CIBC sticking with FCIB

(Barbados Nation) The Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce (CIBC) has taken its Caribbean subsidiary off the chopping block after two failed attempts to sell the majority shareholding.

Following its recent announcement that regional regulators said no to 66.73 per cent of FirstCaribbean International Bank (FCIB) being sold to GNB Financial Group Limited for $1.6 billion, CIBC’s management say they will be keeping FCIB fully on board. This “plan B” decision was disclosed by CIBC president and chief executive officer Victor Dodig, and other senior officials, during a first quarter earnings call with 12 financial experts in North America.

In addition to last month’s unsuccessful completion of the divestment to GNB, CIBC abandoned a plan to list most of FCIB’s shares on the New York Stock Exchange in 2018 because of “market conditions at this juncture”.