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

For the period ending January 31, 2023

February 24, 2023 8:00 a.m. ET

Prepared Remarks

Questions and Answers

Call Participants

Prepared Remarks:

Operator

Good morning, and 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 Geoff Weiss. Senior Vice President, Investor Relations. Please go ahead, Geoff.

Geoffrey Weiss

Thank you, and good morning, everyone. We will begin this morning's presentation with opening remarks from Victor Dodig, our President and Chief Executive Officer; followed by Hratch Panossian, our Chief Financial Officer; and Frank Guse, our Chief Risk Officer. Also on the call today are our group heads, including Shawn Beber, U.S region; Harry Culham, Capital Markets and Direct Financial Services; and Jon Hountalas, Canadian Banking. They're all available to take questions following the prepared remarks.

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'll now turn the call over to Victor.

Victor Dodig

Thank you, Geoff, and good morning, everyone. On today's call, I'll provide an overview of our first quarter results as well as an update on our strategy for successfully navigating the current economic environment with a clear path forward to achieving our 2025 objectives and targets that we laid out at our Investor Day last year.

Before we get to the results, let me begin with the senior leadership change we announced last month. Following a 14-year career with CIBC, Laura Dottori-Attanasio has retired from our bank, and we wish her well as she takes on new challenges. Jon Hountalas has been appointed Group Head Canadian Banking, with expanded responsibility of leading CIBC's personal and business bank in addition to commercial banking and wealth management in Canada. Jon is a proven leader. He's had a positive impact in every business he's led at CIBC. He's focused on execution, on talent and our clients, will serve us well to build on the progress we've made in our Canadian retail business.

Now turning over to our first quarter results of 2023. Amidst continued central bank tightening and geopolitical tensions, we had a good start to the year, growing revenue and growing pre-provision pretax earnings to record levels. Adjusted net earnings were $1.8 billion or $1.94 per share. Our capital position remains strong with a CET1 ratio of 11.6%, comfortably above the regulatory minimum. And our return on equity improved to 15.5% for the quarter.