0.81 BV, price level of April 2016LB board strategy on pursuing more commercial loans appear to be legitimate, re: recent commentsby the RBC executive, and a double digit growth of commercial loans in Canada.
The questions to be answered is how are they going to implement it.
If they want to enhance the ability of any of the 103 bank branches in this respect, they need to staff them with ppl who know how to market these services locally, how to position each local branch vis-a-vis its local commercial needs. From outside it may be a divisive HR issue as, either the bank front line ppl need to acquire these new set of marketing skills, and a lot of answers to commercial loan questions by potential clients - a novel knowledge for many of them.
Or, there needs to be a slew of new hires, which will increase the apparent redundancy of many of the existing staff.
Not a simple proposition in a unionised environment.
With this strategic set, it will probably cost quite a bit of buying out existing excess work force and getting a smooth ride from the increasing business lending efforts.
No wonder the CEO was very short on details about the whole process during the earnings call.
I witnessed first hand how a university library where my wife worked, went through the process of digitizing it,s processing and reference services of the library materials.
The process took years of pain, lay-offs, tears, disruptions, etc, and the human toll was very visable.