Out to lunchI once heard an analyst decribe the CIBC as the bank most likely to walk into a pointy object...
According to their second quarter report, they had set aside 300M for Enron related litigation. Now we hear, that in this quarter, for something that happened over three years ago, they have to allow for an additional 2.5 billion. When they estimated their liability in quarters past, they were short about 90%! Did they have no idea? This works about to about 8 bucks a share, so that is lost to us shareholders forever, maybe the share price will drop by that much, given that its a one-off, but now we know they are useless at estimating legal exposure... what else is out there, hiding under the porch??? I pity anyone who bought this recently, this should have been known & disclosed earlier.
I would have loved to be a fly on the wall when that settlement was being negotiated. They must have been threatening something serious to get a settlement like that.