It is a pleasure to introduce our next speaker for this afternoon, Judy Goldring, CEO of AGF Management. This is called a run of. You never get to stand up. Do not you want to just take a break? How are you? I am good, thanks. Yourself? Long day for you? Yes. Yeah. Where do we start here? You being an architect, I think in AGF's transformation over the years, I think over that time, clearly the company's delivered some solid improvements in operational performance. Maybe we start off with a quick recap of that journey and how you think those changes attributed some of the momentum that we're seeing today. Well, thank you, first of all, for having me here today. It's probably my first time doing one of these conferences, so I appreciate it. If I actually go way back, for those that may not know, I joined AGF in 1998, and if I think about our transformation and our journey since that time, we really were a traditional Canadian-based asset manager at the time, mutual fund manager. Over the years, we have continued to diversify our revenue base, where I can safely say today that we are a global asset manager diversified in where we play. What I look to now is we're CAD 75 billion of assets under management. We have approximately, call it CAD 37 billion- CAD 39 billion in Canadian retail mutual funds. We have close to CAD 4.5 billion in ETFs and SMAs, about CAD 10 billion in our private wealth division, and CAD 15 billion in our capital partners alternative. We really have diversified our revenue streams. At the same time, we've diversified our asset base as well as looking for different advisors and really penetrating different channels as well. Similarly different geographies, so we're also focused on U.S. growth. We're very confident around where we're situated today, and we're excited about what's coming forward. Okay. What's your vision for AGF, call it, over the next five years? Well, we're very focused on growth. We see opportunities with our AGF Capital Partners business. That is a growth platform and trajectory for us. At the same time, we have a strong Canadian retail base, which we continue to see consecutive net positive sales, eight consecutive quarters in a row in that space, and where we've sort of doubled down on that to penetrate and continue to defend in the space of the traditional mutual fund planners, alongside a focused growth trajectory in the IIROC channel. At the same time, in that long-only kind of AGF investment strategies, we've looked to expand in the U.S., and so we now have approximately CAD 2.5 billion to close to CAD 3 billion of assets under management there, predominantly on the SMA channel. What are you seeing as the most influential changes across the asset management industry over the next, call it, 5- 10 years? What do you think they mean for AGF? Yeah, this is an industry under change. I think honestly, the number of regulatory developments that have happened, just if you look at the retail mutual fund space, in the recent past with CRM, CRM3, TCR coming into play, that itself has been a dramatic shift, both for the manager, but predominantly for the advisor and the dealer. What we also see, of course, is a continued focus on alternatives. AI is going to have a big play. The desire, I think as well, for advisors to have choice in vehicles and different investment solutions for their clients. So for AGF, when I look at the AGF side of the business, we have chosen to really take a vehicle-agnostic strategy. That means that if we have a strong mandate, we will offer it up in a mutual fund, Series F. We'll offer it up in an SMA, ETF. However the advisor might want to seek out that product, we want to make sure we're delivering it in whichever way they want to receive it. At the same time, we are seeing this shift from the dealer channel to really moving into the SMA platform. So these unified managed accounts that many of the banks and large dealers have introduced, it allows flexibility for the advisor to, again, choose to purchase their products for their clients in different ways. SMA is definitely an area of growth, and we've seen great traction for ourselves in that space, and we're making sure that we're delivering our products in that venue, in that channel. When you then look to alternatives, we know alternatives is one of the fastest-growing areas. The high net worth, ultra high net worth channel, fastest-growing channel based on research. Alternatives in Canada generally tend to be underexposed from an investor book. I think the advisor in Canada, we've seen, it sits more around sort of a 2%-5% exposure to alternatives. Whereas in the States, sophisticated RIAs will be upwards of 10%, 15%. Certainly, institutions and pensions and endowments will be even higher than that. It is an area of growth, and that is an area we're targeting, and we're excited to participate in that through the growth of our AGF Capital Partners. Then the final area is really AI. I think that's going to be transformational for our industry. We have one fellow in our office right now that has a fundamental analyst through an agent, and early days, I don't think they're doing a whole lot in terms of making recommendations, but it's an exciting time. It really is a fourth technological revolution that we all need to embrace. Corporately, we have rolled it out to our employee base. So of 610 employees, we have about 400 that have exposure and are on Copilot. An additional 120 have exposure and are working with CoWork, which allows you access to Claude and to ChatGPT. From just a penetration perspective, again, I'm not going to necessarily give too much credence to these stats, but Microsoft Copilot has been able to track the number of hours being used by employees and is saying that we're saving about almost a day of hours of work per employee a month. So that's initial line into where the productivity gains will happen. We're really energized by that, and our new CIO, John Porter, is very much embracing it, certainly with the investment management team and with the investment management process. It's an exciting time for sure on the AI side. Excellent. Can you talk about the key strategic priorities for the year ahead? Key strategic priorities for us for the year ahead are focusing on AGF Capital Partners, our alternatives business, ensuring that we position the entities that we currently have already within our boutique affiliate manager model, ensure that they're positioned for growth and success. At the same time, we have a pipeline of deals that we're looking to potentially make further acquisitions. Capital Partners and a growth trajectory for them is critical. We're focusing as well on the U.S. growth for our long only. We now are on about 10 different platforms in the U.S., the likes of SMArtX, AssetMark, Envestnet, Pershing, et cetera. In fact, we just got onto Merrill platform. The trick now is to really penetrate those channels, figure out who the Tier 1, Tier 2, Tier 3 are, and devise a distribution strategy that goes after each of those respective partners. For us, it is in an SMA vehicle. We've chosen not to offer up CITs or mutual funds. It makes it operationally very clean, much more efficient, and allows us to be very focused on what we're selling. That again, is a large growth trajectory for us. We can't underestimate that AI is going to cost us all money. We are committed to integrating it and using it and making sure our teams are embracing it and ensuring that we can see some productivity improvements over time on that. Excellent. Let's just spend a few minutes just on the operating environment. We've seen bouts of volatility, but an overall buoyant market over the last year or two. How do you see things evolving over the next 12- 18 months? What's AGF doing to position for that? Yeah. It is a volatile market. We pride ourselves, I guess, on a very strong balance sheet. We have very little debt. We believe that that strong balance sheet gives us the flexibility to be responsive to different market environments. I think from an investment perspective, we are fairly still quite constructive on the market going forward for the next 12- 18 months. While there'll be that volatility, we will be well-positioned to respond to it, again, from the use of our capital from a strong balance sheet perspective. Again, diversifying our revenue streams by focusing on the alternatives business and then ensuring we have additional offerings on the mutual fund side and on the long only side to meet the demands of the investors. As they become perhaps risk off, if there are periods of risk off, we will have product opportunities and product offerings that they will be able to engage in and purchase. For example, we just launched a liquid alts fund that is a credit opportunities fund. It is a long-short credit fund. It will play well into certain markets. We have an enhanced yield product, again, a long-short equity play that delivers a yield of about 8%. That again, will play into the hands of individuals looking for higher yield in certain markets. Again, having that right product solution for the right market environment, having a strong balance sheet, and then having a diversified revenue stream with the alternatives. Okay. Equity market has been moving up, and obviously, I think that trend line has got favorable implications for more, call it beta sensitive components of revenue. Can you talk to the degree of operating leverage that might exist in the business, and again, how that translates to kind of the expansion of, I will call it earnings power in this rising market environment? Mm-hmm. I think you all know in the asset management business, we do have positive operating leverage as assets grow through market appreciation or net sales. We have been fortunate to have good, strong organic sales. Of course, the market has been our friend in the last while. That operating leverage continues to expand. We have seen our EBITDA margin expand as well. As a percent of net revenue, we have seen it go from, in the last four years, in 2022, it sat at about 23%. It now sits at around 35%. The operating leverage is our friend for sure, but we need to ensure we have strong SG&A management. We continue to exercise that, and as a result, we are seeing that EBITDA margin expand. In fact, if you look at EBITDA as a percentage of AUM on an industry basis, we actually exceeded industry metrics by about two times. We sit at about 25%. The industry norm is around 10%. Again, taking advantage of that operating leverage with strict SG&A controls and just good asset growth. Okay. Let's talk about alternatives. Building out the alternative platform, it's been a strategic priority for a while and expected to become a major growth engine. Can you talk about AGF's growth strategy for alternatives? Really what you view as the company's target market and key competitive differentiations. Yeah. With alternatives, I've mentioned already, we do see as a growth trajectory. It is, again, an area that we believe will be in high demand. I think people were perhaps a little bit surprised at what feels a bit of a pause in the last couple of years, where in fact, what we've seen, particularly in Canada, is a bit more of a push, particularly by the larger dealers, probably mostly from risk management and compliance constraints, to seek out liquid alternative solutions. We are playing in that space selectively. For example, I mentioned the two funds that we've launched recently in that space to meet that demand. In terms of the broader Capital Partners alternatives initiative, we are very much focusing on bringing a boutique affiliate manager model to life. We have a relationship with a private credit firm in Calgary. We have private equity through the acquisition of Kensington, which was done a year ago March. We have an acquisition as well, NHC, which is in New York, which is an absolute return hedge fund. Between those three current holdings, we also have a small investment in a pure-play venture fund as well. Between those investments, we see great opportunity for growth, both within their own ecosystems, but also an opportunity for us to cross-sell their products either into different markets, U.S. or Canada. For example, NHC has a fund called the Tactical Alpha Fund. That TAF fund, we've just launched in Canada. Early days, but it will be distributed by Capital Partners, and again, allows us a growth opportunity beyond just the growth of the actual underlying managers. Our value proposition in the alternative space is to deliver two managers that offer unique and innovative products, play in a very different space than what you'd see from a large player perspective. We will deliver back office support, capital support, and distribution support, and support their own growth strategies. We think that this will be an opportunity for us as well to be able to, as I mentioned, cross-play and deliver some of their offerings into different markets too, so we can meet the retail investor. We're excited about the alternative space overall because we have many different levers to play in that space, and we're thinking it's going to be a good growth opportunity. Okay. Can you talk about AUM aspirations for the platform and maybe how things are tracking towards that goal? Yeah. Right now, when you think about it, first of all, our first foray into alternatives was in 2014. In 2015, we went into a joint venture, an infrastructure, which we've converted now into more of an LP play. So we have some long-term investments that are purely in the infrastructure fund space, where we sit as an LP. But on the pure AGF Capital Partners alternatives business, right now they sit at 20% of our AUM. We would like to see that go probably in the next five years up to 30% of our total AUM. And over time, it will contribute more from an EBITDA perspective. And that would be one of our growth targets for sure. Excellent. Maybe just thoughts on additional asset classes or investment strategies you think AGF would expand into. On the capital partner side, we're very focused, as I mentioned, building out the affiliate manager model. We are looking at private credit in the U.S. in a mid-market or small to mid-market environment where it's not where all the noise is on the retail marketplace that you're hearing about in the States today. Instead, we'll focus mostly, as I mentioned, the small to mid-cap space, focused on institutional clients. So avoiding the noise that you're hearing in the States down there. That would be a target opportunity. We're looking at infrastructure potentially, and then thirdly would be real estate where appropriate. Again, at the right size for where we are looking for capital partners, it really is CAD 2 billion-CAD 10 billion AUM, where we would sort of slow play it, if you will, buy up like we did with NHC 25%, and then take it up over time to 50% and potentially up to two-thirds. It depends on each deal, but the idea is to work with each of these affiliate managers to get there on that. That would be one, getting into that space. On the long only side, I mentioned liquid alts is definitely a growing area. ETFs we see in Canada certainly picking up. They have had a great run of it lately, and we would be looking to launch more ETFs as well. AGF has roughly CAD 400 million of its own capital invested in alternative strategies, and I tend to think of these as long-term but not perpetual investments. Is my thinking correct? If so, what kind of timeline should investors be thinking about for monetizing significant portions of this? They are CAD 431 million. The majority of it, two-thirds, is in long tenured funds that are held within infrastructure. Those are 12-year funds. We are at the 10-year point of time in those funds. We would expect monetization in the next sort of 24- 36 months to be able to release some of the CAD 400 million that is embedded within that, which we would then deploy within opportunities for further acquisitions. That would be the timing. Excellent. Shift gears a little bit and we will talk again about capital priorities. AGF has returned capital through share buybacks, dividend increase, and again, most recently, I think deployed through some M&A. Can you talk about capital priorities over the next 12- 18 months? Yeah. We always look at capital priorities between the buybacks, dividends, and acquisitions in a very balanced way. We most recently have increased our NCIB, allowing us to purchase up to 3 million shares. We have been much more aggressive in our buybacks, going from about 1 million to 2 million shares now, possibly up a little higher. Very opportunistically, depending upon where the share price is moving around. So that now totals around CAD 60 million, give or take a bit, that we are spending on buybacks. We do have free cash flow of CAD 135 million, so that is almost 50% of our total free cash flow, which we feel is the right number for us. Dividends, we pay out about CAD 35 million in that, and the remainder is left for acquisitions. So we continue to just weigh that. Buybacks, as I say, we are comfortable where we sit with about a CAD 60 million cost on that. The CAD 35 million against the dividends is something that we always are reviewing. We are committed to delivering increasing dividends to our shareholders, and always look to try to do that as best we can. Okay. Maybe if I can circle back a little bit on some of the M&A strategy within AGF, and it is a little bit different from others. Can you maybe talk about that, and that is again, kind of buying majority control and leaving some minority, and how that fits in, and maybe the motivation and justification behind that strategy? Yeah. I started at AGF as its first-ever general counsel. I can tell you, having done several acquisitions for the company in my early years, we probably learnt a little bit of the hard way, by buying up 100%, particularly in certain types of entities, you lose the interest of the founders or the individuals that have kind of created the original value. If you buy up 100%, you just monetize, and then they tend to leave. Unless that is your express strategy, which it is not for our capital partners, we would prefer, and we are doing it aggressively in the model that we have created with capital partners, is to really retain the talent of these managers that have brought the value, created the innovative product offering, and brought the skill set that is so unique, that we need to keep them involved. We start with 24.9% from, in this case, the U.S. It is the way you have to play it from a tax perspective. That allows us to get to know that particular manager, work with them, understand how we can help them in the best possible way, and then we slowly creep up. Just as we did with NHC, we took up to 50%. That allows us, again, an ability for us to continue to work with them, really as partners at that point, but gives them the freedom to continue to grow the business in the way that they want to do that. It remains that the equity that is there can still be used for cultivating further talent, bringing on other talent, and ensuring that the partners who are there with that equity ownership continue to be very involved and remain very aligned with our outstanding objectives. That's great color. So maybe in terms of kind of wrap-up and final thoughts here, AGF stock's done really well for the past few years. What do you see as the biggest opportunity for the company and its shareholders over the next three years? Well, I think there's three things. One, we have a very clear set of objectives of growth in the U.S., growth through AGF Capital Partners, and continued growth and cultivation of our deep distribution channel and our retail footprint here in Canada. We see as well a very strong balance sheet. We do think our long-term investments are undervalued and not appreciated by the broader marketplace, understandably, potentially, but we see an opportunity for that when they start to monetize. We will redeploy, put them back into acquisitions that will deliver further value for our shareholders. Then I keep adding on that as we have been very effective in increasing our dividends over the last number of years, we just got onto the Dividend Achievers Index, and we are told that we're meeting the requirements now to get onto the S&P/TSX Canadian Dividend Aristocrats Index in January, which we think will be a motivator for continued volume and growth. Excellent. Well, Judy, it's been a great discussion. Thank you very much. I would like to thank you again personally for taking the time to do the discussion, meet with investors today. Again, I would also like to thank the AGF organization for your continued support. So thank you. Thank you. Appreciate it. Thank you. I think this concludes Scotiabank's 27th Annual Financial Summit. I would like to take a minute and thank all those corporates for your support, for again, taking the time to participate in the chats and to do the investor meetings. I would like to thank all the investors for participating and supporting us. Also behind the scenes, certainly our corporate access team, who keep things running, keeping our meetings on time in the organization, as well as logistics supports team, who help keep things run seamlessly and without any hitches. So thank you, and we will see you all next year.