Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for standing by. I'd like to welcome everyone to the Canaccord Genuity Group Inc. Fiscal 2023 Q2 results conference call. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. After the speaker's remarks, there will be a question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question during this time, simply press star, then the number one on your telephone keypad. If you would like to withdraw your question, please press the star followed by number two. If you have any difficulties hearing the conference, please press star then zero for operator assistance at any time. As a reminder, this conference call is being broadcast live online and recorded. I would now like to turn the conference call over to Mr. Dan Daviau, President and CEO. Please go ahead, Mr. Daviau.
Thank you, operator, and thanks to everyone joining us for today's call. As always, I'm joined by Don MacFayden, our Chief Financial Officer. Following the overview of our Q2 fiscal 2023 results, both Don and I will be pleased to answer questions from analysts and institutional investors. Today's remarks are complementary to our earnings release, MD&A, and supplemental financials, copies of which have been made available for download on SEDAR and on the investor relations section of our website at cgf.com. Within our update, certain reported information has been adjusted to exclude significant items in order to provide a transparent and comparative view of our operating performance. These adjusted items are non-IFRS financial measures. Please refer to our notice regarding forward-looking statements in the description of non-IFRS financial measures that appear in our investor presentation and also in our MD&A.
With that, let's discuss our second fiscal quarter. For several months, markets have been worried about economic growth, aggressive central bank policy actions, soaring inflation, political instabilities, and the war in Ukraine. Both public and private markets have suffered a significant reduction in deal volumes, particularly in our core sectors in our capital markets businesses. With fewer investors in the market, asset valuations and wealth management have also come under pressure. Markets showed signs of stabilizing in late summer, but uncertainty and volatility returned in September, and equity markets in all of our core geographies posted negative returns. While this cycle has been markedly more difficult for almost all market participants, and we expect continued uncertainty for several more quarters, our business has performed well.
Steps we've taken to reduce our reliance on underwriting activities and increase contributions from our wealth management and M&A advisory businesses have contributed to our resilience during the worst new issue environment that I can recall. Adjusted firm-wide revenue for the three-month period was CAD 382 million, a decrease of 20% from the Q2 of last year. When measured on a year-to-date basis, revenue for the first six months of this fiscal year amounted to CAD 711 million, down 29% from the same period a year ago. Expectedly, the declines in revenue can primarily be attributed to the significant market-wide reduction in new issue activity.
I will also note that fluctuations in foreign exchange contributed to certain changes in our Q2 revenue and expense items from our international operations as reported in Canadian dollars, as well as the value of client assets in our UK and Australian wealth businesses. Excluding significant items, we earned pre-tax net income of CAD 51 million, up 84% sequentially, but down 47% when compared to the same period last year. This translated to diluted earnings per share of CAD 0.25 for the three-month period, bringing our fiscal year-to-date adjusted EPS to CAD 0.36. Turning to expenses, adjusted non-compensation expenses as a percentage of revenue declined 2.7 percentage points compared to the most recent fiscal quarter to 28.6% as we continue to carefully manage expenses in a difficult market environment.
This percentage is obviously up from a year ago, primarily reflective of a concentration of higher promotion and travel expenses following the easing of pandemic restrictions, in addition to development costs to support the growth of the company. Interest expense also increased in connection with bank loans obtained for our wealth management acquisitions in the UK and Crown dependencies. In difficult markets like this, we are carefully monitoring our costs, but importantly, not at the expense of harming our culture or compromising the client experience. Excluding significant items, our compensation ratio for the three-month period was lower than our target range at 58.2%, due in part to the reduction in the fair value of stock-based compensation granted in previous periods.
With the exception of our wealth businesses and new partners in some of the M&A boutiques we have acquired, we have not materially increased our headcount. We expect to be able to manage within our historical comp ratios. Our business continues to be well capitalized, giving us the financial flexibility to be opportunistic in this period of dislocation while upholding our commitment to shareholder returns. While we returned less capital in this quarter, our board of directors has approved a quarterly common share dividend of CAD 0.085, putting us on track for our third consecutive year of dividend growth. Looking forward, we expect to continue to be opportunistic with our balance sheet on strategic growth initiatives or share buybacks while maintaining a strong balance sheet. Turning to the performance of our operating businesses, I will start with Capital Markets.
Our combined global capital markets business earned revenue of CAD 206 million for the three-month period, a decrease of 32.5% when compared to the same period a year ago. Obviously, our total revenues continue to be impacted by the lack of new issue activity in our core markets. Historically, investment banking revenue has represented 1/3 or more of our total capital markets revenue, whereas this quarter it dropped to 17%. The US was our largest contributor of revenue in this division at $129 million for the three-month period. Of this amount, 58% or $75 million was attributed to advisory activities, which remained robust through the three-month period.
On a consolidated basis, capital markets advisory revenue was down 27% quarter-over-quarter, but increased 22% sequentially, which reflects quarter-over-quarter increases from our Canadian and U.S. businesses. Principal trading and commission and fee revenue decreased by 12% respectively compared to the Q2 of last fiscal year, reflecting softer client activity levels across markets. Investment banking revenue for our combined global capital markets business was down 60% quarter-over-quarter, slightly above the 55% global decline in ECM volumes, and to be expected given our core mid-market growth sectors. The 184% increase when compared to the most recent financial quarter is largely due to the write-downs on inventory and warrant positions that impacted our Q1 results.
Inventory P&L in respect of warrant, fee shares, and facilitation activity returned to levels more consistent with the period before Q1 of this year, reflecting the absence of the larger market movements we saw in Q1. Unsurprisingly, the metal and mining sector has been the strongest for our underwriting activities, accounting for 49% of fiscal year to date investment banking revenues, primarily within our Australian, Canadian, and U.K. businesses. The healthcare sector contributed 23% of revenue in this segment, primarily from our U.S. business. Notwithstanding the dramatic reduction in ECM activity that has been persistent through the H1 of this fiscal year, we continue to defend and build upon our excellent market position in all CG regions and verticals. While several deals continue to be pushed as companies await a more stable environment, our clients remain highly engaged.
In this environment of rising interest rates, supply chain pressures, and inflation, the demand for capital among small and growth-oriented companies will remain high. We expect that our investing clients will inevitably become more active in supporting high quality new issues in time. Additionally, we're not expecting the IPO market to reopen quickly, but history tells us there can be a strong bounce back when it does, and we are very well positioned to recapture our historic leadership in this segment. We appreciate this is a difficult environment with arguably the worst new issue market in decades. That said, we are reassured and encouraged by the fact that our capital markets business produced adjusted pre-tax net income of CAD 26 million and EPS of CAD 0.10 per share. Our wealth management division remains resilient throughout the three-month period, despite the reduced new issue activity in our Canadian and Australian businesses.
Firm-wide client assets amounted to CAD 88.6 billion as of September thirtieth, a decrease of 10% compared to the same period last year. The decline was primarily attributed to lower market values and the impact of foreign exchange, partially offset by new assets and positive inflows. Our combined global wealth management businesses earned revenue of CAD 170 million for the three-month period, an increase of 2% quarter-over-quarter, bringing fiscal year to date revenue to CAD 332 million. The adjusted pre-tax net income contribution was CAD 28 million, which represents 54% of our firm-wide pre-tax net income for the quarter and 60% of our EPS. Our U.K. business was the largest contributor during the three-month period, with revenue of CAD 81 million, of which 79% was from fee-based accounts.
Record quarterly interest income of CAD 3.7 million partially offset the higher variable interest rate expense associated with the previously mentioned bank loans to support growth in this business. Looking ahead, we expect continued contributions from our recent acquisition of PSW, in addition to greater benefits from the synergies we are unlocking as we progress with the integration of the businesses that we have acquired in the past twelve months. Despite the dramatic decline in new issue activity, Q2 revenue from our North American wealth management business was relatively flat quarter-over-quarter at CAD 73 million. The decline in new issue activity in this business was offset with record interest revenue of CAD 11 million for the three-month period.
Finally, Q2 revenue in our Australia business declined 21% quarter-over-quarter to CAD 15 million, bringing the fiscal year to date revenue to CAD 31 million. While this total is below last year's record levels, I will note that it is comfortably above the full year revenue that this business generated in fiscal 2020. We're continuing to invest in the growth of our wealth management businesses, which also supports our earnings stability through market cycles. In Canada and Australia, we are having productive engagements in support of our recruiting initiatives. With our enhanced scale, we are also turning our attention to developments that will support new asset inflows globally.
You've heard me say before that we remain committed to our long-term strategy despite the near-term global economic challenges. Like all industry participants, we remain cautious in our near-term outlook, but I continue to have incredible confidence in our future. We have proven we can be incredibly agile and productive in a broad range of challenging environments, and this one is no exception. Our independence allows us to support our clients in creative and innovative ways during difficult times, and this gives us a strong competitive advantage when conditions improve. Our trading businesses continue to provide excellent support for our clients in wealth management and capital markets. Our technology teams remain focused on enhancing our firm-wide capabilities to ensure we are well positioned to scale when volumes return. We are also steadily adding to our product capabilities to increase opportunities for our business and our clients throughout the cycle.
While prolonged market downturns are always uncomfortable, we are fortunate to have an outstanding mix of capable and talented professionals who share our commitment to supporting our clients throughout the downturn and emerging in a position of greater strength. With that, we will now open the line for questions. Operator?
Thank you, sir. Ladies and gentlemen, we will now begin the question-and-answer session. If you would like to ask a question, please press star followed by the number one on your telephone keypad. If your question has been answered and you would like to withdraw, please press star followed by the number two. One moment while we compile the Q&A roster. Your first question will come from Graham Ryding of TD Securities. Please go ahead, sir.
Good morning, Graham.
Hi, good morning.
Good morning.
Just maybe a little bit of commentary on the near-term outlook for both advisory and equity underwriting relative to what we've seen over the last couple of quarters.
One's easy to predict, one's not, Graham. What a great question.
Well, that's why I just said near term, but I appreciate that.
Yeah. You know, I'll start with the negative. I mean, I think the equity underwriting market is going to continue to be challenging. I mean, you would see it as well as we would. You know, I don't think much has changed in the market. You know, on the negative side, I think there's just not a ton of new issue activity in Canada and the U.S. in our core technology and healthcare sectors. That shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone on this call. On the positive side of it is our metals and mining and, you know, alternative metals and rare earth business continues to do well. You know, over half of our underwriting activity last quarter was, you know, those sectors.
That, you know, that's continuing, arguably increasing. You know, I'd say arguably because, you know, we've still got, you know, two months left in this quarter, the one that we're currently in, so it's hard to for sure predict. You know, in theory, you know, those sectors continue to perform well. M&A, much easier to predict. I mean, there's been no change. It's been strong, and it's gonna continue to be strong. I appreciate that the overall M&A market is down, but primarily on the back of, you know, large leveraged transactions that require, you know, significant debt and financing. It's the financing market that's backed up. You know, that's not the area of M&A that we tend to be focused on, Graham, as you know.
It tends to be, you know, mid-market M&A in those core sectors that don't support massive leverages in deals. We continue to be active. In addition, you know, with the volatility in the market and things getting hammered, you know, we have an active base. We're the number one, you know, IPO underwriter. And, you know, number one deal underwriter. We have a lot of public market clients that need our services too. We don't see. You know, again, too early to predict. Deals get pushed out, M&A deals get pushed out, but the pace of activity continues unabated. Does that kind of answer your question?
Yep. Yeah, that's a good color. Maybe we could jump to UK Wealth. I just noticed the. Well, I thought broadly you did a good job on compensation expense across all your divisions, but I did notice that your non-comp expense in UK Wealth ticked up quarter-over-quarter, and it seemed to weigh on your pre-tax margins a little bit relative to sort of your run rate in the last four to six quarters. Maybe just some commentary on that front.
Yeah. I'll let Don, do you wanna take that? Well, Don and I are in a different location today, so there may be a little bit of passing things back and forth. I'm happy to answer it, Don, but why don't you try your first shot at it.
Yeah. Well, I'll just start off. Hi, Graham. It was really a function of, with the acquisition of PSW late Q1, we're still going through the integration process and working our way through that. That's targeted to sort of be complete by early next fiscal year, so sometime in April. Until then, we'll probably see a little bit of a higher uptick in our non-comp costs related to that acquisition.
All right. Don also the interest income would be in there, wouldn't it?
The interest income has.
Interest expense. I'm sorry. The interest expense.
Yeah. All right. Well, both interest income and interest expense. With the interest expense, we did add the additional bank loan associated with the acquisition of PSW. That combined with obviously higher rates would have impacted the non-comp expenses as well.
Remember, we funded that acquisition in part through a sell down of the business to HPS at, you know, a GBP 720 million valuation. In part, you know, through increasing our bank line exposure in the UK.
Is that a variable rate, bank line?
Yeah, it's a typical, you know, base plus a margin on top of the base. It will vary with market rates.
You know, Graham, the reason we even fixed that in part, just so you understand, is we also have, you know, significant interest income in that market. It's pretty much a natural hedge.
Okay. The revenue yield there, Don, was a little bit higher. Is that just, like in UK Wealth, a reflection of bringing in PSW?
Yeah, that certainly did contribute to the revenue side. Yeah. You know, the fee-based income was affected by the downturn in value of client assets, but there was also execution and trading activity that continued pretty well on track.
Okay. Just my last one, if I could. Just, can you remind us of your dividend policy? I think you base it off your wealth management earnings, but.
Correct.
Okay.
Yeah. I mean, the idea was always, and again, when I say the wealth management earnings, I could probably be a little bit more precise. The predictable element of wealth management earnings as opposed to the new issue chunk of wealth management earnings. I mean, they're up or flat, you know. We don't contemplate a reduction in our dividend in the near future. That dividend should continue to move up to the right. We've increased that dividend six times now, Don, or five times in the last four years. Like, I suspect that'll continue to be the pace of activity. Obviously, as the market goes down, our income and wealth will go down, but negligibly compared to the growth and some of the organic growth and the acquisitive growth we're seeing in that area.
I wouldn't expect a change in our dividend policy materially one way or the other right now.
Okay. That's it for me. Thank you.
Thanks, Graham. Great questions.
Your next question comes from Stephen Boland of Raymond James. Please go ahead, sir.
Morning, everyone. Maybe we could just talk about Canadian wealth management, maybe two questions there. The assets held up pretty well quarter-over-quarter. You know, actually, you know, pretty stable. I noticed that you did get a couple or a few net advisory teams after maybe a year of not recruiting. Maybe you just talk about that environment and what type of advisors are you looking for in Canada? Because certainly the revenue in total was pretty resilient, you know, suggesting that maybe they're more fee-based as opposed to commission-based. Maybe just talk about that, please.
Yeah. All great questions and warrants additional color for sure. I guess just on the one kinda comment that you made on the way through in the middle that we haven't been, you know, that we hadn't seen a lot of additions lately. We're always seeing additions. Every month or two, we're bringing on teams. What you may have seen from a total advisory team perspective in the Canadian numbers, I'm just opening them up as we're talking, is, you know, we will phase out smaller teams, right? So we're bringing on new teams. Smaller teams are naturally exiting the business, and that's very intentional. You know, you wanna maximize, you know, the returns per seat, per se, without growing, you know, to a silly number, opening up new offices or taking on new fixed costs.
We're always bringing on teams of advisors from that perspective. If you look at that, you know, 90%, probably higher, 95% of most of the people we hire are traditional wealth managers, fee-based. You know, not kind of the old stockbroking model. The vast majority of you could name on one hand or at least the number of kind of transactional advisors that we would have brought onto the franchise throughout the 50 or so people that we brought on. It shouldn't come as a surprise that those revenues increase. In addition, you'll see the benefit of people that we hired three months ago, six months ago. The books tend to follow the brokers pretty robustly, but not within a week, right? It takes a month, it takes two months, it takes three months. You see that activity pacing through.
Again, we'd expect that to continue, notwithstanding, you know, the market malaise. Obviously, when the market goes down, you know, a little harder to move people across. You know, we continue to see a pretty good pace of activity of bringing the right type of broker across. Again, we're generally targeting wealth managers and those brokers. I think, Don, on average, you'll correct me if I'm wrong. Again, we probably don't publicly disclose this, but, you know, on average, they're about CAD $250 million books on average. Close enough?
Yeah, close enough. Yeah, I think that's a pretty good number.
Does that answer your question, Steve? Or were you looking for other details than that?
No, that's very helpful. I know it's always competitive getting new advisors on board. Has there been any change in terms of the types of, you know, bonus or percentages that you have to pay, or has it been relatively stable for the last, you know, three to six months?
Stable to trending. I'm reluctant to say. Not trending up. I didn't say trending down, but not trending up. Let's put it that way.
Maybe just you know, back to your outlook, Dan. You know, I think obviously we pushed out you know, the recovery maybe as you put in your remarks into calendar 2023. In your experience, is there a specific geography that you know, may be a leading indicator, or is it just the global market is the global market? I'm just wondering if we start to see activity in the UK or in the US, especially with equity issuance, you know, does that tend to lead to the other sectors?
Yeah, great question. Not really. I'd say we have two leading indicators in our business that I look to a little bit for broader activity. One actually is our Australian mining activity. For some reason, Australian mining just clicks in sooner than the rest of the world. In fact, we're seeing it now. I mean, again, I don't need to tell you anything you can't pull out of public league tables. You know, we're one of the top underwriters in Australia by number of deals, the top underwriter in Australia. That's mainly mining lithium, rare earths, you know, that type of stuff. That is active already and continues. That tends to lead the rest of the world.
Our other leading indicator, believe it or not, tends to be, you know, the retail new issues that flow through our retail side. Remember, we've got a subset, you know, handfuls of brokers that tend to do a lot of small financings. We find that those financings tend to be a pretty good leading indicator of what's happening elsewhere. If they start doing lithium deals or cannabis deals or something, you know, sure enough, you know, three months later, we're doing institutional deals. We haven't really seen that activity yet, to be clear. That's kind of what I track on a day-to-day basis. I mean, I can't explain either one, to be honest. It's just, you know, seems to be factually accurate.
Okay, that makes sense. Sorry, I'll sneak one more in. Just, I know you're in the middle of still probably integrating your UK acquisitions. I mean, you're probably still always looking at deals over there. You know, is there any changes in valuations, anything like that you're seeing coming in the door?
Not yet. Again, pretty active market valuations remain reasonably robust. I guess I got a little nervous with the volatility in the U.K. political environment and thought maybe that would change things a little bit. You know, there's not enough data points to create, you know, a really good line, but there's still enough data points to think that the market really hasn't changed. I mean, there's several consolidators in the space. You've seen several firms enter the space, including a large Canadian bank. You know, we've seen, you know, U.S. firms on this call with your firm, you know, enter into the space. Yeah, there seems to be still a lot of broad interest in the wealth management space in the U.K., and that shouldn't come as a surprise. It continues to be a disaggregated space.
It's an incredibly stable and growing business. You know, I think value. I think the gross valuations are down, but that's 'cause assets are down and revenue's down. The multiple on that, you know, on those, you know, revenues or earnings or EBITDA, I don't believe has changed.
Okay. All right. Thanks. That's all for me.
Thanks. Good questions.
Your next question comes from Rob Goff of Echelon. Please go ahead, sir.
Rob.
Good morning, Dan. Thank you for taking my question. The first one is, with the lower activity levels in the marketplace, are you seeing any changing competitive dynamics in terms of how deals are priced or structured or fees?
Yeah, great question. I wish. In other words, I wish we were doing any deals, so I could see that things are.
Yes.
Structured differently. I mean, clearly, this is a buyer's market. I don't need to tell you that. Just look at my own stock price. I mean, deals are gonna get. Again, this is probably a conversation, you know, over lunch. You know, again, the spaces we tend to operate in, technology, healthcare, sustainability, those are all, you know, pretty high beta sectors. You know, to get deals once it opens, and it's not open now, but once it opens, it's back to, you know, very structured financings to get things done. We don't care. I mean, that's great for us, you know, warrants and all that kind of stuff. You know, that's fantastic. I suspect that's the way the markets will open up initially.
No different than they were four or five years ago when they opened up. Is that your question?
Yes
Rob, or is it something else?
That's it, essentially. My follow-up question, you've already addressed in terms of the consolidators in the UK wealth market. Could you talk to other regions, be that Australia or the US, and what you are seeing in terms of potential acquisitions, acquisition valuations, whether they are reflecting the tougher conditions?
I can't speak to the U.S., Rob, just 'cause we don't. You know, it's not on our strategic list of priorities, and so I don't pay, obviously I pay a passing interest to it, but I think others have a more intelligent view on that market or a more up-to-date view on that market than I would have. I mean, Australia continues to be an interesting market. I mean, we do, and we will continue to invest in our Australia growth plan. That could be organically, that could be inorganically. We continue to, you know, attract very, very good wealth advisors to our platform. Again, rinse and repeat what we did in Canada. I think the only thing different in Australia is there is a number of independent platforms out there.
You know, I think they could be available, you know, at you know, significantly less valuations than, you know, that there would be in the UK. It's a different market, right? It's not a heavy wealth management market. It's a stockbroking market. There's, you know, I don't want to say fixer upper, but it's a market where you got to buy stuff and, you know, change models and stuff. That is a significantly different value paradigm than, you know, buying, you know, something like our UK business, as an example. We're comfortable doing that because we've done it in Canada. You know, significantly transformed our Canadian wealth business, as you know. There could be opportunities there.
It wasn't that many years ago, three years ago now, Don, that we bought Patersons, you know, with, you know, somewhere between CAD 5 billion and CAD 15 billion on that. That's however you want to manage it, however you want to talk about it. You know, we paid CAD 27 million for that. That business made us, you know, CAD 7 million bucks or CAD 6 million bucks last year. You know, it's a different value paradigm in Australia than it is elsewhere. That's a very long answer to a very short question, so I'll be quiet now.
No, that's perfect. Thank you, and good luck.
Thank you. Thanks, Don. Good luck to all of us.
Yeah.
Any other questions, operator?
Yes, sir. Your final question will come from Jeff Fenwick of Cormark Securities. Please go ahead, sir.
Great.
Hi, Dan. Good morning.
Hey.
Yeah, I think most of my questions were answered already, but maybe one more higher level one here, just in terms of prioritizing capital investment from here. You mentioned your stock price and where it's sitting today. You know, maybe between share buybacks, Canada Wealth, where you're seeing some opportunity to pick up IA teams, and you've been making investments in M&A. Like, is there any one area or market right now where you think you'd like to prioritize your focus for your investment?
Yeah, great question. Our, you know, our dividend's very important. I consider that part of our capital obligations. Obviously we're continuing that, you know. At 100 million shares outstanding, you know, that's CAD 8-9 million a quarter. Not that we're not earning way more than that, we are. Clearly there's excess capital beyond that that we're even earning now, let alone what we had. You know, again, volatile markets create change. You know, I certainly wouldn't want to be in a position where I couldn't execute on that change. You know, Rob asked a good question before. He says, "Hey, what's going on on deals and deal structures?" I really wouldn't wanna have to go into the market tomorrow and raise money 'cause something phenomenal came along, you know, that we wanted to execute on. Like, that wouldn't be prudent.
We wanna be careful on stock buybacks, I think, right now. You know, nothing's fundamentally changed. You know, we still have our normal course issuer bid. We've done a series of, you know, substantial issuer bid. We've taken our stock count down in the last couple of years from 135 million shares to, you know, close to 100 million shares today. You know, that hasn't changed, but we do want to be careful. In terms of where we would deploy capital, and again, that changes. Nothing fundamentally has changed in our views. We like wealth. We are gonna continue to deploy capital for wealth. It will be in our core markets, Canada, Australia, U.K. Although U.K. tends to be self-funding. It doesn't generally require capital from the parent, you know, because we've got a partner in that business.
That means Canada and Australia for that. We like M&A. That being said, you know, we've got most of what we like on the M&A side, not completely. You know, there could be other things. There are other things that are emerging that are really, really interesting and could be very, very cost-effective. I'm not saying we're gonna announce anything in the next two weeks 'cause I wouldn't say what I just said if I was. There are opportunities out there, and we wanna be prudent and be able to execute on them.
That's helpful color. Maybe one last one. You know, had some accounts asking about the cannabis space, just given some of the commentary at the federal level in the U.S., and
Yeah
Maybe to the opportunities, and particularly given your cross-border capabilities. Like, what's your thinking in that space there? It's been obviously a good revenue generator in the past. Is that something you're just gonna have to wait for? You know-
Yeah
I know you're pretty well positioned, right?
Yeah. I mean, I think we continue to be well positioned. Who knows if it really opens up in the U.S. There's a scenario to be said that, you know, that there'll be enough reform that, you know, will allow large institutions to buy the stock, yet they still won't be able to be listed in the U.S. That would probably be unbelievable for everyone in the Canadian capital markets. That being said, even if the business transitions to a full U.S. listing with U.S. institutional participation, yeah, we'll have more competitors and, you know, I'm sure our market share will fall a little bit, but, you know, the market will be 10 times the size. You know, I think net we'd earn more money.
You know, I think the other advantage of with enhanced activity in the stock, last quarter we did take some hits on some positions. You saw that. This quarter we did not take any hits on positions. You know, we got liquidity on lots of different things that we owned. You know, I'm not saying it was 100% cannabis stuff, but there definitely was some stuff there. You know, just from a, you know, one-time impact to our financial results, I think we feel a little bit better right now in terms of where we're at and what we're doing. Yeah, cannabis will be good for us. You know, last quarter, Don, let's put it this way, it's so small that I don't know what the revenue number was.
Banking revenue from cannabis last quarter, or what was life sciences in total? Which only a small subset of that is. It was about-
Yeah.
20%.
I didn't have that in front of me.
Okay.
It was obviously, you know, quite a bit less than what we would've seen a few years ago.
Yeah. Yeah. I'm gonna stop talking again, Jeff, but it's all upside, let's put it that way. There's not a lot in there right now.
Great. I appreciate those comments. That's all I had. Thank you.
Thanks. Great questions. Okay, I think we're done on questions, operator. Is that right?
Correct, sir. There are no further questions.
Okay. Listen, really appreciate very good questions. Appreciate your continued interest in our stock and certainly appreciate the fact that our investors have had to ride through a pretty terrible market here. Obviously, as a company, we continue to feel very strong about our position and where we're going. I appreciate that. This really concludes our conference call and as always, Don and I are more than available to answer questions. Thank you very much, operator, and we can close the line.
Ladies and gentlemen, this does conclude the conference call for this morning. Thank you all for your participation, and you may now disconnect your lines.