Canaccord Genuity pays $50m in dividends to global parent

Canaccord Genuity’s Australian operation has paid more than $50m in dividends to its global parent after recording bumper profits.

Canaccord director Marcus Freeman. Picture: Megan Powell

Canaccord Genuity’s Australian operation has paid more than $50m in dividends to its global parent after recording bumper profits.

The investment bank – one of the most active in the country, working on an extensive number of mid- and small-cap deals – has made net profits of more than $40m in Australia in the last two financial years.

Documents lodged with the corporate regulator this week show Canaccord made a $42m net profit in Australia for the year to March 31, in line with the $42.9m result it achieved in the previous 12 months. Revenues reached $203m in its 2022 financial year, compared with almost $197m for 2021.

Canaccord Genuity (Australia) Pty Ltd paid about $20m in dividends in two tranches during the 2022 financial year, and declared and paid a dividend of about $32.2m in June.

An investigation by The Australian, published in January, found that research notes and purchase recommendations circulated by Canaccord to clients about the companies the bank had provided services to gave little clear disclosure that its payments were partially tied to share performance. Canaccord later said it would overhaul the disclosures in the firm’s equities research to explicitly say whether it held options in companies that it had been spruiking as buy opportunities.

In February, The Australian reported that Canaccord director Marcus Freeman had splashed out about $9m on a designer home in the Victorian beachside enclave of Portsea, south of Melbourne.

Canaccord’s parent company is listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange in Canada.

The company’s Australian wealth management business earned revenue of $C74.6m in its full year – an increase of 19.9 per cent over 12 months.

Meanwhile, profits at Queensland stockbroker and wealth management firm Morgans fell almost 20 per cent in the year to March 31, despite a big rise in revenue. Documents lodged this week show Morgans made a net profit of $12.4m from $322m revenue in the year. That result compared with $15.3m net profit from $292m revenue in 2021.