CIBC profit tops forecasts; names Katharine Stevenson as next chair

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Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce reported lower fiscal fourth-quarter profit but still earned more than analysts had expected, as the bank named its next board chair.

In keeping with a consistent trend among rival banks that reported quarterly results earlier this week, Canada’s fifth-largest bank by assets earmarked far less money than expected to cover potential losses from lending, which helped shore up earnings.

Provisions for credit losses amounted to $291-million, down 28 per cent year over year and 45 per cent from last quarter.

CIBC posted higher profits from its core Canadian business lines, which include personal and business banking as well as wealth management, but earnings from its U.S. banking arm fell 27 per cent from a year ago.

The bank also announced that Katharine B. Stevenson will succeed John Manley as chair of its board of directors at the bank’s annual meeting in April. Ms. Stevenson has been a director since 2011, and was previously a financial executive at Nortel Networks Corp., after working in investment banking at JPMorgan & Co.

For the three months that ended Oct. 31, CIBC reported profit of $1-billion, or $2.20 per share. That was a 15-per-cent decline from $1.2-billion, or $2.58 per share, in the same quarter last year.

But CIBC’s quarterly results were affected by one-time items that included a $220-million goodwill impairment charge related to its proposed sale of a majority of its Caribbean business, which has been held up by regulators amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

After adjusting to exclude those items, CIBC said it earned $2.79 per share, well ahead of the $2.49 per share consensus estimate among analysts, according to Refinitiv.

The bank kept its quarterly dividend unchanged at $1.46 per share.

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