Thank you, and good morning, everyone. Welcome to the Fiera Capital conference call to discuss our financial and operating results for the second quarter.

Copies of our press release, MD&A, and earning presentation are available on fieracapital.com under Investor Relations. This morning, we have with us Maxime Ménard, Global President and Chief Executive Officer; Lucas Pontillo, Executive Director, Global Chief Financial Officer, and Head of Corporate Strategy; and Gabriel Castiglio, Executive Director and Global Chief Operating Officer.

Following the opening remarks, we'll have a question-and-answer session. Comments made on today's call, including replies to certain questions, may deal with forward-looking statements, which are subject to risk and uncertainties that may cause actual results to differ from expectations.

Please refer to the forward-looking statements on page 2 of the presentation and periodic report that we have filed with the regulatory authorities. I will now turn the call over to Maxime.

Good morning, and thank you for joining us today. The second quarter was challenging from a flows perspective as we experienced larger-than-expected outflows from our sub-advised mandates, along with elevated client rebalancing.

However, we remain focused on executing against our strategic priorities. As a result, we saw positive momentum across several areas of the business, including growth in our private markets platform, continued traction within our key distribution channels, and improving investment performance across a number of our flagship strategies.

I'll begin with a review of assets under management and flows for the quarter. Total assets under management ended the quarter at $163.5 billion, up approximately 2.1% from the end of the prior quarter, as strong market appreciation more than offset net outflows.

Public markets AUM of $141.2 billion increased 2.4% from the prior quarter, as strong market growth was partly offset by net outflows. Excluding sub-advised mandates, public markets net outflows totaled $2.2 billion in the quarter, largely due to client rebalancing across both equity and fixed income strategies.

During the quarter, we won new mandates and captured net inflows from financial intermediary relationships established within the last 18 months. Growing exposure to the financial intermediary space continues to support organic growth and a more consistent flow profile.

As we announced earlier this week, Nick Smart has been appointed lead portfolio manager Canadian large cap equities. Nick has previously served as a co-lead of our Canadian large cap strategies and has been involved with the flagship strategy since inception, providing continuity of investment knowledge, fundamental research, and portfolio oversight.

Nick and his team will be supported by the broader Canadian equity team, Fiera's institutional investment platform, and the governance of our Global Investment Office, which oversees performance, investment risk, and resourcing. These changes came on the heels of the action we took, which we believe necessary to protect our clients, employees, the firm, and the integrity of our investment platform.

Our standards of professional conduct apply to everyone at Fiera Capital regardless of seniority or commercial importance. Now looking at the sub-advisory AUM, outflows were $5.3 billion in the quarter, reflecting a single US client that transferred assets directly to PineStone, which we pre-announced in the previous quarter, along with rebalancing from clients in the US, EMEA, and Asia.

As previously announced, we are aware of one remaining client request to transfer approximately $1.5 billion of AUM directly to PineStone in the second half of the year. We continue to expect direct transfer in 2026 to be lower than prior year.

Turning to our private market platform, private markets AUM increased 0.5% during the quarter and 1.4% year-to-date, reflecting net inflows and market appreciation. We raised close to $100 million in new mandates during the quarter, primarily into our real estate and private credit strategies.

Net inflows totaled more than $115 million, which was largely offset by return of capital in our closed-end fund business. During the quarter, we launched a note feeder that allows life insurers to access our private credit strategies.

This new investment vehicle has been generating good traction, and we expect demand will grow over time. With approximately 20% of our AUM tied to life insurers, we see good opportunity in this space.

During the quarter, more than $500 million of capital was deployed into new projects, bringing total deployed capital to $800 million year-to-date. Our pipeline and undeployed capital remained strong at $1.9 billion.

We also began deploying capital into our Canadian Built Opportunities Funds and have expanded the strategy with new clients, which is expected to fund in the third quarter. We see good opportunity to bring on potential clients over time in this innovative structure.

We continue to view private markets as a key driver of long-term value creation. As part of each strategic plan during the quarter, we aligned private markets with the firm-wide investment governance model, consistent with the structure established in public markets.

Under this model, investment teams are aligned under the Global Investment Office, strengthening investment oversight and collaborations. This change will enable us to fully leverage Fiera's scale and capture multi-asset opportunities across all platforms.

Now taking a look at our Canadian franchise, we are continuing to allocate resources towards growth within the Canadian retail channel through relationships with financial intermediaries. We were recently granted four SMA platform approval with a well-known Canadian advisor, which follows last year SMA platform addition with a prominent Canadian wealth manager.

One of our flagship equity strategies was also added to a large Canadian lifeco investment platform during the quarter. Within our Canadian business, outside of sub-advised AUM, we continue to see momentum in net organic growth, supported by efficient distribution and our multi-strategy platform.

Looking outside Canada, in EMEA, our integrated fixed income strategies captured net inflows of close to $200 million in the quarter, reflecting our success within the insurance market. Turning to investment performance, we saw meaningful improvement during the quarter across several of our key equity strategies.

Notably, our large cap equity strategies produced strong absolute returns, with most outperforming their respective benchmarks and peers in the period, while continuing to offer competitive results over long-term. Our emerging markets strategies delivered another quarter of benchmark outperformance, further building on an impressive track record of top-quartile returns and alpha generation across 1-, 3-, and 5-year periods.

Despite the recent headwinds and the market-related challenges faced by our quality-focused equity platform over the past few quarters, we are encouraged by the results of the current quarter. We remain focused on sustaining this momentum and returning to the high standard of long-term outperformance that is historically defined our platform.

Within fixed income, our strategies continue to deliver strong absolute and relative performance, with 91% of our fixed income AUM outperforming respective benchmarks over the 1-year period. Looking at private markets, our real estate core and small cap industrial funds continue to perform well in the quarter, supporting continued demand for the real estate strategies.

Private credit also delivered strong performance, supporting strong client interest in the strategy. With that, I'll turn the call over to Lucas to walk us through the financials in more detail.

Lucas Pontillo (Executive Director, Global Chief Financial Officer, and Head of Corporate Strategy):

Thank you, Maxime, and good morning, everyone. As Maxime acknowledged earlier, we had a challenging second quarter with larger-than-expected outflows.

However, we continued to optimize our cost structure. On a year-to-date basis, we were able to offset the revenue headwinds from lower sub-advised AUM through reduced SG&A expenses, resulted in a stable adjusted EBITDA margin.

Turning first to the revenues and key drivers by segment, total revenues of $155.1 million in the second quarter increased 1% from the prior quarter, reflecting higher commitment and transaction fees and higher performance fees recognized in private markets. This was offset by lower base management fees from public markets, primarily from lower sub-advised AUM.

Total revenues were down 5% year-over-year, largely reflecting lower base management fees in public markets, lower share of earnings in joint ventures, and lower commitment and transaction fees. Year-to-date basis, total revenues were down 5%, mostly due to lower base management fees in public markets.

During the quarter, performance fees were $2.1 million, primarily from our private credit and infrastructure strategies, showing strong signs of recovery from the prior quarter and down slightly by $400,000 compared to the second quarter of last year. Year-to-date, performance fees of $2.1 million compared with $2.7 million in the same period last year.

Commitment and transaction fees were $3.7 million, up $2.4 million compared to the prior quarter, reflecting higher fees earned from our real estate and private credit strategies, and declined $1.5 million compared to the prior-year quarter due to lower fees earned from real estate strategies from clients in EMEA. Year-to-date, commitment and transaction fees of $5 million compared with $7.7 million in the prior-year period.

Share of earnings from joint ventures and associates was approximately $200,000 in the quarter, compared to close to $1 million in the prior quarter and $2 million in the same quarter last year. Share of earnings in joint ventures and associates can vary from quarter to quarter as a result of the long-term nature of the underlying joint venture projects with Fiera Real Estate UK.

Year-to-date, share of earnings from joint ventures and associates of $1.1 million decreased compared with $4.6 million for the same period last year. Other revenues were $4 million for the quarter, flat from the prior quarter and down $5.3 million in the same quarter last year.

Year-to-date, other revenue of $7.9 million were largely in line with the $8.4 million in the same period last year. Looking more closely at base management fees, in private markets, base management fees were $49 million in the second quarter, largely flat compared to both the prior quarter and the same quarter last year.

Year-to-date, private markets base management fees of $98 million declined slightly from the prior-year period, reflecting lower fee rate, partly offset by higher deployed AUM. In public markets, base management fees of $96 million declined 2% from the prior quarter, largely due to lower average AUM.

While ending AUM increased quarter-over-quarter, average AUM was down 1% sequentially due to the timing of significant market volatility in the first and second quarters, along with outflows from sub-advised AUM. Year-over-year, public markets base management fees declined 3%, reflecting a lower base management fee rate, primarily due to asset mix as a result of lower sub-advised AUM, partly offset by an increase of our average total AUM.

Year-to-date, public markets base management fees of $194 million declined 5% from the prior-year period, reflecting a lower base management fee rate, primarily due to asset mix shift from lower sub-advised AUM. Now turning to expenses, SG&A expense, excluding share-based compensation, were down 3.6% year-over-year, and on a year-to-date basis, expenses were down $13 million or 5.5%.

The decline in expense reflects cost savings from continued optimization effort, along with lower sub-advisory fees paid. SG&A expenses, excluding share-based compensation, were $113.1 million in the quarter, up 2.3% from the prior quarter, primarily due to the timing of variable compensation costs, partly offset by lower sub-advisory fees and professional fees.

Adjusted EBITDA was $42 million for the quarter, down 2% from $42.7 million in the prior quarter. Adjusted EBITDA margin was 27.1% in the quarter, down from 27.9% in the prior quarter.

The decline reflects the timing of variable compensation, which I previously mentioned, partly offset by higher revenue. Year-over-year, adjusted EBITDA declined $3.7 million, reflecting lower revenues, partly offset by lower SG&A expenses.

On a year-to-date basis, adjusted EBITDA of $84.7 million declined $4.4 million from the same period last year. However, as previously highlighted, our adjusted EBITDA margin remained stable at 27%, supported by continued optimization and disciplined cost control.

Turning now to net earnings, on an adjusted basis, net earnings of $23.9 million were approximately flat from the prior quarter and were down $3.3 million from the same quarter last year, reflecting lower revenues, partly offset by lower SG&A expense and lower interest on long-term debt. Year-to-date, adjusted net earnings of $47.4 million were down 10% from the same period, largely reflecting lower revenues, partly offset by lower SG&A, excluding share-based comp, and lower interest expense.

On a diluted per share basis, adjusted net earnings were 21 cents for the quarter, flat from the prior quarter and down 3 cents from the same quarter last year. Looking at cash flow and capital allocation, generated last 12 months free cash flow of $93 million, down $3 million from the prior quarter, primarily due to lower distributions received from joint ventures and higher dividends paid to non-controlling interest.

This was largely offset by lower interest paid on long-term debt. Compared to the same period last year, last 12 months free cash flow increased by $18 million.

The increase reflects higher cash from operating activities, primarily from the timing of working capital items, along with lower interest paid on debt and lower lease payments. During the quarter, 134,000 shares were repurchased for approximately $700,000, and on a year-to-date basis, we have repurchased close to 700,000 shares for $3.9 million.

Subsequent to year-end to quarter-end, we renewed our NCIB to purchase up to 4 million shares over the next 12 months. We continue to believe the shares are significantly undervalued at the current levels.

Dividend payout ratio relative to our 12-month free cash flow remained steady from the prior quarter at just under 50%. Turning to the balance sheet, net debt ended the quarter at $723 million, up $23 million from the prior quarter.

The increase reflects primarily the remaining purchase of the 25% interest in Fiera Infrastructure, along with certain other fees during the quarter. Net debt ratio was 3.8 times, compared with 3.6 times in the prior quarter and 3.7 times in the same quarter last year.

We expect net debt to decline in the second half of the year as the first half is usually impacted by higher cash outflows, mainly related to annual bonuses and variable compensation. Finally, the board approved a quarterly dividend of 10.8 cents per share, payable on September 17, 2026, to shareholders of record as of August 20th.

With that, I'll turn the call back to Maxime.

Thank you, Lucas. We remain focused on driving progress across each pillar of our strategic plan.

We continue to shape private markets to be a growth driver by aligning investment teams under the Global Investment Office and expanding solutions that align with evolving client demand. Our distribution efforts are focusing on higher-conviction opportunities, and we are gaining traction on flows through deeper relationships with the financial intermediaries partners.

Improvements in investment performance, particularly within our flagship strategies, demonstrates the value of our investment teams, disciplined and differentiated investment process. We remain focused on delivering consistent long-term outcomes for clients, which we believe is the most important driver of our organic growth over time.

Lastly, we have confidence in Nick and the team, and we are fully committed to supporting them through this transition. We will continue to invest in the people, resources, and capabilities necessary to ensure the Canadian equity team remains well positioned to build on its track record and continue to deliver value for clients.

I will now turn the call over to the operator for questions.

Thank you, and good morning, team. Maxime, you've listed your top two priorities as distribution and performance.

What would you say has been the biggest change in the way Fiera assesses performance and expense distribution since you took on the CEO role?

That's really good questions. Let me start first with distribution.

I think you go back a few years back when we regionalized the distribution, and the model that was assessing the different opportunities in the different markets, and trying to be more prescribe or at least customize the distribution offering in the different markets for different number of reasons. First, the level of competitiveness in the different markets is different.

Our ability to gain market share is different. Our brand recognition is different.

The investment platform or the offering comes at a different level of sophistication or evolution depending on where we're at. What I mean by that is in Canada, we are clearly a high standard of brand recognition.

We have a multi-asset platform. We already have a significant market share.

We have a fully developed distribution model. When you think about all of the pillars to make this a success, I would say Canada is at full throttle in terms of our ability to execute.

We've seen significant results from a gross perspective over the last few years. We've also seen an evolution.

Again, not all of this is calculated by a net organic growth or gross organic, but it's also by how we see the evolution within our ratings from the consultant perspective, the knowledge in our solution-based platform, and also the introduction of new channels, including the intermediaries where you've seen some significant market share over the last few year. When we go in markets like the US, the EMEA, or the Asian market, you enter a whole different space of competitiveness, of which we have to adapt and adjust depending on our offering.

Then based on these different offerings, we have seen some significant improvement in our consultant rating in EMEA particularly, where our team has done a great work there in introducing the Fiera name, introducing the specific solutions where we think we can have success, and driving sales through new channels, namely the insurance where we've had some success in the fixed income and others. Same goes for the US, largest market from an AUM perspective, fast-moving product development evolution, and a very difficult market to gain market share.

We've had success. It's limited to a number of very specific solutions, we have to adapt our distribution to be more nimble, to be focused, and execute extremely well.

We've seen, again, an evolution of our rating within the consultant. We've seen an evolutions in the number of meetings, and we're tracking well in terms of the pipeline in these different markets.

Specific to Canada, for what strategies have you seen the best interest, and conversely, for what strategies has it been more challenging?

Canada, again, the multi-assets is really our key differentiator when it comes to our ability to compete. Very few other firms have a full spectrum of investment platforms the way we do and have it fully integrated, additionally that we have now brought private markets within our platform from an operating standpoint.

We see a large demand within multi-assets. That's also a function of the market.

We have to go by sort of the demand from a consulting standpoint, from the institutional standpoint. What we've also seen is core Canadian real estate is a very demanding asset class from a performance standpoint.

Up to now, obviously, a Canadian large cap is a very performing asset class. We were seeing a lot of flows right now because of a style-driven situation.

The performance is a little bit out of favor, but we're still seeing a lot of appetite for that kind of strategy. In Canada, would sum it up into a multi-asset platform and core strategies where we see our performance and really good performance.

In private markets, what trends are you seeing in terms of redemption activity and the willingness to invest more capital in the space? I think

institutional, we've seen there hasn't been like a huge movement away from private markets, quite the opposite. When you look at on the forward-looking basis on the on the forward basis, I think the next 3 to 5 years will have significant appetite within what we call the real assets, which would include infrastructure and real estate.

There's also a big demand within the private credit space. The institutional demand within the, particularly the pension side, there's there's still lots of appetite for these different asset class.

I would say less so within the private equity space, but again, private credit and the and the infrastructure, real estate, real assets, there's there's good demand, accelerated demand over the last 5 years. Again, I think overall, the private markets will continue to have an increasingly important part of the asset allocation for the pension owners and the the pension-level market in the mid-market.

When it comes to the retail, there's been a lot of noise around the retail here in Canada, the US. Generally, I think there's been a lot of appetite over the last few years for for for the retail or individual investors to access private markets, and it has created lots of flows.

I think right now, there's there's a bit of a pullback in the retail market for the appetite for for private markets. We see it in in asset allocation, and also some of the other funds, not only us, but most some of our peers as well, seeing a slowdown in flows within the private private wealth or retail market to the private private market solution.

Thank you very much.

Thank you.

Great. Thanks, and good morning, everyone.

I wanted to stick with the private markets theme. Max, you called it out as a growth engine, but when I look at new mandates and net organic growth year-to-date, it's sort of flat.

Just wanted to see what's driving that. Then in terms of the outlook, we've seen really strong fundraising from the public peers, including in private equity.

Can you square up your more benign comments around private equity versus what we're seeing in the broader market? Thanks.

Yeah.

Private market is, in general, for us is a growth area, not only as a single strategies, but through our multi-assets. You've got to remember that when we do tactical asset allocation or even multi-assets balanced mandates where we have a good majority of the business coming through, there's a significant allocation to the private markets.

Some of the growth we've seen lately have been through customized solution. As you remember, the mandates that we won through one of the union in Canada, what we call the Canadian Opportunities Fund, has been an extremely well-structured solutions for the market.

As part of that original group of unions, there's been additional members joining, and as a result, we forecast and foresee within our pipeline additional assets coming in through this piece of the business. In terms of my comment to the private equity, these are just industry standards statistics that I've been looking at in terms of forward-looking.

Private equity came as the one that was showing the less growth relative to credit in terms of the opportunities for the private market business. There's always, obviously, the element of performance.

We look at private markets in many of the instances, particularly for multi-assets and private wealth as an alternative to fixed income. They're higher-yield opportunities with a premium on liquidity.

That has been a high-differentiating factor for us within the private wealth business. When you get into the multi-asset, mid-market institutional, that's also something that we find extremely appealing in terms of total returns.

Private markets has played that role very well over the last few years and continues to be a part of the asset allocation that is preferred over a fixed income solution or fixed income allocation, and that gives a higher yield. With all these components, we continue to think that this is a part of our franchise that will continue to take an important part of our revenue on a go-forward basis, and also additionally bring additional AUM.

It is the long cycle from a sales perspective. I've assigned individuals, and as I talked in the past, we have dedicated individuals that now sales private markets.

The emphasis is to make sure that we have the high-caliber and high-quality conversation with pension owners, pension clients, to penetrate that market. With all that said, we're not the only one to see this opportunity, and there's a fast market evolution, fast product evolution within the private markets, and we have to keep on innovating and making sure we bring forward the right solution.

Again, the feeder note that we talked about for the insurers is an example of this. Within the Global Investment Office, we spend a lot of time thinking about what's next, what's coming, what's the right product, and then we look for those different opportunities.

Got it. That's very helpful.

Then just on performance, we get gross IRR disclosure on slide 12. Could you give us a sense of roughly what the net IRRs look like?

You talked about differentiated performance. How is the performance in private markets in your strategies differentiated versus peers?

Thanks. Lucas Pontillo (Executive Director, Global Chief Financial Officer, and Head of Corporate Strategy):

Just maybe on the first part of your question, what I'd say, Bart, is we can provide you with that offline just because it does vary by strategy. Coming back to on a net basis, it's not going to be consistent strategy by strategy, and it really does depend.

It also does depend on the structure for which the products are being offered. Whether it's through private wealth or whether through feeders or whether through separate accounts.

Let us get you that information. We can easily provide that.

Then sorry, we didn't catch the second part of the question?

Just Max talked about performance being differentiated, just wanted to understand better how it's differentiated in the market.

What I talked about differentiated performance, the way we use private markets as an alternative to fixed income within our private wealth solution has been a high-differentiating factor for private wealth solutions, multi-assets as well. If you look historically, the success of the flows within the open-ended solutions and evergreen open funds within private markets has been a high differentiator in the market.

Now, some competitors have come to the party and introduce open-ended solutions as well alternative to lower-yield fixed income. I think we certainly have a leg up on this and more historical performance than most of our competitors in offering open-ended solutions as part of our multi-asset strategies.

Got it. Very helpful.

Thanks, guys.

Hi, good morning. Thanks for taking the question.

Just wanted to start with if you could possibly remind us of some of your covenant thresholds. Net debt-to-EBITDA sort of ticked up again in the quarter, and understand that there's a timing aspect to that in the first and second half of the year.

If you could just remind us of maybe those covenant thresholds and then sort of an outlook for leverage and if you're comfortable with the tools you have to manage. Lucas Pontillo (Executive Director, Global Chief Financial Officer, and Head of Corporate Strategy):

Yeah. Thank you, and welcome to our call.

I think it's the first time we speak. I would say so the easy number to remember is 3.5 times, and it's 3.5 as a floor for the interest coverage ratio and 3.5 as a ceiling for the funded debt ratio.

You can see where our ratios stand in the quarter, well above 4 times for interest coverage, and that's a ratio that's been steadily improving over time. There's a few things that we've done over the year in terms of changing the capital structure, everything from some of the debt that we issued last year.

You'll recall we had a period of time where we were actually carrying two hybrid instruments at once and effectively doubling down on higher interest last year. If you look at our interest expense run rate, one of the things that's giving us comfort in 2026 is that effectively our quarterly run rate is going down from $12 million a quarter closer to 10.

We're picking up almost $4 million a year of interest savings there, so that's certainly helping the interest coverage ratio. The other piece is when you look at the funded debt, as I mentioned in my comments, first half of the year is usually heavier from a cash deployment cycle, and second half of the year is usually when we come into more of a cash collection cycle.

As a result, again, we feel very comfortable going into the third and fourth quarter relative to our leverage position, as it's traditionally higher in the first half of the year.

Understood. Thanks.

That's very helpful. Then just another one maybe on the fee rate, sort of the net fee rate appears to be trending down sort of in the last few quarters.

Just wondering if that's a function of the AUM mix. Fixed income has increased slightly relative to equities, and then maybe even just a mix shift possibly within the equities AUM.

Just what overall appears to be driving the reduction in fee rate? Lucas Pontillo (Executive Director, Global Chief Financial Officer, and Head of Corporate Strategy):

That's a great question. It's really there's a couple of things there.

You're right on the public market side where we are seeing a shift from higher-fee equity strategies to some lower-fee fixed income, there's definitely a shift there and mix that you don't necessarily see through the AUM in terms of the flows. Then the other element is also the non-deployed capital in private markets, of which, as you can see, we have a healthy pipeline.

The non-deployed is actually in our AUM number, but there's some of those projects by which we're not collecting revenue on. Again, there's an inflation of the denominator now as a result of an amount being included in our AUM, but we have yet to start collecting fees on that.

You'll see some stuff in the commitment or transaction fees in terms of revenue, but you're not going to see anything in the base management fee revenue line at this point.

Great. Helpful as well.

Then if I can just squeeze one more quick one in, just the sort of flows pipeline and outlook for the second half of the year. I know you mentioned further $1.5 billion redemption request expected to come out in the second half of the year.

Anything incremental to that that you're aware of at this point? Lucas Pontillo (Executive Director, Global Chief Financial Officer, and Head of Corporate Strategy):

No, at this point, so that is on one of the sub-advised mandates that we spoke about already. As I say, we know that that one's coming in in the next quarter.

Beyond that, we have one larger equity mandate as well where we know that the client will be redeeming. This is not a leakage or a transfer of any sort, but it's roughly a $500 million outflow that we're expecting in the third quarter.

Great. Thanks very much.

That's all for me.

Thank you. If you have any further questions, contact information for Investor Relations as well as media is in our press release, and we'd be more than happy to get back to you.

We know your valuable time is finite, and we thank you for spending it with us this morning. Until next time, goodbye.