The following is excerpted from the question-and-answer section of the transcript.
(Questions from industry analysts are provided in full, but answers are omitted - download the transcript to see the full question-and-answer session)
Question: Sohrab Movahedi - BMO Capital Markets Equity Research - Analyst
: Maybe one question first for the team. Maybe, Laurent, you can answer that. Once upon a time, I think you had said that this U.S. international
banking -- the U.S. Specialty Finance and the International Banking segment had, a few years ago, I think there was a target of maybe 10% or so of
the total bank earnings. It obviously has had pretty good growth. I'm not digging up ABA from Credigy, I'm just looking at it in totality. Maybe it's
closer to 16%, 17%. Is there any revised or renewed guidance worth sharing as to what sort of overall proportion of the bank you're comfortable
letting these 2 businesses get to?
Question: Sohrab Movahedi - BMO Capital Markets Equity Research - Analyst
: So maybe target was the wrong word, but you're comfortable, I suppose, as a team, if this segment continued to provide above-average growth
and continue to drift higher as a proportion of the overall bank earnings?
Question: Sohrab Movahedi - BMO Capital Markets Equity Research - Analyst
: Okay. And maybe it's for you, Laurent, maybe it's for Bill, maybe it's for the -- again, for the team, I'm not sure. But prior to the pandemic, I think the
bank would talk about how you're making some really risk decisions and not pursuing growth -- loan growth, in particular, I think you would have
talked about because whether it was a competitive pricing or maybe because of the structures or the terms of some of these available opportunities
that showed quite a bit of discipline. As you sit here today, I think you answered this partly to one of the earlier questions. But is there any need to
show restraint here right now? Or are you just not seeing the types of, I'll call it, kind of factors you had seen back pre-pandemic that would have
necessitated moderating loan growth?
Question: Sohrab Movahedi - BMO Capital Markets Equity Research - Analyst
: It does. Can I just -- I don't want to chew up the time too much, if I can just quickly follow up on that, Bill. Like sometimes limits are set like you say,
short term and the like. Are there instances where as a collective team, you're seeing -- you're guiding the businesses to create room without
increasing limits for them? Or are you comfortable increasing limits for them in the current environment?
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