Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce: Rating Report

On May 28, 2019, DBRS Limited (DBRS) confirmed the ratings of CIBC and its related entities, including CIBC’s Long-Term Issuer Rating at AA and Short-Term Issuer Rating at R-1 (high). The trend on all ratings is Stable. CIBC’s Long-Term Issuer Rating is composed of an Intrinsic Assessment of AA (low) and a Support Assessment (SA) of SA2, which reflects the expectation of timely systemic support from the Government of Canada (rated AAA with a Stable trend by DBRS). The SA2 designation results in a one-notch uplift to the Long-Term Issuer Rating. Under the new Canadian Bank Recapitalization Regime, DBRS expects to eventually remove the uplift from systemic support once the Bank has issued a sufficient level of bail-inable senior debt, which would provide an adequate buffer for non-bail-inable obligations and is expected to offset the removal of systemic support.