Source: The Canadian Press

Canaccord Financial Inc. (TSX:CF) is raising its dividend after profits more than doubled in the third quarter on an improvement in the economy.

The financial services firm said Thursday that it would pay a 7.5 cent per share dividend on March 15, an increase from the previous payout of five cents a share.

Canaccord said quaterly net income was $42.7 million in the most recent quarter, compared to $15.1 million a year before.

Earnings per share came in at 51 cents and the company said revenue hit an all-time high of $254.8 million, up from $173.2 million the previous year.

“It was a good quarter in all our geographies, in all of our business units. Still, many of them are not operating at the same levels they were back in the ‘07 boom but certainly at much stronger levels than they have been over the last couple of years,” Paul Reynolds, the company’s president and CEO, said in a conference call to analysts.

“The recovery as a whole is still very early globally and we’re seeing a tremendous amount of opportunity, the pipelines remain very strong,” he said.

Canaccord’s capital markets business did well in the quarter, with the company acting as advisor to 43 equity deals or private placements, mainly in the resources sector, including a $347 million deal for Eastern Platinum Ltd. and a US$208 million transaction for Northern Oil and Gas.

It also led or co-led several large deals with healthcare-related companies in the U.S. as well as a $162.8 million offering for Air Canada (TSX:AC.A).

It’s wealth management division saw more efficiencies and more client activity as markets continued to improve. Reynolds said that division did so well in the third quarter, that its results brought that side of the business into the black for the first nine months of the fiscal year.

During the quarter, Canaccord acquired The Balloch Group Limited, an independent investment bank in China.

Canaccord says this will led to further opportunities to leverage Asia’s growing demand for expertise in the mining, energy, life sciences and clean technology sectors. Canaccord also wrote a strategic agreement with China’s import and export bank that will give its clients more access to Chinese debt financing.