TORONTO \u2014 First National Financial Corp. says it has agreed to be sold in a roughly $2.9 billion deal.<\/p>\n
The mortgage firm says private equity funds managed by Birch Hill Equity Partners Management Inc. and Brookfield Asset Management are the buyers through a newly-formed acquisition vehicle.<\/p>\n
First National Financial says founders Stephen Smith and Moray Tawse will each indirectly maintain about a 19 per cent interest in the company.<\/p>\n
It says the purchase price of $48 per share represents a 15.2 per cent premium to the average of the past 30 trading days and is above the 52-week high for the company, though it is below its peak of over $52 per share in 2021.<\/p>\n
“Birch Hill and Brookfield bring significant expertise in the Canadian financial services industry, and we are excited to partner with them,” said First National chief executive Jason Ellis in a statement.<\/p>\n
Ellis is expected to stay on as chief executive, as is the rest of the leadership team, the company said.<\/p>\n
The firm, started in 1988, had about 325,000 residential and commercial mortgage clients as of the end of last year, working out to $153.7 billion in mortgages under administration.<\/p>\n
First National Financial says the deal came after a strategic review and that it offers compelling value and liquidity to shareholders.<\/p>\n
Founders Smith and Tawse respectively hold about 37.4 per cent and 34 per cent of outstanding shares, of which they will sell about two-thirds to the buyers and exchange the rest into ownership interests.<\/p>\n
Birch Hill’s other portfolio companies include Park Lawn Corp. funeral homes, Rexall pharmacies and Harbour Air Seaplanes.<\/p>\n
Brookfield Asset Management is a division of Brookfield Corp., a major global investor with over $1 trillion in assets under management.<\/p>\n
This report by The Canadian Press was first published July 28, 2025.<\/p>\n
Companies in this story: (TSX:FN)<\/p>\n
The Canadian Press<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"TORONTO \u2014 First National Financial Corp. says it has agreed to be sold in a roughly $2.9 billion…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":30121,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[23553,23552,23550,45,49,48,23557,23551,23556,23554,23555],"class_list":{"0":"post-30120","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-business","8":"tag-birch-hill","9":"tag-birch-hill-equity-partners-management-inc","10":"tag-brookfield-asset-management","11":"tag-business","12":"tag-ca","13":"tag-canada","14":"tag-first-national","15":"tag-first-national-financial","16":"tag-jason-ellis","17":"tag-private-equity-funds","18":"tag-stephen-smith"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30120","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30120"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30120\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/30121"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30120"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30120"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30120"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}