The ratings on Bank of Montreal (BMO), including the 'A-1(High)' Canadian national scale CP and the 'P-1(Low)' Canadian preferred share ratings, reflect the bank's very strong domestic personal and commercial (P&C) bank, which provides it with a solid base for consistent earnings performance. The performance of the wholesale banking group has shown improvement, coming off of two years of soft performance that were negatively affected by the difficult credit environment and challenging equity markets. The private client group, which is small in proportion to the P&C and investment banking businesses, remains an important element of the bank's overall strategy. The performance of this division, however, continues to remain closely tied to the underlying performance of the global equity markets. With
