Canadian Banks Plan $15.9-Billion Merger

Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce and Toronto-Dominion Bank joined the North American banking consolidation wave with a $15.9-billion merger, the second-largest corporate marriage in Canadian history. It is Canada’s second big bank merger in recent months and is likely to further anger the government, which is refusing to give its blessing to mergers among big banks until it completes a parliamentary study on the industry. CIBC would pay $15.9 billion in stock for TD Bank, creating a combined bank with a market capitalization of $31.9 billion as of the close of trading Thursday. This would make it the 10th-largest bank in North America. The merged bank would have total assets of $322 billion, about 74,000 employees and more than 10 million customers worldwide, the two banks said. CIBC is currently the second-largest of Canada’s Big Six banks in terms of market capitalization. TD Bank is the fifth-largest. CIBC shares trading on the New York Stock Exchange fell $1.75 to close at $38.50. Shares in TD Bank fell $2.38 to close at $48.25. Canada’s largest bank would be the still-unnamed bank to be created through the proposed merger of Royal Bank of Canada and Bank of Montreal, which in January set off the chain of consolidations by announcing they would combine.