iA Financial (IAG) Desjardins Toronto Conference summary

Strategic priorities and capital deployment

• Focus on capital deployment, with recent large acquisitions and ongoing organic growth initiatives in business lines and client experience.

• Operational efficiency and IT investments are key, with new KPIs to ensure value delivery.

• Emphasis on executing and delivering benefits from recent acquisitions, now entering their second year.

• Capital deployment through acquisitions is prioritized, with flexibility to use buybacks (NCIB) as needed.

• Optimization of capital structure and increased NCIB pace are current priorities.

Financial performance and targets

• Core EPS growth target is 10%, with 6% from organic growth and 4% from initiatives like acquisitions and buybacks.

• Year-to-date EPS growth is 22%, with strong experience gains and a solid baseline for future growth.

• U.S. division up 36% year-to-date, with improvements in profitability and growth.

• Core ROE target raised to 17%+, with potential to exceed this through further capital deployment.

• Each $1 billion in capital deployment is estimated to add roughly 1% to ROE.

M&A and capital allocation

• M&A is favored for capital deployment, with a strong track record of over 70 acquisitions in 25 years.

• Plan A is to deploy capital through acquisitions; Plan B is to return value via NCIB, with increased buyback pace recently.

• Reluctance to hold excess cash, aiming to avoid ROE dilution.