CI Financial's Lifeline From Outside Investors May Not Benefit the Firm Longer-Term

While CI Financial's aggressive pursuit of wealth management operations in both the U.S. and Canada the past few years has provided the company with a way to offset the shifting balance of power in the Canadian fund market, the company funded most of this acquisition-driven growth with debt. This was the brainchild of CEO Kurt MacAlpine, who was hired in 2019 to take CI Financial in a new direction after years of pressure on its core business from the growth of lower-cost investment products. Although revenue and adjusted earnings per share have risen the past several years, the high degree of leverage on the balance sheet has weighed on the company's share price (and even led the ratings agency to declare their debt junk in early May 2023).