Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce

Good morning. Welcome to the CIBC quarterly financial results call. Please be advised that this call is being recorded. I would now like to turn the meeting over to Jeff Weiss, Senior Vice President, Investor Relations. Please go ahead, Jeff.

Thank you, and good morning. We will begin this morning's presentation with opening remarks from Victor Dodig, our President and Chief Executive Officer. Following Victor, Raj Panosian, our Chief Financial Officer, will review our operating results. Sean Bieber, our Chief Risk Officer, will close out the prepared remarks with a risk management update. We are joined by CIBC's business leaders, including Mike Capatides, Harry Cullum, Laura DeTore Atanasio, and John Santalis. They are all available to take questions following the prepared remarks. When we get to the Q&A, given we have a hard stop before 830 to allow you to get to another call, please limit to one question. This should provide everyone with an opportunity to participate. We are pleased to follow up after the call with any additional questions. And lastly, as noted on slide two of our investor presentation, our comments may contain forward-looking statements which involve assumptions and have inherent risks and uncertainties. Actual results may differ materially. With that, I will now turn the meeting over to Victor.

Thank you, Jeff, and good morning, everyone. Thanks for joining us, and we hope you're all keeping well. I'd like to start off our call by extending my deep appreciation to our entire CIBC team. Thank you for your continued professionalism and dedication in serving our clients. You play a critical role not only in helping our clients navigate pandemic related challenges, but also identifying new opportunities as we look to brighter days ahead. And I know you're listening on this call. This quarter, I'm proud to share that we received our highest net promoter scores ever in the second quarter Ipsos Customer Satisfaction Index. And this is a good leading indicator of our performance trajectory going forward. This achievement is a testament to the unwavering commitment our CIBC team displays in serving our clients each and every day. And thank you, team. Today, I'll briefly review the state of our economy, discuss our fiscal second quarter performance highlights, and provide an update on execution against our strategic priorities. So it's been well over a year since COVID-19 first became part of our lexicon. And while we're not on the other side of this pandemic yet, There's every reason to be optimistic as the vaccine rollout builds momentum in North America and around the world. Assuming effective mass vaccination programs continue over the spring and summer, we expect a stronger global recovery in the latter half of this year, with 2021 real GDP forecast of 5.7% domestically and 6.6% in the United States. Our neighbors to the south are slightly ahead of us on their vaccine rollout, and are enjoying an economic boost that we have yet to fully experience here in Canada. That's a tale when we can look forward to in the second half of this year. This quarter, CIBC delivered record earnings per share of $3.59, a return on equity of 17.3%, and a common equity tier one ratio of 12.4%. We achieved these results despite the challenging backdrop, including a spike in COVID-19 cases, which resulted in restrictions across several of our major markets. These results underscore the tangible value we're delivering from our long-term, client-focused approach to growing our CIBC franchise, as well as the resilience of our diversified business model and the discipline in our risk management approach. Supporting these results, we continue to drive great traction against three strategic priorities, which we've been very clear on. One, the reinvigoration of our Canadian consumer franchise. Two, maintaining and growing our resilient North American commercial banking, wealth management and capital markets businesses. And three, importantly, transforming our bank to re-enable investment for future growth. Volume growth, and I need to stress this, across all business units contributed to our record results this quarter. Our focus on reinvigorating our Canadian consumer franchise is paying off. On a year-to-date basis, CIBC was ranked number one among the big six Canadian banks, in both secured and unsecured lending growth. We also delivered record mutual fund net flows over the same period. Our focused efforts in acquiring new clients, deepening relationships with existing clients, adding mobile mortgage advisors in key markets, and enhancing our cards value proposition with a focus on the increasingly important non-travel rewards segment have all been effective in capturing market share. And while we're encouraged by recent results, we remain laser-focused on consistent execution and capturing profitable growth going forward. Our capital markets business unit had a record quarter, supported by strong underwriting activity, solid client-related trading, and higher direct brokerage volumes. The results are also supported by improvements to our lead table rankings across most of our business. Our differentiated capital markets business model generates both traditional and recurring revenue streams, through value-added solutions for clients across our bank. Our commercial banking and wealth management franchise on both sides of the border delivered a strong quarter. We reported record investment fund flows across all our platforms, and this was driven in large part by our solid investment performance and engaged client relationships. And as expected, commercial banking deposit activity remains strong on both sides of the border while momentum continues to build in loan growth. Our client-focused strategy has been a driving force as we remain focused on helping our existing clients and adding new clients. The consistent and positive momentum we have built is being fueled by the ongoing transformation of CIBC and our reinvestments in growth. As I mentioned on our last analyst call, we've reinvested over $800 million into growth initiatives over the last five years, and those reinvestments are a key element in the results you're seeing today. A good example is our CIBC Gold Planner platform that we launched last quarter. Our proprietary financial planning tool leverages insights to help our clients achieve their long-term ambitions, and all in a digital format. The quality advice and convenience is resonating with our clients. For those who completed a plan, net promoter scores improved over 20 points, and funds managed were up on average 8%. Another good example of how we're reinvesting is our North American... innovation banking business. Since its launch three years ago, we've opened new offices and hired strong talent to serve clients in the high growth tech and innovation ecosystem. We now have 11 offices across Canada and the United States, more than doubling the number of bankers in this space. Loan and deposit balances have grown multiple fold in the business of self funding. And we continue to see opportunities for growth within the innovation economy going forward. As we enter the second half of fiscal 2021, we're going to build on our foundational work to date and accelerate our ongoing transformation efforts as we reinvest in initiatives to drive sustainable and profitable growth. I'd like to now turn to environmental, social, and governance consideration, which continue to play an important role in our long-term strategy as we remain steadfast in our commitment to a sustainable future. During the quarter, we signed on to the Partnership for Carbon Accounting Financials Initiative and joined RMI's Center for Climate-Aligned Finance, demonstrating our commitment to helping our clients develop practical and scalable solutions to reach their own GHG emission reduction goals. In addition, we're taking a leadership role in sustainability with the creation of our energy, infrastructure, and transition group within our capital markets business, This is comprised of 100 investment banking professionals globally. We're providing targeted advice and solutions to help our clients navigate to a lower carbon future. From a diversity, equity, and inclusion perspective, we're proud to have achieved gender parity on our board this year. And for the first time in our company's 154-year history, our board is chaired by a talented woman, Kate Stevenson. Our focus on inclusion has also earned us a spot in Canada's top 100 best diversity employers for the 11th consecutive year. At CIBC, ESG matters are increasingly important, and we're committed to playing a key role in creating a more inclusive and sustainable future going forward. So in closing, our CIBC leadership team has never been more energized and excited about the future. We remain focused on executing our strategy, investing strategically to accelerate our growth, and consistently delivering strong results for all our stakeholders. And with that, I'll turn the call over to Haraj for a detailed review of our second quarter financial results. Haraj, over to you.