CI buys two US RIAs with combined assets of $8.1 billion

Since July 31, Miami-based wealth management firm Corient, owned by CI, has completed the acquisitions of Emerald Multi-Family Office in Weston, Fla., with $7 billion in assets, and Byron Financial LLC in Charlotte, N.C., with $1.1 billion in assets. Both firms serve ultra-high-net-worth clients.

On May 31, Corient completed the acquisition of Paragon Advisors Inc. in Shaker Heights, Ohio, a multifamily office with $4.4 billion in assets, and Socius Family Office LLC in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, which has $1.3 billion in assets under management and specializes in serving professional American football and basketball players.

With these four acquisitions, CI added $13.8 billion to the assets of its U.S. wealth management business, which had assets of $234.1 billion at the end of the second quarter.

Corient borrowed $154 million from CI Financial, mostly to fund four acquisitions, CI Financial Chief Financial Officer Amit Muni said on a conference call announcing quarterly results. CI Financial, in turn, borrowed funds through a credit line from its Canadian bank lenders.

Each of the acquired companies has been rebranded and integrated with the Corient platform, CI said.

The company also said it last month hired Francisco Tobias, a 20-year Citigroup employee, as Corient’s chief financial officer.

Between late 2019 and 2022, CI completed more than 30 deals, directly or indirectly, to acquire U.S. RIA firms as part of a broader corporate strategy to grow its business in the U.S. Acquisition activity slowed last year.

In August 2023, CI announced it would change the name of its U.S. business, CI Private Wealth, to Corient, after one of the investment advisors acquired by CI Financial in 2022.

CI Financial reported total assets topped $500 billion in July, a figure that includes assets from its asset management business, Canadian wealth management, Canadian trust business and U.S. wealth management business.

At the end of the second quarter, assets under management (AUM) for the asset management business totaled $130.1 billion.

CI recorded $332 million of net redemptions in its Canadian retail asset management business in the second quarter, an improvement from $1.3 billion of net redemptions in the first quarter but a decrease from $7 million of net inflows in the same quarter last year.

The firm’s wealth management assets in Canada were $95.6 billion at the end of the second quarter, compared with $93.8 billion in the previous quarter and $82.6 billion at the end of the same quarter a year earlier.

CI reported net income of $176.4 million in the second quarter, compared with a net loss of $154.4 million in the first quarter. Total net income was $986.0 million in the second quarter, compared with $645.7 million in the first quarter. Total expenses were $754.7 million, compared with $768.3 million in the first quarter.

Excluding non-operating items, adjusted net income was $135.6 million in the second quarter, compared to $132.8 million in the first quarter; adjusted total net income was $731.3 million, compared to $698.6 million in the first quarter; and adjusted total expenses were $507.9 million, compared to $470.3 million in the prior-year quarter.

CI’s total debt at the end of the first quarter was $3.6 billion, essentially unchanged from the previous quarter.

The company also declared a quarterly dividend of $0.20 per share.