Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce at Scotiabank Financials Summit Transcript

The following is excerpted from the question-and-answer section of the transcript.

Question: Meny Grauman - Scotiabank GBM - Analyst : That's right. So Victor, a lot of momentum for your stock. I wanted to start by talking about ROE. It's definitely a topic that I've been doing a lot of work on, a topic I've been speaking to your peers today about your 16% plus ROE target is a challenge to meet. You've been very vocal about that given higher capital requirements and they changed on you. So it's understandable from that perspective but the question is what's the path to getting above 14%? And how do you see the building blocks to get there? Are you still have confidence in that. REFINITIV STREETEVENTS | www.refinitiv.com | Contact Us consent of Refinitiv. 'Refinitiv' and the Refinitiv logo are registered trademarks of Refinitiv and its affiliated companies. SEPTEMBER 04, 2024 / 4:40PM, CM.TO - Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce at Scotiabank Financials Summit

Question: Meny Grauman - Scotiabank GBM - Analyst : Want to talk about capital deployment, but maybe first talking about Canada and interesting thing happened this quarter, Canada surprised to the upside. I think pretty much across the board. CIBC was no exception and took the market a little bit by surprise in terms of the resiliency of Canada. I think we've been overly pessimistic on Canada, maybe just a general malaise out there in the broad society. But the question is, did the strength surprise you? I know there's a few things going on here. Maybe if you could approach it more from a macro perspective and then also from some of the more micro changes that and continuous improvement you're making in your business. But just from a big picture perspective, should we be more optimistic about Canada? And how do you see the -- maybe not so much of the challenges, but the opportunities here in Canada from a big picture perspective? Are we underestimating them? REFINITIV STREETEVENTS | www.refinitiv.com | Contact Us consent of Refinitiv. 'Refinitiv' and the Refinitiv logo are registered trademarks of Refinitiv and its affiliated companies. SEPTEMBER 04, 2024 / 4:40PM, CM.TO - Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce at Scotiabank Financials Summit

Question: Meny Grauman - Scotiabank GBM - Analyst : Wanted to talk about something you recently said in terms of not willing to trade off volume for profitability, profitability being the priority at the expense of market share. I think I have that right. Wanted to talk about in reference to the mortgage business in Canada. We've been talking a lot today about the competitiveness in that business, the hyper competitiveness, maybe some -- maybe even irrationality in terms of pricing in that business and how you can navigate through that and where that line is between market share and profitability as you're managing through a very significant part of the business for CIBC?

Question: Meny Grauman - Scotiabank GBM - Analyst : Talk about the deposit side of the balance sheet. If we talk about mortgages being very competitive, deposits also an area of intense competition as banks are looking at the same thing in terms of wanting to grow deposits. So how do you win in this intense competitive environment? And then I have a follow-on question.

Question: Meny Grauman - Scotiabank GBM - Analyst : You touched on as rates come down, the money GIC starts to flow into investments. What is CIBC doing in order to make sure that that money stays in the CIBC ecosystem?

Question: Meny Grauman - Scotiabank GBM - Analyst : Related question is just the connectivity between commercial banking and wealth. And then you've definitely emphasized the goal of building out that connectivity and so question is can you talk about the successes you've had there? REFINITIV STREETEVENTS | www.refinitiv.com | Contact Us consent of Refinitiv. 'Refinitiv' and the Refinitiv logo are registered trademarks of Refinitiv and its affiliated companies. SEPTEMBER 04, 2024 / 4:40PM, CM.TO - Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce at Scotiabank Financials Summit

Question: Meny Grauman - Scotiabank GBM - Analyst : Wanted to talk about credit that came into the year, worried about your US office exposure, but continued to see losses shrink as you've guided to. And I think it's been very successful management of this problem. And I'm curious if you can give us a little bit of insight into how you were able to manage this problem, get your hands around it so effectively and maybe also what you've learned from this experience and we'll start there, and then I (multiple speakers)-- .

Question: Meny Grauman - Scotiabank GBM - Analyst : Focusing again on the implications of the US credit experience, I mean, you're clear in terms of not an underwriting problem, but the real question that I get from investors is just what are the implications for growth in that business? Obviously, it's clear, and you've said it explicitly in terms of a shift in business mix. But what about overall growth? How does this experience impacts the outlook for growth in the US?

Question: Meny Grauman - Scotiabank GBM - Analyst : Signaled to the US is it a reasonable expectation that we'll see year-over-year PTPP growth next year for CIBC (multiple speakers) in the US.

Question: Meny Grauman - Scotiabank GBM - Analyst : And this came up earlier today, but just when you speak to clients so just talk about your overall outlook in terms of the US presidential election looms large in the US, can we see a more material recovery in commercial loan growth in the US? Where do we have -- do we have to wait till the US presidential election to see that? Is that an important point we have to cross before we can see more meaningful improvement there on the loan side?

Question: Meny Grauman - Scotiabank GBM - Analyst : And the US regional banking crisis that we saw unfold, any permanent repercussions to your business to your thesis on the US?

Question: Meny Grauman - Scotiabank GBM - Analyst : And one question that I get a lot. We've talked a lot about private credit, direct lending, obviously a bigger force in the US market. So how big of a competitor is that how big of a challenge is that as you look ahead in your US business? How much are you running into that and how big of a stumbling block?

Question: Meny Grauman - Scotiabank GBM - Analyst : So it's not as a challenge that will impact your ability to grow in the US as you've seen?

Question: Meny Grauman - Scotiabank GBM - Analyst : When I talk about debt capital deployment, you touched on it -- you announced a buyback. You talked about on the call a focus on organic growth. You made that very clear. Talking about maybe opportunistic tuck-ins, but not more than that. So I don't know if you have anything more to say on that, but I thought okay, maybe I'll push back a little bit on it in terms of why not do larger M&A in the US. The US is a huge market. You have a strong base there. You could start to extract maybe quite significant expense synergies by combining something with your current platform in the REFINITIV STREETEVENTS | www.refinitiv.com | Contact Us consent of Refinitiv. 'Refinitiv' and the Refinitiv logo are registered trademarks of Refinitiv and its affiliated companies. SEPTEMBER 04, 2024 / 4:40PM, CM.TO - Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce at Scotiabank Financials Summit US. Most people think that there is a consolidation wave likely to happen in the US. So why not embrace that? And from an inorganic perspective, prioritize bigger deals in the US.

Question: Meny Grauman - Scotiabank GBM - Analyst : Very clear. I wanted to just follow-up on the opportunistic tuck-in M&A comment and just get a better sense of what you mean by that. I assume this is in the US and is it wealth, is it -- or is capital market, something you would be open to making further tuck-in acquisitions and when you talk about tuck-ins, where are you (multiple speakers)--

Question: Meny Grauman - Scotiabank GBM - Analyst : I wanted to talk more about capital markets. You've raised it a few times. Certainly been a area of success for CIBC on a relative performance basis. Just wanted to get an update here in terms of the strategy here and more specifically the key elements of success over the last little while that it really has been an outperformer relative to peers and how have you been able to achieve this. REFINITIV STREETEVENTS | www.refinitiv.com | Contact Us consent of Refinitiv. 'Refinitiv' and the Refinitiv logo are registered trademarks of Refinitiv and its affiliated companies. SEPTEMBER 04, 2024 / 4:40PM, CM.TO - Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce at Scotiabank Financials Summit

Question: Meny Grauman - Scotiabank GBM - Analyst : Just talking about or sticking with capital markets that maybe from a bigger-picture perspective, there seems to be a lot of malaise. We talked about malaise overall in people's thinking about Canada. But when it comes to Canadian capital markets there seems to be this view that maybe there's something structural going on here. We definitely see booming deal activity in the US and in Canada, especially the equity side, much more muted IPOs. A lot of companies that were public going private. And so a question for you from your perspective and you have a privileged position to see this all and to comment on is just is there something structural here in Canadian capital markets or is it just cyclical and maybe another way to ask is what's your outlook here for the Canadian capital market?

Question: Meny Grauman - Scotiabank GBM - Analyst : Finally, we only have a few minutes left, but I just wanted to go back to capital. But in terms of capital policy and just we've seen tighter capital rules. It's been a factor in terms of the ROE objectives that you have and you touched on that. So the broad question is have tighter capital rules impacted the supply of credit in your view? And we've seen OSFI hold back on the ratcheting up of the capital floor. What's your opinion of that? Is there a good argument to be made that this should be a permanent change rather than just a temporary pause? REFINITIV STREETEVENTS | www.refinitiv.com | Contact Us consent of Refinitiv. 'Refinitiv' and the Refinitiv logo are registered trademarks of Refinitiv and its affiliated companies. SEPTEMBER 04, 2024 / 4:40PM, CM.TO - Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce at Scotiabank Financials Summit

Question: Meny Grauman - Scotiabank GBM - Analyst : Okay. With that, Victor, I want to thank you so much for being here. As always, always pleasure --