Toronto-based CI Financial Corp. announced Monday that it has completed its $780 million acquisition of Sentry Investments Corp. and its subsidiary Sentry Investments Inc.
The addition of Sentry has increased CI’s assets under management to approximately $140 billion and total assets (assets under management plus assets under advisement) to approximately $181 billion.
“We are very excited by the opportunities presented by the combined strength of two of Canada’s largest independent asset managers,” says Peter Anderson, CEO, CI. “The addition of Sentry expands our product offering and brings new advisor and client relationships to our firm. Our greater size and scale will allow for additional investments in operations, product development and enhanced service to our clients.”
In addition, Anderson says that CI expects the acquisition to be accretive to earnings per share immediately, with full synergies being achieved by 2019.
Since the announcement of the acquisition on Aug. 10, 2017, CI has secured long-term financing with the successful completion on Sept. 27 of a debenture offering with aggregate principal amount of $250 million. The debt securities have a term of 10 years and carry an interest rate of 3.904% payable semi-annually. The acquisition has been financed with $230 million from the debenture offering and the balance is being paid in CI shares.