Canada Bank Mergers & Acquisitions (Mouvement des caisses Desjardins)

Photo: Complexe Desjardins, 150 rue Sainte-Catherine Ouest in Montréal, is the head office of Mouvement des caisses Desjardins.

Co-operative banking and Quebec

Quebec, the French-speaking province of Canada, often emphasizes itself as a “distinct society” because of its French heritage, French-language culture and Roman Catholic society.  The rest of Canada sometimes makes fun (sarcastic or otherwise) of this “distinct society” assertion, but Quebec’s banking sector is indeed very different from the rest of Canada. While the Big Five banks oligarchy enjoys an absolute domination in so-called English Canada; in Quebec, the commercial banks’ combined share of the banking market based on deposits is only 55%, with the remaining 45% of deposits being held by co-operative credit unions known as “caisses populaires”. Interestingly, this market environment is very similar to France itself, where mutual banks (“les banques coopératives”) also enjoy a significant market share, particularly outside of major cities.

At the closing of the 19^th century, a vast majority of Quebec’s 1.6 million inhabitants were Francophone and Roman Catholic. Their livelihoods were closely dependent on agriculture and most of them were too poor to possess a bank account. Access to regular bank credit (loans) was non-existent due to their unreliable income and lack of savings or property as collateral. In situations where they absolutely needed to borrow money for emergencies, frequently their only source was unscrupulous lenders who offered usury at extremely high interest rates, rendering the borrowers into a cycle of perpetual indebtedness and poverty.  This situation was not unique to Quebec, but indeed had been a common social ill across Europe and North America for centuries.

As the 19^th century progressed, the "worth" and demand for farm labourers collapsed as a result of the mechanization of agriculture that had been brought on by the Industrial Revolution. Masses of farm workers were displaced by newly-invented agricultural machines, and they sought factory work in towns and cities, where the working and living conditions were often appalling. A social and labour movement began to rise up to fight this social, economic and political inequality.  One result of this social movement was the birth of the co-operative movement in the mid-19^th century.  The co-operative movement was based on democratic, anti-discriminatory, open-membership and mutually beneficial principles. In a co-operative business (often called simply a “co-op”), every customer must first become a member and co-owner of the business with a small fee. Because a co-op is collectively and mutually owned by the member-customers themselves, there is much less pressure to squeeze out more profits at the expense of customers, for it would be just like paying the right hand with money from the left hand of the same person. In fact, profitable co-ops periodically distribute part of their surplus (profits) to their members.

The world’s first co-operative business was established in Rochdale, Lancashire, England, in 1844. Most of the founders of the Rochdale Society of Equitable Pioneers were weavers, who pooled together their resources to open a shop to provide fresh and nutritious food produce that was otherwise unaffordable for many poor people at the time. Meanwhile in 1850, German politician and social reformer Hermann Schulze-Delitzsch established the world’s first banking co-op (credit union) in Delitzsch.

For the rest of this publication, the terms “caisse populaire”, “credit union”, “mutual bank”, “banking co-op”, and “co-op bank” are used interchangeably not to confuse the reader, but because indeed these terms all refer to the same type of bank in various countries. (In Britain, Ireland and some Commonwealth countries, a banking co-op is known as a “building society”.)

Credit unions in North America often cater to a geographic locale, a profession or a group of employees at a specific workplace, or to an ethnic group.  Initially, the credit unions in Quebec operated autonomously. Over time, however, they pooled together their resources to collaborate with each other, and three alliances emerged: the Desjardins group, the Quebec Credit Union League and the Fédération des caisses d’économie du Québec. The two latter alliances eventually amalgamated into the Desjardins group, but they would be described briefly under separate headings.

Mouvement des caisses Desjardins (Desjardins group)

In the final years of the 19^th century, Quebec journalist-turned-social-reformer Alphonse Desjardins had become aware of the ruthlessly high interest being charged by lenders to the underclass. After making contact with Europe’s banking co-op promoters, Mr. Desjardins founded the Caisse populaire de Lévis in December 1900. This became North America’s very first credit union. Lévis is the hometown of Mr. Desjardins and is situated on the south shore of the St. Lawrence River across from Quebec City.

Interestingly, during Caisse populaire de Lévis’ first six years of existence, there was no legal framework to recognise such a business form. Despite Mr. Desjardins’ numerous attempts to get the Canadian parliament to legislate credit unions, the lawmakers failed to pass the legislation every time. It was only in 1906 that Mr. Desjardins was able to convince the Quebec provincial legislature to recognise credit unions as “legal” financial institutions. To this day, credit unions in Canada are still regulated by individual provinces even though banks are regulated at the federal level.

Society in the early 20^th-century Quebec was still overwhelmingly rural and Roman Catholic, and villages and towns were organised into parishes. As such, many of the caisses populaires at the time operated out of the basements of parish churches.

Together, the tireless Alphonse Desjardins and his wife Dorimène travelled to other towns in Quebec, Ontario and New England to promote the co-op banking movement across Canada and the United States.

Mr. Desjardins also believed that the habit of money-saving was a virtue that should be instilled not just to the working youths or adults, but to youngsters and school children. As early as 1901, he had tested the concept of a school-based credit union. In 1907, he formally launched the first caisse scolaire, again in his hometown of Lévis, to promote penny savings by children.

Interestingly, Mr. Desjardins is also the father of the banking co-op movement in the United States of America. At the beginning of the 20^th century, as many as 600,000 Franco-Canadians lived in the New England region to seek better opportunities and lives, making up as much as 10% of the population at one point.  This was the result of a phenomenon known as the “Quebec Diaspora”. It was during a trip to visit the Quebec expat communities in 1908 that Mr. Desjardins founded the Caisse populaire in Sainte-Marie de Manchester in New Hampshire, creating the first credit union in America.

Also in 1908, Mr. Desjardins launched North America’s first workplace or profession-based credit union, known in French as a caisse d’économie or a “group caisse”, when the Civil Service Savings and Loan Society was established in Ottawa for federal government employees. This also became the first credit union in Canada outside of Quebec. The Civil Service Savings and Loan evolved into present-day Alterna Savings credit union, but is not part of the Desjardins group.

In 1913, for the first time the word “Desjardins” – the founder’s name – was used when Saint-Sauveur-des-Monts’ caisse populaire was established.

However, during these early days, not all of the credit unions would survive. The operations very much relied on volunteers, and the local economies could be unstable at the best of times. In any case, Alphonse and Dorimène Desjardins helped establish well over 130 caisses populaires in Quebec, around 20 in Ontario and nine in the United States. Following her husband’s death in 1920, Dorimène Desjardins continued to be consulted on key decisions regarding the development of the movement for a number of years. Though never given an official position during her lifetime, today the Desjardins group considers Dorimène an equal co-founder as much as her husband Alphonse.

Initially, each of the many caisses populaires was run independently, catering to its local community and had little collaboration with each other. In 1920, this began to change when the caisses populaires in the Trois-Rivières region formed the first “Union régionale”, initiating a strategy to create a liquidity oversight mechanism, to promote collaboration, and to defend the caisses populaires’ interests. In the next several years, three other Unions régionales were created in Quebec City, Montreal and Gaspé respectively. Over time, each of the four Unions régionales also established a new regional caisse to manage and transfer the affiliated caisses’ capital, and to clear cheque payments. This set the beginning of a more cohesive network.

The Great Depression that started in 1929 heightened the importance of regular and accountable audits of the caisses populaires. The Quebec government agreed to fund this regulatory mechanism, provided that the four Unions régionales establish a centralised and responsible organisation. This agreement led to the creation of the Fédération de Québec des unions régionales des caisses populaires Desjardins in 1932. For the first time, the many caisses populaires across Quebec came under a single umbrella organisation. However, there were still many other credit unions that were not under this Desjardins federation – see below.

In 1944, the Desjardins group branched into the property insurance business when the Société d’assurance des caisses populaires (SCAP) was created. Four years later, a life insurance division was founded: Assurance-vie Desjardins.

At the close of the 1940s, the Unions régionales agreed to contribute to a central reserve fund (“fonds de sécurité”) in case emergency capital was needed for any of the member caisses populaires, further bonding the Desjardins group together.

Throughout the 1960s, the historically religious, frugal, conservative and less affluent Quebec society underwent rapid changes. Rising consumer confidence and the rise of consumerism let to appeals for easier credit, and the caisses populaires relaxed their long-held opposition to personal loans.

Desjardins officially launched its inter-caisse computer system in 1975, allowing clients to make transactions at any caisse in the network, putting Desjardins several years ahead of the Big Five banks in Canada.

Two important events happened in 1979 to the Desjardins group: first, the Caisse centrale Desjardins (CCD) was created. As its name suggests, CCD performs certain “central bank” functions for the numerous caisses within the group, such as managing the Unions régionales’ reserves and clearing and settling payments (e.g. cheques) both between Desjardins’ member caisses and with other Canadian and foreign banks. The second momentous event was the merger of the Fédération de Québec des unions régionales des caisses populaires Desjardins and the Fédération des caisses d’économie du Québec, creating a massive network of community credit unions and workplace credit unions. The ten Unions régionales became regional federations following the combination. The combined entity adopted the name Confédération des caisses populaires et d’économie Desjardins du Québec.

The 1980s was a decade of expansion and diversification for Desjardins. In 1981, the credit unions under the Quebec Credit Union League (see separate heading below) joined the Desjardins group. And in the same year, after years of consideration, Desjardins finally began offering Visa card products. The year also saw the installation of the first ATM (bank machine). In order to broaden its deposit base and penetrate the vast credit (loan) market in Canada’s primary financial market, Caisse centrale Desjardins opened an office in Toronto in 1986. Then in 1988, for the first time Desjardins entered the securities brokerage business when it acquired a stake in discount brokerage Disnat. A securities arm called Corporation Desjardins des valeurs mobilières (CDVM) was promptly created, which in 1989 acquired a majority stake in full-service broker Deragon, Langlois. By 1991, Desjardins had taken full control of both Disnat and Deragon, Langlois, which eventually became today’s Desjardins Securities.

As many as 500,000 Canadians own vacation homes in the U.S. Sunbelt (chiefly in Florida and Arizona). Each year, these so-called “snowbirds” fly down to the U.S. to escape the long and cold Canadian winter. It was only natural for Quebec’s largest financial institution to cater to these seasonal Canadian residents in Florida.  In 1992, Desjardins launched the Desjardins Bank in Hallandale Beach (near Fort Lauderdale) in Florida, and now runs a four-office network in the state.

In 2001, Desjardins decided to simplify its bureaucratic and cumbersome three-tier structure (the caisses populaires, regional federations and the Confédération) by removing one layer of management. The ten regional federations and the Confédération were combined into a new Federation.

As of the time of publication (early 2017), the Desjardins group serves over five million members on-line, over the telephone, and through more than 800 branches and 2,000 ATMs (bank machines) in Quebec and Ontario. In addition to banking products, the group also offers auto, home, property and life insurance, asset management, and full-service and discount brokerage service.

Quebec Credit Union League

Initially, the workplace credit union mode proliferated more so in the U.S. than in Canada. But in the 1940s, the Canadian subsidiaries of American corporations caught on with the movement and Bell Canada (at the time a subsidiary of the American Bell Telephone Co.) was one of the first large private employers to have a workplace or profession-specific credit union, where savings were made through payroll deductions. Within a few years, Montreal’s firefighters, hospital workers, and police all established their own caisses d’économie, as did workers from Canadian National Railway and the Canadian Pacific Railway. In 1944, some of these predominantly English-speaking workplace credit unions banded together and created the Quebec Credit Union League to promote their cause and co-ordinate their activities. During the 1950, dozens of French-speaking credit unions also joined the Quebec Credit Union League so that its membership numbered 70 caisses by the time it joined the Confédération des caisses populaires et d’économie Desjardins du Québec in 1981.

Fédération des caisses d’économie du Québec

During the 1960s, a seismic shift in socio-economic and political ideology later termed the “Quiet Revolution” was brewing in Quebec, and one key discord was the contentious issue of the historic domination of the English language in Quebec’s business world and amongst its socio-political elites. In September 1962, 14 French-speaking caisses d’économie split from the English-language Quebec Credit Union League and formed the French-language Fédération des caisse d’économie du Québec. Within a few months, another 18 caisses d’économie had joined the federation.

In 1979, the Fédération des caisses d’économie du Québec’s 116 affiliated caisses agreed to combine with the Desjardins Group, resulting in the new Confédération des caisses populaires et d’économie Desjardins du Québec.

Recent transactions:

• In 2000, Desjardins General Insurance acquired The Personal Insurance Co. and CIBC General Insurance Co. from CIBC for CAD $330-million. The acquisition gave Desjardins 400,000 new policies.
• In 2011, Desjardins acquired Western Financial Group for CAD $443-million. Western Financial Group had 121 offices in British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba offering insurance and investment products to individual clients.
• In 2013, Desjardins took a 40% stake in on-line brokerage Qtrade Financial Group. Qtrade held CAD $7.5-billion of client assets.
• In 2015, Desjardins bought the Canadian property and casualty, and life insurance operations of State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Co. The acquisition added over 1.2 million clients to Desjardins and would nearly double Desjardins’ annual premium revenue from CAD $2-billion to $3.9-billion.
• In February 2017, Desjardins sold its Western Financial Group and Western Life Assurance operations to Wawanesa Mutual Insurance Co. for CAD $775-million.
• In November 2022, Desjardins acquired the life insurance distribution network and mutual fund and investment dealer operations of Guardian Capital Group for CAD $750-million.
• In August 2025, Desjardins took over Canadian asset manager Capital Guardian Group Ltd. for CAD $1.67-billion in cash. At the time of this announcement, Desjardins Global Asset Management managed about CAD $112-billion in assets, largely on behalf of Quebec-based clients. Capital Guardian Group had CAD $168-billion of assets under management, mostly held in the United States.

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Canada Bank Mergers & Acquisitions (Bank of Nova Scotia)

Photo: The Toronto Professional Fire Fighters Celtic Society Pipeband marches by a Scotiabank branch in Toronto during the St. Patrick's Day Parade. The name "Nova Scotia" is a Latinized form of "New Scotland."


The Bank of Nova Scotia

Halifax in the early 19th century was a busy port that handled lumber, fishery and agricultural trade. Its strategic location made it a popular stopping point for ships sailing between North America and Europe since the 18th century. In 1832, a group of Haligonian merchants established the Bank of Nova Scotia (now often known as the Scotiabank) as an alternative to the port city’s banking monopoly, a private bank called the Halifax Banking Company. In 1837, Windsor (Nova Scotia) became the bank’s first agency outside of Halifax. More agencies were opened in Pictou, Yarmouth, Annapolis and Liverpool, all within Nova Scotia, by 1839.

Economic fortunes in the 19th century, however, were highly volatile. Cycles of boom and bust were common and the bank remained a provincial bank during its first 42 years of existence. It was seven years after the Canadian Confederation that the Bank of Nova Scotia finally expanded outside of the province when the Saint John (New Brunswick) office opened for business in 1874. In 1882, an office was opened in Prince Edward Island’s Charlottetown. Just one year later, the bank acquired the Union Bank of Prince Edward Island, greatly expanding its operations in the province.

In 1882, the Bank of Nova Scotia joined the rush to head west when it opened a branch in Winnipeg. The city was booming at the time, fuelled by the construction of the trans-continental Canadian Pacific Railway and a cross-border railway linking Winnipeg and Minneapolis. Ironically, the boom ended spectacularly just as soon as Scotiabank arrived. After three years of struggles, the office was shut down. At this time, Minneapolis was the American Midwest centre of the wheat trade and flour industry. Scotiabank promptly relocated its Winnipeg operations to Minneapolis in 1885. However, the constantly shifting business eventually led to yet another move of the bank’s Midwestern operations from Minneapolis to Chicago in 1892.

Back in the East Coast, a severe economic downturn in Newfoundland felled both of its banks in 1894 – the Commercial Bank of Newfoundland and the Union Bank of Newfoundland. Newfoundlanders suddenly found themselves holding worthless banknotes and without any banking service. The Bank of Nova Scotia swung into action and promptly opened an office in St. John’s, beating the Bank of Montreal and the Merchant’s Bank of Halifax (now Royal Bank of Canada).

Despite Montreal’s long history as Canada’s primary financial centre, Scotiabank didn’t open a branch there until 1888. This was followed by the bank’s first Toronto branch in 1897. By the turn of the 20th century, the Canadian economy had become much better developed, and the bank once again ventured west towards the Prairie Provinces and the Pacific Coast. The Winnipeg branch was re-opened in 1899, and new branches were opened in Calgary, Edmonton and Vancouver in 1903, followed by Saskatoon and Regina in 1906 and 1907. Finally Scotiabank can now be called a national institution.

Internationally, merchants in Halifax have had a long history of trading Canadian salt fish, lumber and potatoes for Jamaican rum, spices, sugar and molasses. Seeing that Jamaica only had one bank at the time (the Colonial Bank, which was part of Britain’s Barclays Bank until the 1977), the Bank of Nova Scotia opened a branch in Kingston in 1889. The bank became so established in Jamaica subsequently that many Jamaican tourists visiting Canada are said to be amazed that a Jamaican bank should have so many branches in Canada, not realizing that Scotiabank is actually Canadian-based. Elsewhere in the Caribbean, Scotiabank launched operations in Cuba and Trinidad & Tobago in 1906.

Recognizing the limited opportunities in the Maritimes region compared with the rapidly industrializing Ontario economy, Scotiabank moved its headquarters from Halifax to Toronto in 1900, merely three years after its first branch opened there. In quick succession, Scotiabank then acquired the Bank of New Brunswick in 1913, the Toronto-based Metropolitan Bank in 1914 and the Bank of Ottawa in 1919. The banking industry in Canada was rapidly consolidating as smaller institutions found it increasingly difficult to obtain low-cost capital, while larger institutions were eager to acquire instant new clients and branch networks.

Peace was disrupted in 1914 when World War I broke out in Europe and elsewhere. Over 600 Scotiabank employees enlisted to fight overseas. Their void was filled by the first significant hiring of women employees.

Peace and boom times returned for the bank and Canada at end of the Great War but the Roaring Twenties came to an abrupt end when the stock market in New York crashed in 1929, triggering the decade-long Great Depression. Canada did not escape the economic train wreck and its unemployment soared as spending and industrial output tumbled. Due to the difficult economic conditions, the bank shut down a number of branches during the 1930s.

When World War II broke out in 1939, Canada, being part of the British Empire, immediately sent its soldiers across the Atlantic to join the front line. Over 900 Scotiabank employees fought overseas and suffered a heavy toll. By the time peace finally returned in 1945, much of Europe and the Orient had been devastated and millions of people had been killed, injured or displaced.

The post-war 1950s was a boom time for Canada and the U.S. as demand for Canadian and American natural resources, food staples and manufactured products from the war-torn Europe soared. An influx of new immigrants mainly from Europe also stroked demand for domestic consumption, housing and all sorts of infrastructure construction. In addition, major oil and natural gas fields were discovered in Alberta, turning Canada into a major energy exporter. In 1954, the passing of the National Housing Act and a change in the Bank Act permitted banks to offer residential mortgage loans for the first time, and Scotiabank promptly established its mortgage department. In 1957, the bank became the first in Canada to install Post-Tronics machines built by NCR to automate the posting of customers’ accounts.

Scotiabank launched a unique gold certificate product in 1958. The gold certificate is a negotiable receipt representing gold bullion held for safekeeping in the bank’s vaults. The new product made gold trading much easier and less expensive as investors no longer needed to worry about the delivery and storage of physical gold.

In 1961, Cuba’s Castro government nationalized the banking sector and Scotiabank lost its operations there. Elsewhere in the region, new branches were opened in Jamaica, Trinidad & Tobago and Barbados. Between 1975 and 1977, Scotiabank acquired 94% of Banco Mercantil de Puerto Rico. It’s obvious that by this time the bank had already had a pattern of focusing its international expansion in the Caribbean and Latin America.

Back in Canada, the rise of the auto culture and the massive suburbanization across Canada saw Scotiabank following its clients’ migration to the suburbs in the 1960s and 1970s. The “Big Bang” financial industry de-regulation in 1986 removed the ban on commercial banks from undertaking trust business and securities trading. Scotiabank in 1988 acquired securities dealer McLeod, Young & Weir Co., which was renamed ScotiaMcLeod Inc.

Recent transaction(s):

• In 1990, Scotiabank bought 24% of Chile’s Banco Sud Americano. In 1993, Scotiabank further raised its stake in Banco Sud Americano to 30%. The total investment for both purchases was USD $22-million.
• In 1992, Scotiabank bought an 8.5% stake in Mexico’s Grupo Financiero Inverlat for CAD $155 million. The move was in anticipation of the signing of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) between Canada, the U.S. and Mexico in 1994. The foray into Mexico coincided with the bank’s long-term expansion in the Hispanic market.
• In 1994, Scotiabank bought Montreal Trustco (Montreal Trust) for CAD $290-million.
• In 1995, Scotiabank lost its stake in Grupo Financiero Inverlat as the Mexican bank was nationalized following the Mexican Peso Crisis of 1994.
• Also in 1995, Scotiabank bought 25% of Argentina’s Banco Quilmes for USD $57-million.
• Also in 1995, Scotiabank bought 80% of Corporacion Mercaban of Costa Rica, the holding company of Banco Mercantil de Costa Rica. By 2000, Scotiabank had privatized the entire bank now with over 40 branches.
• In 1996, Scotiabank re-purchased 10% of Grupo Financiero Inverlat for USD $31-million from Mexico’s state bank rescue agency Fobaproa, becoming the first foreign bank to re-enter the Mexican market after the 1994 economic crisis. Scotiabank also bought USD $144-million of debentures convertible into 45% of the Mexican bank in 2000.
• Also in 1996, Scotiabank bought 52.85% of El Salvador’s Banco Ahorromet.
• In 1997, Scotiabank bought the 75% of Argentina’s Banco Quilmes that it didn’t already own for USD $260-million.
• Also in 1997, Scotiabank bought 25% of Peru’s Banco Sudamericano for USD $14 million.
• Also in 1997, Scotiabank bought Canada’s National Trustco (National Trust) for CAD $1.25-billion. National Trust’s 175 branches gave Scotiabank a boost in Ontario, which was historically a weak spot for Scotiabank.
• Also in 1997, Scotiabank bought London bullion dealer Mocatta from Britain's Standard Chartered Bank for USD 26-million to form ScotiaMocatta. Mocatta is one of the world's biggest bullion dealers, and can trace its history to 1671.
• In 1999, Scotiabank increased its stake in Chile’s Banco Sud Americano to 60.6% for USD $116-million.
• In 2000, Scotiabank acquired the 39.4% of Chile’s Banco Sud Americano that it didn’t already own for USD $114-million.
• Also in 2000, Scotiabank increased its stake in El Salvador's Banco Ahorromet to 98%.
• In 2002, Scotiabank bought discount broker Charles Schwab Canada Co.
• Also in 2002, during the Argentine economic crisis, Scotiabank opted to give up its Argentine operations Scotiabank Quilmes rather than to inject more capital into it. The 91-branch Scotiabank Quilmes was transferred to local banks Banco Comafi and Banco Bansud. Scotiabank took a CAD $540-million charge for the loss of Scotiabank Quilmes.
• In 2003, Scotiabank bought 40 branches and clients from Dominican Republic’s insolvent Banco Intercontinental.
• Also in 2003, Scotiabank acquired another 36% of Grupo Financiero Inverlat for USD $323-million from Fobaproa, raising its ownership of the Mexican bank to 91%.
• In 2004, Scotiabank bought a 2.5% stake in China’s Xi’An City Bank.
• In 2005, Scotiabank bought El Salvador's Banco de Comercio (BanCo) for CAD $212-million (USD $178-million). BanCo had 67 branches and a 17% market share.
• In 2006, Scotiabank bought Canada's Maple Trust for CAD $223-million.
• Also in 2006, in a complex transaction, Scotiabank acquired Peru's Banco Wiese Sudameris from owner Banca Intesa (now Intesa Sanpaolo). Banco Wiese Sudameris was integrated into Scotiabank’s 35%-owned Banco Sudamericano (Peru). The total cost of the complex transactions was CAD $385-million. Scotiabank would own 77.8% of the combined bank, named Scotiabank Peru S.A.A. and Intesa Sanpaolo would hold the remaining stake.
• Also in 2006, Scotiabank bought Citibank's retail banking operations in Dominican Republic.
• Also in 2006, Scotiabank bought Costa Rica's Corporacion Interfin for CAD $325-million.
• In 2007, Scotiabank acquired a 10% stake in Puerto Rico's First BanCorp for USD $94-million.
• Also in 2007, Scotiabank acquired a 24.99% stake in Thailand's Thanachart Bank for BHT 7.1-billion (CAD $240-million, USD $203-million). Thanachart operated 142 branches in Thailand and was the country's leading auto lender.
• Also in 2007, Scotiabank agreed to buy Chile's Banco del Desarrollo for USD $1.03-billion (CAD $1.09-billion). Banco del Desarrollo had 74 branches. Bank of Nova Scotia's local subsidiary Scotiabank Sud Americano already operated 57 branches. Combining the two Chilean banks would make Scotiabank the No. 6 bank in Chile.
• Also in 2007, Scotiabank agreed to buy 18% of DundeeWealth Inc. for CAD $348-million. DundeeWealth was 55% owned by Dundee Corp. Scotiabank also agreed to buy Dundee Bank of Canada for CAD $260-million. However, one week after the agreement, mutual fund giant CI Financial launched a hostile bid for 100% of DundeeWealth for CAD $2.36-billion. CI's per-share offer for DundeeWealth was 58% higher than Scotiabank's. However, DundeeWealth’s majority owner Dundee Corp. subsequently proceeded with the sale with Scotiabank.
• Also in 2007, Scotiabank bought a 10% stake in Puerto Rico’s First Bancorp, the largest financial holding company in the territory.
• In 2008, Scotiabank bought Grupo Atlas Cumbres (of Chile)'s banking operations in Guatemala and the Dominican Republic. Under the agreement, Scotiabank would buy GAC's Banco de Antigua in Guatemala as well as selected assets of Banco de Ahorro y Credito Atlas Cumbres in the Dominican Republic. Banco de Antigua had 47 branches and 98 "Rapidito" service kiosks in Guatemala, whereas Banco de Ahorro Credito Atlas Cumbres had 6 branches in the Dominican Republic.
• Also in 2008, Scotiabank bought an additional 20% stake in Scotiabank Peru from Italy's Intesa Sanpaolo. Terms of the deal were not announced but Canada's Globe and Mail newspaper said the deal was worth about CAD $200-million (USD $199-million, Eur 129-million). With the latest purchase, Scotiabank now owned 98% of Scotiabank Peru, the country's No. 3 bank.
• Also in 2008, Scotiabank bought Peru's Banco del Trabajo from Grupo Atlas Cumbres. Banco del Trabajo is Peru's 9th largest commercial bank with 132 points of sale and a 1% market share.
• Also in 2008, Scotiabank bought E*Trade Canada for CAD $444-million (USD $442-million). E*Trade Canada had about 125,000 active accounts and about CAD $4.67-billion (USD $4.7-billion) of client assets.
• Also in 2008, Scotiabank bought Sun Life Financial’s 37% stake in mutual fund manager CI Financial for CAD $2.3-billion (USD $2.09-billion). Scotiabank would pay Sun Life CAD $1.55-billion in cash, CAD $500-million in Scotiabank stock and CAD $250-million in preferred stock for the purchase.
• In 2009, Scotiabank reached a deal with the Bank of England to lease space in the British central bank’s vault in Central London to store precious metals.
• Also in 2009, Scotiabank bought an additional 24% of Thailand’s Thanachart Bank for CAD $270-million (USD $216-million), raising its stake in Thailand’s No. 8 bank to 49%.
• In 2010, Scotiabank raised its holding in Xi’An City Commercial Bank to 18.1% from 2.5%. Following this latest purchase Scotiabank’s investment in the Chinese bank totalled CAD $162-million. Xi’An City Commercial was created in 1997 by consolidating 42 urban credit co-operatives in Xi’An. As at 2009, it had 113 branches and served 1.2-million clients.
• Also in 2010, Thanachart Bank, 49% owned by Scotiabank, acquired a 47.6% stake in Siam City Bank for BHT 32.7-billion (CAD $1.03-billion, USD $1-billion) from the Thai government. Thanachart Bank would tender for the rest of Siam City and hope to merge the two banks. The deal valued the entire Siam City Bank at BHT 68-billion (USD $2.1-billion). Siam City had 400 branches currently. If successful, the combined bank would have 660 branches and became the No. 5 bank in the country.
• In April 2010, Scotiabank acquired bankrupt Puerto Rican bank R-G Premier Bank from the Federal deposit Insurance Corp. Scotiabank gained 29 branches to its existing 17-branch network in the U.S. territory.
• In July 2010, Scotiabank bought the Royal Bank of Scotland’s wholesale banking operations in Colombia.
• In late 2010, Scotiabank made three minor acquisitions in Latin America. It acquired Dresdner Bank Brasil from Commerzbank AG, the Royal Bank of Scotland’s Chilean wholesale banking operations, and BNP Paribas’ wealth management business in Panama, the Cayman Islands and the Bahamas.
• In November 2010, Scotiabank acquired the 82% of DundeeWealth that it didn’t own for CAD $2.3-billion (USD $2.25-billion) in cash and stock. DundeeWealth oversaw CAD $78.5-billion in assets. Following the purchase, Scotiabank would become the No. 5 mutual fund manager in Canada.
• In December 2010, Scotiabank acquired Uruguay’s No. 4 private-sector bank, Nuevo Banco Comercial as well as Ponto!, the country’s No. 3 consumer finance firm. Nuevo Banco Comercial had 49 branches in all 19 provinces, 710 employees and 85 ATM in Uruguay, plus three branches in Brazil. Ponto! had 37 branches, 610 retail points of sale and provided personal loans to 200,000 clients.
• In September 2011, Scotiabank acquired a 19.99% stake in China’s Bank of Guangzhou (BGZ) for CAD $719-million (CNY 4.65-billion, USD $723-million). BGZ had 84 branches in the city of Guangzhou, a city of 11-million people. BGZ was a major lender to the city’s real estate developers.
• In October 2011, Scotiabank bought 51% of Colombia’s Banco Colpatria Red Multibanca Colpatria SA for CAD $1-billion (USD $1-billion). Banco Colpatria was Colombia’s No. 5 bank and operated 175 branches. It was, however, the country’s No. 2 credit-card issuer.
• In August 2012, Scotiabank agreed to acquire ING Bank of Canada from ING Groep of the Netherlands for CAD $3.13-billion in cash (EUR 2.52-billion, USD $3.09-billion). Scotiabank would run the on-line bank as a separate entity. In buying ING Direct Canada, Scotiabank gained CAD $40-billion in assets, $30-billion in deposits, 1.8 million clients and 1,100 employees.  To fund the purchase, Scotiabank raised CAD $1.51-billion from a bought-deal issuance of 29 million new shares at $52 each.
• In April 2013, Scotiabank bought 50% of BBVA's Peruvian pension fund management business AFP Horizonte for CAD $260-million (USD $255-million).  Scotiabank and SURA Asset Managment, which acquired the other 50% of AFP Horizonte, would split up the business between themselves, and Scotiabank's portion would be integrated into its existing Peruvian asset manager Profuturo AFP. The entire AFP Horizonte had USD $9-billion of assets under management, 1.4-million clients and 17 offices.
• In July 2013, Scotiabank announced that its agreement to buy 19.99% of China's Bank of Guangzhou has been terminated. For unannounced  reason, the Chinese authorities refused to approve the deal.
• In May 2014, Scotiabank took a 20% stake in home furnishing and auto parts retail giant Canadian Tire Corp.'s financial services unit for CAD $500-million (USD $460-million) cash.  Canadian Tire Financial Services is the eighth largest credit card issuer in Canada.  The company has the option to sell another 29% of the unit to Scotiabank by 2024.
• In June 2014, Scotiabank bought 51% of Cencosud Administradora de Tarjetas S.A. from Chilean retailer Cencosud S.A. for CAD $300-million (USD $280-million).   The trasaction included 51% of the retailer's credit-card units, plus 100% of the loan portfolio.  Cencosud has the right to buy back the stake sold in 2029.
• Also in May 2014, Scotiabank sold a 25.6% stake in mutual fund manager CI Financial for CAD $2.3-billion (USD $2.12-billion) in a bought deal.  Following the sale, the bank's stake in CI Financial would fall to 11.4%.
• In July 2015, Scotiabank bought Citigroup's retail and commercial banking units in Panama and Costa Rica, increasing its client base in both countries from 137,000 to 387,000. Terms of the deal were not announced.
• In October 2015, Scotiabank acquired JPMorgan Chase's Canadian MasterCard and private-label credit card portfolio, which had over 2-million active accounts and CAD $1.7-billion (USD $1.315-billion) of receivables. Terms of the deal were not disclosed, but the price tags for such transactions are typically close to the amount of the receivables. The deal included department store chain Sears Canada-branded credit cards.
• In May 2017, Scotiabank agreed to sell its Malaysian subsidiary Bank of Nova Scotia Berhad to Taiwan's Cathay Financial Holding Co. Ltd. for CAD $330-million. However, the transaction failed to close and was called off in early 2018.
• In November 2017, Scotiabank made a binding offer to acquire 68.19% of BBVA Chile from Spain's Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria for USD $2.2-billion (CAD $2.9-billion, EUR 1.89-billion, CLP 1.44-trillion). The offer is however subject to the approval by Chile's Said family, which owns 31.62% of BBVA Chile. BBVA Chile had USD $22-billion of assets, 127 branches and 4,000 employees. Scotiabank Chile had USD $20-billion of assets, 89 branches and 3,700 employees. If successful, the combined bank would rank No. 4 in Chile with a 14% market share.
• In January 2018, Scotiabank's 51%-owned Banco Colpatria Multibanca Colpatria agreed to buy Citibank's consumer (retail banking and credit cards) and small and medium enterprise operations in Colombia for an undisclosed amount. The purchase included 47 branches and 424 self-served access points across Colombia. It also added 500,000 new clients to Banco Colpatria's existing 1.5-million clients.
• In February 2018, Scotiabank agreed to buy asset manager Jarislowsky Fraser Ltd. for CAD $950-million (USD $755-million). Jarislowsky Fraser had CAD $40-billion of assets under management, of which about $27-billion belonged to pension funds and other institutional investors. Scotiabank traditionally had been the weaker player of Canada's Big Five banks in terms of investment banking and wealth management. Following the purchase, Scotiabank would have CAD $166-billion under management. Jarislowsky Fraser itself had a reputation as a vocal critic of poor corporate governance of the firms that it held shares of.
• In May 2018, Scotiabank agreed to buy 51% of Peru's Banco Cencosud for CAD $130-million (USD $101-million) from supermarket and department store chain Cencosud Peru. Banco Cencosud offered credit card and personal loan services to 315,000 clients and had USD $186-million of receivables. Following the purchase, Scotiabank Peru will become the 2nd largest credit card issuer in the country.
• Also in May 2018, Scotiabank agreed to acquire privately-held MD Financial Management from the Canadian Medical Association (CMA) for CAD $2.59-billion (USD $1.99-billion) in cash. MD Financial managed over CAD $49-billion of assets on behalf of physicians (medical doctors) and their families across Canada. As part of the agreement, CMA will actively and exclusively promote Scotiabank as the preferred bank for physicians in Canada for ten years.
• In November 2018, Scotiabank agreed to sell its insurance operations in Jamaica and Trinidad & Tobago to Barbados-based Sagicor Financial Corp. Ltd. for USD $203-million (CAD $270-million). At the same time, Scotiabank also agreed to sell its banking operations in Anguilla, Antigua, Dominica, Grenada, Guyana, St. Kitts & Nevis, St. Lucia, St. Maarten, St. Vincent & the Grenadines to Trinidad & Tobago-based Republic Financial Holdings Ltd. for USD $123-million (CAD $163-million). (See update in November 2019.)
• In June 2019, Scotiabank agreed to sell its Puerto Rico operations for USD $550-million (CAD $720-million) in cash and its U.S. Virgin Islands operations for a USD $10-million (CAD $13-million) "deposit premium" to Puerto Rico-based OFG Bancorp., which is the parent company of Oriental Bank. The sale of both operations included USD $2.5-billion in net loans, USD $3.2-billion in deposits, 21 branches, 225 ATMs and about 1,000 employees. Scotiabank expected to book a loss of between CAD $300-million and $360-million upon the sale. Meanwhile, Oriental Bank would become the second largest bank in Puerto Rico.
• In August 2019, Scotiabank's 49%-owned Thanachart Bank (commonly known as TBank) and local Thai rival TMB Bank agreed to merge. Scotiabank would receive cash and a 6% stake in the newly-merged TMB-Thanachart Bank. Terms and values of the sale was not announced but earlier news reports suggested that the merger was valued at THB 140-billion (USD $4.47-billion). Scotiabank, which had been planning to exit the non-core market of Thailand for some time, would record an after-tax gain of CAD $300-million.
• In November 2019, following regulatory and political resistance from Antigua and Guyana, Scotiabank and Trinidad & Tobago's Republic Financial Holdings agreed to terminate the sale of Scotiabank's operations in those two countries. However, the sale of Scotiabank's operations in Anguilla, Dominica, Grenada, St. Kitts & Nevis, St. Lucia, St. Maarten and St. Vincent & the Grenadines was completed. During the same month, Scotiabank also agreed to sell its British Virgin Islands operations to Republic Financial Holdings.
• In June 2020, Scotiabank agreed to sell its Scotiabank (Belize) Ltd. to Caribbean Investment Holdings Ltd.(CIHL) for USD $30.5-million (CAD $41.2-million). CIHL owns and controls The Belize Bank Ltd. Scotiabank (Belize) has nine branches and 21 ATMs plus an on-line banking operation. The sale price can rise to USD $35-million if certain positive regulatory changes happen before closing.
• In October 2020, Scotiabank agreed to sell its Antigua and Barbuda operations to Eastern Caribbean Amalgamated Bank Limited. The sale encompasses encompass two branches and less than 75 employees. Terms of the sale were not disclosed.
• In May 2021, Scotiabank acquired a 7% stake in Scotiabank Chile from the Said family for CAD $500-million (USD $407-million). Following the transaction, Scotiabank's stake in its Chilean operations would rise to 83%.
• In August 2024, Scotiabank agreed to take a 14.9% minority stake in KeyCorp for USD $2.8-billion. Under the agreement, KeyCorp will issue approximately 163-million of common shares at USD $17.17 per share to Scotiabank in two tranches, representing a pro forma ownership of 14.9%. The second tranche is expected to close by the first quarter of 2025. Cleveland, Ohio-based KeyCorp offers personal, commercial and investment banking services in 15 U.S. states under the name KeyBank National Association through a network of approximately 1,000 branches and approximately 1,200 ATMs.
• In January 2025, Scotiabank announced a major overhaul of its South American operations by transferring its banking operations in Colombia, Costa Rica and Panama to Colombia's financial group Banco Davivienda S.A. in exchange for an approximate 20% ownership stake in the enlarged Davivienda. Scotiabank would book an after-tax impairment loss of approximately CAD$1.4 billion (USD $980-million). Another CAD $300-million (USD $208-million) of foreign currency translation losses are expected upon closing.

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Canada Bank Mergers & Acquisitions (Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce)

Photo: CIBC's Toronto head office the Commerce Court.

The Canadian Bank of Commerce

The Canadian Bank of Commerce opened for business in Toronto in 1867 just weeks before the Dominion of Canada gained independence from Britain. One of the bank’s principal founders was prominent Toronto businessman The Honourable William McMaster. Displeased about Montreal’s grip on Upper Canada’s (Ontario) commerce, William McMaster hoped the new bank would make credit and banking services more accessible to the local Toronto business community. The Canadian Bank of Commerce opened its first branch outside of Ontario in 1870 in Montreal. Two years later, the bank opened a branch in New York City to better serve its customers dealing with the U.S. Between 1874 and 1895, the bank’s rapidly-expanding network grew from 24 branches to 58 branches.

The discovery of gold in west-central Yukon in 1896 led to a major gold rush to that remote part of Canada, which became known as the famous Klondike Gold Rush. The barren base camp quickly turned into the bustling Dawson City of 40,000 gold prospectors and other migrant workers in 1898. The Dominion government encouraged the Canadian Bank of Commerce to set up a branch in Dawson City. Due to its remoteness, the expedition from Toronto took two months to arrive. Ironically, the Klondike Gold Rush ended as quickly as it started, and by 1899, the population had plummeted to 8,000.

In 1901, the Bank of Commerce (as it’s commonly known) took over the Bank of British Columbia and instantly acquired a network in British Columbia, Oregon, Washington and California. Bank of British Columbia’s London headquarters then became the Canadian Bank of Commerce’s British branch. In 1903, the Canadian Bank of Commerce expanded eastward and bought the Halifax Banking Company, gaining a network of branches in Nova Scotia. Further Maritimes expansion came in 1906 when the bank acquired the Merchants Bank of Prince Edward Island.

A major expansion for the bank happened in 1912 when it took over the Eastern Townships Bank and its 100-branch network in southeastern Quebec and Western Canada. By this time, the Bank of Commerce’s branches numbered over 370. Peace was disrupted in 1914 when World War I broke out in Europe. Even though no battle was fought in North America, over 1,700 (male) Canadian Bank of Commerce employees enlisted to support the British army. The void left by the departure of many employees was filled by the hiring of over 1,400 women employees, the first time that women made up any significant number of the bank’s payroll.

Peace and boom times returned in the 1920s around many parts of the world. Seeing the rapid expansion in trade with the Caribbean, the Canadian Bank of Commerce launched operations in Cuba, Jamaica, Barbados and Trinidad. Domestically, the formation of Stelco and Dofasco in the 1910s rapidly transformed Hamilton into Canada’s “steel town.” The Bank of Commerce in 1924 took over the Bank of Hamilton and its 100 branches in southwestern Ontario and Western Canada. Then in 1928, the bank acquired Toronto-based Standard Bank of Canada, gaining another 243 branches (of which 176 were in Ontario). By 1929, the Bank of Commerce had over 700 branches across the country.

The Roaring Twenties came to an abrupt end when the stock market in New York crashed in 1929, triggering the decade-long Great Depression. Canada did not escape the economic train wreck and its unemployment soared as spending and industrial output tumbled. Interestingly, it was at this time that the Canadian Bank of Commerce decided to build a new head office building in downtown Toronto. When the 34-storey Art Deco marvel opened in 1931, it became the tallest building in the British Empire for the next 31 years.

Due to the poor economic conditions, the bank shut down many branches during the 1930s and the bank’s assets did not return to its pre-Depression level until 1940. Ironically, the soaring unemployment created demand for a new product: the personal loan. In 1936, the bank became the first Canadian bank to offer personal loans to individuals.

When World War II broke out in 1939, Canada, being part of the British Empire, immediately sent its soldiers across the Atlantic to join the front line. A significant number of the Canadian Bank of Commerce’s employees fought overseas and suffered a heavy toll. By the time peace finally returned in 1945, much of Europe and the Orient had been devastated and millions of people had been killed, injured or displaced. North America, despite also suffering heavy casualties in the war efforts, was never occupied or physically damaged. While Europe and Asia struggled to rebuild its economy in the 1950s, Canada and the U.S. enjoyed boom times exporting their natural resources, food staples and manufactured products. Soon after high-quality light sweet crude was discovered in Alberta, the Canadian Bank of Commerce became the first bank in the country to open a specialized petroleum and natural gas department in 1950 to finance the burgeoning oil and gas industry.

The 1950s were also a time when a huge influx of new immigrants from war-torn Europe arrived in Canada. This, combined with the start of “cheap oil” and “auto culture” created massive demand for new houses in the suburbs. In 1954, banking regulation was finally relaxed to allow the chartered banks to offer residential mortgage loans. Previously, life insurers provided a vast majority of mortgages. Between 1954 and 1960, the amount of mortgage loans at the Canadian Bank of Commerce rose by almost 10 folds. In 1955, the bank opened its first “drive-thru” branch in suburban Toronto in response to the popularization of private automobiles.


The Imperial Bank of Canada

The Imperial Bank of Canada was established in March 1875 in Toronto, interestingly, by a former Canadian Bank of Commerce vice-president. Less than four months later, the Imperial Bank made it first acquisition: the Niagara District Bank in the Niagara Falls area of Ontario.

The country in the late 19th century was expanding westward itself, as the colonies west of Ontario gradually joined Canada. In 1880, the Imperial Bank opened a branch in Winnipeg, Manitoba, which had just joined the Canadian confederation. The Calgary branch opened in 1886 and the Edmonton branch in 1891, both in the province of Alberta. Despite this, the Imperial took a conservative approach to expansion, and by 1895, had a network of 18 branches. At the turn of the 20th century, the Imperial Bank gained the nickname of “Canada’s mining bank,” because of its willingness to financing the mining, timber, and paper and pulp industries.

During World War I, over 500 Imperial Bank of Canada employees left their posts to join the army. Between the Bank of Commerce and the Imperial Bank, over 2,200 employees fought overseas and sadly, over 300 of them paid the ultimate sacrifice “for King and Empire.”

After World War I, the bank rapidly opened about 50 new branches during the Roaring Twenties boom. When the Great Depression began in 1929, business tumbled across all sectors and industries. A rural Saskatchewan bank called the Weyburn Security Bank (founded 1910, with about 30 branches in Saskatchewan) decided to sell out to the Imperial Bank in 1931. During the rest of the 1930s, the Imperial’s business volume, network and number of employees contracted like many banks in the West.

Scores of Imperial Bank’s employees once again joined the Canadian army when World War II broke out in 1939. The six-year war took a devastating toll around the world, including many Canadian soldiers, but ironically lifted much of the Western world out of the economic slump.

Canada enjoyed a period of sustained growth in the 1950s and 1960s. In 1956, the Imperial acquired Barclays Bank (Canada) from its British parent.


Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce
Following two decades of wartime and post-war boom, many Canadian businesses have “outgrown” the banks serving them. As the sizes of commercial loans continue to grow, banks found their capital base too small to adequately fund their lending. In 1961, the chairmen of the Imperial Bank of Canada and the Canadian Bank of Commerce met in secret and reached an agreement to combine the two banks. The resulting Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce, or CIBC for short, now had 1,200 branches across Canada, the most of any bank in the country.

A very interesting part of CIBC’s history was its floating branch and airplane branch. Before the days of telephone and internet banking, the bank operated a floating branch between 1964 and 1992 along the north shore of the St. Lawrence River in Quebec to serve the remote coastal towns and villages. In 1970, the bank’s commitment to serve Canada’s isolated Nordic communities led to the creation of a “flying” branch in co-operation with NWT Air in a Douglas DC-3 plane. The plane would leave Yellowknife once a month and make five stops, covering over 2,500 kilometers. Customers wanting banking service would go to the airport on the designated day to transact. The flying branch remained in operation until 1979.

The computer age arrived in 1967 when one of CIBC’s Toronto branches became the first in the country to install a computer to electronically update customer bankbooks. Two years later, the bank introduced Canada’s first cash-dispenser machine, a predecessor of the automated teller machine.

CIBC introduced the Chargex product in 1968, providing qualifying individuals instant access to personal credit. The Chargex product became known as its current name of Visa card in 1977. With a wide array of Visa and MasterCard products, CIBC has been the leading credit card issuer in Canada for many years, though competition has been heating up in recent years.

During the mid-1990s, CIBC underwrote its own property and casualty, and life and travel medical insurance products, hoping to cross-sell auto, home and life insurance policies to its millions of bank clients. As many other banks have experienced, the strategy proved easier said than done, and CIBC exited the insurance market between 1999 and 2000.

When Canada’s “Big Bang” financial services industry deregulation went into effect in 1987, CIBC promptly established a securities underwriter named CIBC Securities Inc. Just one year later, the bank acquired a majority stake in leading investment firm Wood Gundy Inc., forming CIBC Wood Gundy. Trying to gain more access to the world’s largest capital market, CIBC took over U.S. stockbroker Oppenheimer & Co., Inc. for USD $525-million in 1997. CIBC Woody Gundy and CIBC Oppenheimer then joined forced to become CIBC World Markets.

During the mid-1990s, CIBC began underwriting its own property and casualty insurance, and life and travel medical insurance products, hoping to cross-sell auto, home and life insurance policies to its millions of bank clients. As many other banks have experienced, the strategy proved easier said than done, and CIBC exited the insurance market in 1999 and 2000.

Canada’s “Big Five” banking oligopoly appeared destined to become even more monopolistic in 1998 when the Royal Bank of Canada and the Bank of Montreal shocked the country with a proposal to merge. Months later, CIBC and the Toronto-Dominion Bank announced their own merger. Had these two deals been allowed to proceed, Canada would have been left with just two mega-banks, plus the Bank of Nova Scotia as a distant third. Both deals were quickly rejected by the government citing anti-competitive reasons.

The year 1998 also marked CIBC’s launch of a new banking concept in Canada: the partnering with leading supermarket chain Loblaws Companies Ltd. to create the President’s Choice Financial (PC Financial). PC Financial has no branches but allows customers to access their cash or do banking through hundreds of ATM machines in Loblaws supermarkets, on-line or via the telephone. Without the overhead costs of maintaining branches and branch staff, PC Financial toots its no-fee and high-savings-interest rate features. The PC Financial division gave CIBC a powerful tool to compete with ING Direct Canada (now Tangerine), which was formed just one year earlier.

CIBC then exported the idea to the U.S. in 1999, creating the Marketplace Bank with American supermarket chain Winn-Dixie, and Safeway Select Bank with Safeway. Unlike PC Financial, which proved hugely popular and profitable for CIBC, the U.S. banking market was just too different from Canada’s and too competitive for CIBC to make a profit. After more than two years of heavy losses, the U.S. division, called Amicus, was shut down in 2002.

Unfortunately, CIBC gained a dubious reputation in the 2000s as the Canadian “bank most likely to walk into sharp objects.” It wrote off CAD $1.5-billion of bad loans made to the high-tech sector during the Tech Stock Bubble in the late 1990s, then paid a USD $2.4-billion legal settlement in 2005 over its involvement with the Enron Corp. scandal. Between 2008 and 2009, CIBC wrote down its U.S. subprime mortgage securities by CAD $3-billion. This series of costly missteps knocked CIBC down to the rock bottom of the Canadian Big Five. However, CIBC continued to be sheltered by the protected and highly profitable domestic retail banking market, and the bank comparatively has fared far better than its many foreign counterparts from the global economic crisis that began in 2007.

Recent transaction(s):

• In 2000, CIBC exited the property and casualty insurance business by selling the CIBC General Insurance Co. and Personal Insurance Co. of Canada to Desjardins Laurentian Financial Corp. for CAD $224-million.
• In 2001, CIBC bought Merrill Lynch's Canadian retail brokerage operations for CAD $546-million. Merrill Lynch Canada had acquired a major Canadian stockbroker called Midland Walwyn for CAD $1.26-billion in 1998.
• In 2002, amidst the global tech stock collapse, CIBC sold CIBC Oppenheimer's U.S. retail operations for CAD $401-million.
• Also in 2002, CIBC combined its Caribbean operations with those of Barclays plc to create the FirstCaribbean International Bank. CIBC ended up with a 43.7% stake of FirstCaribbean International.
• In 2005 CIBC paid a USD $2.4-billion (CAD $2.92-billion) settlement over its involvement in Enron Corp.’s accounting fraud scandal.
• Between late 2006 and early 2007, CIBC bought another 47.8% of FirstCaribbean International Bank for CAD $1.40-billion (USD $1.20-billion) from Britain's Barclays plc. Following the acquisition, CIBC’s stake in FirstCaribbean International Bank rose to 91.5%.
• In early 2008, CIBC raised CAD $2.9-billion in new capital from a common stock sale amidst CAD $3.0-billion of losses from the U.S. real estate collapse.
• In August 2009, CIBC was the subject of rumours that it was in talks to buy a minority stake in Ireland's ailing Allied Irish Banks plc. However, the speculation proved to be false and it's another Canadian financial institution, Fairfax Financial, that ended up taking a 9% stake in the re-capitalization of another Irish bank, the Governor and Company of the Bank of Ireland plc in July 2011.
• In March 2010, CIBC injected USD $150-million (CAD $155-million) into Bank of N.T. Butterfield & Son Ltd., Bermuda’s largest bank. CIBC gained a 22.5% stake of the bank, whose balance sheet had been significantly weakened by the American real estate bust and global credit crisis. CIBC’s investment was part of a USD $550-million re-capitalization program led by private equity firm Carlyle Group to strengthen the Bank of Butterfield.
• In June 2010, CIBC bought the Canadian MasterCard business from Citigroup for an undisclosed amount. Citigroup’s Canadian MasterCard unit had receivables of about CAD $2.1-billion. CIBC would become a dual VISA-MasterCard issuer following the purchase.
• In July 2011, CIBC bought a 41% equity interest (10.1% voting rights) in American Century Investments from JPMorgan Chase & Co. for USD $848-million (CAD $810-million). Kansas City-based American Century had USD $112-billion under management.
• In April 2013, CIBC bought Atlantic Trust Private Wealth Management from Invesco Ltd. for USD $210-million (CAD $206-million).  Atlantic Trust managed USD $20-billion of assets for high net worth clients through 12 locations, including Atlanta, Boston, Chicago and New York City.
• In December 2015, CIBC sold its 41% equity stake in American Century Investments (ACI) to Japan's Nomura Holdings Inc. for USD $1.0-billion (CAD $1.4-billion). CIBC had intended to take full control of ACI, but decided to divest the stake when ACI's other shareholders made it clear that they were not willing to give up their holdings.
• In June 2016, CIBC agreed to acquire Chicago-based PrivateBancorp, Inc. for USD $3.8-billion (USD $4.9-billion). PrivateBank has 34 offices, 1,200 employees and USD $17.7-billion in assets. The bank offers private banking, wealth management as well as mid-market commercial banking services. In addition to Chicago and Illinois, the bank also operates in Colorado, Connecticut, Georgia, Indiana, Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.
• In March 2017, CIBC agreed to raised its offer for PrivateBancorp to USD $4.9-billion (CAD $6.6-billion).  Following the election of Donald Trump as the U.S. President in late 2016, American bank stocks had soared due to the expectation of higher interest rates. Rising interest rates generally benefits banks. The shares of PrivateBancorp rose so much above CIBC's original offer that the offer faced certain rejection by PrivateBancorp's shareholders without a significant increase.
• In November 2019, CIBC agreed to sell 66.73% of the 91.63% stake it owned in CIBC FirstCaribbean International Bank to Colombia's GNB Financial Group for USD $797-million (CAD $1.05-billion) in cash and secured financing provided by CIBC itself. GNB is owned by Starmites Corp. Sarl, the financial holding company of the Gilinski Group. Following the sale, CIBC would retain a 24.9% stake in FirstCaribbean, which operated 60 branches in the following 16 jurisdictions: Antigua, Aruba, the Bahamas, Barbados, British Virgin Islands, Cayman Islands, Curacao, Dominica, Grenada, Jamaica, St. Kitts & Nevis, St. Lucia, St. Maarten, St. Vincent, Trinidad & Tobago, and Turks & Caicos Islands. See update below.
• In February, 2021, after failing to win approval from local regulators, CIBC's planned sale of its 66.73% of CIBC FirstCaribbean to GNB Financial Group Limited was cancelled.

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