My take Tracking this, I've seldom (ever) seen the valuation gap with WFG get to large. Typically, from 5 years ago to COVID, IFP lagged WFG relatively by 7% on average. That's reasonable.
IFP outperformed during COVID for a variety of reasons -- torque, re-invigoration of the sector, etc. It pulled ahead relatively by 17%. Since June, it's flipped back to 13% below WFG on average.
Today? 23% below. That's wild. It's imperfect as WFG's scale, NYSE listing, EWP presence etc tilts the scales in its favor. But, even reverting to the usual 7% discount would imply an easy +$3.77/share gain. Perhaps the market isn't viewing the Chaleur/Forebu takeout in NB kindly but I think it's solid. Maybe a bit ill-timed in hindsight but not any worse than the WFG SIB's for instance.