The Royal Canadian Mounted Police and Autorité des Marchés Financiers have raided the Montreal offices of Amaya Gaming Group Inc., Canaccord Genuity and Manulife Financial.
RCMP Cpl. François Gagnon confirmed the raid to Advisor.ca, but said it was an AMF investigation, and the RCMP was “just providing security.”
The AMF confirmed the Wednesday raid in a statement to Forbes, which originally reported the raid.
In a statement released last night, Amaya confirmed the investigation was “with regard to trading activities in Amaya securities surrounding the corporation’s acquisition of Oldford Group in 2014. To [Amaya’s] knowledge, this does not involve any allegations of wrongdoing by the corporation. […] The investigation has had no impact on Amaya’s business operations, employees or companies.”
A spokesperson for Canaccord Genuity told Canadian Press, “We’re co-operating fully with the routine request for information.” In an emailed statement to Advisor.ca, Rebecca Freiburger, director, media relations, at Manulife, wrote, “We are aware of the actions taken by the AMF and RCMP. We are fully co-operating with this investigation. All questions should be directed to the AMF.”
Amaya’s good year
Amaya’s shares have gained 341% over the last year to date and closed Thursday at $35.06, up $0.22. As of 11 a.m. Friday, the stock was down $5.11, or 14.6%.
In June 2014, Amaya Gaming announced it was buying Oldford Group Ltd., the world’s largest online poker company and owner of PokerStars and Full Tilt Poker, for US$4.9 billion cash. The deal closed Aug. 1. Canaccord Genuity underwrote the deal along with Cormark Securities and Desjardins Capital Markets. Canaccord and Deutsche Bank were lead advisors.
As part of the same deal, Canaccord Genuity agreed to purchase US$130 million of convertible preferred shares of Amaya. Eleven days later, it upped the private placement offering to US$180 million, citing additional demand and bringing the total gross proceeds from the issuance to US$1.05 billion.
In November, Amaya beat expectations as its adjusted Q3 profit increased tenfold to nearly $70 million, or 43 cents per share for the period ended Sept. 30. That’s compared with $6.8 million, or seven cents per share, a year earlier. Revenues were $239 million, up from $38.6 million a year earlier.
On Wednesday, Canaccord Genuity paid a quarterly dividend of $0.05 per common share and a special dividend of $0.05 per common share. In its quarterly results for the period ended Sept. 30, it reported revenue of $236 million, an increase of 29%, from the same period last year. Its adjusted net income rose 208%. Its diluted earnings per common share was $0.17, compared to $0.03 the year prior.
In November, Manulife Financial’s net income for the three months ended Sept. 30 was $1.1 billion, or 57 cents per share, up from $1.034 billion, or 54 cents per share in the third quarter of 2013. The company saw declines across its North America operations as wealth management sales fell 15% in Canada and 6% in the U.S. On the insurance side, sales in the U.S. were down 19%, and they were down 23% in Canada.
Yesterday, Manulife Financial’s shares closed up $0.07 to $21.66 (and are up 3.34% YTD), and Canaccord Genuity closed up $0.03 to $7.33 (up 5.47% YTD).
This story was originally posted on our sister site, Advisor.ca.