Al Flood
 Al Flood  (banker) | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Born | 1937 |
| Nationality | Canadian |
Canadian banker of Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce who failed upwards. Bilderberg/1996 | |
Al Flood attended the 1996 Bilderberg as Chairman of Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce (CIBC). Having a career of highly risky and unsuccessful banking strategies, his retirement was delayed due to CIBC's planned (and ultimately unsuccessful) merger with the (Bilderberg's) Toronto-Dominion Bank in 1999.[1]
Career
From fairly humble beginnings, Flood scaled the corporate ladder and emerged in 1992 as the victor in a succession contest among a handful of the bank’s senior officers.[2]
In the 1970s he was a senior executive in the bank’s U.S. and Latin American operations. Then, the bank was making massive loans to the frequently unsavory governments of such countries as Brazil, Mexico and Argentina just at the climax of the Third World credit crunch, on which his bank eventually lost $1.7 billion.[3]
He was thereafter promoted to head the bank’s U.S. division at the height of Wall Street’s leveraged buyout phase, "when the Commerce was often on the wrong side of the wrong deals. Then came the coup de grace. Called back to Toronto head office, Flood assumed the bank’s most sensitive post—president of the corporate bank. In that job he distinguished himself by turning the Commerce into the lead banker for the Reichmann brothers’ real estate empire, one of the biggest Canadian business failures. When it turned out that the Reichmann empire had no clothes and that the Commerce loans had apparently been granted without adequate examination of the brothers’ dubious debt-equity ratios, Flood’s decisions eventually cost his bank $1.2 billion in bad loans on that account alone. “I take full responsibility,” he said at that time, adding that his experience would help him avoid mistakes in the future.[3]
Following "the Commerce’s twisted logic, there was only one way out"[3]: Flood was the obvious candidate to head the whole bank. In 1992, he was anointed chairman and CEO. His main contributions in the top slot have been a major push of the Commerce into derivative trading, "which is the banking equivalent of bungee jumping". His other big move was to pay $350 million for Oppenheimer & Co. Inc., a Wall Street brokerage, on which the Commerce lost $230 million in its first year.[3]
CIBC agreed to merge with the Toronto-Dominion Bank in 1998. However the Government of Canada, at the recommendation of the minister of finance, Paul Martin, blocked the merger – as well as another proposed by the Bank of Montreal with the Royal Bank of Canada – as not in the best interest of Canadians.[1]
By 1999, after half-a-dozen Flood years, "the Commerce’s record was once again unique. It was the only one of the Big Five to show an earnings drop—down 32 per cent from 1997. The Commerce’s fourth-quarter profits were down an astounding 91 per cent, most of it lost in derivative and global markets. The Dominion Bond Rating Service downgraded the bank’s long-term debt from “stable” to “negative.” Tom Gunn, senior vice-president for investment at the Ontario Municipal Employees Retirement System, one of the CIBC’s top five shareholders, publicly complained about Flood’s inadequate explanations of precisely what had gone wrong.[3]
Flood was replaced as CEO later in 1999.
Event Participated in
| Event | Start | End | Location(s) | Description |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bilderberg/1996 | 30 May 1996 | 2 June 1996 | Canada Toronto | The 44th Bilderberg, held in Canada |
