Topic: Dividend Stocks

CANADIAN IMPERIAL BANK OF COMMERCE $89 – Toronto symbol CM

CANADIAN IMPERIAL BANK OF COMMERCE $89 (Toronto symbol CM; Conservative Growth and Income Portfolios, Finance sector; Shares outstanding: 399.3 million; Market cap: $35.5 billion; Price-to-sales ratio: 2.1; Dividend yield: 4.3%; TSINetwork Rating: Above Average; www.cibc.com) is the fifthlargest Canadian bank, with $398.4 billion of assets.

CIBC recently launched a new credit card loyalty plan for travellers after it lost the Aeroplan contract to TD (see page 21). This plan, called Aventura, lets cardholders earn points on their purchases and redeem them for free flights and other benefits.

Losing the Aeroplan business will cut CIBC’s annual earnings by $0.45 a share. To put that in context, it earned $3.6 billion in its 2013 fiscal year, which ended October 31, 2013, up 6.5% from $3.4 billion in 2012. Earnings per share gained 8.8%, to $8.78 from $8.07, on fewer shares outstanding.

Overall revenue rose 1.9%, to $12.8 billion from $12.5 billion. Revenue at the retail and business banking division (67% of the total) rose 2.0% on improving mortgage and business loan demand.

Higher underwriting volumes of new corporate bonds and stocks helped push up revenue at CIBC’s securities-trading division (18%) by 9.8%. Revenue at the wealth management business (15%) rose 7.7%, thanks to an acquisition and higher assets under management.

CIBC cut its loan-loss provisions by 13.2%, to $1.1 billion from $1.3 billion. The bank is seeing fewer losses from its credit card and U.S. real estate loans, which offset higher losses at its Caribbean banking operations.

Losing the Aeroplan program will cut CIBC’s 2014 earnings to around $8.52 a share. The stock trades at 10.4 times that forecast. The $3.84 dividend yields 4.3%.

CIBC is a buy.

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