GreensKeeper Value Fund fell 0.9% in the third quarter of 2026, leaving its return at 1.0% through September 30. The fund manager said bond yields climbed despite limited moves in major stock indexes, amid persistent inflation, increased government borrowing and rising financing needs for AI data-center construction. TVA Group, Intercontinental Exchange (ICE) and Visa contributed to performance, while the fund exited Lululemon and Novo Nordisk. Returns are for F-class units and are net of all fees.
TVA Group gains 46.7% as debt is eliminated
TVA Group (TVA.B) was the fund’s strongest holding in the quarter, rising 46.7%. The company recorded its strongest first-half earnings in more than a decade. The Montreal Canadiens’ playoff run helped drive a 65% year-over-year increase in revenue at TVA Sports. The fund said the boost from sports was accompanied by signs that the broadcasting business was returning to sustainable profitability.
Higher channel carriage fees negotiated with Bell late last year are expected to provide recurring revenue. Operating expenses also fell 17% as restructuring began to take effect. Management used the additional cash generated recently to repay debt, leaving TVA with no debt outstanding.
The fund also sees value in assets that it believes are not fully reflected in the share price. TVA has begun developing real estate accumulated over many years, while its pension surplus is another potential source of unrecognized value. The fund cited a possible future move by parent company Quebecor (QBR.B) to buy out minority shareholders and take TVA private, although that decision is outside the fund’s control. Despite the share’s substantial rise this year, the fund considers the valuation low.
ICE advances on trading volumes and MarketAxess deal
ICE gained 23.5% in the third quarter. The fund had previously argued that concerns about regulatory disruption from perpetual futures were overstated. The U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) later said applications for perpetual futures tied to traditional commodities would be reviewed case by case and subject to strict oversight.
ICE licensed Brent crude and West Texas Intermediate (WTI) benchmark pricing to crypto exchange OKX. The arrangement gives ICE a role as demand for related perpetual futures grows, while preserving its core relationships with institutional clients.
ICE’s average daily total trading volume rose 31% year over year in the quarter. The fund said the figures showed that traditional trading activity had not been affected by the debate around perpetual futures, and that momentum could support earnings growth later in the year.
ICE also announced plans to acquire MarketAxess Holdings Inc. (MKTX) for $6 billion, expanding its electronic fixed-income trading business. The fund highlighted MarketAxess’s network effects, the structural growth of bond-market digitization and its record of returning capital to shareholders. Its proprietary trading data could be integrated with ICE’s pricing, reference-data and index businesses. In fixed-income markets, where information can be opaque and liquidity limited, the fund sees reliable trading data as commercially valuable and potentially supportive of recurring revenue.
Visa maintains double-digit growth and adds stablecoin services
Visa rose 4.7% in the quarter, making it the fund’s third-largest positive contributor. Payment volume and revenue continued to grow at double-digit rates. The company launched the Visa Stablecoin Platform and joined the newly established Open USD stablecoin ecosystem as a founding alliance member.
The fund said stablecoins can enable low-cost, convenient cross-border settlement. If payments move entirely outside Visa’s network, they could theoretically put pressure on the company’s higher-margin business. But Visa has long pursued a “network of networks” strategy, incorporating new payment channels into its existing system rather than simply competing with them.
Visa’s participation in governance and technical interoperability standards could also bring emerging payment networks institutional trust, global merchant acceptance, dispute resolution and fraud-prevention capabilities. The fund said the company’s global network and brand, built over more than 60 years, would be difficult to replicate. Connecting new payment technologies to its existing infrastructure is intended to reduce the risk of disintermediation as payment channels change. The stablecoin platform is the latest step in that approach.
SHVA falls 13.9% as price increases are phased in
Automatic Bank Services Limited (SHVA) was the fund’s weakest holding in the quarter, falling 13.9%. Transaction volumes remained resilient, and the company retained its central role in Israel’s national payments infrastructure.
After years of investment in network resilience and cybersecurity, SHVA announced price increases in May. Those investments reflect its status as critical national infrastructure, but have also weighed on operating margins in recent quarters. The planned increases were due to take effect on July 1, but opposition from Israel’s major card issuers led to a phased rollout. Half of the planned increase took effect on October 1, with the remainder scheduled for January 1, 2027. The market reacted negatively to the delay.
The fund characterized the postponement as a temporary implementation setback and noted that SHVA’s near-monopoly position draws close attention to pricing changes. It said the capital spending was necessary and government-mandated, making substantial regulatory intervention less likely. If both stages of the increase are implemented, operating leverage between revenue and costs could help margins recover. Investors will continue to watch how the remaining adjustment is carried out.
Richemont remains in the portfolio despite luxury-sector pressure
Compagnie Financière Richemont (CFRUY) fell 7.8% in the third quarter. Luxury goods companies faced pressure from geopolitical conflicts in Eastern Europe and the Middle East, elevated inflation and weak consumer confidence in key markets, including Greater China.
The fund sees branded jewelry as relatively well positioned because of its pricing power and structural demand. Richemont’s Cartier and Van Cleef & Arpels are among the world’s leading jewelry brands, with established reputations and craftsmanship that appeal to high-net-worth consumers. The fund views the recent weakness as cyclical rather than evidence of a fundamental change in the business and continues to hold the shares.
Fund exits Lululemon, Novo Nordisk and Mobility Global
The fund sold its entire Lululemon Athletica (LULU) position after the company reported second-quarter results. It had expected North American revenue growth to slow, but the sharp, unexpected deceleration in Greater China changed its investment view. The fund said Lululemon’s brand remains strong, while it continues to monitor recurring issues in product planning and execution.
New CEO Heidi O’Neill faces the time constraints of the retail product cycle, which typically lasts about 18 months. Any improvement could take several quarters to show up. The fund sold its smallest position and redirected the capital to other investments, while using the realized loss to offset taxable gains at the fund level.
The fund also exited Novo Nordisk (NVO) after the company’s recent capital markets day. Its initial view was that strong demand for GLP-1 drugs would protect Novo Nordisk and Eli Lilly (LLY) from margin pressure. But the fund said volume growth had not fully offset the sharp decline in net prices following negotiations with the Trump administration.
Management also said during its investor presentation that it would expand its clinical pipeline into additional treatment areas. The fund is concerned that large pharmaceutical companies entering unproven adjacent fields could increase capital-allocation risk. With semaglutide patents expected to expire in 2031, it concluded that the risk-reward balance had deteriorated and moved the capital elsewhere.
Shortly after earnings season ended, the fund sold its small position in Mobility Global Inc. (MBGL), shares it received when S&P Global (SPGI) spun off its automotive data business. The fund continues to view S&P Global as a core holding and supports the separation of the non-core automotive data unit, which it said allows management to focus on higher-margin credit ratings and index businesses. Mobility Global owns assets including CARFAX, but the fund chose to sell the small position at its then-current valuation.
Top 10 holdings and the fund’s debt concerns
As of September 30, 2026, the fund’s 10 largest holdings were Alphabet, American Express, Automatic Bank Services, Berkshire Hathaway, Compagnie Financière Richemont, Elevance Health, ICON, Intercontinental Exchange, S&P Global and Visa. The fund noted that holdings can change and that the list is not a recommendation to buy or sell any security.
The fund’s letter also discussed government deficits, social protests in France, trade tensions between Canada and the United States, and speculative activity in equity markets in the context of debt. The manager recalled that Canada’s debt burden led to credit-rating downgrades in the 1990s, when more than one-third of federal revenue went to interest payments. Spending cuts and tax increases were followed by a decade of federal budget surpluses. In the fund’s view, emergency spending during the pandemic and subsequent structural deficits gradually weakened fiscal discipline.
The fund compared the United States’ current fiscal position with Canada’s experience at the time. U.S. federal debt has exceeded 100% of gross domestic product (GDP), while the federal deficit is about 6% of GDP. The fund stressed that borrowing has expanded during a period of economic growth and low unemployment, rather than during wartime mobilization or a severe recession. The main U.S. Social Security trust funds are projected to be depleted in the early 2030s.
Long-term Treasury yields have risen rapidly, which the fund views as an early sign of fiscal pressure. It expects significant fiscal adjustments may not come until market pressure intensifies.
France is also contending with rising bond yields, political deadlock and a widening budget deficit. Pension and fiscal reforms have been difficult to advance, while cost-of-living protests reflect public discontent. The fund said neither voters nor political leaders appear willing to discuss the austerity measures needed to restore fiscal balance.