative and development costs to support growth initiatives as well as higher compensation ratio driven by increased fixed compensation to support higher headcount.
Client assets ended the year at a record $148 billion up 23% year-over-year. Growth was driven by market appreciation, acquisitions and positive net inflows across the platform. In the U.K. and Crown Dependencies, client assets finished the year at $74 billion or £40 billion in local currency up 7% and 8% year-over-year respectively, supported by market growth and positive net new asset flows. Client assets in Canada reached a new record of $56 billion up 30% year-over-year reflecting higher market values, positive net flows and enhanced advisor productivity, the average book per investment Advisor team grew 29% year-over-year.
Client assets in Australia reached a new record of $18 billion, increasing $10 billion or 113% year-over-year, with approximately $7 billion of that increase attributable to Wilson's advisory. Across the wealth platform, increased scale, improving asset levels and continued investment in growth initiatives position the business well as we move into fiscal 2027, although margin progression will continue to vary by geography depending on investment levels and revenue mix.
During the fourth quarter in connection with the completion of the Wilsons acquisition, the holding company for Australian operations completed a rights offering. As expected, this reduced our ownership percentage in the Australian business, with our beneficial ownership decreasing from 65% to 52.4%. For accounting purposes, our ownership as of March 31 is reflected at 54.6% which includes shares held in an employee trust controlled by the Australian holding company compared to 68.4% a year ago.
Turning to the balance sheet, we ended the year with cash and cash equivalents of $2 billion and working capital of $787 million, maintaining ample liquidity to support regulatory requirements, strategic priorities and ongoing business activity. For fiscal 2027 we expect our firm wide pre tax operating margin to improve by low single digits, supported by continued progress against our strategic priorities, improvements in operating leverage and ongoing firmwide expense discipline.
With that, I'll turn things back to Dan.
Dan Davio (Chairman and CEO)
Thank you Nadine. We are very pleased with our fourth quarter performance and the momentum we carried through fiscal 2026 which reflected strong execution, broader contributions across the platform and materially improved profitability. At the core of that performance is our partnership culture which supports a long term approach to servicing clients and driving value for our fellow shareholders in wealth management. Our priorities remain to grow client assets, deepen fee based relationships and continue to improve operating leverage while making selective investments to support long term growth and a stronger reoccurring revenue mix.
We expect conditions across our core capital markets activities to remain broadly supportive, recognizing that geopolitical uncertainty, market volatility and shifts in investor sentiment could affect the pace and timing of activity. We have good visibility on strong advisory pipelines in Canada and the U.S. and our outlook for corporate financing remains constructive, supported by improving activity levels across our core focus sectors. We also continue to evaluate strategic opportunities with the objective of maximizing long term value for our shareholders while maintaining continuity and high standards of service for our clients.
As previously disclosed, this includes our ongoing assessment of a range of strategic options for our wealth management business in the U.K. and Crown dependencies to date, our activities have been limited to discussions and assessment of potential opportunities and we expect this work to continue on an ongoing basis with no fixed timeline for completion. The business remains a meaningful contributor to our financial performance and we continue to see value in its role within our global wealth management operation.
Having said that, I would direct you to the full statement included in last night's quarterly press release and we will not be commenting further on this matter. Overall, the structural improvements we have made in our capital markets business, together with disciplined execution and selective investment in our wealth management platform, leaves us well positioned to capture market share and support continued earnings momentum. Reflecting this confidence in our outlook, our board has approved a 17.6% increase to our quarterly common share dividend to $0.10 per share as disclosed in last night's release.
With that, Nadine and I would be
Nadine Ahn (Chief Financial Officer)
pleased to take your questions.
OPERATOR
Operator, you may open the lines.
Thank you ladies and gentlemen. We will now conduct a question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question, please press Star, then the number one on your telephone keypad. If you would like to withdraw your question, please press Star, then the number two. There will be a brief pause while we compile the Q and A roster. First question comes from the line of Stephen Boland from Raymond James. Please go ahead.
Stephen Boland (Analyst)
Morning Nadine. You threw a lot of numbers out there on expenses. I'm wondering if you could maybe just separate the Canada and the U.S. expenses and the improvement. Obviously the Canadian expenses, even quarter over quarter were pretty flat and non-compensation I'm talking about. So is that just a combination of you guys are working on a lot of projects on technology compliance. Maybe just start with Canada first. That this is kind of the flat run rate that we can expect obviously to grow.
You're going to probably incur more expenses. I'm just trying to get a bit of a breakdown on Canada. Then may I have a specific question on US Expenses as well?
Nadine Ahn (Chief Financial Officer)
Sure. Thank you. So in terms of Canada, yes, we
Stephen Boland (Analyst)
were running at a bit of an elevator. We did have some one time cost in there related to some pro freeze given some of the activities we were engaging in from a strategic perspective. But in addition we were running at probably a higher technology cost base due to some of our vendor contracts that we are working on remitting in terms of into fiscal 2027.
So for Canada we do expect to see continued margin improvement particularly in the wealth management business in capital markets you would expect that we would have seen the operating margin improvement Cost did come down. We've been managing particularly in discretionary areas on some of our general and admin as it relates to managing our travel and expense.
So our productivity actually improved quite significantly in Canada on our capital market side of things. So from a run rate perspective you would expect to see on the Canadian wealth some decrease there related to some of our business related non comp expenses just given some of the one time items that we had in place. But also we expect to see improvement in margins just with some of our revenue scale as well.
Nadine Ahn (Chief Financial Officer)
Yes, just on the U.S. i mean you sold the trading business off so we're getting I guess used to a new run rate. But is it the same story in the US that you had some elevated obviously through the remediation one time costs as well as the trading business? Like how structural is this run rate now for this quarter because there was a meaningful drop in the non compensation expenses?
Stephen Boland (Analyst)
Yeah, a lot of that would have been driven as you noted off of the sale of our wholesale marketing business. So the trading costs coming down there as well as our interest costs as it relates to the dividend positions.
Going forward though, in addition to the IEG removal we expect to see given our elevated pro fees as we completed our remediation work in the US So we expect to see that move to a more normalized run rate that we would have seen a number of years ago. So that that's going to benefit from a margin perspective overall.
In addition, you know we'll start to see given the revenue mix shift in particular, we expect to see that margin improvement going into fiscal 2027 with I would say an improvement in the mid single digits on that margin. But it's a concerted focus area going forward in that regard.
Okay, appreciate that. And Dan, one for you, I guess the in your outlook I kind of, maybe I'm just reading this a little bit different but kind of a mixed message about the outlook in terms of I'm not sure it's the economy, the ability to capital raise but it was kind of a little bit more negative at the beginning and then in the last paragraph it was very kind of positive for mid-market capital raising advisory. And so I'm just trying to get maybe in your own words what your outlook is just say for the next 12 months.
Dan Davio (Chairman and CEO)
Yeah, I think and you know better than most, I mean capital markets is difficult to predict even in a good time. We obviously have great visibility on M and A. The equity business is more difficult to predict, particularly in volatile markets. We got wars going on We've got the economy's flying around, we've got a trade negotiation coming up. So if you're hearing some cautiousness, it's just nobody knows. Our M&A pipeline continues to be really strong.
Some of that stuff gets pushed off occasionally depending on what's happening in cross border wars and all that kind of stuff.
But our MA pipeline continues to be really strong. We feel pretty confident there. And the new issue pipeline, in addition, everything else I said is heavily concentrated into the mining sector. You can see that, I mean half Nadine, roughly this quarter of our business is tied to the mining sector in Canada and Australia. And when you've got that kind of exposure, not that I have any reason not to be super excited by it, but you just would express some cautiousness around that.
I think we feel reasonably good about our business, reasonably good about our numbers, but it's just a tough business to predict, unlike our wealth management business, which is an incredibly easy business to predict.
Stephen Boland (Analyst)
Okay, thanks very much.
OPERATOR
Your next question comes from Jeff Fenwick from ADB Coremark. Please go ahead.
Jeff Fenwick (Analyst)
Hi, good morning everyone.
Morning. Jeff wanted to start off asking about the Canadian wealth management unit there. Client inflows have been a very material contributor over the last year and quite an impressive result overall. Just wondering was there something that was done there operationally or from a program perspective around maybe a new Customer Relationship Management (CRM) platform or assistance with client outreach that assisted that? Or what were the levers being pulled there?
Or maybe it was just more related to the fact the market was doing very well and that just encouraged the inflows as well. But any color you could offer there,
Dan Davio (Chairman and CEO)
in fairness, it's probably both, Jeff.
But we have an immense number of programs going around to increase our net organic asset growth. We obviously get our assets from three ways we recruit advisorss. That growth has been not significant this year. It continues, but it hasn't been the primary driver. The market increase obviously drives assets and its been a good year in the market. And then finally, net organic flows, the cheapest way to grow your business is net organic flows. Have your existing advisorss grow.
So we give them a lot of tools to increase their business. We've got a very phenomenal group of advisorss who are incredibly entrepreneurial, who are materially increasing their operations. You've seen the average size of book per advisors grow substantially this year. That's not all market, that's mainly net new assets. So we've got a great business there and they've got a great set of tools and we've got a great set of partners who will continue to grow.
You haven't seen an increase so much in the number of teams because its just the cycle of bigger advisorss for smaller advisorss. We're not looking to add a bunch of real estate and stuff like that so that that strategy continues to play out the way it has played out for the last decade, to be honest. So continue to be very excited by our Canadian wealth business and the prospects in front of it. And you can see that reflected in the numbers. And as Nadine mentioned on the cost, we continue to spend money there.
That's when you see those costs, you know, not going down. It's because we're investing in that side of the business. and we'll continue to invest in that side of the business..
Jeff Fenwick (Analyst)
Okay, that's helpful. Color. Thank you. And then maybe I'll circle back onto the OPEX discussion here. Maybe in the uk that's one where we've seen the GNA line sort of progressively creep higher here. Maybe some commentary on that, where the focus has been there and what we can expect going forward.
Nadine Ahn (Chief Financial Officer)
Yeah, in the uk, I mean we've built out quite a bit in terms of our tools to support our advisors there as well. So that continues to be an investment that we make within the firm. Also I noted that there was some increased headcount just in terms of as we not only take on new acquisitions but also upgrade some of our complementation in terms of helping to manage the size and scale of the business that
we have right now. You would have noticed that just some of the one time cost items that we had come through, particularly in the fourth quarter, did have a negative impact on margins. We do expect, expect that to rebound into fiscal 2027. There's a huge focus on costs and as well as looking for increased productivity and efficiency with these tools that we've brought in. So for uk, I would say that the expectation is that we will start to revert back to those healthier margins that you're used to seeing in that business into fiscal 27.
Dan Davio (Chairman and CEO)
Yeah. And again, just like our Canadian business,
you know, we're investing in growth in that business. Net organic asset growth. To Nadine's point, that doesn't come free. You invest in tools, you invest in technology, invest in people. So you're seeing those investments play out on the cost side in the UK a little bit. But as Nadine also noted, we have invested already, so you'd expect those costs to come down.
Jeff Fenwick (Analyst)
Okay, thank you. And then maybe one more. Excuse me. On the, on the compensation front, I believe there's a certain cadence around awards paid out to employees and then the recycle some of that into purchasing units in the partners. Lp. Can you just remind us of that? I mean it expanded its position in Canaccord ownership overall by a fair amount last year. And is there sort of a similar cycle that we'll see play out here?
Dan Davio (Chairman and CEO)
The policy of the board having just got through the board meetings is there's a repayment of those loans that go on every year. Those are fully recovered course interest bearing loans. These aren't, you know, anything other than other than that. And the loans help people buy partnership units, the partnership unit. The partnership in turn buys equity of Canaccord Genuity.
But equity stays inside that partnership and it's kind of, I don't want to say gone forever, but it stays inside the partnership. So we're up to about 14% there will be a loan repayment this year. That's already happening as we speak through the bonus, through bonuses being paid to people. So they're repaying their loans. Those loans will be recycled again. That partnership will increase its ownership in can of fortunuity again this year.
You know, last year it was about 2%. This year it'll be about the same number. You know that that's the plan for the foreseeable future is that partnership will continue to accumulate stock of the underlying company. Does that answer your question?
Jeff Fenwick (Analyst)
Yes, that's helpful.
Thank you very much. And maybe I'll just squeeze a quick one in there as well. On opex, I meant to ask about Australia. I mean we've had only really 1/4 after the Wilson acquisition there. Is the OPEX in the quarter there somewhat representative of the run rate going forward or were there some added costs there as you integrated that business?
Nadine Ahn (Chief Financial Officer)
Yes, there were definitely some increased costs as it related to the Wilson acquisition, but that has been fully integrated now. So we do expect that the margin expansion just given the scale of that business will start to improve closer to what you would see from a peer average.
Dan Davio (Chairman and CEO)
Yeah, you remember this business started at a $1 billion business five years ago. We're up to 18 billion. We're starting to achieve scale. It's not the 55 billion we are in Canada or whatever, but it's starting to get the scale that we're looking for. So margins will improve in that business over time.
Jeff Fenwick (Analyst)
Okay, thanks for that caller. I'll recue.
Graham Riding (Analyst)
Thank you. Your next question comes from Graham Riding from TD Securities. Please go ahead.
Good morning, Graham. Maybe I could start with U.K. wealth. It looks like the Assets Under Management (AUM), there was
flat corner over quarter, up 8% year over year and in constant currency that seems to have underperformed the FTSE market as a benchmark.
And the growth profile there is lower than your other platforms in Canada, Australia, any color or anything to call out
for why you're seeing lower growth in UK wealth.
Nadine Ahn (Chief Financial Officer)
I think in terms of the UK market overall it's been struggling a bit. But I think going forward the focus that we've had, not only from some of the discussion we've had around the tools we're bringing in from our advisors, is really around growing the net new ass. Obviously we've been growing the business significantly through M and A and integrating those quite well. And the focus now as we start to build out our planning business in conjunction with the rest of the team, that we expect to see that improvement in our net new asset growth, which will you start to see that trajectory start to really amplify?
Dan Davio (Chairman and CEO)
Yeah, Graham, two points and we should
get you better details on this. So my apologies, but there's two points to know. We have integrated a couple of acquisitions in ultimately when we integrate these acquisitions and we know we're losing some assets, like we exceptionalize that in our internal management reporting, but we know we're losing like intentionally losing some assets, so to speak. So you don't see that in our public numbers, you just see, you know, the flat assets. But our own internal numbers would reflect higher growth than that, number one.
Number two, the portfolios aren't, you know, just UK based portfolios. There's, you know, these are fully managed portfolios, right, with international equities, fixed income, you know, so I will have to give you the proportions of that so that you can do the right analysis. But we don't think this business is flat. We don't think this business is shrinking. You know, our, our management benchmark showed this business to continue to increase and in fact in Q4 had a phenomenally good Q4 in terms of net new asset growth and growth.
So we feel pretty excited by the business where it sits today.
Graham Riding (Analyst)
Okay, and then in your presentation you do show 4.2% organic flows and then you flag a negative 2.1%. As exceptional. Is that what you're talking about?
Dan Davio (Chairman and CEO)
Is that. Yeah, exactly what I'm talking about. Yeah, understood.
Graham Riding (Analyst)
Maybe the acquisition of CRC was quite sizable. 130 million Canadian. What is the earnings contribution that you expect from that platform? And then just any sort of high level color on where in particular that platform is quite strong and why you think this is a good investment.
Dan Davio (Chairman and CEO)
Yeah. So first of all, in the acquisition, I think you know how acquisition. I know you know how acquisition accounting works. A huge portion of that purchase price is earn out purchase price. You take a provision for it at the beginning. If they hit it, great. If they don't, you take it back. And that's a balance sheet item, not an income statement item. So the actual purchase price was significantly less. Think half of that amount. So that's the first thing.
And you hope they hit the earn out because it's free money, so to speak. So you're strongly encouraged for that. That's the first thing. The second thing, they are in the energy transition space. This is the way we define it at our organization. You can say it's sustainability or whatever, and either we're geniuses or we got lucky. But that energy transition space is massive right now and continues to grow. artificial intelligence (AI), data centers, crypto like this, all these things all need power.
And it's not all just, you know, traditional power. There's a lot of different types of power. That's where these guys are particularly strong and particularly active. So the business is very robust. You know, when we first entered into our original loan agreement with these people, which was our new partners, which was more than 18 months ago, long time ago, we had lent them some money to buy out their initial partners. When we entered into that deal, compared to what they're doing today, they're probably doing 50% more revenue than they were doing back then.
So it was, you know, it's been a very positive experience. It'll continue to be a very positive experience. There are existing run rates right now. We closed the deal in December, Nadine, or early January.
Closed. January closed.
Like, you know, the performance has been very good and it'll continue to be strong. You know, we anticipate that more than offsetting the lost revenue from the principal trading business that we sold. And quite frankly, at a margin, you know, at a margin level that would be, you know, more significant than what we, than what we lost. That's not a big bar to climb over. But, you know, so, you know, we see it materially helping not only our U.S.
business and our M&A franchise in the U.S. but there's incredible synergies between that business and the rest of our global, our global footprint into Canada. Everyone's going through the same energy transition, whether it's Canada, the uk, Ultimately Australia. So we see a really good partnership there. But they're going flat out on just existing North American business right now. Okay.
Great. Appreciate the color. So I don't want to hold you to any hard numbers, but did you say you expect this to replace your wholesale trading business which I think was sort of running at about 30 million a quarter?
No, it wasn't running at 30 million a quarter. I wish it was. Maybe there was a quarter or two where it was running at 30. Canadian. A quarter 20. No, still not. It wasn't. You know that business is volatile. It had ups and downs quarters. But no, that's a business that's going to do. Our CRC business, that business that we bought, like that's a. I'm trying to. Nadine's giving me. And Nadine's giving me an evil eye. So we'll get back to you. To me asking that question.
I can answer it. I'm just not allowed to.
Graham Riding (Analyst)
Sounds good.
OPERATOR
There are no further questions. I'll turn the call back over to Mr. Davio.
Dan Davio (Chairman and CEO)
Good. Well, thanks everyone for joining today and again thanks for your continued support. Graham and others were available for future questions on the corridor as needed. Otherwise we're going to update you not too far away. Given this was our year end, we'll be reporting again in early August. So look forward to talking to everyone then. If you can close the lines operator, that'd be great.
Disclaimer: This transcript is provided for informational purposes only. While we strive for accuracy, there may be errors or omissions in this automated transcription. For official company statements and financial information, please refer to the company's SEC filings and official press releases. Corporate participants' and analysts' statements reflect their views as of the date of this call and are subject to change without notice.
Login to comment