Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce (CM) Q2 2018 Earnings Conference Call Transcript

Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce (CM 0.69%)
Q2 2018 Earnings Conference Call
May 23, 2018, 8:00 a.m. ET

Contents:

• Prepared Remarks
• Questions and Answers
• Call Participants

Prepared Remarks:

Operator

All participants please stay online your conference is ready to begin. Good morning, 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 Amy South, Senior Vice President, CFO, Functional Groups, and Head of Investor Relations. Please go ahead, Amy.

Amy South -- Senior Vice President of Investor Relations

Thank you, operator. Good morning and welcome to CIBC's 2018 second quarter results conference call. My name is Amy South and I am the Senior Vice President of Investor Relations. This morning's agenda will include opening remarks from Victor Dodig, CIBC's president and Chief Executive Officer. Kevin Glass, our Chief Financial Officer will follow with a financial review, and Laura Dottori-Attanasio, our Chief Risk Officer will provide a risk management update. With us for the question and answer period following the formal remarks are CIBC's business leaders, including Harry Cohen, Jon Hountalas, Christina Kramer, and Larry Richman, as well as other senior officers.

Before we begin, let me remind you of the caution regarding forward-looking statements on slide two of our investor presentation. Our comments may contain forward-looking statements, which involve applying assumptions, which have inherent risk and uncertainties. Actual results may differ materially. With that, let me now turn the meeting over to Victor.

Victor Dodig -- Chief Executive Officer

Thanks, Amy. Good morning everyone and thank you for joining us. With our financial results released this morning, we continue to demonstrate strong and sustainable earnings performance that is aligned to the targets we set out at our investor day, late last year. Our team is making good progress in executing against our client focus strategy, which is transforming our bank and delivering results and we expect this to continue. Our adjusted earnings for the quarter were $1.3 billion. On a per share basis, this quarter's adjusted earnings of $2.95 is our 15th consecutive quarter of year-over-year EPS growth. All of our strategic business units are performing well, underscoring the strength of our franchise as we work together as one team to earn the trust and confidence of our clients. In Canada, our personal small business banking and commercial on wealth management businesses delivered strong and diversified earnings with disciplined expense management. Our results reflect our ability to deepen relationships and grow market share across a range of client needs and segments.

South of the border, our U.S. commercial banking and wealth management businesses are exceeding our expectations as our team continues to expand relationships with our clients and build out cross porter flows. And in our global capital markets franchise, we continue to drive growth in all key-operating markets by working closely with our clients to give them access to the full strength of our CIBC platform.

Our focus on strengthening our U.S. business is also evident in yesterday's announcement of several products aimed at better serving our clients. We launched CIBC Agility, a new digital high-interest savings account for our U.S. clients. It offers a competitive rate to attract deposits and is the first step in building out our retail offering for clients in the U.S. We have also enhanced our suite of products for Canadian clients who frequently travel to or work in the United States. We launched a new transactional U.S. dollar smart account as well as enhancing our existing U.S. dollar solutions to better enable our clients to shop, pay bills, transfer money, and withdraw U.S. funds on either side of the border.

Turning to our capital, our common equity TON capital ratio increased to a strong 11.2% compared to 10.8% last quarter. Capital deployment remains important. We are confident in our ability to continue to deliver solid earnings growth and build on our capital strength. With that view, today we announced a normal course a shore bid to purchase approximately 2% of our outstanding shares for cancellation over the next 12 months. We plan to commence share purchases imminently. Our results also continue to reflect the strength and focus of our team in improving operational efficiency and investing prudently in initiatives that drive growth. This quarter, our adjusted efficiency ratio of 56% was a 300 basis point improvement over the same period last year. We're pleased with this progress as we continue to drive toward our medium trig target of 52%.

At this time, I would like to turn over the call to my colleague Kevin Glass to review our results in greater detail and I'll come back to you after the Q&A with some final comments.

Kevin Glass -- Chief Financial Officer

Thanks, Victor. My presentation will refer to the slide that I've posted on our website starting with slide five. CIBC reported net income of $1.3 billion and earnings per share of $2.89 for the second quarter of 2018. Adjusting for items of note detailed in the appendix to this presentation, our net income was $1.3 billion and EPS was $2.95, up 12% from a year ago. We generated revenue of $4.4 billion for the quarter, which is up 18% year-over-year. Revenue growth and prudent expense management resulted in positive uprating leverage of 5.9% and an efficiency ratio of 55.9%. All of our businesses generated strong results as we executed on our client-focused strategy. We also continue to track well against our medium turn targets.

Turning to capital on slide six, our CET1 ratio is 11.2% of the [inaudible] [00:10:56] up 40 basis points from the prior quarter. Followed organic capital generation was partially offset by the impact of RWA growth. We also benefited from the change in [inaudible]'s floor methodology in the quarter. While the one-floor adjustment that was included in our RWA last quarter was eliminated this quarter contributing 16 basis points to our CET1 ratio. We continue to strengthen our capital position and as Victor noted, today we announce a normal cause issue that will permit us to purchase for cancellation up to 9 million or approximately 2% of our selling common shares over the next 12 months. Our leverage and liquidity ratios remain strong. The balance of my presentation will be focused on adjusted results, which exclude items of note.

Dipping out to enter the performance of our business segments. Slide seven reflects the results of our Canadian personal and small business-banking segment. Net income for the quarter was 586 million, up 16% from last year. Revenue for the quarter was $2.1 billion, up 8% from last year, primarily driven by strong and balanced volume growth as well as favorable rates. Net interest margin was up 3 basis points from last quarter, helped by favorable rates and the run-off of deposit promotions. Non-interest expenses were 1.1 billion, up 3% from the prior year, primarily due to investments we continue to make to generate growth and to support our transformation into a modern convenience and relationship-oriented bank. Expense discipline, along with strong revenue growth, generated pre-provision earnings growth of 14%, operating leverage of 5% and a 250 basis point year-over-year improvement in our next ratio. Our reason for credit losses of 203 million was up 12 million from the percent period last year. Underlying credit quality remains stable with a provision increase due primarily to an increase in loss for non-impaired loans.

Slide eight is extra information we're providing this quarter to show our continued progress in deepening relationships with our personal and small business clients. A year ago, two-thirds of our revenue growth was generated from my real estate secured lending business as we completed to build out of our mobile advisor team and approach full productivity of the sales force. This past quarter, real estate secured lending represented less than a third of our year-over-year revenue growth with over two-thirds driven by higher volume growth, margin expansion, and higher non-interest income growth across other lines of business. The bottom charts on the slideshow our recent market share trend in money-out and money-in relative to a year ago. Over the past six months, we anticipated, money-out growth converged toward industry levels and our market share remains steady. Over the same period, we have gained share in money-in with balanced contribution from deposits in mutual funds. We have included a market share slide in the appendix to this presentation.

Operating leverage is particularly high this quarter in Canadian personal small business banking largely as a result of the timing of investments spent in the prior year. We are highly on track to achieve fully operating leverage above our 1% to 2% target range.

Slide nine shows the results of our Canadian commercial banking and wealth management segment. Net income for the quarter was 310 million, up 9% from last year. Commercial banking revenue was up 12% driven by strong deposits and lending volume growth and higher credit-related fees. Deposit balances were up 12% and lending balances were up 8% from the same period last year. Wealth management revenue was up 2% driven by higher AUM reflecting market appreciation and positive net sales. Lower commission revenue in our full-service brokers business negatively impacted revenue growth this quarter. Non-interest expenses were up 3% primarily due to higher performance-based and employee-related compensation. The followed top line growth and expense discipline [inaudible] [00:15:02] to positive operating leverage of 2.5% and resulted in our 150 basis point year-over-year improvement in our efficiency ratio.

Slide 10 shows the results of our U.S. commercial banking and wealth management segment, which includes results of CIBC Bank U.S.A., Atlantic Trust, and the real estate finance business. Net income for the quarter was 142 million compared with $27 million a year ago. Revenue for the quarter reflected solid business performance aided by a stronger U.S. dollar. Higher loan volume and the benefit of a higher rate environment helped to offset the impact of feeless days and higher syndication fees reverting to more normalized levels this quarter. In addition, beginning this quarter, trading revenue was included in the capital market segment where all global markets business is now managed. Average loans grew $1 billion, or 4% from the prior quarter driven by organic growth and a stronger U.S. dollar. Notwithstanding seasonal outflows, averaged deposit balances grew 300 million or 1% from the prior quarter. We continue to capitalize on our thorough opportunities to do more for our combined U.S. client base. Overall, credit quality remains stable.

On slide 11; we share the contribution of CIBC Bank U.S.A. in U.S. dollars. Adjusted net income was 73 million compared with 58 million for private bank in the first calendar quarter of 2017, an increase of 26%. As I mentioned in the U.S. commercial banking wealth management segment, contribution from CIBC Bank U.S.A. was also impacted by lower syndication fees and the repointing of trading revenue to the capital markets segment. These two items reduced year-over-year revenue by approximately 10 million and quarter-over-quarter revenue by approximately $15 million. Net interest margin for CIBC Bank U.S.A. increased 18 basis points from a prior quarter, reflecting repricing of the largely very [inaudible] book in a higher rate environment. Deposit activity for the quarter reflected some seasonal outflows offset by referrals from our large corporate a [inaudible] border clients. Deposits forced from referrals drive a $450 million increase and averaged deposit from 2118. Turning to capital markets on slide 12, net income for the quarter was $249 million, down 7% from a year ago. Revenue this quarter was 710 million, up 18 million or 3% from a year ago. Core revenue, which excludes synthetic equity arrangements and [inaudible] changes were up north of 15% year-over-year reflecting higher foreign exchange, interest rate and commodity trading revenue, and higher corporate banking revenue partially offset by lower underwriting revenue. Non-interest expenses were up 29 million or 8% from a year ago. We remain disciplined around our expenses and our investing in areas of future growth. The increase reflects investments in technology and talent as we continue to borrow recurring revenue streams growing the U.S. and enhance connectivity with the rest of the bank.

Slide 13 reflects the results of the corporate and other segment. Net income for the quarter was 58 million compared with a net loss of 14 million in the prior year, reflecting improved results from treasury activities and higher revenue in CIBC First Caribbean. Expenses were lower due to certain non-recurring recoveries and the current quarter also benefited from tax credits, which are not expected to repeat. It's difficult to predict a run rate for this segment since revenue, particularly in trade rate, can be volatile, and it impacted by a number of market variables. As noted in prior quarters, going forward we expect to report break-even results plus minus $20 million for the segment. And with that, I'll turn the call over to Laura.

Laura Dottori-Attanasio -- Chief Risk Officer

Thanks, Kevin, and good morning everyone. I will be speaking on the risk review covered on slide 15 to 18 of the investor presentation. While our overall loan losses are up quarter-over-quarter, we focus on our stage three losses, which continued to perform well at a 24 basis points loss rate up marginally from the first quarter and consistent with prior quarters. The increase of 15 million in stage three losses from last quarter was largely driven by seasonally higher right-offs in the cards portfolio and a small number of new impairments in our CIBC Bank U.S.A. portfolio that was partially offset by lower losses in CIBC First Caribbean. As we discussed last quarter, our stage one and two buckets could be more volatile quarter-to-quarter, which is why we tend to focus on stage three.

As a result of mostly stable quarterly updates to our forward-looking macroeconomics factors and some slight portfolio migration within these buckets, there was a $5 million net reversal in stage one and two buckets as compared to a $49 million release last quarter. Overall, we are pleased with our credit performance. Slide 16 provides an overview of our gross impaired loans. Overall, gross impaired loans were made stable quarter-over-quarter and year-over-year with one basis point increase to 41 basis points. We do show a small increase from 23 to 25 basis points in our mortgage portfolio. This is mainly a result of seasoning of the portfolio as it matures and as you'll see on our next slide, write-offs remain flat at one basis point, which is consistent with the strong credit quality of our mortgage portfolio.

Slide 17 provides a more granular view of our net write-off rates by portfolio. Overall, our net write-off ratio was 26 basis points, up 6 basis points quarter-over-quarter, but stable on a year-over-year basis. Net write-offs of our mortgage portfolio continued to remain flat while cards and personal lending were up this quarter mainly due to seasonality reflecting higher delinquencies after the holiday season, they continue to trend lower on a year-over-year basis. Business and government loans were up due to a write-off of an account in the pre-acquisition U.S. real estate finance portfolio with no PCL impact in the current quarter. CIBC Bank U.S.A. continued to remain stable. As for FCIB, we did experience an increase write-off rate both last quarter and this quarter mainly due to a recovery initiative in our consumer portfolios that results in higher write-offs, although no impact to losses as we had previously taken a full allowance.

On slide 18, we highlighted our Canadian credit card and unsecured personal lending portfolios. As expected, the late stage delinquency rate of our Canadian credit cards portfolio peaked in the first quarter after the holiday season and has reverted to a lower level in the second quarter. On a year-over-year basis, the delinquency rate was up primarily due to the adoption of IFRS9, which you will recall I discussed in a lot of detail last quarter. The late-stage delinquency rate of our Canadian unsecured personal lending portfolio continues to remain stable in the second quarter. And so overall, we continue to be very pleased with our credit performance in the quality of our credit portfolios. And with that, I'll turn things back to Amy.

Amy South -- Senior Vice President of Investor Relations

Thanks, Laura. That concludes our prepared remarks. We're not going to move to the question and answer section of the call. As a reminder, can you please try to keep your question to one question? Operator, can we please have the first question, please?

Questions and Answers:

Operator

Thank you and please press *1 at this time if you have a question. There will be a brief pause for the participants [inaudible] [00:23:49] questions. Thank you for your patience.

Our first question is from Ebrahim Poonawala with Bank of America Merrill Lynch. Please go ahead.

Ebrahim Poonawala -- Bank of America Merrill Lynch -- Analyst

Good morning. I was wondering if you could just touch-up on the outlook for the U.S. private bank margin expansion this quarter in light of the negative deposit growth. I know Victor you mentioned about some of the new promotion and the CIBC Agility, which I assume are higher rate products. Would love to get your thoughts in terms of how sustainable the margin expansion is going forward or how we should think about that and how you expect deposit growth to play out from here on?

Larry Richman -- Senior Executive Vice President and Group Head, U.S. Region

Good morning. Let me begin by saying the NIM really rose to 3.24% principally driven by rates and in a stable portfolio. We actually feel good about the variable rate loan portfolio that will rise if interest rates continue to rise. We are seeing deposit pressures as all you U.S. banks are, but again we also have a roughly 30% to 32% non-interest bearing DDA balance, which buffers that to some degree as well. Deposit growth relative to other U.S. banks and also relative to our same period last year was up because this is usually seasonal to February through April timeframe typically sees deposit outflows for taxes, bonuses, and also distributions. We see good deposit growth. We're going to remain competitive from a pricing perspective. Deposit pressures continue. But at the same time, we feel good that our rates -- given the variable nature of our loan book -- that we will benefit from increasing rates.

Ebrahim Poonawala -- Bank of America Merrill Lynch -- Analyst

Can you quantify that in terms of if the fed again moves in June what [inaudible] [00:26:11] to think about the benefit of the margin from every additional fed rate height?

Larry Richman -- Senior Executive Vice President and Group Head, U.S. Region

Roughly 90%+ of our loan book is variably priced. The majority of it is tied to 30 day LIEBOR so you can see the impact that that could have.

Ebrahim Poonawala -- Bank of America Merrill Lynch -- Analyst

Understood. Just to add to that, any thought from the acquisition announcement we saw in your market on Monday with FITB buying MBFI? Does that create opportunities? Make it more competitive that you have a larger additional bank more aggressively competing in Chicago?

Larry Richman -- Senior Executive Vice President and Group Head, U.S. Region

That was a very interesting announcement. First and foremost, I want to congratulate both companies for making that deal. I know the leadership and I want to congratulate them particularly Mitch on that acquisition. I think in my view reflects a real strong market in Chicago and this is really further validation of the interest in Chicago. We have a very strong and a very growing position client-based and very experienced leadership in that market. We also believe that disruption and change sometimes create opportunity. We've made a living so to speak on seizing those opportunities over time. We're very optimistic that it'll continue.

Ebrahim Poonawala -- Bank of America Merrill Lynch -- Analyst

Thanks for taking my question.

Operator

Thank you. Our next question is from John Aiken with Barclays. Please go ahead.

John Aiken -- Barclays -- Analyst

Good morning. Now that we've seen the residential mortgage growth moderate, and as you say come back to the market, how much of this is actually being predicated by CIBC's strategic shift and how much of that is related to the disruption that's been going on in terms of the policy, in terms of the outlook? And as we look forward, how are we going to offset this growth on the platform, at least on a loan basis?

Christina Kramer -- Senior Executive Vice President and Group Head, Personal and Small Business Banking

John, thank you for the question. It's Christina speaking. Specific to the mortgage growth, across the industry we've seen the slowdown occur as you mentioned. And that started as we had communicated several quarters ago, started about a year ago at this time. We've started to converge toward the market as also indicated that we would do. When we take a look at our growth today, the good news is when you take a look at that quarter's results and as Kevin covered in his prepared remarks, it is well diversified. We have balance growth today across all of our businesses. Very much a reflection of the strategy and the performance that we had indicated and guided that we would be focusing on. Our relationship focus strategy, our investments in our team and our digital capabilities, and our transformation are in fact driving the results. In terms of our outlook, we consider it to be a strong revenue year for the rest of the balance of the year.

John Aiken -- Barclays -- Analyst

Great, thank you.

Operator

Thank you. Our next question is from Meny Grauman with Cormark Securities. Please go ahead.

Meny Grauman -- Cormark Securities -- Analyst

Hi, good morning, just following up on John's question. Just trying to understand better the dynamics between how much of the slowdown is coming from B20 versus what you've communicated just in terms of your own specific circumstances in your mortgage book. I guess one question, in particular, is: you talked about renewals as being a potential offset for some of the impacts of B20. Could you comment on what you're seeing in terms of renewals? Are you seeing increased renewals and any of the other offsets to B20 that you talked about? What are you seeing in terms of amortization trends and other things like that?

Christina Kramer -- Senior Executive Vice President and Group Head, Personal and Small Business Banking

While it's still a bit early to actually pull apart exactly what change impacted what in the trend line, I would suggest that most of the slowdown that we've seen in the last few months is likely due to the B20 regulation changes. Only time will tell. We've actually seen a very soft start to the spring market. We don't know whether that's a bit of a pause in the market or consumers changing behavior or waiting to see what happens in the market. We still do see activity in the market particularly in the condo space overall. Still mortgage market, but it is slowing down in terms of overall performance. Does that answer your question?

Meny Grauman -- Cormark Securities -- Analyst

Well, I was wondering if you could just talk about renewal specifically and the trend there?

Christina Kramer -- Senior Executive Vice President and Group Head, Personal and Small Business Banking

On the retention front, we're just seeing a pretty consistent retention rate. We haven't at this point yet seen any marked changes to retention. It also might be particularly early given the timing of the regulatory changes to actually see the outcome of that.

Meny Grauman -- Cormark Securities -- Analyst

And then just a follow-up: If you're saying sort of the slowdown that we're seeing is related to B20 -- so would you expect an even bigger slowdown as you're sort of lapping the big comps that you had before? You talked before about the ramp up in the mobile mortgage sales force and the impact on that going forward.

Christina Kramer -- Senior Executive Vice President and Group Head, Personal and Small Business Banking

We expect loan growth to moderate in the back half of the year. So at this point in terms of outlook, we're seeing the mortgage market will by the end of the year go to low single digits based on our current understanding of the market and what we're seeing so far. Again, I'd point to the overall performance of the business. It's very much in line with our strategy. And that was about focusing on depths of relationship with our clients. You see growth across all aspects of our business. We're quite pleased with what we're seeing. The growth that is coming from rate increases, volume increases, as well as mixed changes so it is very balanced across the portfolio.

Meny Grauman -- Cormark Securities -- Analyst

Thank you.

Operator

Thank you. Our next question is from Steve Theriault with Eight Capital. Please go ahead.

Steve Theriault -- Eight Capital -- Analyst

Good morning. I wanted to ask a question on cards but if I could just sneak one in for Kevin first on the treasury gains. Usually, I think of elevated treasury in the context of a steeper yield curve in particular. We didn't see that this quarter. Sometimes securities gains, but securities gains looked pretty normal to me. Can you flesh out a little what drove the higher treasury contribution this quarter?

Kevin Glass -- Chief Financial Officer

Sure, Steve. Actually, we did benefit from some rebalancing on our portfolios where we did actually have higher than usual bond gains. So that combined with just in our hedges is sometimes some volatility on that and with rising rates [inaudible] just some of our commitment hedges and the way that that played out also led to gains. If you take the volatility of the bond gains and some of the portfolio rebalancing that was about 25 odd million dollars. That's what drove treasury in the current quarter.

Steve Theriault -- Eight Capital -- Analyst

If I look at the non-interest revenue section, the AFS gains look pretty normal. Was it the mix of those gains that were more pushed toward the corporate line? Or can we just not see it through that line at them directly?

Kevin Glass -- Chief Financial Officer

I think what you would've seen is partly in our capital markets area. AFS would've been down on a year-over-year basis, but certainly from a trading perspective it [inaudible].

Steve Theriault -- Eight Capital -- Analyst

Okay, that makes sense. And if I could for Victor, Christina. Victor, we talked about the bank wanting to do a bit better on the cards side and the growth imbalances -- was a pretty modest 2% year-on-year I see this quarter. Can you or Christina talk a little bit about any initiatives under way and cards that might help improve the growth outlook maybe later this year or into next year?

Christina Kramer -- Senior Executive Vice President and Group Head, Personal and Small Business Banking

I'll take that question if that's OK Victor. So we're performing around the rate of the market, it's low single digits in terms of growth year-over-year. What you'll see is the improvement over the quarter from Q1 -- I see some pick-up from us in this space. We're out in the market right now marketing our Aventura product. We're pleased to see the early results of that marketing campaign. So on travel, we continue to grow our active accounts and purchase of volumes. We're feeling really good about that space. And over time you will see picked up performance and more meaningful revenue contribution from this business.

Steve Theriault -- Eight Capital -- Analyst

Have there been in any change in the rewards grid for Aventura? Or is it more just a straight pick up than marketing?

Christina Kramer -- Senior Executive Vice President and Group Head, Personal and Small Business Banking

What you're actually seeing is a growth as a result of marketing but also as a result of our teams out in the market with an increased focus on the space. You will see this pick up. We anticipate it to pick up.

Steve Theriault -- Eight Capital -- Analyst

Thanks for that.

Operator

Thank you. Our next question is from Gabriel Dechaine with National Bank Financial. Please go ahead.

Gabriel Dechaine -- National Bank Financial -- Analyst

Good morning. I got a couple of questions on the real estate book -- both the retail business and the wholesale business. On retail, so we saw originations down nearly 40% year-over-year. As I look over the next two quarters and what your originations were last year, 16 billion in Q3 and 12 billion in Q4. I'm just wondering how we possibly get close to guidance that the originations could be down 10% or so this year. Granted, that's for the whole book and not just the uninsured portfolio but maybe you can walk me through how you're seeing things today? And then, on the wholesale part of the business in the supplement there I see a real estate and construction portfolio of 29.6 billion. That's a 5% quarter-over-quarter. The year-over-year's got noise because you didn't have private bank corp there. Just wondering what's in that portfolio? What's driving that growth because that's phenomenal? And how that might be linked to the overall housing market in Canada?

Christina Kramer -- Senior Executive Vice President and Group Head, Personal and Small Business Banking

I'll start with the beginning of that to Gabriel. It's Christina speaking. The original 10% was related to what we thought or anticipated the B20 impact would be. So that was on that part of the business. When we take a look at the second half, we continue to see that there will be origination decline probably around a 50% range relative to the same period last year. That's on the overall market as well. When we take a look again our performance, it is very much diversified. Kevin talked about it in his prepared remarks. A year ago, two-thirds of our revenue would be directly related to our mortgage performance and our mortgage business. Today that's about a quarter. We've seen good growth in all other aspects of our business. That's related to the clients that we've acquired through our mortgage business but also that's the relationship and making sure we're advising clients on the balance of their needs both on the money-in side and the money-out side. When we do see a moderation in loan growth occurring over the back half of the year, we do see it more than offset by the growth in the revenue line through margins, through mix, and through volumes. So we're feeling pretty confident around the overall topline growth.

Gabriel Dechaine -- National Bank Financial -- Analyst

Fair enough. I see that too. The revenue growth overall is quite solid year-over-year. I'm just wondering how we get to the 10 to 50 there or whatever number. I'm just -- you see 20 and then market softness overall, is that?

Christina Kramer -- Senior Executive Vice President and Group Head, Personal and Small Business Banking

The 10 was originally related to B20 and that was an estimate at the time. The 50 is more related to what we're actually seeing in the market. It is a slower market.

Gabriel Dechaine -- National Bank Financial -- Analyst

At those levels, we might see mortgage balances actually decline or flatten?

Christina Kramer -- Senior Executive Vice President and Group Head, Personal and Small Business Banking

No. We're still seeing growth year-over-year it's just not what it was last year.

Gabriel Dechaine -- National Bank Financial -- Analyst

Alright. Thanks for the wholesale business there.

Jon Hountalas -- Senior Executive Vice President and Group Head, Commercial Banking and Wealth Management, Canada

It's Jon and I'll speak to the Canadian piece, which is a big part of it. Year-over-year -- I know there's noise at the top of the house -- but just on Canadian banking real estate has not grown any faster than the rest of the book. In fact, it's grown slower. Quarter-over-quarter it was a quarter but overall going in line or slower than the rest of our book. We've taken a good look at the correlation between kind of residential slowdown and impact on the commercial business. We don't think its material. About the residential piece of the commercial real estate book is growing in line with the rest of the bank. So again, no overshooting in the residential commercial mortgage space -- nothing major on that front.

Gabriel Dechaine -- National Bank Financial -- Analyst

It'd be helpful to know what's actually in there. It's by far your biggest wholesale export and you're not unique there. All the other banks are like that. Anyway, just a request. Thanks.

Operator

Thank you. Our next question is from Sumit Malhotra with Scotia Capital. Please go ahead.

Sumit Malhotra -- Scotia Capital -- Analyst

Thanks, good morning. Victor, I wanted to ask about your filing for your normal-course issuer bid. The share request is for 2%. Is that a comp that the bank is limited to in terms of the NCAB request? Or was that the level that you and the management team felt comfortable with?

Victor Dodig -- Chief Executive Officer

Sumit, thanks for your question. On capital deployment, let me remind everybody our strategy on capital deployment. We said that our CET1 target of range is in the 10.4 to 10.7 area. We said that once we get comfortably above 10.7 and we got regulatory clarity, we'll be more definitive in terms of buybacks. In terms of capital deployment overall, primarily organic: organic growth and over-indexing on the U.S. and Canadian commercial wealth management businesses. Staying well within our dividend target payout range of 40% to 50% and really being toward the midpoint of that, and to execute on buybacks. As the leadership team got together and looked at our capital levels at 11.2%, we felt that the right level to be at was 2% over the next 12 months. And we will be executing on that imminently. That is the number that we feel comfortable with given the horizon that we're dealing with currently. We're gonna start executing it.

Sumit Malhotra -- Scotia Capital -- Analyst

I ran some quick numbers and you'll correct me if I'm wrong please. If you bought the entire 9 million shares not just imminently but immediately, the impact on your CET1 would be around 50 basis points. So you'd still be at the high-end of your target range. Obviously, this bank with your high return on risk weight out since those generate a lot of capital organically. And to your point, it seems like we have more regulatory clarity. If you were to finish that 9 million shares well before the 12-month timeframe, is there any restriction to the bank going back and requesting an increase? Or is that something that the regulatory allows?

Victor Dodig -- Chief Executive Officer

I think it's 54 basis points actually. So good, quick math from you Sumit, expected that.

Sumit Malhotra -- Scotia Capital -- Analyst

I've still got the one trick to fall back on.

Victor Dodig -- Chief Executive Officer

I think the one thing to take away from our buyback is a great confidence in our earnings trajectory. One of the things that we highlighted in our investor days; we're gonna be in the 5% to 10% range of earnings growth on a year-over-year basis. We are well within that range and we feel comfortable that we can deliver against that across all our business lines, both in terms of topline growth as well as our ability to continue to repurpose our cost base. As we continue to deliver against that -- as we go further and deeper into that strategy -- there will obviously be more opportunity to buy back stock. But for now, very clearly, we're gonna go and focus on the 2% on the 9 million shares and we'll come back to you every three months as we always do with updates in terms of how we're executing against that.

Sumit Malhotra -- Scotia Capital -- Analyst

Certainly, we'll keep an eye on that. I only bring this up in the context of somebody mentioned the deal in the Midwest footprint and we saw evaluations on that from that purchase price at close to 17 times forward earnings. I'm sure the management teams were very happy with the results you've delivered in the first half. Yet, you see the stock trading at a sometimes 10 times multiple. It certainly seems, mathematically anyway, that from an allocation perspective the better investment would not necessarily be in the U.S. right now, but in your own business.

Victor Dodig -- Chief Executive Officer

Well, clearly there's an opportunity to buy back stock. We look at our earnings trajectory. We look at our valuation and we think that there's a gap there, which is why we plan on executing on this imminently. As opportunities arise for acquisitions, what we really are focused on are smaller tuck-ins that would complement our existing footprint. But really, the primary focus of the CIBC team is to deliver results, to invest organically, and to start buying back our stock.

Sumit Malhotra -- Scotia Capital -- Analyst

One last one from me and it's probably for you again, Victor. It wasn't really discussed today but obviously since we last spoke, the bank made the decision not to go ahead with the partial listing of the First Caribbean in the U.S. Just wanted to get an update from you. I know this was -- this is my words -- more testing the water than anything else in terms of a partial listing and maybe getting more price discovery on that asset. What happens from here as far as business is concerned? Does the listing have any kind of an impact on the business itself? How will you pursue any partial monetization of that business going forward?

Victor Dodig -- Chief Executive Officer

So Sumit, in terms of the listing; the company is already partially listed as you know in thinly traded markets and we thought it was just the natural step to list it in a deep capital pool where it's very liquid. We did that for long-term capital planning purposes. The bottom line is the business is performing well. Revenues are growing. Credit conditions remain benign. The management team's doing a really great job of engaging with our clients. We thought that this provided some long-term strategic flexibility. If the market didn't see the value, we saw no reason in freeing up any capital because we have plenty of capital and we just said, you know what, let's just continue to run our business as we're running it. It's part of our CIBC franchise and it's performing very well.

Operator

Thank you. Our next question is from Nigel D'Souza with Veritas Investment. Please go ahead.

Nigel D'Souza -- Veritas Investment -- Analyst

Thank you. Good morning. I actually have two quick questions for you. The first on your HELOC book.

Victor Dodig -- Chief Executive Officer

Nigel, you want to speak up a little bit. You got a weak microphone there at Veritas. No, it's worse. Nigel, we cannot hear you. Why don't we come back to you once you figure out the technical difficulties? We'd like to answer your question.

Operator

I do apologize, Mr. D'Souza, we barely hear you at this time. We'll go to our next question from Doug Young with Desjardins Bank Capital. Please go ahead.

Doug Young -- Desjardins Bank Capital -- Analyst

Hi, good morning, just I guess two quick ones. One, on the U.S. side, credit is obviously within the private bank corp book has been relatively benign. But I think there has been a little deterioration in the U.S. healthcare book. Just hoping you can elaborate a little bit on that and how we should think about the outlook for PCL's on that U.S. private bank corp book. And then second, just Christina I guess following up on your deepening client relationship. You've given us stats of how real estate has become less of a driver of growth. Can you talk a bit about penetration stats that kind of point us to how those relationships have been deepening over the last year? Anything on that front would be helpful. Thank you.

Laura Dottori-Attanasio -- Chief Risk Officer

Hi Doug, it's Laura. I'll kick it off on your question of that migration in the U.S. portfolio. We do see some continued downward migration and that's really in the healthcare portfolio, which continues to exhibit weakness. So that sector's trending down somewhat. It's really a function of the system adapting to a new managed care payment structure from various levels of government. There are heightened labor costs. All that to say that our teams are proactively staying close to that segment of the business. It's a small part of the overall business. We expected to see some of this. We might see some impairs as we go forward. But from an overall portfolio perspective, there's really nothing of concern. We continue to be pleased with the credit performance of the portfolio, notwithstanding some of this migration we're seeing in the healthcare space.

Larry Richman -- Senior Executive Vice President and Group Head, U.S. Region

It's Larry. Let me just add a couple of points. One, we really believe it's very well managed. And two, we have a very experienced team that has been in this industry segment for 10, 20 plus years. It's a very good client base.

Doug Young -- Desjardins Bank Capital -- Analyst

So it doesn't feel like you're expecting any large amounts of noise on the credit side within the U.S. book. There have been some normal bumps within the healthcare side of it, but there's nothing else from an outlook perspective that concerns you? Is that a fair characterization?

Laura Dottori-Attanasio -- Chief Risk Officer

I think Larry and I certainly agree that that's a fair characterization. Again, the only thing I would point out and it's sort of standard -- when you're in commercial banking you would expect occasional losses. It can be lumpy in terms of how they come. With that caveat, I would say, yes, Larry and I are comfortable. And to the question of our own penetration rates: While we don't publish product youth count rates, I can talk to a few points that I think are very relevant to our strategy and good proof points. We know more clients are choosing to bank with CIBC. Our net client position is up year-over-year. We've previously talked about the transformation of the mortgage to client, clients acquired via the non-banking center teams, previously was largely through our first lien business and now through our mortgage advisor team. Previously it in 2012 would've been largely single product clients and now as deeper relationship clients. So we've covered that previously. We're deepening existing client relationships through focus on advice and planning across our network. So we are seeing that pen rate improve. We're also seeing particular success with newcomers to Canada. It's a key growth market in the industry and we're experiencing significant funds managed increased across that portfolio. Lots of different aspects to how we're seeing the growth come to life and very much in line with our relationship focused strategy.

Operator

Our next question is from Nigel D'Souza with Veritas Investment. Please go ahead.

Nigel D'Souza -- Veritas Investment -- Analyst

Thank you. I hope you can hear me now, hope that's better, apologies for that. I had two quick questions, first on your HELOC balances. Across the industry, we're seeing HELOC growth take up in the last few months. In terms of your HELOC book, it appears to be flat right now, but do you expect that to accelerate in kind of the back half of 2018 and to offset some of that slowdown you're seeing in the res book? The res mortgage book?

Christina Kramer -- Senior Executive Vice President and Group Head, Personal and Small Business Banking

We've seen about 4% year-over-year growth in the HELOC part of our business. We're growing in line with our position in the market and we don't see any significant pick up on this pace. Some banks record some of their -- what we have a home power plan product, so that's the secured line as well as mortgage product in the mortgage business and some counted in the HELOC business. When you look at the overall business, we take a look at total resal performance and that'll be a better indication of how we're performing relative to the market.

Nigel D'Souza -- Veritas Investment -- Analyst

Great, thank you. And the last question I had was on your card book and the write off rates. I took a look at F17 and the write off rate was essentially flat Q1 to Q2. Is the uptake in seasonality this year in Q2; is that just from Q1 being kind of a suppressed blip in your write off read in your 3%? Do you expect that write off rate to kind of trend lower as go further into 2018?

Laura Dottori-Attanasio -- Chief Risk Officer

Hi, Nigel, it's Laura. I'll take that. So that would be 'yes' to both of your questions.

Nigel D'Souza -- Veritas Investment -- Analyst

So there's no reason that the seasonality shown in Q1 is just a blip that happened this year but shouldn't expect that going forward?

Laura Dottori-Attanasio -- Chief Risk Officer

Seasonality we would expect to see a similar pattern, if you will, sort of next year around the same quarters. But no, we wouldn't expect to see increase write-offs if you will next quarter.

Operator

Thank you. Our next question is from Scott Chan with Canaccord Genuity. Please go ahead.

Scott Chan -- Canaccord Genuity -- Analyst

Good morning. Perhaps for Larry, if I look at the Atlantic trust real estate finance and other, I saw good sequentials and income growth and double if you look at year-over-year. But if I look at Atlantic trust it's kind of flattish in AUM growth. We have less days in the quarter. Maybe you can just piece out what kind of drove the sequential increase and kind of how to think about that going forward?

Larry Richman -- Senior Executive Vice President and Group Head, U.S. Region

The Atlantic trust business, which I'll define as our wealth management business, I'm very optimistic and very encouraged. By not only the quality of the client focus but also the momentum that we have in that business. It's both AUM but it's also now private banking, deposits, and connections throughout the U.S. operation. Very strong leadership I expect that we'll have continued growth and opportunities in that business, as well as deepening client relationships that our advisory clients that if they have a need, can do private banking and deposit-taking with us now that we have a U.S. bank.

Scott Chan -- Canaccord Genuity -- Analyst

And maybe just a quick one for Kevin: I notice the tax rate was a bit lower at 20% this quarter. I think two quarters ago you guided 20% to 22%, does that hold true still?

Kevin Glass -- Chief Financial Officer

I think longer term that does hold true. One of the factors that reduced the tax rate this quarter was the recovery that we mentioned in our corporate another segment. So that would've reduced the tax by just over 1% in the current quarter. I think that kind of range is probably appropriate moving forward.

Operator

Thank you. Our next question is from Sohrab Movahedi with BMO Capital Markets. Please go ahead.

Sohrab Movahedi -- with BMO Capital Markets -- Analyst

Thank you, just a couple of Canadian commercial banking type questions for Jon maybe. Jon, if you could maybe tell us where the long growth is coming from, maybe by industry or by type of activity? And talk just to the commercial banking segments NIM, which by my math, I think is up about 10 basis points. Is that on the asset side? Or is that a combination of better yields and lower funding costs?

Jon Hountalas -- Senior Executive Vice President and Group Head, Commercial Banking and Wealth Management, Canada

Let's start with where's the growth coming from. In terms of industries, it's pretty broad-based. In terms of geography, they vary year by year, but I'd say in the last year-over-year the strongest areas have been here in the GTA and in Quebec. It's really a function of quality of teams. I think we've talked a fair bit about adding relationship managers over the last few years. We've had a kind of strategy of growing our own talent. We've been on this for five or six years. The combination of adding relationship managers, the relationship managers getting experience, a higher sales management culture, I think it's all those things. There's nothing specific. There's no specific industry that we've seen outside growth in.

Sohrab Movahedi -- with BMO Capital Markets -- Analyst

And on the NIM?

Jon Hountalas -- Senior Executive Vice President and Group Head, Commercial Banking and Wealth Management, Canada

The NIM -- I think we've been -- our 8% loan growth. We've been actually higher in the past. We're pretty disciplined on loan pricing. I think we've been public on our kind of moves to get out of commercial mortgages that had loan NIMs. So we're quite disciplined on the lending side. So that's going to help. Rates generally have been a help. The deposit growth rate is materially higher than loan growth rate this quarter. So that's been a help. But all in all, there's a strong pricing discipline in the business that, again, I don't think you'll see that type of improvement quarter-over-quarter too often. But we're focused on pricing.

Sohrab Movahedi -- with BMO Capital Markets -- Analyst

And just to stick with it again by my quick math, it looks like the expense to revenue ratio in the commercial banking segment by itself in Canada is now closer to maybe 30%, 31%. How much better can it get from there?

Jon Hountalas -- Senior Executive Vice President and Group Head, Commercial Banking and Wealth Management, Canada

I think we can get better. High 20's? Couple of points? We continue to grow. It's a low mix business. It has capital attached to it. It's a low mix business. We still have plans to add about 150 RM's -- relationship managers -- over the next three years. But again, growth is good. So I still see improvements to the mix ratio.

Sohrab Movahedi -- with BMO Capital Markets -- Analyst

So, Jon, you think that you can maintain NIM's because you're disciplined on origination and you've had higher than 8% loan growth in this particular segment? So 8% is a repeatable number?

Jon Hountalas -- Senior Executive Vice President and Group Head, Commercial Banking and Wealth Management, Canada

The 8% loan growth we think is repeatable. I think we've guided to kind of that range. The deposit number at 12 is very strong this quarter. We'll try to keep that up. That's helpful to NIM's as well.

Operator

Thank you. Our next question is from Mario Mendonca with TD Securities. Please go ahead.

Mario Mendonca -- TD Securities -- Analyst

Good morning. Victor, this question I would normally wait until Q3 or Q4 to start asking but the topic is becoming more timely. Part of the sentiment being expressed by investors is certainly, as I meet with them, is that the slowdown in mortgage growth. While manageable in the near term, becomes more and more challenging as it persists. When you think about 2019, if we're going through a prolonged period of much slower mortgage growth -- call it 2% a year -- what is your confidence level about being able to generate this type of running stride? To be clear, I'm not suggesting that 12% is normal for any bank. But something in the neighborhood of 5% to 7% to 10% in an environment where mortgage growth is this slow?

Victor Dodig -- Chief Executive Officer

If the macroeconomic environment conditions are benign, relatively positive, even if mortgage growth slows, Mario, I believe that we can continue to deliver in that 5% to 7% range or better. We look at the opportunities ahead of us in terms of deepening client relationships. Christina speaks about it a lot, but it's actually happening, which is why we telegraphed to our investor base. Some time ago, we continued to execute against that. We believe that there's still significant opportunity to go deeper with our personal small business clients. I think Jon's been pretty clear in terms of growing the commercial bank and getting positive operating leverage as we do that. Harry's business and Harry's been silent on this call but he hasn't had any questions. Our capital market's business is working very, very closely with the rest of our bank, which has been a real hallmark in terms of how we manage our bank going forward. We manage it from a broad, horizontal client relationship standpoint. And clearly, the performance that Larry and his team are delivering on the U.S. is something that we will continue to expect. That is all top line. We also continue to stay focused on the $10 billion in expenses that we have. And we believe that there are continued opportunities to get those into better shape. Our confidence level of delivering that earnings growth in excess of the 5% target is quite high.

Mario Mendonca -- TD Securities -- Analyst

Just philosophically then because I suspect that your peers, the other banks, might offer a similar outlook for 2019, and I'll certainly check on that as the calls go by. Maybe you could just describe then, philosophically, why would the Canadian banking sector be able to generate earnings growth of say two times nominal GDP when in fact the industry is simply just a reflection of the economy? Philosophically, why would you believe that to be true?

Victor Dodig -- Chief Executive Officer

Well, Mario, it's a good question but it'd be awfully presumptuous of me to be a spokesperson for the industry. What I can do is speak for our bank. You look over the last decade and we've had missed opportunities for growth. What the leadership team has done over the last less than a half-decade, is really a rally around a strategy where we're trying to take back that part of the market that we've lost. We said to you quite some time ago that we're looking to put the commerce back into CIBC. We're doing that in the Canadian market. We're doing that now in the U.S. market. We're doing that with the capital markets business. It's highly aligned with the rest of the bank. We're simply trying to recapture some of the ground that we had lost in the first half of that decade. While the industry and every one of our competitive peers will have their views on their performance, I can tell you what we're going to deliver as a leadership team, assuming the macroeconomic conditions remain constructive.

Operator

Thank you. Our last question is from Mike Rizvanovic. Please go ahead.

Mike Rizvanovic -- Macquarie Capital -- Analyst

Good morning. I just wanted to go back to Christina briefly. When originations are falling as much as we've seen in the last few months, it makes me wonder about your fee-based revenue around mortgage origination. Can you quantify that for us? I'm assuming that'll be largely around the fees around refinancing and perhaps mortgage breakage. How important is that as far as a revenue stream for your PNC banking segment?

Christina Kramer -- Senior Executive Vice President and Group Head, Personal and Small Business Banking

We are seeing pressure on fee-based revenue. When again, I go back to that overall performance that you've seen in the first and second quarters around the diversification of our business and that top line revenue growth. To the former question around the outlook for mortgages and its contribution: We still feel that given unemployment continues to remain low and GDP continues to grow as expected, we're gonna have strong revenue growth over the remainder of the year. And our outlook as it relates to all of the key metrics that we've positioned at investor day has not changed.

Mike Rizvanovic -- Macquarie Capital -- Analyst

So that revenue stream around origination that's not related to NII, is that diminimous?

Christina Kramer -- Senior Executive Vice President and Group Head, Personal and Small Business Banking

Yes.

Mike Rizvanovic -- Macquarie Capital -- Analyst

Okay. And then just a quick follow-up. If you do see a mortgage market that's slowing materially in the next year or two, do you see any potential impact on other personal lending at all? Does that impact your credit card growth, your indirect auto lending, personal loans?

Christina Kramer -- Senior Executive Vice President and Group Head, Personal and Small Business Banking

It could have somewhat of an impact but again, if you step back and take a look at what our strategy is, it's really about conversations with our clients to provide them advice, financial planning, and advice around their entire portfolio of needs, both on money-in and money-out. We have lots of opportunity to do more with our clients well beyond mortgage business. I think you're seeing that reflected in our numbers.

Mike Rizvanovic -- Macquarie Capital -- Analyst

Okay. Thank you.

Operator

Thank you. That's all the time we have for questions today. I would like to turn the meeting back over to Victor.

Victor Dodig -- Chief Executive Officer

Thanks very much, operator. Let me just close with a few remarks. Our strong results this quarter reflect the continuing success of our client-focused strategy and our ability to generate sustainable, organic growth. I want to emphasize that. We're gonna build on this momentum going forward with our overwriting focus on putting our clients at the center of all that we do as we continue to transform CIBC into the relationship-oriented bank for a modern world. We'll continue to execute against the commitments we made to you, and those commitments are first to instill a strong client-focused culture, whether those relationships are high touch and focused on ideas and advice, or whether they're primary digital and high tech, we're getting the balance right at CIBC and we're always doing the right thing for our clients. Second, we're continuing to diversify our platform for growth. We will continue to bring the strength of our broader franchise to bear in our growing presence in the United States. The third is, we're going to remain really disciplined around our approach to capital deployment. We went through the mass on the buyback, we went through our comments on executing on it imminently and we're primarily focused on organic growth with only complementary tuck-in acquisitions as those appear in the near term. And finally on efficiency, and this is an important point, we're taking a very disciplined view to managing our cost base and the bottom line as we drive to our next efficiency target of 52% in 2022. I want to close with a note of thanks to our CIBC team, our ongoing success as the result of our unrelenting focus on our clients in all the markets and where we serve them. Together, our team is ensuring that CIBC is a leading North American bank that delivers high quality and sustainable earnings growth. And I'd like to thank our entire team for their continued leadership and contributions to our bank. And finally, to you, our shareholders and our investors: Thank you for your continued support and confidence in your investment in CIBC. Have a great day.

Operator

Thank you. The conference has now ended. Please disconnect your line at this time and we thank you for your participation.

Duration: 65 minutes

Call participants:

Amy South -- Senior Vice President of Investor Relations

Victor Dodig -- Chief Executive Officer

Kevin Glass -- Chief Financial Officer

Laura Dottori-Attanasio -- Chief Risk Officer

Ebrahim Poonawala -- Bank of America Merrill Lynch -- Analyst

Larry Richman -- Senior Executive Vice President and Group Head, U.S. Region

John Aiken -- Barclays -- Analyst

Christina Kramer -- Senior Executive Vice President and Group Head, Personal and Small Business Banking

Meny Grauman -- Cormark Securities -- Analyst

Steve Theriault -- Eight Capital -- Analyst

Gabriel Dechaine -- National Bank Financial -- Analyst

Jon Hountalas -- Senior Executive Vice President and Group Head, Commercial Banking and Wealth Management, Canada

Sumit Malhotra -- Scotia Capital -- Analyst

Nigel D'Souza -- Veritas Investment -- Analyst

Doug Young -- Desjardins Bank Capital -- Analyst

Scott Chan -- Canaccord Genuity -- Analyst

Sohrab Movahedi -- with BMO Capital Markets -- Analyst

Mario Mendonca -- TD Securities -- Analyst

Mike Rizvanovic -- Macquarie Capital -- Analyst

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