In an investor presentation by executives from National Bank this morning, the firm is touting a cut to retail brokers’ payout grids as one of its key achievements over the last 12 months.

The presentation, with bank president and CEO Réal Raymond, senior vice president Treasury and Financial Markets Louis Vachon, and National Bank Financial president and CEO Kym Anthony outlined the strategy for NBF following Monday’s acquisition of Putnam Lovell Group.

Including the acquisition of Putnam, the presentation highlighted 12 achievements from the past 12 months at NBF. The executives drew attention to cuts to broker payouts last spring, increases to back office service levels, the acquisition money manager, Opus II, and the jump in NBF’s equity underwriting market share from 4% in 2000 to 7.4% in 2001.

Anthony noted that NBF’s back office integration was the largest ISM integration ever, and that the firm now pays back office staff based on their performance, as evaluated by back office clients.

In the year ahead it hopes to keep the momentum rolling by continuing to partner with third party capital providers, and extending NBF’s traditional products into Putnam Lovell’s client base. The firm refused to rule out further acquisitions.

NBF wants to accelerate the growth of total retail assets under management, and plan to continue shifting the asset mix towards managed products. Anthony said that the firm is very focused on growing this area, particularly expanding outside of Quebec.