Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce

Imperial Bank of Canada

The Imperial Bank of Canada was founded in Toronto in 1873 by Henry Stark Howland. The bank set up its offices in the Exchange Building on Wellington Street, where it remained until 1936. That year, it moved to a new building at the corner of King and Bay, where CIBC would build Commerce Court West in 1973. Imperial acquired several banks, including the Niagara District Bank (1875), and Weyburn Security Bank (1931), and the Canadian operations of Barclays (1956). After the end of World War II, Imperial was the country's fifth-largest bank, with assets under administration of approximately $270 billion.[10]

Canadian Bank of Commerce

William McMaster founded the Canadian Bank of Commerce which opened on May 15, 1867, in Toronto as competition for the Bank of Montreal; by 1874 it had 24 branches. The Imperial Bank of Canada opened in Toronto on March 18, 1875, founded by former Commerce Vice-president

Merger of Imperial and Commerce

The origins of the Imperial–Commerce merger lay in the actions of Barclays Bank. Barclays began operating in Canada in 1929, but in 1956 sold its Canadian operations to the Imperial Bank. Barclays took payment partly in the form of Imperial stock. In 1960, without informing Imperial's board, Barclays began buying additional Imperial stock on the open market. L. Stuart Mackersy, chairman of Imperial, believed Barclays was making a play to take over Imperial. Mackersy thought that a takeover of a small bank such as Imperial was inevitable, but preferred to work with domestic rather than British concerns.[11] In October 1960, Mackersy approached Neil J. McKinnon, the president and chairman of the Commerce, with a proposal to merge the two banks. Their first meeting took place secretively at McKinnon's house at 116 Dunvegan Road in Forest Hill, making the house the birthplace of the CIBC. According to Mackersy, within ten minutes he and McKinnon reached an agreement to merge their banks.[12]

Operations of CIBC

North America

• CIBC Mellon Global Securities Services: formed by CIBC and Mellon Bank Corp. (now Bank of New York Mellon) of Pittsburgh PA 1996 and Canada Trust's (now TD Canada Trust) pension and custody business in 1997
• Canadian Eastern Finance Limited (CEF): formed by CIBC and Hutchison Whampoa of Hong Kong; includes CEF Capital Limited, CEF Investment Management Limited
• Soltrus Inc 2001: provider of digital trust services for businesses and consumers to communicate and transact over digital networks owned by CIBC, Telus Corp and VeriSign Inc.
• CIBC Bank USA 2017: Formerly the Chicago-based bank Privatebancorp (incorporated 1989 in Delaware) with operations in 13 states mainly in the East Coast. Business focus is in middle market commercial banking, personal and small business banking, as well as private banking and investment management services.[34]

Employee defalcation

A former employee embezzled several million dollars of CIBC funds during the 1970s and 1980s as part of a gambling related conspiracy.[51]

Unpaid employee overtime

In June 2007, Dara Fresco, a Toronto teller, along with current and former non-management, non-unionized employees, who are or were tellers and other front-line customer service employees, working within Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce's (CIBC) various retail branch offices across Canada; brought on a $600 million class-action lawsuit against their employer, CIBC, in regards to lack of overtime pay. Fresco v Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce alleges that class members are assigned heavier workloads than could be completed within their standard working hours. They were required or permitted to work overtime to meet the demands of their jobs and CIBC failed to pay for the overtime work in direct contravention of the Canada Labour Code under which they are regulated.[52]

The Ontario Superior Court dismissed the suit June 18, 2012, stating the evidence "provides no basis that there was, in fact, a systemic practice of unpaid overtime at CIBC."

President

• 1) Neil John McKinnon, 1 June 1961 – 23 May 1963
• 2) Jeffery Page Rein Wadsworth, 23 May 1963 – 8 December 1964
• 3) William Masterton Currie, 8 December 1964 – 1 April 1968
• 4) Lawrence George Greenwood, 1 April 1968 – 2 September 1971
• 5) Jeffery Page Rein Wadsworth, 2 September 1971 – 11 December 1973
• 6) Russell Edward Harrison, 11 December 1973 – 14 December 1976
• 7) Robert Donald Fullerton, 14 December 1976 – March 1986 separate divisional presidents, 1986–2003
• 8) John Stewart Hunkin, 7 August 2003 – 2 December 2004
• 9) Gerald Thomas McCaughey, 2 December 2004 –15 September 2014