CI Financial Announces Launch of Axia Real Assets, an Investment Manager Specializing in Global Real Estate and Infrastructure

CI Financial Corp. (“CI”) (TSX: CIX; NYSE: CIXX) today announced the launch of a newly formed joint venture, Axia Real Assets LP (“Axia”), an alternative investment manager focused on global real estate and infrastructure. The joint venture is independently operated and managed by Axia’s four Founding Partners.

Axia’s Founding Partners – Kelsey Boland, Darrell Shipp, Greg Stevenson and Joshua Varghese – have decades of combined experience and have managed over $50 billion of combined investments in real assets on behalf of institutional and retail clients. Axia’s mandate is to create investment vehicles focused on a wide array of real estate and infrastructure assets around the world.

“We’re pleased to support the launch of Axia and the work of this ambitious and proven group of investors with extensive experience in high-potential asset classes,” said Kurt MacAlpine, CI Chief Executive Officer. “CI believes that alternative mandates can play a vital role in helping investors meet their financial goals in an increasingly complex and challenging investment environment.

“CI’s growing presence in alternatives includes an industry-leading series of liquid alternative funds with $3.7 billion in assets*. We have also introduced innovative mandates – such as private real estate and private equity and credit – that have traditionally been available only to larger institutional investors. We look forward to working with Axia to build out our alternative lineup with additional timely, high-quality solutions.”

“We have a strong historical relationship with CI and are very excited about CI’s vision for the future of asset and wealth management,” said Mr. Varghese, formerly a portfolio manager at CI Global Asset Management (“CI GAM”) specializing in real estate. “The support of a large, forward-thinking company like CI will be instrumental for Axia to develop and distribute alternative investment products to investors.”

“As investors continue to diversify their portfolios to accumulate long-term wealth, we believe the opportunities for global real assets are significant,” said Mr. Stevenson. “The joint venture with an established, successful organization such as CI puts us in a strong position to capitalize on these opportunities.”

The Founding Partners have extensive experience in managing both public and private equity investments in the real estate and infrastructure sectors. Messrs. Boland, Shipp and Stevenson worked together at a multi-billion-dollar asset management firm focused on real estate.