Financial services giant Desjardins Group is paying $1.67-billion in cash to acquire money manager Guardian Capital Group Ltd. GCG-T with plans to invest more in private market assets.
Montreal-based Desjardins is offering $68 per share for Guardian in a transaction that, subject to court, shareholder and regulatory approval, is expected to close in early 2026. Desjardins Global Asset Management currently manages about $112-billion in assets, focused primarily in Quebec, while Guardian’s approximately $168-billion in assets under management is held mostly in the United States.
“It is one thing to have a lot of assets under management, but this transaction will allow us to present a deeper and broader roster of strategies and solutions and products to our clients around the world,” Desjardins GAM president Nicolas Richard, who will join the executive committee of the combined company, said in an interview. “We have big plans for the private markets platform.”
George Mavroudis, who has been Guardian’s chief executive officer since 2011 and will become CEO of the combined entity, said once the transaction closes, the new company will have more than $10-billion in private assets held in sectors such as infrastructure and real estate.
“That is a growing field and we are looking at how we can expand that,” Mr. Mavroudis said in an interview.
The deal marks the conclusion of a nearly three-year process that began in 2022, when Desjardins paid $750-million to acquire Guardian’s insurance and wealth management operations. Guardian used some of that money to dramatically expand its U.S. presence, most recently by acquiring North Carolina-based Sterling Capital Management LLC from Truist Financial Corp. in early 2024 for US$70-million.
Today, Guardian manages more than $100-billion in U.S-based assets and has close to 300 U.S.-based employees. Mr. Mavroudis said part of the rationale behind selling to Desjardins was gaining access to a long-term financial partner that was willing to fund a continued global expansion.
“When you look at some of the in-roads that we have made, managing money on behalf of institutional, corporate and pension plans in the U.S., family offices in Europe, wealth platforms in Europe, pension plans in Asia, we have really gone out there and expanded our footprint,” Mr. Mavroudis said.
“And we are just getting started. You cannot be a competitive asset manager unless you think globally and I think that is the attraction for Desjardins to join forces with Guardian.”
Guardian is the second large publicly traded Canadian asset manager to be taken private over the past year amid consolidation in the sector. In late 2024, an arm of Abu Dhabi-based sovereign wealth fund Mubadala Investment Company paid $4.7-billion to acquire CI Financial Corp.
Before that deal closed earlier this month, Mubadala said it planned to double down on CI’s acquisition-driven growth strategy of snapping up rival fund managers and financial advisory businesses in Canada and the United States.
Rising regulatory and operating costs have led many independent wealth managers to consider selling themselves in recent years to remain competitive. According to the Investment Industry Association of Canada, the number of independent brokerage firms in the country has fallen from roughly 200 in 2019 to fewer than 160 today.
Mr. Mavroudis said the combination of Guardian and Desjardins GAM would “have the willingness, capability and experience to selectively look at opportunities to add by acquisition” but that “overall the preference is for strong organic growth, that is always the best type of growth.”
“We do want to be a top 100 global asset manager over the next five years,” Mr. Mavroudis said. “We are inching closer to that.”