Banks, investment funds, credit unions and other financiers in B.C. are growing, according to data collected on Business in Vancouver’s lists of top money sources in British Columbia.
The top 66 operating in the province are predominantly investment funds and investment banks, which respectively make up 34% and 22.7% of B.C.’s top money sources.
Investment funds grew an average of 14.8% over the past year. No. 6 Seymour Investment Management Ltd. recorded the largest one-year growth among the investment funds on the list. Its assets increased 26.9% to $1.5 billion as of January 2020 compared with $1.2 billion the year before.
No. 9 Balfour Pacific Capital Inc. was the only company to report a drop in its assets over the past year. They decreased 8.3% to $478 million from $521 million. No. 2 Nicola Wealth had the largest eight-year growth, increasing its assets by 151% to $6.93 billion in 2020 from $2.8 billion in 2013.
CAI Capital Partners experienced the largest eight-year decline: 60% to $200 million in 2020 from $500 million in 2013.
The biggest banks operating in the province also grew over the past year, albeit to a lesser degree than investment funds. Bank revenue increased an average of 4.7% over the past year.
No. 1 Royal Bank of Canada (TSX:RY) boasted the largest revenue growth at 8% to $46 billion in 2019 from $42.6 billion in 2018.
Since 2011, revenue at the top banks increased an average of 68%.
No. 2 TD Bank Group (TSX:TD) recorded the largest nine-year growth. Its revenue jumped 90.2% to $41 billion in 2019 from $21.6 billion in 2011.
The largest asset-based lenders also reported growth in their staff numbers.
The average growth in the number of employees among asset-based lenders over the past year was 9%. While several lenders did not increase in their employment base, none of the asset-based lenders on BIV’s list reduced their number of employees.
No. 1 Roynat Capital had the highest employee growth at 25%.
Mezzanine lenders in B.C. also reported staff increases, growing an average of 11.3% in 2020 compared with 2019.
No. 4 BDC Growth & Transition Capital recorded the largest increase in employee numbers at 37.5%. Its staff grew to 11 employees in 2020 from eight in 2019.
No. 5 Bond Capital had the largest decline (12.5%) in employee numbers.
Unlike other money sources, B.C.’s top credit unions did not experience the same year of growth.
The average net income for the top five credit unions with data available fell 11.4% with only two of the top five experiencing net income growth.
However, despite that decline in net income, the average net income growth for the list of 25 credit unions was 22%. This suggests that smaller companies lower on the list increased their net income while the net income of their larger counterparts decreased.
Despite the drop in net income, credit unions on the list had an average asset growth of 6.3% in 2018 compared with 2017, the most recent year with data available. •
