CI Financial Sells Its Minority Stake in $5.1B Boston RIA to Audax

CI Financial Corp has agreed to sell its minority stake in Congress Wealth Management, a Boston-based registered investment advisor it purchased three years ago, to alternative assets manager Audax Private Equity.

Led by President Paul Lonergan, Congress Wealth managed about $5.1 billion in client assets as of the end of 2023. It had managed $2.3 billion in assets when CI purchased its initial stake in the third quarter of 2020.

Toronto-based CI noted it is selling its stake for approximately three times its initial investment and will use the proceeds to pay down debt.

CI holds its stake in Congress Wealth through CI Private Wealth (CIPW), its US wealth management subsidiary.

Kurt MacAlpine, CI’s CEO, said the relationship with Congress has been good but the investment predates CIPW’s differentiated private partnership model.

“To fully benefit from its features, only active contributors to the business can be CIPW Partners,” he explained. “Unfortunately, the ownership structure at Congress precludes it from fully integrating into CIPW.”

The firms agreed that minority ownership is “not the best structure” for moving forward and that Audax was the right partner to support Congress Wealth’s “next chapter of growth.”

Primarily an asset manager, CI is listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange. In December, it confidentially filed for an initial public offering in the US for its domestic wealth management business. The firm said last year it was planning to sell up to 20% of the US business through an IPO.