Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce (NYSE:CM) Q1 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

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Supply chain, better. Inflation, better. Labor, the same. Interest rates, worse. If you put that all together, I think entrepreneurs are a little more tentative. They’re looking at where interest rates are going? What’s the impact on the economy going to be? I think that’s the macro factor. The micro factors are maybe specific to CIBC. Like in this type of environment, we’re going to be a little more conservative. To be clear, we’re going to support our clients. We know them well. We’ve been through our due diligence. We know how they operate. For new clients, we’re going to be a bit more careful. You put that all together, I see loan growth in the mid-single-digit range, and I think we’ll be in the mix on that. That’s the commercial side. I don’t think the consumer side is that much different.

I think you’ll see a tentative consumer. I think you see product growth already slowing. I think you’ll see growth in the, where I think loans in the commercial side will be mid-single digit. In the consumer side, it might be low mid-single digits. But the general sentiment, roughly the same.

Ebrahim Poonawala: Got it. Thank you, for that.

Operator: The next question is from Meny Grauman from Scotiabank. Please go ahead.

Meny Grauman : Hi. Good morning. Jon, you were just talking about conservatism or increased conservatism as you make underwriting decisions on the commercial side going forward. Just wondering if you could provide more detail what — if you could talk about it geographically also by sector, where you’re seeing more reason for caution?

Jon Hountalas: Meny, just for clarity, right, on existing clients, we have the same formula we’ve had for 13 years. No, there’s no pendulum. We keep doing the same thing. We know our clients. We’re going to help them grow. We’re going to support them. There’s no sectors that we’re looking at and saying, we don’t want to get involved. What we’re saying is, when we look at new clients, with the uncertainty out there, we’re just being a bit more careful. And again, not all clients are created — not all new clients, not all prospects are created equal. Less fussed about sector, more fussed about how long we know the clients. If we’ve been following them for three or four years and they’ve been in our pipeline and we have an opportunity, we’re going to jump.

If they are new clients that we don’t know that well, and that exists in Commercial Banking, you meet clients over the last — some people are in your pipeline for five years, and some people are in your pipeline for six months. The five-year folks will be chasing them hard. The sex month folks, we might be going a bit lower.

Meny Grauman : And Jon, specifically on the CRE side of the business, and there’s a lot of questions about office. We’re definitely seeing return to work stall-out. So, is there any change there in terms of your view or your posturing from an underwriting perspective when it comes to the CRE book, in particular, and office exposure?

Jon Hountalas : So, as you know, we’ve got — we’ve had a long-standing CRE business. I think I talked about it on Investor Day, 20 years, very low losses. So, the book’s in good shape. I’ve talked many times about we don’t really add new clients. We’ve been dealing with the same clients for a long period of time. They’re just quiet. The industry is smart. They self-regulate. They know things are tough. They’ve made a lot of money over the last few years. Nobody is doing crazy deals. So, I think generally, you’ll see softness, just no big volumes. On office specifically, we’ve got about $4 billion, 10% of our book. Sublease rates are up, for sure. Most of our office is owned by institutional clients. We’re not changing our posture on office.

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