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Good morning. Welcome to the CIBC Q3 quarterly results conference 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 and Performance Measurement. Please go ahead, Geoff.

Thank you, and good morning, everyone. We will begin this morning's call with opening remarks from Harry Culham, our President and Chief Executive Officer, followed by Rob Sedran, our Chief Financial Officer, and Frank Guse, our Chief Risk Officer. Also on the call today are a number of our executives, including Christian Exshaw, Capital Markets, Kevin Li, U.S. Region, Hratch Panossian, Personal and Business Banking, Canada, Susan Rimmer, Commercial Banking, and Eric Belanger, Wealth Management. They are available to take questions following the prepared remarks.

As noted on slide one 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. I would also remind listeners that the bank uses non-GAAP financial measures to arrive at adjusted results. Management measures performance on a reported and adjusted basis and considers both to be useful in assessing underlying business performance.

With that, I would like to turn the call over to Harry.

Thank you, Geoff, and good morning, everyone. Today we announced strong third quarter results underscoring disciplined execution against a clear strategy. The connectivity of our platform and deep client relationships are translating into high-quality earnings and broad-based growth. We believe we have meaningful runway ahead to continue to drive outperformance from our purpose-built franchise. I will start with an overview of our adjusted quarter three results and then share highlights of progress against our strategy this quarter. We reported earnings per share of CAD 2.73, a 26% increase from the prior year, marking the ninth consecutive quarter of double-digit earnings per share growth. Revenues of CAD 8 billion were up 15% from the prior year, reflecting broad-based momentum across each of our businesses. Expenses were up 11% from the prior year, marking our 12th consecutive quarter of positive operating leverage.

Pre-provision, pre-tax earnings rose 20% to CAD 4 billion, while our efficiency ratio improved by 200 basis points from the prior year. We remain confident in the strength of our credit portfolios, and we continue to stay close to our clients. We recognize that rising trade and geopolitical tensions are having real consequences on the economy. The developments over the past week are a reminder that the path forward will not be linear, and we plan for a range of outcomes. Through periods like this, our clients can count on CIBC for timely advice and practical solutions to help them navigate what lies ahead. We have built a diversified franchise to weather uncertainty. With that, our balance sheet is a source of strength and continues to provide meaningful flexibility.

We ended the quarter with a CET1 ratio of 13.4% after repurchasing 7.5 million shares and delivered a return on equity of 16.8%, which is up 260 basis points from a year ago. That combination speaks to the underlying durability of our franchise and our disciplined approach to capital deployment. That same strength in capital, liquidity, and funding is what enables us to stand alongside our clients through periods of uncertainty and periods of opportunity. Canada's renewed focus on sovereignty and economic resiliency is creating one of the most significant capital mobilization efforts and opportunities our country has seen in decades. The implementation of Canada's Defence Industrial Strategy represents a substantial opportunity for our commercial clients. Earlier this quarter, we hosted our inaugural Defence and Resiliency Summit at our headquarters here in Toronto, bringing together senior government leaders, investors, and clients from across the ecosystem.

This summit reflects how CIBC leverages our convening power and sector expertise to help clients and key leaders navigate complex, rapidly emerging opportunities, and we intend to be the bank our clients turn to as these investments mobilize. Let me now turn to an update on our strategy. We have been clear on the four priorities shaping how we allocate capital, invest in our franchise, and position our bank for durable growth. This quarter, we saw progress across each of them. Our first strategic priority is to grow our mass affluent and private wealth franchise. We continue to differentiate through high-touch, personalized advice, a broad wealth platform, and product innovation velocity. In our managed mass affluent offering, our client base grew by 4%, supporting money and balance growth of 12% from the prior year. That combination underpins our momentum in scaling long-term growth with mass affluent clients.

This quarter, CIBC Private Wealth was named Best Alternative Asset Manager by Family Wealth Report. That recognition speaks to the depth of our wealth franchise and our ability to bring differentiated capabilities to high-net-worth clients. Our second strategic priority is to expand our digital-first personal banking capabilities. Technology is not only equipping our advisors with greater capacity to serve clients more effectively, but also giving clients more control and personalization. Our momentum is evident in Investor's Edge, our self-directed investing platform. This year, we achieved 34% year-over-year growth in new account openings as Canadians are choosing CIBC as their digital investing partner of choice. That trust is translating into scale with AUA on Investor's Edge up 27% from the prior year. Together, these results tell a clear story. Our investments in digital capabilities are resonating with our clients.

We also expanded our reach with skilled trades professionals across Canada through a new collaboration with TaskRabbit, which includes tailored banking offers, financial literacy resources, and advice. This is a strong example of how we are building relationships earlier, serving clients in growing segments, and supporting them as their personal and business needs evolve. Our third strategic priority is to deliver connectivity and differentiation to our clients. This remains a defining strength of our culture and is contributing to stronger performance across our bank. In our Canadian commercial banking business, 95% of our lending clients also maintain a deposit relationship with our bank. We prioritize clients who bank and borrow with us because it gives us a clearer understanding of their business and ambitions, enabling us to deliver the tailored advice that sets us apart. That same client-focused execution across the enterprise is also being recognized externally.

During the quarter, CIBC Capital Markets was named Canada's Best Investment Bank for Financing Solutions at the Euromoney Awards for Excellence 2026, while Global Finance recognized CIBC as the best overall cash management bank in Canada for 2026. Together, these distinctions reinforce the strength of our capabilities and the differentiated value we continue to deliver for clients across our platform. Our fourth strategic priority is to enable, simplify, and protect our bank. AI is helping us execute faster, strengthen operational excellence, and compete from a position of strength. We are scaling governed, repeatable capabilities that enhance client experience, improve colleague efficiency, and support risk management. This quarter, CIBC received two Digital Banker awards for AI innovation and digital transformation, strong external validation of our approach and the progress we are making. We also announced two important proprietary AI advancements.

First, we introduced CIBC AI 2.0, the first enterprise-wide agentic AI workspace in Canadian banking. This enables team members to delegate complex multi-step tasks to an AI agent so they can focus more time on strategic work and client relationships. Second, we launched CIBC AdvisorAssist, an AI-enabled platform that helps advisors spend more time with clients. The system automates meeting notes, summaries, and follow-up documentation while supporting regulatory compliance, and this reduces administrative time for advisors by up to 50%. Together, these solutions demonstrate how we are actively innovating and deploying AI in practical, governed, and scalable ways to improve client experience and increase employee efficiency. The progress across all four of our strategic priorities and momentum we are experiencing reinforces our confidence in our approach, the strength of our franchise, and the meaningful runway of opportunities ahead.

Against that backdrop, I'm pleased to announce that we will host our next Investor Day on December 9th. This will be an opportunity to take investors and analysts deeper into our strategy, the strength of our business mix, and the priorities driving durable growth and long-term value creation across our platform, and we look forward to sharing how we are positioning CIBC to win over the long term. Looking ahead, we approach the balance of fiscal 2026 with measured confidence. The trade environment will continue to evolve, and we are not going to speculate on where it lands. What we can control is how we show up for our clients and how we run our bank with excellence. Regardless of the environment, our playbook does not change.

We stay close to our clients, we maintain credit discipline, we invest strategically in our platform, and we effectively deploy capital to support both profitable growth and shareholder returns. That consistency matters through the cycle. It's the way we operate at the Bank of Commerce, and it's how we will continue creating value for our stakeholders. With that, I'll now turn it over to Rob for a review of our financials. Over to you, Rob.

Thank you, Harry, and good morning, everyone. Let's start with three takeaways. First, we delivered another strong quarter led by balanced revenue growth and positive operating leverage driven by the focused execution of our strategy. Second, healthy client activity and engagement continues to drive solid loan and deposit growth across our bank, despite an unsettled macroeconomic environment. Third, our client businesses are supported by both excess capital and liquidity while delivering premium returns and enabling capital return to shareholders. Please turn to slide seven. For the third quarter of 2026, we reported earnings per share of CAD 2.47, which included the previously announced, albeit smaller, charge related to our Caribbean operations of CAD 232 million after tax that was treated as an item of note in our corporate and other business unit. On an adjusted basis, EPS was CAD 2.73, up 26% from a year ago.

Adjusted ROE was 16.8%, up 260 basis points from the same quarter last year. Let's move on to a detailed review of our performance. I'm on slide eight. Adjusted net income increased to CAD 2.6 billion and pre-provision earnings reached CAD 4 billion in Q3. Revenues were up 15%, with broad-based momentum benefiting from balance sheet growth, improving net interest margins, higher fee-based revenues, and robust trading. Though loan loss provisions were modestly higher, our strong and building earnings power allowed us to earn through them and report a 26% increase in adjusted net income. Frank will address credit in his remarks. Please turn to slide nine. Excluding trading, net interest income was up 14%, supported by continued balance sheet growth and expanding margins. All bank margin ex-trading increased 13 basis points year-over-year and 2 basis points sequentially.

In Canadian P&C, NIM was 304 basis points, up 3 basis points sequentially due to higher loan and deposit margins driven by the continued execution of our client-focused strategy. In the U.S. segment, NIM was 376 basis points, down 14 basis points from the prior quarter, primarily reflecting business mix as loan growth outpaced deposit growth along with lower product margins. Despite this, net interest income increased 9% in that segment, supported by strong growth in our client business on both sides of the balance sheet. At the total bank level, we reiterate our expectation of a stable to gradual positive bias on our net interest margin over time. Slide 10 highlights fee revenue trends. Non-interest income was CAD 3.9 billion, up 20%, supported by constructive markets and strong trading. Market-related fees were up 25%, driven by particularly strong growth in investment management, custodial, and mutual fund fees.

Transaction fees increased 6%, mainly reflecting a 25% increase in credit fees, supported by strong client activity in our corporate lending and financing businesses. Slide 11 highlights our expense performance. Expenses were up 11%, driven by revenue-linked compensation, increased business activity, and continued investments in our franchise, our brand, our people, and technology, including AI-enabled productivity across our bank. Looking forward, we expect adjusted non-interest expenses to be up quarter-over-quarter in Q4. Slide 12 highlights the consistent strength of our balance sheet. Our CET1 ratio at the end of the quarter was 13.4%, down 19 basis points from the prior quarter as the strong organic capital generation was offset by the charge related to the Caribbean, the closing of our minority stake in &Partners that we announced last quarter, and share repurchases. This quarter, we bought back 7.5 million shares.

Our liquidity coverage ratio averaged 127% this quarter. Starting on slide 13 with Canadian Personal and Business Banking, we highlight our strategic business unit results. Adjusted net income growth of 17% and pre-provision earnings growth of 10% were driven by strong revenue growth. Revenues were up 9% year-over-year, supported by 25 basis points of net interest margin expansion and loan growth, tangible results from our focus on deep and profitable client relationships. Expenses were up 8%, mainly due to higher investment in technology and other strategic initiatives, as well as higher employee-related costs. On slide 14, we show Canadian Commercial Banking and Wealth Management, where net income and pre-provision pre-tax earnings were up 4% and 18% respectively from a year ago. Revenues were up 18% from last year. Commercial Banking revenues were up 11%, driven by higher margins and volume growth.

Commercial loan and deposit volumes were up 7% and 8% respectively from a year ago. Strong Wealth Management revenue growth of 23% was driven by higher average fee-based assets and increased client activity driving higher commissions. AUA and AUM were both up over 20% compared with the year ago quarter. CIBC Asset Management was ranked second among the Big Six banks in year-to-date retail mutual fund long-term net sales, and first in long-term net sales as a percentage of AUM. Expenses also increased 18% from a year ago due to higher performance-based and employee-related compensation and higher investments in strategic initiatives. Turning to U.S. Commercial Banking and Wealth Management on slide 15. Net income increased 22% from a 10% increase in pre-provision pre-tax earnings and lower loan loss provisions. Revenues were up 7% from last year, driven by loan and deposit volume growth and continued broad-based fee income growth.

Expenses were up 6% due to higher employee compensation. Turning to slide 16 and our Capital Markets segment. Net income was up 34% from the same quarter last year, and revenues were up 22%. Global Markets revenue was supported by strong equity trading and financing activity. Corporate and Transaction Banking revenues were up, driven by volume growth and higher fees. These were partially offset by lower advisory and equity underwriting activity in Investment Banking. Expenses were up 19% as we continue to invest for long-term growth. Employee-related and performance-based compensation also contributed to the higher costs. Slide 17 reflects the results of Corporate and Other, which was a net gain of CAD 32 million, compared with a net loss of CAD 107 million in the prior year.

In closing, our results this quarter reflect the combination of a relentless focus on our clients, disciplined execution, and investments we are making to build for the future, and they reinforce our confidence in the long-term earnings power and profitability of our bank. With that, I will turn it over to Frank.

Thank you, Rob, and good morning. Overall, our credit performance remained resilient this quarter, even as the macro backdrop continued to evolve. Our broader credit fundamentals are performing within the range we would expect in this environment, supported by our strong allowance levels. We have built additional reserves for tariff-related risks through expert credit judgment overlays since the beginning of fiscal 2025 and continue to build our allowance this quarter. Our most sensitive business lending exposures to the tariff impacts represent less than 1% of the bank's total loan portfolio. We have also run a variety of stress testing on the portfolios to ensure we remain well prepared for a range of outcomes. Our impaired losses were elevated this quarter as a result of a few specific events in the Canadian commercial bank and capital markets portfolio.

The strength of our total portfolio continues to position us well to manage through ongoing macroeconomic uncertainty, supported by diversified portfolios, prudent reserves, and proactive client outreach. Turning to slide 20, our total provision for credit losses was CAD 564 million in Q3, compared with CAD 605 million last quarter. From a performing perspective, we continue to build our allowance in our Canadian consumer and commercial banking portfolios to maintain the meaningful buffer we have against the current macroeconomic headwinds. These increases were offset by releases in the performing allowance of our U.S. and capital markets businesses, mainly driven by the sale of a portfolio of U.S. commercial real estate loans, as well as accounts migrations. Overall, our performing allowance declined by CAD 48 million this quarter.

Our provision on impaired loans was CAD 612 million, up CAD 64 million quarter-over-quarter, mainly driven by higher provisions in our Canadian commercial banking and capital markets portfolios. We ended the quarter with allowance coverage of 81 basis points, up from 80 basis points last quarter, which reflects our disciplined approach to maintaining reserves through the cycle. Turning to slide 21. We have highlighted impaired trends across our business units. In Canadian Personal and Business Banking, impaired provisions were down this quarter. The impairments in Canadian Commercial Banking were limited to a small number of files and are not reflective of a broader trend. We continue to remain comfortable with the overall performance of our Canadian commercial book, which remains well diversified. While impaired provisions in Capital Markets were up, this was largely driven by one new impairment this quarter and a top-up on a previously impaired loan.

The overall credit risk profile of this portfolio remains stable and well managed. In U.S. commercial banking, performance remained strong this quarter, with lower impaired losses reported. At a bank level, impaired losses are at 37 basis points year-to-date, as the losses remain consistent with the elevated stress in the macroeconomic cycle. We expect impaired losses in and around this range for the remainder of the year. We remain confident in the underlying credit quality of the portfolio. Slide 22 summarizes our gross impaired loans and formations. Our gross impaired loan ratio was 65 basis points, down 1 basis point quarter-over-quarter. New formations were up in Q3, reflecting an increase mainly in business and government and mortgages.

While mortgages continue to experience an increase in impairments this quarter, we do not expect a material increase in losses given the prudent loan-to-value ratio of our uninsured mortgage book, which also has low historical net write-off rates. Slide 23 outlines the 90+ day delinquency rates and net write-offs of our Canadian consumer portfolios. While unemployment has begun to show signs of improvement, the slower housing market remains a source of pressure on some household cash flows, which is reflected in the higher residential mortgage delinquency trends. Actual mortgage losses remain very low and continue to track in line with historical performance. We did see improved performance in credit card delinquencies sequentially this quarter. Personal lending delinquencies also improved, and our overall Canadian consumer net write-off ratio declined from last quarter.

While consumer stress is higher than it was a year ago, the portfolio performance remains consistent with the environment and well within our expectations. In closing, our credit portfolios continue to perform within the range we would expect despite ongoing macroeconomic pressure. Our reserves remain sound, and our teams are working closely with our clients, actively managing exposures and maintaining a disciplined approach to credit risk. Overall, we remain confident in the quality of our portfolio and are focused on managing it closely through the uncertainty that remains ahead. I will now ask the operator to open the line as we welcome your questions.

Thank you. Please press star one at this time if you have a question. Our first question comes from Ebrahim Poonawala from Bank of America Merrill Lynch. Please go ahead.

Hey, good morning. The first question, I guess if we can talk about just Canadian Personal and Business Banking. What's striking to me when we look at from a year-over-year standpoint, there's been very little in terms of loan and deposit growth. Fees have been strong. You've had operating leverage. Just talk to us when we think about that segment looking forward, what do you see as the drivers of growth if you were to repeat high single digits or even low double-digit kind of net income growth from year into next year? Understanding all the tariff-related uncertainty, which who knows when we get clarity on, but if we could start there would be helpful. Thank you.

Thanks. Good morning, Ebrahim. It's Hratch, and nice to hear from you. I am happy to take that question, and I'll keep this brief because we'll have more opportunity as we get into Q4 and Investor Day to talk about longer-term outlook. But I think the key answer to your question is we've got a good strategy. We're executing it, and you're seeing the results as a basis of that.

As a reminder, our goal overall in the personal bank and the business bank is to continue gaining share in the areas we want to gain share and the products where we can add value for our clients and create profitability. By doing that, continue to outperform market in terms of revenue growth, overall profitability and growth in net income. I think we're doing all of that. I look at the results again this quarter. We continue to have best-in-class revenue growth. We've grown our revenues, as you suggested, in that high single-digit to low double-digits for the last couple of years on a quarterly basis. While things are slowing down a bit in market, we continue to outperform on revenue growth, and I think we can continue to do that. We continue to manage the expenses prudently, continue to have operating leverage.

I think we've had positive operating leverage 12 out of the last 13 quarters. Again, we will continue to manage the business so that we can deliver that. If you do those two things, you continue to see the increase in profitability and the net income trajectory. What's driving that and why are we getting that despite the balance sheet being a bit slower? It's the strategy. As we said before, number one, we're trying to win in everyday banking with all Canadians. We're doing that. We grew our demand deposits mid-single digits while we've seen some outflows about 10% year-over-year in GIC. While deposit number overall has been down 1%, the profitability and the core relationship value it does represent is actually increasing, and we're gaining share again in those everyday deposits. We're gaining share in credit cards, and we're growing in that mid-single digit range.

We're being more careful on mortgages and the margins on the mortgages. We're also winning in the mass affluent space. We've said in addition to everyday banking for all Canadians, we want to be the bank of choice for those Canadians that have some wealth and prefer to work with an advisor. We've been trying to double the size of that business over the next five years, and this year we've increased 10% in terms of number of clients we've added to that platform. We continue to see 50%-60% improvement in funds managed with the bank as those clients get in there. About three-quarters of them are getting a solid investment plan done, and based on that plan, they're consolidating more assets with us. All of that will continue, and all of that should drive outperformance to market.

We'll talk more about what we expect out of market and specific numbers on guidance in Q4.

Got it. I guess maybe one for you, Frank. Last quarter, we saw some credit increase in consumer unsecured. You talked about the commercial and a couple of files there. Just summarize for us your view on credit outlook. I think start of the year, it felt like we would see improvement back half of the year with some plateauing in impaired PCLs. Do you feel good about that? Not just based on what you see today. Thanks.

Yeah. Of course, there is a lot of uncertainty and some fluidity in the environment right now. But as I said in the prepared remarks, we do feel good about the credit outlook. We do feel very good about the resilience of the portfolios. A lot of what we are seeing in the results, I would call in line with expectations against the macroeconomic backdrop. Now you've mentioned on the consumer side, and we've seen sequential improvement there quarter-over-quarter. There is always some seasonality in those numbers. So that is certainly a driver. But we've also seen unemployment coming down a little bit, and of course, that is helping the consumer base as well. From an outlook perspective on the consumer side, I would say unemployment will be a main driver, and that's what we are watching closely, even from an economic outlook perspective.

Then switching a little bit to the commercial side. As you heard, we have seen a little bit higher losses in our Canadian commercial portfolio, but those are very isolated to a few specific events, and we are working on those events. But they don't give us any concern for a broad-based portfolio deterioration. To a certain extent, we do not expect them to reoccur.

Right. Thank you.

Our next question comes from Matthew Lee from Canaccord Genuity. Please go ahead.

Hi, guys. Thanks for taking my question. On the capital market side, really nice growth there. Just how much of that improvement that you've been seeing is kind of structural versus cyclical? Is there another leg of growth that you can achieve without materially increasing the capital allocated to that business? Then kind of on a broader question, what do you see as the floor of that business, just given the cyclicality that we know exists there?

Morning, Matthew. It's Christian. We've had, I would say, three quarters of exceptional constructive markets. The business that we've built at CIBC is very well diversified. It reaps, I would say, the results of that client-led strategy that we've had for nearly, I would say, 20 years. In terms of answering the question, everything really when you look at our financials is centered around our clients, and very difficult for us obviously to speculate on what the environment will be. What I can tell you though is that whenever the markets are constructive, we do capture a lot of that upside. Look at the PPPT growth over the last seven quarters. We've invested heavily in people. Year-to-date, for instance, we've hired 250 people. Roughly half of that is in the U.S., 40% of that is in Canada.

We continue building product suites that fit our clients. For instance, in the AI space, whether it's around project finance, infrastructure and energy. We continue to invest in the overall infrastructure of our business and technology. That's one of our big differentiators, if you think of our ASG business, you think about our Canadian depository business. Both businesses are fee-based businesses, and very much, I would say, foundational to what it is we do and kind of neutral to what the environment would be. We do see, I would say, as we've said in the past, continued growth in our business. We look at high single growth of our earnings through the cycle. When I look at Q4, I would tell you that year-over-year, we do expect some growth, but some moderation quarter-over-quarter, given the uncertainties on the macro side.

All right. That's super helpful. I'll pass along.

Our next question comes from Gabriel Dechaine from National Bank Financial. Please go ahead.

Good morning. I want to drill down into the margin discussion a little bit. Rob, I think you said this reiterated stable to positive all bank NIM outlook. Is that for Canadian banking as well?

Yeah. Hey, Gabe. Good morning. It's Rob. Yes, listen, generally speaking, the all-bank margin and the Canadian B&B margin tend to move in the same direction. Yes, it is an expectation of same in Canada. You heard Hratch's initial answer to an earlier question get into a lot of the reasons why we're comfortable with that.

We do see the hedging strategy continue to play out, the tractoring strategy continue to play out, and add a bit of a tailwind. Over time, we think product mix and strategy is going to continue to be constructive there as well. So stable to gradually higher, and we remain comfortable with that at the all-bank level.

Okay. The securities reinvestment rates are still a tailwind in Canada. I guess, looking at Canada and the U.S., I see Canada, the loan growth is still positive and deposit growth has been kind of flat to down a bit for the last four or five quarters. I am just wondering if you expect a turnaround there or does deposit growth dynamic, is that going to remain unfavorable and maybe present more of a challenge going forward? In the U.S., the double-digit compression we saw this quarter, your flowchart, which is very helpful, it highlights pricing as the issue. Is that just the deposits are getting more expensive because you're running more of 100% loans to deposits ratio there? I guess if you can give some outlook commentary for the U.S. as well, that'd be great.

Okay, morning Gabe. It's Hratch. I'll take the first part around the Canadian margin, and then I'll pass on for the U.S. margin. Listen, I covered some of this in the earlier question. We continue to apply our strategy, and our strategy is to serve client needs. You've got to look at deposits a bit in two halves. You've got the everyday banking deposits, and those are more everyday needs for clients. There, all of our data shows that we continue to gain share in terms of new account opens, as well as in the balances, and we're focused on that. When you look at the GICs, which is where the runoff has been, as I said earlier, the GICs were down about 10% year-over-year.

First, we've actually done well relative to industry, which is why you're seeing, again, our overall deposit number, while it is down 1% year-over-year, it actually compares well to everything that was reported this quarter. Also, and this is the important part, the GIC is an investment product for clients. Our goal there is to work with clients as GICs are coming up to maturity, understand what their needs are, and put in the right product. We've actually been leading the tables in terms of our growth in mutual funds, and a lot of those GIC funds have actually been going by client preference and because of the advice we give them into the investment side with managed money. Overall, the vast majority of the GIC outflows, we do see us retaining those funds.

When we can retain those funds in a product that's better for our clients and their choice, it also works better for the economics of the bank. That's a win-win.

All right, great. Thanks. I missed some of that. I was distracted, but that is a lot clearer now that the U.S.?

Yeah. So Gabe, it is Rob. Maybe I will start and then hand it to Kevin. You have to remember, in the U.S., we are almost exclusively a commercial bank. There is some seasonality in deposit flows. We have called it out before. Q4 and Q1 tends to see deposit inflows. Q2 and Q3, a lot of those deposits get deployed. So the margin tends to have a bit of seasonality to it. I would say roughly half the margin in the U.S. decline this quarter-on-quarter, relates to just loans growing faster than deposits, which is more or less as we have guided to in the past. I think the other half of the margin is a bit more of the business factors underlying it. Maybe for that, I will pass it to Kevin to give you some color.

Yeah. Thanks, Rob, and thanks Gabe, for the question. Just for a bit of historical context, right? We were 3.78% in 2025 and 3.49% in 2024. Just to go into a little bit more detail about the 14 basis point decline, kind of building on what Rob said, about half of that is mix-driven, about half of it is pricing compression. On the mix, it is very strong loan growth. It is CAD 1.5 billion or about 3.5% sequentially. Loans outpacing deposit growth, which was about flat. We do expect to see a seasonal reversion there in the coming quarters as we saw last year. On pricing, I guess I would say two things. As you have seen from a lot of our peers in the U.S. and in Canada, yes, it is competitive for high-quality borrowers, that is for sure.

I think it is really important to note about half of the difference in pricing actually relates to client situations where credit profile is improving.

Loans are getting repriced downward based on moving down the price grid, which implies improving credit quality. Look, overall, the way we think about it is really how are you going to balance NIM trajectory and loan growth with the ultimate goal of improving NII and revenues and overall return of all within our risk appetite, and we feel very pleased with where all those metrics came in the U.S. for the quarter.

Okay. That is helpful. Thanks.

Our next question comes from Mario Mendonca from TD Securities. Please go ahead.

Good morning. First, Harry, you spent a little extra time in your opening comments talking about CIBC and implementing agentic AI. As I listened to that and listened to you describe all these complex processes that can be automated, it immediately made me think about what your strategy is around headcount. Do you view AI as an opportunity to take CIBC's headcount lower over the next, say, five years? Or is it more a scenario where the revenue growth can remain strong while you keep headcount relatively stable? Which of those two is most likely?

Well, let me just take a quick step back, Mario, and good morning. Thank you for that really important question. We actually have AI in production and at enterprise scale. I was trying to get that across in my prepared remarks. This latest implementation, and we've been at this for a long time, is really the first enterprise-wide agentic AI workspace for Canadian banking, but for us. It's not a chatbot, it's a coworker, so it makes us much more productive. When we look forward, and by the way, we're using it all over the entire organization. We've got thousands and thousands of people being educated. In fact, our board is actually engaged as well as all of our leadership. We're seeing this across the wealth, commercial, Capital Markets, and personal banking space. These are not siloed experiments.

These things are happening and helping productivity. It's really about growth, it's about productivity, it's about risk management using AI, and creating long-term franchise value. What that means from an efficiency perspective, it's all part of our modernization journey. We're going to talk to you a lot more about that at our Investor Day in December. What I would say to answer your question, we actually see headcount growth over the next five years in the organization and when we look forward, but we see significant productivity increase to take our results to the next level and drive out performance. It's a tale of two things. We are going to invest in people, and we're going to invest heavily in technology.

Yeah, that's clear. I want to move on to a different question, and this is something that myself and I think others have addressed in the past, and it's the exceptional growth in the wholesale lending platform, CAD 23 billion in new wholesale loans in the last two years. As I look through the supplement, I can see where it's coming from. It looks like it's leveraged to the U.S. It's in financial institutions, business services, commercial real estate. Again, it seems like it's U.S. So the first question is, to what extent is this wholesale lending growth really in support of the broader Capital Markets business? By that I mean growing the underwriting and advisory business. That's the first part. Is this really necessary to drive the other source of revenue growth?

Then for Frank, the rule of thumb I've used in the past for when I see growth at this level is to sort of look forward two years and say, in two years, they're going to pay some kind of price. Now, it doesn't have to be a bad price, but they're going to pay some kind of price on the credit front. Is it your view, is that rule of thumb, two years, an appropriate rule of thumb to use? Those are the two questions on wholesale.

Good morning, Mario. Thank you for the question. It's Christian. You're right. If you see the loan growth year-over-year, it's up roughly 17%. I would also ask you to focus on deposits. Deposits during that same period of time have grown by 32%. The reason I'm looking at both is we look at the balance sheet. Obviously, when we look at the business, it's our client-focused business. We look at it from a lens of risk, and we want to make sure that everything in the books is balanced. At the end of last year, we announced the creation of payments, which was a merger of our transaction business and our ASG payments business, and that has been, I would say, amazing. It has really, I would say, helped us to focus on our clients. I'll give you an example.

We focus our top 100 clients to look at a market share of deposits above CAD 100 million, and we didn't have that great market share. That number now is well over, I would say, 20%. So we're very happy in terms of the growth on the deposit side. Coming back to your question around the loans, it really is a wrong. When you look at what it is we're building in the U.S., we're very focused on building what I call digital infrastructure. When you think about digital infrastructure, it's an entire ecosystem. It's an ecosystem from, if you think about data centers, you're thinking about industrials, you're thinking about the FIG group because you've got to finance this. That includes, I would say, product credits. You've got to think about energy, whether it's renewables or traditional.

That also then links back to what we do in Global Markets, which is power trading or crude or nat gas trading, for instance. Renewables, where we're a top five in the U.S. Is it foundational to what it is we're building in the U.S.? Absolutely. Is it something that we're building on a standalone basis just for revenues? No, not at all. If you think about when we bring in those loans, they attract deal contingent hedges. They bring in swaps.

They're bringing out bond takeouts. There's a lot of ancillary business, and it helps us really, I would say, build this client business that we're building in the U.S. I hope that's answered the question. Next, Frank?

That just sounds like it is integrated throughout the organization. Frank?

Yeah, sorry. I will jump in here as well. Reiterate a little bit what Christian said, that is very well risk-controlled originations. It is actually high-quality businesses. We do look at risk ratings of those underlying counterparts, and those are exceptionally strong. You asked a little bit about the rule of thumb. I think the rule of thumb of about two years, as it relates to maturing off of some of those originations is right. I would say it is probably a teeny bit longer on the business and government side, maybe a little bit shorter on the cards portfolios, but in and around that two-year range. We are working very closely with the businesses. We do understand those businesses that we are originating in very well. We are not compromising from a risk quality perspective.

What that does not give me is any concerns that we will see a deterioration in the rates. Yeah? You are right. On a larger portfolio, we may see larger loan losses coming up, but I expect the rates essentially to be very consistent with past experiences. That having said, those portfolios can be a little bit lumpy. While you will see it in two or three years from now, we watch very closely ongoing migrations and so on. We have no concerns with those underlying books as to what we are seeing so far.

That is clear. Thank you.

Our last question comes from Doug Young from Desjardins Capital Markets. Please go ahead.

Hi. Good morning. Frank, maybe I'll keep this quick, but impaired PCL rates slightly above the guidance range you gave earlier this year. It sounds like you're going to be slightly above that for fiscal 2026. Just curious to when you look back, what differed versus maybe what you expected? Second part is, are we in this period where maybe impaired PCLs continue to go up or deteriorate a little bit, but you are in that range, or you're in that pivot point where you start to release PCLs as the economic outlook maybe slightly improves? You talked about unemployment improving. I'm just wondering if we're in that period where the market, we should start to expect steady releases on the performing loan side.

Yeah. Thank you for the question, Doug. Impaired losses are certainly a little bit above the range that we anticipated at the start of the year, at least in our base case. Our base case didn't necessarily include a very prolonged trade war. It didn't include a Middle Eastern conflict and some of the oil price shocks we would've seen in between. So when I look more outside of the base case into some of our downside cases, it is certainly well within the range of what we were expecting. If I then go a little bit deeper into some of the drivers and look at some of the very idiosyncratic events that we've seen in our Canadian commercial business, it does give me some good comfort on our guidance range.

Now, it's still a little bit too early to give you 2027 guidance, and we will have to absorb a little bit of the evolving environment of the past week as well into our guidance. We'll certainly come back in Q4 with what we see in 2027. As I said before, unemployment will be a big driver. If the unemployment in Canada continues to trend down, we should see impaired losses continue to trend down. Then again, from a releases perspective, yes, we should expect releases at some point, once forward-looking indicators trend better. What that will have to be triggered by is a lot more clarity. The volatility and uncertainty out there currently doesn't give us that clarity yet. So there will be a lot of uncertainty on a go-forward basis.

Once that goes away, there should be and could be ongoing releases for sure.

The release we saw this quarter wasn't indicative of the fact that we hit that pivot point.

No.

Okay. That makes sense.

Sorry, I should have commented on that a little bit as well. Actually, if you distill that a little bit, our release this quarter is actually a build in our Canadian businesses. It is a build driven by a lot of that uncertainty that we still continue to see. The releases that we saw in our U.S. business and in our Capital Markets business is actually largely driven by the sale of a CRE portfolio that I talked about and some portfolio migration that we saw in those businesses. Again, not driven by the economic outlook, much more driven by those two specific events.

That's helpful. I appreciate it. Thank you.

Thank you. I would now like to turn the meeting over to Harry.

Thank you, operator, and thank you all for joining us this morning. Before we close, I'd like to thank the entire CIBC team for their dedication to serving our clients, our shareholders, and the communities in which we operate, and each other, of course. Coming up on October 4th is the Canadian Cancer Society CIBC Run for the Cure, marking CIBC's 30th year as the title partner. It's an event I personally look forward to each year, and one that reflects the power of coming together in support of those affected by breast cancer. I hope to see many of you there. Thank you again for joining us today and for your continued interest in CIBC.

This concludes today's conference call. You may now disconnect.