Bridgemarq Real Estate Services Inc. (BRE.TO)

 Website

Yahoo Finance

Sept. 02, 2026

Q2 2026 Data

Price: $3.6. Shares: 15.7m, Cap: $56.5m

Summary

*Bridgemarq owns the LePage real estate agency franchise which is the second largest real estate agency in Canada. Its business suffered from the real estate market downturn since 2022. 

*The company used to pay around $1.35/share dividend which is around $24m/year. It became unsustainable caused the company to borrow money to pay for the dividend since 2024. It cut the dividend in July 2026 which caused the SP went down by 60%.  

*The business is actually doing quite ok and still generates around $10m-$15m cash each year. It can be used to pay down the $80m debt it owns. The current share price will be very attractive once its debt been paid down to a more comfortable level. 

*The company could do very well when the real estate market start to rebound in the future.

Business

(1) History 

Royal Lepage was founded by A.E. Lepage at 1913 as Real Estate service company. It originally called "A.E. LePage, Bungalow Specialist" which mainly focused on single family home sales. 

In 1953 A.E. Lepage retired and transferred the ownership to new leaders. After that, the firm moved beyond simple home sales into massive commercial development. 

In the 1970s,  the Trilon Financial Corporation(later became part of BrookField) began buying into the real estate brokerage sector.

In 1984, A.E. Lepage merged with Royal Trust and renamed itself Royal Lepage. 

In 1987, Royal Lepage became a publicly traded company. BrookField owns over 50% of the stock. In 1999, BrookField bought out the remaining shares and it became a private subsidiary of BrookField. 

In 2003, Royal LePage Franchise Services Fund was IPOed as an income trust and raised around $100m which has been paid to BrookField for 75% of the income trust while BrookField retain the rest 25%. The trust is managed by Brookfield Real Estate Services Manager Ltd. which is 100% owned by BrookField.

In 2007, it changed its name to Brookfield Real Estate Services Fund to reflect its business acquisition besides Royal LePage. 

In 2011, it transferred to a corporation as the Canada government eliminated the tax advantage of the income trust. It has been renamed as Brookfield Real Estate Services Inc. Although the name has been changed. The structure of the company remained the same. The 75% of the public owned shares were converted to RVS(Restricted Voting Shares) while BrookField owns 25% of the company through owning the exchangeable units of the Partnership. 

In 2019, Brookfield Real Estate Services Inc. was renamed to Bridgemarq Real Estate Services Inc. to eliminate consumer confusion between the Brookfield name and the underline brokerage names. 

In early 2024, it merged with the management company Brookfield Real Estate Services Manager Ltd. by issuing more exchangeable units to BrookField. As a result, BrookField's interest in the partnership has been increased to 38.5%. 

Since Q4 2025, it has deferred the interest payment to BrookField which is around $2.7m/q. By the end of Q2 2026, the deferred amount it owns BrookField is around $8.1m.  In July 2026, it cut the dividend of the RVS to $0.05/year.

(2) Product & Services 

Franchise fees:

Fixed: Currently set at $144/year per agent. It was $105 at 2016. 
Variable: 1% of transaction value, capped at $1525/year. 

Total franchise fees varies from $10m to $12m per quarter. Very stable revenue. 

Commission fees: 

Commission fees consist of the gross commissions its non-franchised agents received from each transaction. In reality, the net commission fees is more meaningful to the company. The net commission fees is tightly correlated to the RE market volume. It has been trending down since 2024 as the whole RE market are still facing a downturn. 

Since adding the commission fee revenue in 2024, the SG&A expense is also increased. Overall, the net commission could not offset the SG&A expensive increase which made the acquisition a negative to company's profitability. 

Other Revenue: 

Other revenues include referral fees paid by financial institutions for mortgage referrals and fees earned from Franchisees and REALTORS® who purchase customer leads from the Company.

(3) Industry 

CREA membership: around 155k.

RE/Max: Around 25,000 agents.

Century 21: Around 9,400 agents.

(4) Seasonality 

Usually the second quarter and the third quarter are the best. First quarter is weaker while the fourth quarter is the worst. 

(5)Employees

The company has no employees before the merger with the management company in 2024. It is estimated that it has around 500 employees now.

2. Management

(1) Management

Spencer Enright: CEO of the management company since 2012. Replace Philip Soper as the CEO of the  public company after the merger in 2024. 

Philip Soper: President. He was with the company since 2000. CEO since 2004 until 2024 before the merger. He is still take the role of CEO of Royal LePage. 

(2) Ownership and Compensation

BrookField: 6.248 exchangeable units + 315K Restricted Voting Shares. Total around 41.7%.

It pays over $3m for top 5 management in 2025. 

3. Financial data

Notes: debt

As Q2 26: Cash: around 8m. Debt: 77m. Deferred payment to BrookField 9m. 

Notes: Share Data

Restricted Voting Shares:  The public traded shares.  9.483m shares outstanding. 

Exchangeable Units: 6.248m shares. can be exchanged to RVS 1:1 basis.  It counts 38.5% of total shares if all exchanged. 

Total shares should be around 15.7m shares if all exchangeable units were converted to RVS. 

4. Valuation and comments
(1) The franchise fee is the real profit creating part of the business. Although the commission fees added a lots of revenue to the company. It seems not adding any profit to the company since the merger in 2024. 

(2) Despite the RE market downturn,  it still generate around $25m in EBITDA in 2025 while its current EV is just around $60m(Cap)+$80m(net debt). The current valuation is very attractive.

(3) From cash flow analysis, it generated around $12m real FCF in 2025 which can be used to pay down debt fairly quickly. However, during the first half of 2026, its FCF is reduced to around $5m.

(4) Because the high ownership of BrookField, its debt is well supported even the operation might encounter difficulty in the future.  

5. Risk

(1) It might loss significant amount of franchise as more franchise agreement are up for renewal currently.   This did happens in Q1 2026. 

(2) The RE market could stayed bottom or get worse in the near future. Its brokerage business could suffer more losses in the future.

(3) It is unclear whether the dividend cut includes the cut of interest to BrookField. If not, then it still has to pay around $11m/year to BrookField which will be bad.

6. Conclusion

This is a pretty decent business that could do very well once the RE market rebound. Its share price is quite attractive caused by the overreacting of the dividend cut. However, it does has some concerns and the management is not ideal. Should watch it closely. 

7. Links

Tiny Ltd. (TINY.TO)

Website

Yahoo Finance

Apr. 28, 2026

Q4 2025 Data

Price: $5.60. Shares: 29.3m, Cap: $165m 

Summary

*Tiny is holding company that set out to be the Berkshire Hathaway of internet companies. However, the stock had lost over 80% in value since its IPO at 2023. 

*There are combined reasons for the poor stock performance including been initial overvalued, CEO transition, business headwinds, stock dilution and debt load caused by acquisition, etc. 

*Fundamentally the underline businesses are actually doing quite ok with good FCF that offers a very attractive valuation based on current price level.  

Business

(1) History 

In 2006, Andrew Wilkinson founded MetaLab as a design and product studio. It was very profitable since the beginning. In 2009, he also founded Pixel Union, an early partner to Shopify Inc. providing premium themes for merchants. 

In the same year, Chris Sparling joined the company and became CFO of both companies. Since then, they became very close business partners.

 

Since 2013, they started investing together.  In 2014, Andrew sold his 80% stack of Pixel Union to a family office. 

In 2016 Tiny Capital was officially incorporated as a permanent holding company to acquire profitable internet business. 

In 2017, Tiny acquired Dribbble, a creative platform for designers to showcase work, discover inspiration, and connect with employers and other creators.

In 2019, it bought back Pixel Union. Combined with other Shopify related business, it created a Shopify-ecosystem platform called WeCommerce. It provides software, themes, and services businesses that support merchants on Shopify.

In 2020, WeCommerce was listed on the TSX Venture Exchange. In January 2023, Tiny and WeCommerce agreed to an all-share merger, and the deal closed in April 2023, with the combined public company renamed Tiny Ltd.

In 2024, both Andrew and & Chris stepped down from their Co-CEO role.

In 2025, it acquired 66% of DJ software company Serato for USD$66m.  The company issued 6m new shares and $35m in convertible debt. 

(2) Product & Services 

Digital Services: Metalab is the original agency business that contract graphic design work for businesses. 

Software & Apps: WeCommerce and Serato. WeCommerce's business seems stalled since 2023.  With the including of Serato, the software segment became Tiny's biggest sub-division. 

Creative Platform: Dribbble & Creative Market

Dribbble is a marketplace for digital designers. Creative Market is an online marketplace for digital design assets.

Tiny Fund I: 

Tiny currently owns around 21% of Tiny Fund I. valued at around 45m on balance sheet. Major holdings inside the fund:

(1) Aeropress coffee maker: Portable coffee maker.

(2) Mateina: Yerba Mate drinks.

(3) Letterboxd:  Film review social media platform. 

(3) Industry 

(4) Seasonality 

(5)Employees

2. Management

(1) Management

Andrew Wilkinson: Original founder of Metalab. 

Chris Sparling: Originally worked for a bank and joined Metalab as CFO. Been Andrew's business partner ever since. 

(2) Ownership and Compensation

Andrew Wilkinson: 15m shares. 51%.

Chris Sparling: 2.3m shares. 8%.

It pays CEO and CFO around $450k to $500k per year in 2024. 

3. Financial data

Notes: debt

As Q4 25: Cash: around 30m. Debt: 135m. Interest is around 11%.

Notes: Share Data

Shares outstanding: 29m. 

Options and RSU: very minimal. 

4. Valuation and comments
(1) Except Serato, it seems all other businesses are facing some headwinds. Especially the creative platform revenue are down quite a lot YoY. The digital service segment logged growth in the first 3Q if not counting the divested 2 businesses. However, in Q4, it is down by 9% YoY. The software business is also just trending down for the whole year if not counting contribution from Serato since May. 2025. 

(2) The Serato acquisition added around $40m in revenue and around $10m in adjusted EBITDA. It still seems quite expensive at USD$100 valuation. On the positive side, it added around $30m in ARR(annual recurring revenue). Now the ARR is around $70m. 

(3) Current net debt stands at around $105m which is a little high. However, if take the 45m valuation of the Tiny fund I away, it is just around 60m which is much lower. On a EV/EBITDA bases, it is currently  traded around ($165m+$60m)/$38m=5.8. 

(4) It generated 25m FCF for the whole year 2025. However, there is a 8.2m one time license deal in Q2 from the digital service segment. Real FCF is just around $17m.  Still it is a much better result than previous 2 years. On price/FCF bases, it is 10 times. It is quite a cheap valuation. 

(5) Despite both being retired from the CEO role, Andrew and Chris still on the board and hold majority of the shares. It is been clear that their interest is for capital allocation while not running the business. Whether they are still involved in the M&A of Serato remains unknown. 

5. Risk

(1) Both the Metalab and Dribbble business face downward pressure. They are both tied to the designing industry. Along with WeCommerce, a lots of the demand of its product or service might fluctuate along with economy circle. 

(2) The software industry is facing heavy disruption from AI adoption. While the Serato platform is unlikely to be replaced by AI. The WeCommerce related business might face tough competitions. The designer market might as well facing headwinds from AI adoptions. 

(3) Although the company generated very good cash flow in 2025. It might not generate similar amount going forward.

(4) The debt interest is quite high and need to be paid down. It might not be able to generate enough cash to do so.   

(5) The company might continue to do expensive acquisitions and issuing more shares or debt. 

6. Conclusion

Despite the pressure of the some of its businesses face and the debt it took. As a whole, the company has been managed well and the profit has gone up. The downside risk has been largely discounted by the low share price. It has potential to do very well in the future.  

7. Links

Forrester Research, Inc. (FORR)

 Website

Yahoo Finance

Jan. 28, 2026

Q3 2025 Data

Price: $7.84, Shares: 19m, Cap: $149m 

Summary

*Forrester is a major player in research and advisory service industry mainly for IT sector. Its business went downward caused by the transformation to its Forrester Decision platform started at 2022. 

*Since 2025, there was a great concern that AI will disrupt the research and advisory industry in the market. The growth in the whole industry slowed down. The sentiment of the whole industry shifted.

*Forrester's had finished its transition to new platform. Its business shows the sign of stabilization lately. The AI disruption concern seems over-stated. The stock is currently traded as at a very attractive valuation. 

Business

(1) History 

Forrester Research, Inc. was founded in 1983 by George Colony as an independent technology‑research firm. Its early decision to focus on annual, multi‑user research contracts created a recurring‑revenue model similar to modern SaaS economics and became the backbone of its business development. 

Through the late 1980s and 1990s, Forrester expanded its coverage from IT infrastructure into how technology changes markets, customer behavior, and corporate strategy, which enabled it to sell larger licenses to major “user” enterprises and technology vendors.

In the early 2000's it took aggressive expansion during in the IT bubble. Soon the bubble busted and it cut costs and survived the bust. It grew rapidly for the next few years. Both revenue and profit were up.

From 2009 to 2018, the financial crisis seems did not affect the business too much. However, growth slowed as the mix shifted from high‑margin research toward more one‑time consulting and events, leaving only about 60% of revenue from research contracts and 40% from non‑recurring businesses. This constrained margins and its profit stayed almost the same during those years. 

In January 2019 Forrester acquired SiriusDecisions, a B2B research and advisory firm focused on operational frameworks and benchmarks for marketing, sales, and product leaders. It costed 246 million in cash, adding roughly 350 employees and $79 million in annual revenue.

During the Covid, with great demand for needs to go online, its business was skyrocketed. In 2021, based on the SiriusDecisions platform, it launched Forrester Decisions, which integrates Forrester and SiriusDecisions content into a single, role‑based research platform. Forrester has been migrating legacy research clients to Forrester Decisions and directing most new customers onto it. 

It has high hope for the platform at the beginning. However, the transition didn't turn out as expected. Although the share of total CV in Forrester Decisions rose from about one‑third at the end of 2022 to roughly 62% at the end of 2023 and about 80% by year‑end 2024, many customer didn't renew their subscription. By Q3 2025, its revenue dropped around 30% from its peak at 2022. 

(2) Product & Services 

Research: 

Mainly the Forrester Decisions platform. It bundled research reports, analyst guidance, peer support etc. It also includes a proprietary AI tool called Izola that its customer can use to provide instant answers of customer's questions. Currently Forrester Decision accounts around 80% of its CV. The rest of its CV is from Legacy research product(5%) and reprints(15%) which is reports licensing.

Flagship product in research is called Forrester Wave.  It graphically compares and ranks top vendors in specific technology or service markets based on their current offerings, strategies, and market presence, categorizing them as Leaders, Strong Performers, or Contenders to guide buyer decisions.

Consulting: 

It is less profitable than the research segment and much volatile. It accounts around 25%-30% of its revenue. From 2010 to 2019, it became an even larger portion of its revenue. During the transition to Forrester Decisions platform, consulting revenue dropped much rapidly than the research revenue. Currently, it accounts around 25% of total revenue again. 

Events: 

Events is historically not a big part of its business. It is intent to be as a tool for lead generation and increase customer loyalty. 

(3) Industry 

Major competitors:

Gartner: 

The dominant player in industry. Its flagship product is called Gartner Magic Quadrant. Gartner is vastly larger and more profitable than Forrester: in 2024 Gartner generated about $6.3B in revenue with about $1.3B in net profit (around 20% net margin). During 2025, its share price drop by over 50%. Currently, its market cap is around $17B which is still around 2.5x of its revenue. 

IDC: 

A subsidiary of International Data Group (IDG) which is privately held. Its flagship product is called IDC MarketScape. Its annual revenue might be around $600m. 

(4) Seasonality 

The first quarter seems always the lowest and the second quarter is the strongest. 

(5)Employees

Currently, it has around 1500 employees which is 25% less than the peak number of 2000 in 2022. 

2. Management

(1) Management

George Colony: He is the founder of the company. Had led the company through several recession/downturn. 

(2) Ownership and Compensation

George Colony: 7.4m shares. 39%. During 2023&2024, he took very modest compensation($200k) from the company.

3. Financial data

Notes: debt

As Q3 25: Cash: around 130m. Debt: 35m. Deferred revenue around $140m

Notes: Share Data

Shares outstanding: 19m. RSU 2m. 

Options: 400k at price > $16.

4. Valuation and comments
(1) The company had went through several downturn in the past including the 2000 internet bubble, the 2008 financial crisis, etc. Its cost seems mostly not fixed. 

(2) The research segment is its most important part. For the past 3 years, its research revenue and CV has a accumulated decrease of around 17% while total revenue had dropped around 26% from the peak. It did much better than the other two segment. 

(3) Its profit shows stabilization during past several quarter. Both operating cash(w/o working capital change) and EBITDA show YoY growth in Q3 2025. Those are mainly from the cost cutting measure. Its employee numbers also increased in QoQ in Q3 2025 which is the first in the last 3 years. 

(4) Its client retention and wallet retention has been stable in the past 3 years. There is no obvious acceleration in revenue decline. At the same time, its CV/Client actually grew from around $120k to $160k with total number of clients dropped from 3000 to around 1800. This indicates the churns are mainly from its smaller clients. The uncertainty of economy outlook should have affect some of its smaller customers. 

(5) So far there isn't any new venture that utilize generic AI to replace research analyst. The main pressure in the industry are caused by sentiment change and customers are more reluctant to pay high price for the research service.  

(6) Both Gartner and Forrester are now utilizing AI either internally or open to customer as well. The AI transformation is actually critical for its business. So far, the Izola AI seems doing quite well. However, internally, it seems the utilization of AI hasn't improved its efficiency. 

  

(7) Currently, it is still generates close to $400m in annual revenue and $20m to $25m in real income. Current market cap is only around $150m which is very cheap.  

5. Risk

(1) The revenue and CV drop might continue for a while or even get worse. It also might not be able to maintain current profit level by cost cutting. 

(2) Although the threat of AI replacing analyst so far is not obvious. It is possible that new disrupter will enter the market with much lower costs in the future.

(3) With the using of AI, the whole industry should be able to lower their cost significantly. Currently, Gartner is much more efficient than Forrester. It could face tough competition if its competitors lower their price. 

(4) The Izola platform might cannibalize its own research business. 

6. Conclusion

This company is currently still in a turnaround stage and it is traded at a very attractive price. I think the market had overreacted to the AI transformation narrative. Although there are quite some uncertainty ahead, it will eventually go through the downturn. 

7. Links