Brian Madden’s Top Picks for Dec. 18, 2025

Brian Madden’s Top Picks for Dec. 18, 2025

BNNBloomberg.ca Staff

December 18, 2025 at 1:37PM EST

Brian Madden, Chief Investment Officer, First Avenue Investment Counsel

Focus: North American equities

Top picks: Trican Well Service, McKesson, Intact Financial

MARKET OUTLOOK:

A sector and style leadership tug of war has broken out in U.S. equity markets over the past few weeks.

What was once considered by investors to be an incontrovertible truth – the primacy of the AI thematic leaders in propelling equity indices to ever higher highs has come under close scrutiny in recent weeks.

Important questions are being asked aloud by renowned and well-respected investors about the AI arms race and whether it will ultimately yield an adequate return on investment for those at its forefront. Moreover, investors are increasingly starting to realize the tight interconnectedness of many of the AI businesses and some of the unconventional financing arrangements between themselves.

We are big believers in the transformational impact AI will have on vast swaths of the global economy and have investment exposure to it via semiconductor chip designers and foundries, power producers and upstream of that, producers of natural gas and uranium electric power feedstock.

But a prudent investor doesn’t wear rose colored glasses and ought always to be asking themselves: how might I be wrong? What could go wrong? As such, in recent weeks we have taken partial profits on some of these early AI leaders and have recycled those gains into more “mundane” businesses…a number of whom – ironically - are already using and capturing demonstrable value from large language models, big data, machine learning, robotic process automation and other cutting edge technology….albeit with much less fanfare and hyperbole than the leading cloud titans generate.

TOP PICKS:

Trican Well Service (TCW TSX)

Trican is Canada’s largest pressure pumper, fracking, well completions company with a leading market share in the prolific Montney and Duvernay basins.

Under new management since 2020, the company has structurally improved its margins and returns on invested capital through operating efficiencies (better equipment and personnel utilization) and equipment modernization which has enabled them to flex “some” pricing power on complex jobs in this industry.

Apart from the very strategic and very accretive acquisition of Iron Horse Energy in July, the company generally reinvests cash flows into maintenance capex, buys back its shares prolifically (47 per cent of total outstanding shares retired since 2017) and since reinstating it’s dividend in 2023, has increased it three times – at a compound rate of 14 per cent annually.

With a 3.9 per cent dividend yield, a discounted valuation below 10 times earnings and five times EBITDA, and with synergy opportunities of $15 to $20 million a year to realize via integration of Iron Horse and with leverage to a cyclical - or, perhaps structural - increase in well completions activity with the LNG export terminal now active and an increasingly resource and infrastructure friendly political backdrop, we see compelling income and capital appreciation potential in the shares.

McKesson (MCK NYSE)

McKesson is the largest pharmaceutical drug distributor in the United States. Pharmacy distribution is an oligopoly in the U.S. with the top three players holding a combined 90 per cent market share.

Distributors negotiate bulk purchases of drugs from manufacturers on behalf of pharmacy, hospital, long term care and other end market clients and physically move drugs to their warehouses and then onto retail stores and other primary care endpoints.

McKesson earns a very high return on invested capital in this non-cyclical business with very sticky customer relationships - no major retailer has changed their drug distributor in over a decade. Its smaller medical and surgical equipment, distribution and pharmacy technology solutions and consulting businesses are higher margin and faster growing businesses.

A pending plan to spin off the Medical-Surgical unit via IPO promises to surface hidden value within this unit. Dividends have grown every year for the last 25 years and over the latest five years have grown at a compound rate of 14 per cent.

This month’s 10 per cent pullback in the shares from their late November peak affords new investors an excellent entry point into this market leader that is secularly advantaged by demographics and morbidity trends in the United States.

Intact Financial (IFC TSX)

With an 18 per cent market share, Intact Financial is the largest property and casualty insurer in Canada. Intact underwrites auto, home, commercial and specialty insurance policies and is best known for the efficiency of its operations and its consistent underwriting profitability which enables them to target a return on equity five times higher than its’ rivals and which currently exceeds 20 per cent.

Intact is flexing scale advantages in its home market to invest in machine learning, data science, AI & robotic process automation initiatives as well as digitization of client experience/user experience interfaces to deliver sharper pricing, better risk selection, shorter claims cycle times and peer leading net promoter scores from policy holders.

As a consolidator of the fragmented insurance market, Intact has grown earnings at a 13 per cent compound rate over the last decade and has entered new markets in the U.S., the U.K. & Ireland via platform acquisitions.

Disclosure:	Personal	Family	Portfolio/Fund
TCW TSX	N	N	Y
MCK NYSE	N	N	Y
IFC TSX	N	N	Y

PAST PICKS: DEC. 4, 202

Telus (T TSX)

Then: $22.07

Now: $17.48

Return: -21%

Total Return: -11%

1. Operational Focus & Non-Telecom Assets

Madden highlighted that Telus has "more financial strength and optionality" than its rivals because it is less distracted by the integration of massive recent acquisitions. He specifically called out:

• Telus Health: He continues to see long-term value in their healthcare division (including the former LifeWorks/Morneau Shepell), which provides higher-margin growth than traditional wireless services.

• Real Estate Monetization: A unique catalyst Madden mentioned is Telus's plan to monetize roughly $3 billion in surplus urban real estate. As copper wires become obsolete and technology shrinks, Telus is redeveloping old switching stations into high-rise residential units.

2. Valuation and "Unpriced" Assets

Madden concluded that the current market price does not reflect the "hidden value" of the company. He jokingly mentioned that the scrap value of the copper alone being removed from their network could be worth up to $1 billion, yet the market is treating the company as if it is in a permanent state of decline.

Microsoft (MSFT NASD)

Then: US$437.42

Now: US$481.84

Return: 10%

Total Return: 11%

Allied Properties REIT (AP.UN TSX)

Then: $18.42

Now: $13.09

Return: -29%

Total Return: -19%

Total Return Average: -6%

In his December 18, 2025 appearance, Brian Madden addressed Allied Properties REIT (AP.UN-TSX) as a classic "deep value" play that has tested investor patience. Although it was his worst-performing Past Pick—with a -19% total return over the last year—he remained surprisingly optimistic about the company's intrinsic value and its specific niche in the real estate market.

Here is an expansion on Madden’s commentary regarding Allied Properties:

1. "Trophy" Assets vs. Generic Office Space

Madden distinguished Allied from the broader, struggling office REIT sector. He argued that Allied’s focus on "Class I" urban workspace (brick-and-beam, character-rich buildings in downtown cores like Toronto and Montreal) makes it more resilient than the commodity-grade glass towers.

• He noted that while suburban office vacancy is high, Allied’s "trophy" assets continue to attract tech and creative tenants who value unique physical office environments to lure employees back to the desk.

2. Deep Discount to NAV (Net Asset Value)

Madden highlighted a massive disconnect between the stock price and the private market value of the buildings.

• The Math: He pointed out that the REIT was trading at approximately 0.33x its book value (or a 65%+ discount).

• The Thesis: He believes the market is pricing in a "doomsday scenario" for office real estate that isn't supported by Allied's actual leasing activity. He noted that even if the buildings were sold individually in a "fire sale," they would likely fetch significantly more than what the current stock price implies.

3. Dividend Sustainability & Yield

With the stock price sitting near its 52-week low (~$13.00), the yield had spiked to over 13%.

• Madden addressed the "elephant in the room": whether the dividend would be cut. He stated that while the payout ratio is tight, the REIT’s recent asset sales (including non-core data centers and residential interests) have provided enough of a "liquidity runway" to maintain the distribution while they wait for interest rates to stabilize further.

4. De-leveraging as a Catalyst

Madden mentioned that Allied has been one of the most aggressive REITs in terms of cleaning up its balance sheet. By selling off non-core assets to pay down more expensive floating-rate debt, the company is "self-funding" its way through the high-interest-rate environment rather than relying on expensive new equity issues.

Disclosure:	Personal	Family	Portfolio/Fund
T TSX	N	N	Y
MSFT NASD	N	N	Y
AP.UN TSX	N	N	Y

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Source

https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/markets/2025/12/18/brian-maddens-top-picks-for-dec-18-2025/

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Another review of Joel Greenblatt’s Classic Work

Another review of Joel Greenblatt’s Classic Work

If you’re wondering why I’m putting so much emphasis on Greenblatt’s book, it’s because not only has it resonated with me as an investor but it has proven itself over time to be one of the very best resources an investor can have at his elbow…What follows is probably the best review of all but the themes will be familiar.

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“You Can be a Stock Market Genius” is Joel Greenblatt’s classic 1997 book. Don’t be dissuaded by the ridiculous title. This is a money making handbook for the small investor who is willing to get their hands dirty and do a lot of homework.

Joel Greenblatt is one of the best investors of all time.  I reviewed another book of his: The Big Secret for the Small Investor in this blog post.

The two books have the same philosophical value investing orientation but are polar opposites in terms of difficulty. The Big Secret is for passive buy-and-hold investors who don’t want to deal with all of the homework of actively picking stocks. You Can Be a Stock Market Genius is a homework-intensive strategy that Joel employed when he was running his hedge fund from 1985-1995 and achieved 50% annual returns.

No passive strategy will get you 50% returns. No systematic quantitative approach will get you 50% returns. Achieving that kind of stellar performance requires a hell of a lot of work and luck. The book is Joel’s outline of the various hunting grounds that he used to generate those amazing returns.

The Small Investor’s Advantages

The book opens with an inspiring message. The small investor has advantages over prominent professionals. Big professionals managing billions of dollars in capital can’t: (1) concentrate in a handful of small positions, (2) take the career risk of dramatically underperforming the benchmark (they’ll get fired), (3) won’t invest the time and resources necessary to investigate weird and tiny situations that they can’t allocate a significant portion of their capital to.

A small investor can do all of those things.

In a world where ETFs with 50 positions are considered “concentrated”, Joel’s definition of “concentrated” is wildly different than the mainstream view. The mainstream view is that “risk” is volatility of returns and “risk” can be reduced by holding more positions. Joel suggests that as few as 8 stocks in different industries is sufficient to properly diversify a portfolio.

8 stocks would result in so much volatility that it would be career suicide for any professional investor. Most people can’t handle volatility. A small investor with the right temperament can. Unfortunately, most small investors squander this advantage. We’re never going to beat Wall Street at their own game: namely, smoothing out returns and reducing volatility (i.e., pain) with fancy financial engineering.

What we should do is focus on the advantages that we have: (1) Temperament – If we have the proper temperament to endure volatility, we can achieve better results. (2) Size – If we’re willing to focus on areas that are hated and ignored, roll up our sleeves and do the work, we can concentrate in situations that Wall Street pros can’t.

I did some backtesting of my own a few months ago to test the limits of concentration. I looked in a Russell 3000 universe with a straightforward strategy of buying the cheapest stocks on an EV/EBIT basis. I constructed portfolios rebalanced annually beginning with 1 stock (the cheapest in the universe) and then just adding the next cheapest. I then plotted the monthly standard deviation of returns (Wall Street’s definition of risk – which is a flawed concept, but whatever).

It looks like Joel Greenblatt is correct. Most of the volatility is meaningfully reduced with a handful of positions. He offers a caveat, however, and suggests that if you are going to run a concentrated portfolio, it is best to diversify among a group of different industries. In today’s market, for instance, it may be tempting for a value-driven bottom feeder like myself to own 10 retail stocks. This would be a bad idea.

Wall Street pros and most investors have no stomach for volatility. We saw a vivid example of this in February. The market fell 10%. This is a remarkably normal event in the grand scheme of things. I was on vacation at the time that this happened and couldn’t help but laugh at the insane overreaction to this little event. It generated headlines like this: “Stocks Plunge and Traders Panic” – The Wall Street Journal, “Dow falls more than 1,000 in biggest daily point-drop ever” – thehill.com

If you want to achieve better than average results, you need a better than average temperament to ignore this nonsense.

How to think about the market

Joel tells two stories in the book that represent excellent ways to think about the stock market.

The first is a story about his in-laws. His in-laws were amateur art collectors. They weren’t looking for the next Rembrandt or Picasso, they were looking for small-scale mispriced works of art. They went to yard sales and flea markets looking for paintings that were cheaper than their value. They would find paintings that were at the yard sale for $100 that they knew were worth $1,000, for instance.

This is a useful way for small investors to think about the stock market. The professionals need to find the next Rembrandt and Picasso. We should let them fall over themselves trying to figure out what company is going to be the next Facebook or Microsoft. Most of them will fail and a handful will be lauded as geniuses (they were probably just lucky). For us, we can achieve satisfactory results by merely finding things off the beaten path that is a decent discount against their intrinsic value.

Joel tells another great story where he went to the best restaurant in New York, Lutèce. Joel asked one of the chefs if an appetizer on the menu was good. The chef replied with: “it stinks.” The message was clear: it didn’t matter what you ordered off the menu. Everything was excellent because Joel was at the best restaurant in New York. The best way to invest in the stock market is to identify those places that are the best places to invest, where no matter what you pick, the chances are that it will be good.

The book outlines some key hunting grounds where Joel had success finding these opportunities.

Spin-Off’s

The goal of investing is to find mispriced assets. You want to seek out areas of the market where stocks are prone to mispricing.

One area that Joel finds to be replete with mispricings is spin-offs. Spin-offs are divisions or subsidiaries of a larger company. The larger company decides to “spin off” that piece into a separate company.

Why do companies do this?  They may think that if they isolate the entity in the market, it will be able to command a higher valuation.  For instance, let’s say (in an extreme example) that an insurance company owned a financial software division. Software companies have higher P/E ratios than insurance companies. However, the market might not appreciate the software company because it is buried in an insurance company. If they spun it off – the software company would probably command a higher valuation if it were isolated.

The larger firm might also want to separate itself from a “bad” business that is weighing it down. They might just want to use the spin-off to unload debt on a smaller firm. There could be tax or regulatory reasons. They might have difficulty selling the business, so they decide to dump it in the form of a spin-off.

Whatever the reason, spin-offs are prone to mispricing. This is because institutions and people often sell them for reasons other than the intrinsic value of the company. Some institutions might not even be allowed to own it due to small market capitalization, or it doesn’t fit into their “strategy.” Individual investors probably wanted to hold the larger business and have no interest in owning something completely different. In any case, spin-offs are prone to indiscriminate selling, which creates mispricings and opportunities for smaller investors like us.

In the book, Joel takes you through several real-world examples of spin-offs. He explains why the spin-off was pursued and why he thought it was an attractive opportunity to invest in.

Currently, I own one spin-off in my portfolio: Madison Square Garden Networks (MSGN). My rationale for holding it is described here. I became aware of the opportunity when looking at a list of recent spin-offs back in 2016.

Mergers

Joel then moves onto mergers as an opportunity for mispricings.

He first addresses the obvious: merger arbitrage. Merger arbitrage is buying a stock after a deal is announced and trying to earn a spread between the buyout price and the market price. For example, let’s say a company is trading at $30 and another company buys it out for $40. As soon as the deal is announced, the stock will rally to $39. A merger arbitrage strategy would buy the stock at $39 and wait for the deal to be consummated.

Joel thinks this is a dumb strategy and I agree with him. The reason is that you are taking on the risk of the deal not going through, in which case the stock will plummet. Mergers fall apart all the time, usually for regulatory reasons. Why take on that risk to make a measly 2.5% gain in the example I provided (in the real world, those spreads are even smaller and keep getting smaller as more people become involved in merger arbitrage).

It’s a strategy that might make sense for a big institution that can hire lawyers and analysts to know for sure whether a deal will indeed go through, but that’s not something small investors like myself can take advantage of.

Where Joel does believe there are opportunities for investors is in the world of merger securities. Often, a buyout can’t be financed entirely with cash and debt. Sometimes, strange derivative securities are sold (usually warrants) to fund a piece of the transaction. Investors will often indiscriminately unload these merger securities, and this will create mispricings.

The difference between a warrant and an option is that a warrant is issued by the company. That’s it. Both of them are merely a contract to buy or sell a stock at a pre-determined price on a future date.

Joel thinks this is a good area of opportunity. I don’t disagree, but I think that pricing merger securities are beyond the abilities of most small investors like myself. I’ve never owned an option or warrant in my life and place it in my “too hard” pile. You might want to tackle it and more power to you.

Like the spin-off section, Joel takes you through a few real-world examples of times that he purchased merger securities and did very well. I think the strategy is too hard to implement for the small investor, but you might disagree.

Bankruptcies

Emotions create mispricings. Greed and comfort with consensus create insane valuations for amazing companies. Revulsion, hatred, and fear create mispricings among “bad” companies. Nothing generates an “ick” feeling more than bankruptcy.

Joel does not recommend buying stock in bankrupt companies (that’s in the “too hard” pile”). The reason is apparent: equity holders can get wiped out in a bankruptcy. He does believe that the debt of bankrupt companies is often mispriced and offers incredible mispricings. Unfortunately, distressed debt investing is not only challenging to research for small investors but frequently impossible for anyone but an institution to invest in.

He believes that small investors can invest in companies emerging from bankruptcy or going through a restructuring. Often, a company went bankrupt only because it was loaded up with too much debt. They might have a viable business model that was merely being weighed down by too much debt. After emerging from bankruptcy or going through a healthy restructure, it may give the company an opportunity to shine. Meanwhile, the stigma of the bankruptcy creates a nice discount from intrinsic value.

Options

Most classic value investors (me included) think that options are an area that is best for most people to avoid. I agree with this sentiment. Options (and warrants, which are the same thing) are a zero-sum game. Only one side of the trade wins: either the person who wrote the contract will win, or the person who bought the contract will win. They can’t both make money. Zero-sum games are usually areas of the market that are difficult for small investors to make money.

Joel takes a bit more of a liberal attitude towards options. While he doesn’t recommend actively trading options, he does suggest using long-term options (LEAPs – options contracts that mature in over a year) as a way to leverage up the return on a value stock. A LEAP will experience much more significant price swings than the overall stock. If a reasonably priced value stock experiences a 20% gain, for instance, the underlying LEAPs contract will experience a much more significant increase. It’s a way of leveraging up the bet, with the caveat that if the stock falls below the strike price, it will expire worthless. More risk, more reward.

Joel does not recommend that these bets comprise a significant portion of a portfolio, but argues that they can serve a place to amplify returns.

For me, I put all of this in my “too hard” pile. When I contemplate buying options or warrants, it sounds to me like someone saying “Let’s try crack. What could go wrong?”

Conclusions

You should read this book! My brief summary doesn’t do the book justice. While I gave you the broad strokes in this blog post, there is nothing like reading the book and going through the case studies which Joel provides. He provides you with his entire process: how he found out about a specific opportunity, what he liked about, where he researched it and how the idea worked out.

The first and last chapters are useful for developing a template for thinking about markets. As I stated earlier, the goal is to find mispricings. That often means going off the beaten path and finding forgotten and hated corners of the market. Joel provides a roadmap to a few areas that served him well, but they are by no means the only ways to do it.

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Resources,

https://valuestockgeek.com/2018/03/17/you-can-be-a-stock-market-genius-by-joel-greenblatt/

Investing Basics from Joel Greenblatt's, 'You can be a Stock market Genius'

Investing Basics from Joel Greenblatt's, 'You can be a Stock market Genius'

The first two chapters in Joel Greenblatt's classic work lays out core investment principles that will lay out a solid foundation for investing in the Stock Market.

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In the opening chapter, Greenblatt explains how the ordinary investor has a chance against all the portfolio managers who dominate the market.

For one thing, many of the well-educated MBA-types subscribe to the Efficient Market Hypothesis, which makes them measure risk in an absurd way according to value investors. Price volatility is considered the best measure for risk for these market participants, and since value investors evaluate risk upon better measures (e.g. risk of bankruptcy, revenue risk etc.), opportunities are out there.

Second, institutional managers have a much smaller domain in which to invest. A billion-dollar fund can only buy positions in billion-dollar companies, or else the positions will either be so small that they will not affect returns, or the position sizes would be large and market-moving. Ordinary investors, on the other hand, have thousands more stocks to choose from, increasing the chances of finding a diamond in the rough.

In order to benefit from these advantages, ordinary investors have to look in places that no one else does, since the opportunities available to them will not be publicized. Greenblatt compares this kind of investing to antique shopping for bargains. Antique shoppers that have some knowledge of the market for certain objects can often find bargains in out-of-the-way places where others of their ilk aren't competing with them. Greenblatt argues that small investors must employ a similar strategy, and this book is dedicated to illustrating how.

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In chapter two, Greenblatt discusses some requirements that investors must follow if they plan to outperform in the market. First, they need to do their own work. The opportunities offering the best rewards will not be covered by the media or Wall Street. Investors must also not take advice from others, including brokers and analysts. These advisers are paid based on how much they generate in business for their firms, and not by how well you do.

Greenblatt also argues against too much diversification. For one thing, he cites research suggesting that as the number of stocks in the portfolio increases, the benefits of diversification drop quickly. For example, he argues that the diversification benefit between owning eight stocks and owning five hundred stocks isn't that large; but the benefit of owning eight stocks is that you can really pick your spots in terms of choosing stocks with potential upside that is higher than the potential downside. A better method of diversifying, Greenblatt argues, involves keeping some money out of the stock market (e.g. in cash, bonds, home equity etc.).

Greenblatt also advises that investors avoid looking at an investment in terms of its upside potential. Instead, look at the downside, and employ a margin of safety with all purchases. If you look after the downside, the upside usually takes care of itself.

Finally, Greenblatt discusses the fact that there are many ways to make money in the stock market. Every investor cannot possibly participate in even a fraction of the opportunities that are out there. Furthermore, there are many different methods by which investors can be successful. For example, Ben Graham used a quantitative, statistical approach, whereas Warren Buffett identifies and exploits competitive advantages. Greenblatt goes through a number of situations in the following pages that demonstrate the ways in which enterprising investors can profit from the market (spinoffs, mergers, corporate restructuring, smaller capitalization stocks, etc...)

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Stockwatch...Bridgemarq Real Estate Services Inc. Senior Management

Stockwatch...Bridgemarq Real Estate Services Inc. Senior Management

"The most valuable commodity I know of is information."

Gordon Gekko

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The senior management team of Bridgemarq Real Estate Services Inc. includes several key executive officers:

🏢 Bridgemarq Real Estate Services Inc. Senior Management

Role	Name	Notes
President, Chief Executive Officer (CEO), and Director	Spencer Enright (CA, CPA)	Appointed as CEO of the company in April 2024. He also sits on the Board of the Bridgemarq Real Estate Services Charitable Foundation.
Chief Financial Officer (CFO)	Wallace Wang	Appointed effective July 1, 2025. He is a Chartered Professional Accountant (CPA) and previously worked with Brookfield's Private Equity Investments team.
President of Residential Franchise & Core Brokerage Services	Philip Soper	Was named President of Royal LePage in October 2002 and directed the restructuring of Royal LePage into a public company (now Bridgemarq). He continues to manage all agent and franchise relationships.
Chief Legal Officer (CLO)	Paul Zappala	Joined the organization in 2017. He is a lawyer with over 20 years of experience in executive operations and legal roles.
President for Proprio Direct Inc.	Philippe Lecoq	Also holds the title of Executive Vice President, Brokerage Operations.
Senior Vice President of Human Resources, People and Culture	Aideen Kennedy	Joined the organization in 2017, having previously held various positions within Brookfield affiliates since 2003.
Director of Investor Relations	Anne-Elise Cugliari Allegritti	Handles investor and media relations for the company.

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Former CFO Transition

It's notable that Glen McMillan was the Chief Financial Officer up until his retirement, which was planned for the third quarter of 2025, with Wallace Wang appointed as his successor to ensure a smooth transition.

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The Board is structured with a strong emphasis on independence, with six out of seven directors generally considered independent of the company.

🧑‍💼 Bridgemarq Real Estate Services Inc. Board of Directors

The Board currently comprises seven members, including the CEO, and is led by an Independent Chair.

Name	Role on Board	Other Noteworthy Experience
Lorraine Bell (CPA, CA)	Independent Director and Chair of the Board	Corporate Director and Chartered Professional Accountant with extensive experience in the financial sector, including derivatives and risk management. Former Chair of the Audit Committee for IBI Group Inc.
Spencer Enright (CA, CPA)	Director (Internal)	President and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Bridgemarq Real Estate Services Inc.
Colum Bastable (FCA)	Independent Director	Corporate Director and Fellow of the Institute of Chartered Accountants (Ireland). Extensive senior executive experience in the real estate services industry, including Chairman, President, and CEO of Cushman & Wakefield Canada Ltd.
Joe Freedman	Director	Retired as Senior Vice Chairman, Private Equity at Brookfield Asset Management. Held previous roles at Brookfield including General Counsel and head of M&A transaction execution.
Gail Kilgour	Independent Director	Corporate Director with over 25 years of experience in the financial services industry.
Jitanjli Datt	Independent Director	Elected by restricted voting shareholders.
Brian Edward Hoecht	Independent Director	Elected by restricted voting shareholders.

🔍 Key Governance Highlights

• Independent Leadership: The Board is chaired by an Independent Director (Lorraine Bell), which is a common corporate governance practice intended to separate the oversight function from the operational management led by the CEO (Spencer Enright).

• Brookfield Connection: Joe Freedman's background as a former Senior Vice Chairman at Brookfield Asset Management is significant, given that Brookfield BBP (Canada) Holdings LP is a major entity related to Bridgemarq's ownership structure.

• Board Committees: The Board relies on committees (such as the Audit Committee, Governance Committee, and Human Resources & Compensation Committee) to carry out its responsibilities. Crucially, only Independent Directors sit on these committees, further enhancing independent oversight.

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