Fiera Capital grows by Cleaning up Odds and Ends

                    It is very rare to find a stock that grows in a straight line.Usually there are pauses and corrections.Fiera has made a correction from the $15 level down to $11 to $12 range.And it has made a number of changes to start moving it upwards again.And assets under management (AUM) has  gone from $125 billion in 2016 to $139 billion  now.In 2017 it bought pieces of Natcan for a purchase price of $60 million. (see https://www.blogger.com/) Now it has just exchanged 5.5 million shares of CGOV for an unknown amount of FSZ shares at an excellent price.
     Fiera has a sharp business eye as there is a paucity of players in Canada that can be acquired for $25 to $100 million.Another such player is Canoe Financial and it has just bought $785 million of Fiera's smaller funds.In many cases the existing  Fiera manager will stay and Fiera may even collect a small fee here.This blog sees this as an opportunity to view Canoe's goods.Later on Canoe may be a candidate for acquisition itself.Fiera is certainly familiar with the funds just sold.                              

          2018 is Shaping up
   In early 2017 Fiera was trading at around $15 per share but like many financial players the price fell off.It was as low as $11.00 per share at one time but has rebounded to it's present $12.50 level.It continues to make these small purchases and sales and so will  likely show gains in revenues and small gains in earnings for the year.FSZ has purchased about 12% of  Natcan Funds each year since 2015 and will continue until it is owned 100%.It also owns about 27% of CGOV Asset Management and may buy another 5 to 10% by yearend.This blog sees Fiera buying most or all of Canoe Financial by 2019.So you see many junior funds grow by leaps and bounds but Fiera Capital grows by odds and ends.
                                       https://www.fairfax.ca/;https://www.omers.com/