All participants, please stand by. Your meeting is about to begin. Please be advised that this conference call is being recorded. Good morning and welcome to BMO Financial Group's Q3 2022 Earnings Release and conference call for August 30th, 2022. Your host for today is Christine Viau. Please go ahead. Thank you and good morning. We will begin today's call with remarks from Darryl White, BMO's CEO, followed by Tayfun Tuzun, our Chief Financial Officer, and Patrick Cronin, our Chief Risk Officer. Also present to take questions are Erminia Johannson from Canadian P&C, David Casper from U.S. P&C, Dan Barclay from BMO Capital Markets, and Deland Kamanga from BMO Wealth Management. As noted on slide 2, forward-looking statements may be made during this call, which involve assumptions that have inherent risks and uncertainties. Actual results could differ materially from these statements. I would also remind listeners that the bank uses non-GAAP financial measures to arrive at adjusted results. Management measures performance on a reported and adjusted basis and considers both to be useful in assessing underlying. Darryl and Tayfun will be referring to adjusted results in their remarks unless otherwise noted as reported. With that, I will turn the call over to Darryl. Thank you, Christine, and good morning, everyone. Our performance this quarter continues to demonstrate the strength and quality of our advantaged and diversified business mix, credit excellence, and the resilience of our earnings power. Third quarter adjusted earnings per share were CAD 3.09, driven by a very strong performance in our North American P&C businesses. Robust loan growth and margin expansion drove record revenue and over 15% pre-provision pre-tax earnings growth in both Canadian and U.S. P&C, more than offsetting lower revenue in capital markets, which was impacted by more challenging market conditions. While the economic environment remains uncertain, there are signs that central bank actions aimed at taming inflation are having an effect. While economic activity is moderating, low unemployment and still high consumer and business savings are likely to provide some buffer to the downturn. In the context of slower growth for the Canadian and U.S. economies, we at BMO are operating from a position of strength. Credit remains benign, with strong reserves for loan losses, to which we added modestly this quarter. Our consistent PPPT performance positions us to support customers while delivering growth through the cycle. For the year- to- date, PPPT of CAD 9.1 billion is up 7%, with 1.5% operating leverage and an efficiency ratio of 55.4%. While operating leverage this quarter was impacted by underwriting markdowns due to changing market conditions and severance in capital markets, we continue to expect to deliver positive operating leverage for the year. Year- to- date, ROE was 16% above our midterm target as we remain focused on driving improved returns and managing the bank for sustained growth. We're actively managing our capital position, balancing the dynamic environment to support client-driven balances and the pending acquisition of Bank of the West. We expect post-closing our CET1 ratio to build comfortably above 11% during Q2 2023. We continue to make significant progress in building a high-performing, digitally enabled, future-ready bank and believe that our relentless focus on employee engagement and customer loyalty is the key to the health of our organization and will deliver sustained advantage over time. Our highly engaged BMO team is activating our winning culture aligned to a one client, one bank approach, which has been a key contributor to resetting the bank's performance to a higher level. In a recent comprehensive high-performance cultural employee survey, our results improved from the third to the first quartile, placing us among the world's best financial institutions. These results are a testament to our focus on a culture that creates conditions for sustained performance and differentiates us in attracting and retaining the best talent. Our commitment to providing our customers with exceptional experience and personalized advice in every interaction is now driving world-class client loyalty. This quarter, we received the highest customer satisfaction rating, ranking in the J.D. Power 2022 Canada Retail Banking Advice Satisfaction Study, reclaiming the top spot among Canada's largest banks. In addition, we were again recognized by World Finance Magazine as the best commercial, private, and retail bank in Canada. These recognitions reflect the investments we're making across our businesses with expanded teams and enhanced digital and marketing capabilities that are driving record new customer acquisition in our North American personal and business banking businesses. We're introducing new products to help customers progress, including our Smart Money account, which offers a low fee and no overdraft or NSF charges for our U.S. customers. In Canada, Same Day Grace, the newly launched mobile and online banking feature that proactively helps customers manage their cash balance and avoid missing payments. Our North American commercial banking businesses are delivering strong loan growth, up 16% in Canada and 15% in the U.S. Growth is broad-based and has been driven by the quality and reputation of our experienced bankers with deep local market and industry expertise, who bring the full strength of BMO's capabilities and provide outstanding client service and quick execution. All of which is underpinned by a differentiated risk culture and a consistent risk appetite that has delivered strong credit quality over time. The result can be seen in the consistently strong performance of our P&C businesses, with peer-leading year-to-date PPPT growth of 15% in Canada and 11% in the U.S., fueling ongoing strategic investments and positive operating leverage. Investments in our high return North American wealth businesses deliver good underlying revenue growth despite market declines and a moderation of client trading activity with growth in net new client assets, loans, and deposits. Last spring, we introduced a broad suite of free-to-trade ETFs together with enhanced investor education. A year later, this offering is driving strong new client acquisition and growing ETF assets on the platform. In our asset management business, we're expanding our Canadian franchise, adding more than 50 experienced investment professionals in key growth areas, including our global equity team, who focus on delivering higher returns for our clients. BMO Capital Markets results this quarter were impacted by the market conditions and lower client activity. Our well-diversified businesses have delivered an average of over CAD 630 million of PPPT over the last four quarters and remain positioned to build on the investments we've made to expand capabilities and grow client relationships. This quarter, we further advanced our leadership position in sustainability and our climate ambition to be our clients' lead partner in the transition to a net zero world. The announced acquisition of Radicle Group will make BMO a leader in carbon credit development capabilities and the environmental commodity market. The advantage of our diverse business mix is also evident in the performance of our U.S. segment overall, which is consistently contributing in the range of 35% of the bank's earnings with a year-to-date ROE and efficiency that is in line with the bank overall. We remain strongly positioned for the addition of the Bank of the West. As we continue to grow the bank, our purpose-driven commitments to a thriving economy, a sustainable future, and an inclusive society remain our guiding principle. This quarter, BMO was once again named to Corporate Knights ranking of Canada's 50 best corporate citizens, ranked first among major Canadian banks. To conclude, our high-performing bank is well-positioned for an evolving economic environment with a proven track record of superior risk management, strong capital and liquidity, engaged employees, and loyal customers. We continue to strategically invest for growth to deliver long-term returns for our shareholders and enable progress for the communities we serve, including preparing for the closing and integration of our acquisition of Bank of the West. I'll now turn it over to Tayfun. Thank you, Darryl. Good morning, and thank you for joining us. My comments will start on slide 9. Third quarter reported EPS was CAD 1.95, and net income was CAD 1.4 billion. Adjusting items are shown on slide 41 and include the impact of fair value management activities related to the acquisition of Bank of the West, which this quarter reduced net income by CAD 694 million due to changes in interest rates compared with the prior quarter end. The remainder of my comments will focus on adjusted results. On an adjusted basis, EPS was CAD 3.09, and net income was CAD 2.1 billion, down from CAD 2.3 billion last year. Performance in our P&C businesses was very strong with adjusted year-over-year pre-provision, pre-tax earnings growth of 15% in Canada and 16% in the U.S. as continued strong loan growth and margin expansion helped grow revenues at double digits. Revenue this quarter is a record in both businesses. Continued weaker macroenvironment lowered results in capital markets, including the impact of severance costs and markdowns on loan commitments made earlier in the year at higher PCLs. Early indications quarter-to-date are more constructive. Total PCL was CAD 136 million, including a CAD 32 million provision for performing loans, compared with a total recovery of CAD 70 million in the prior year. Pat will speak to these in his remarks. Moving to the balance sheet on slide 10, loan growth accelerated up 14% year-over-year and 4% quarter-over-quarter. Business and government loans increased 17% from the prior year, with strong growth across all operating groups. Consumer balances were up 10%, reflecting diversified growth in the P&C businesses and in wealth. Average customer deposits increased 7% year-over-year. Looking ahead, we expect loan growth to continue in our P&C businesses, reflecting strong diversified pipelines. Turning to slide 11, net interest income was up 18% and up 22% on an ex-trading basis from last year, driven by strong balance growth and margin expansion. Net interest margin ex trading was up 10 basis points from the prior quarter, primarily reflecting higher deposit margins in the P&C businesses. On a sequential basis, NIM was up 6 basis points in Canadian P&C and up 20 basis points in U.S. P&C, with wider deposit margins partially offset by lower loan margins. Looking into the fourth quarter and next year, NIM in both our P&C businesses and at the all bank level is expected to continue to widen given the rising rate environment. Moving to our interest rate sensitivity on slide 12. A 100 basis point rate shock is expected to benefit net interest income by CAD 525 million over the next 12 months. To date, deposit betas have been slower than our expectations, but we expect them to move higher for future rate hikes. During the quarter, we incrementally added fixed rate investments, locking in higher term rates and reducing our exposure to lower rates in the future. Turning to slide 13. Non-interest revenue net of CCPB was 19% lower compared to the prior year and 16% on an ex-trading basis, primarily due to the impact of divestitures. In addition, higher card and deposit revenue was more than offset by lower revenue in capital markets and lower securities gains reflecting the market environment. Lower revenue in capital markets includes CAD 88 million of markdowns on prior loan underwriting commitments in the U.S. due to widening credit spreads. Moving to slide 14. Expenses were up 3% from the prior year. Lower variable compensation was partially offset by higher severance costs in our capital markets business. Targeted investments that are driving revenue growth, including sales force expansion and technology, were partially offset by divestitures. Sequentially, expenses were up 3% due to higher technology spend, severance, and 3 more days in the quarter, partially offset by lower performance-based compensation. On a year-to-date basis and net of divestitures, performance-based compensation and severance, expenses are up 2.4%. This quarter, the two items in capital markets moved our operating leverage from being positive to - 1.9%. Assuming constructive markets, we expect to move to positive operating leverage in Q4 and as Darryl said, deliver positive operating leverage also for the year. Moving to slide 15. Our capital position remains strong with a common equity tier one ratio of 15.8%, down 20 basis points from the prior quarter. As shown on the slide, increases from internal capital generation and common shares issued under the DRIP were more than offset by growth in risk-weighted assets and a reduction in the benefit from fair value changes related to the Bank of the West acquisition due to changes in interest rates. As discussed previously, the incremental capital of 70 basis points generated by the fair value management actions is expected to be offset by higher goodwill on closing due to the impact of changes in interest rates since the announcement. Source currency risk-weighted assets were higher, reflecting strong growth in our commercial lending businesses. Moving to the operating groups and starting on slide 16. Canadian P&C delivered net income of CAD 965 million, with strong pre-provision, pre-tax earnings growth of 15%. Revenue was up 13% from the prior year. Net interest income increased 17%, reflecting strong balance growth and higher margins, while non-interest revenue increased 2%. Expenses were up 10% with continued investment in the business, including in the sales force and in technology. Average loans were up 12%, with 12% growth in residential mortgage lending and 16% in commercial loans. Deposits increased 9% year over year and 4% sequentially. Moving to U.S. P&C on slide 17. My comments here will speak to the U.S. dollar performance. Net income was $446 million, down 1% from the prior year due to a higher provision for credit losses on performing loans. Pre-provision, pre-tax earnings growth was strong, up 16%. Revenue was up 12%, reflecting strong growth in net interest income, partially offset by lower non-interest revenue. Expenses increased 8% due to higher employee costs and technology investments. On the balance sheet, average loans were up 13% from the prior year, reflecting very strong commercial loan growth. Average deposits were stable year over year and declined 2% from last quarter in line with our expectations. Moving to slide 18. Wealth Management net income was CAD 325 million, down from CAD 384 million last year. Traditional Wealth net income was CAD 264 million with underlying revenue growth of 3%, excluding the impact of divestitures, reflecting higher net interest income, partially offset by weaker global markets. Insurance net income was CAD 61 million compared with CAD 79 million in the prior year. Expenses were down 6%, mainly due to the impact of divestitures, partially offset by investments in the business. Turning to slide 19. BMO Capital Markets net income was CAD 266 million compared to CAD 559 million in the prior year, reflecting the impact of continued weakness in the market environment. Revenues in global markets declined, mostly reflecting lower trading revenue and the impact of a decline in new debt and equity issuances. Similarly, underwriting and advisory revenue in investment and corporate banking was lower due to slow issuance activity. We also had markdowns on loan commitments that were made earlier in the year, which were partially offset by higher corporate banking revenue. Expenses were relatively flat as lower performance-based compensation was offset by severance and business development expenses. The environment so far this quarter is more constructive, and we expect results to show signs of normalization as we approach the end of our fiscal year. Turning now to slide 20. Corporate services net income was CAD 7 million compared to a net loss of CAD 35 million in the prior year. To conclude, our overall results were strong, boosted by record year-to-date revenue growth in our P&C businesses. Recognizing the pause in revenue growth related to market-sensitive businesses, we continue to focus on managing our company dynamically to continue growing profitably. Our business and geographic diversification continues to be an advantage in maintaining strong performance levels. With that, I will turn it over to Pat. Thank you, Tayfun, and good morning, everyone. We were very pleased with our risk performance again this quarter, and key portfolio metrics remain strong. This strong performance reflects the combination of disciplined risk origination from prior periods and strong risk management discipline through time. Starting on slide 22, the total provision for credit losses was CAD 136 million or 10 basis points, up from CAD 50 million or four basis points last quarter. Impaired provisions for the quarter were CAD 104 million or eight basis points, down from impaired provisions of CAD 120 million or 10 basis points in Q2. Similar to last quarter, the strong impaired loan performance is due to very low formations and delinquency rates. We are pleased with these results, but do expect impaired provisions to return to more normal levels over time. Provision for credit losses on performing loans was CAD 32 million this quarter, reflecting a deteriorating economic outlook relative to the prior quarter and strong portfolio growth. This was largely offset by positive credit migration again this quarter, as well as a reduction in the judgment we have been applying specific to COVID-related uncertainty. Given the strong credit profile of our current portfolio and our forecast for impaired losses, we remain comfortable that our CAD 2.3 billion of performing loan allowances provides adequate provisioning against loan losses in the coming year. Turning to the impaired loan credit performance in the operating groups, loss provisions remain low across all business segments again this quarter. In Canadian P&C, personal and business banking impaired loan losses were CAD 94 million, up from very low levels in Q2, but still well below pre-COVID levels. U.S. personal and business banking had impaired loan losses of $1 million, flat relative to prior quarter. Consistent with prior quarters, the strong credit performance across our personal and business banking businesses was driven by continued low delinquency rates. Overall, we saw little indication of consumer stress in Q3 from interest rate change or inflation, and our consumer segment credit quality remains very strong, with delinquency and insolvency rates still well below pre-COVID levels. With that said, for most RESL products, we do expect the recent interest rate changes to impact borrowers when they refinance or renew, which ultimately could lead to increased delinquency in PCL. We view that risk as modest for several reasons. First, 25% of our installment RESL book is insured. Second, renewals are spread out over time, and only 10% of our uninsured installment RESL products are up for renewal in the next 12 months, giving borrowers time to adjust. Finally, we have a high credit quality borrower base with an average credit bureau score of 793 and an average LTV of 48%. In fact, less than 2% of our Canadian RESL book is to borrowers with a combination of a credit bureau score less than 680 and an LTV greater than 70%. As you can see on slide 32, the riskier segment renewing over the next 12 months is nominal given our portfolio quality. In our commercial and corporate businesses, we also saw very strong credit performance. In Canadian commercial, we reported impaired loan provisions of CAD 10 million, slightly up from CAD 7 million last quarter, but well below pre-COVID levels. In our U.S. commercial business, we had impaired loan provisions of $21 million, down from $34 million last quarter. Our capital markets business had excellent impaired loan credit performance this quarter, with a net recovery of $22 million, driven by zero new formations this quarter and some modest recoveries. Overall, we saw little indication of commercial or corporate borrower stress in Q3, and our wholesale credit quality remains very strong, with impairment rates at 15-year lows this quarter and PCL rates well below pre-COVID levels. We continue to benefit from very strong geographic and sector diversification, as well as strong structural protections that have consistently driven peer leading loss rates. We continued to see net positive risk rating migration in Q3, and the portfolio has now migrated to an average credit quality better than pre-pandemic. Our percentage of investment grade rated borrowers now stands at 62%, more than 10 percentage points higher than what we saw in fiscal 2017, highlighting that more recent origination has been of a higher average credit quality, notwithstanding our very good loan growth in both Canada and the U.S. over that time period. On slide 24, bank-wide impaired formations were low again this quarter at CAD 341 million, leading to a gross impaired loan balance of CAD 2 billion or 36 basis points. Both formations and gross impaired loan rates continue to be well below pre-COVID levels. Despite market challenges and high levels of volatility, there was only one trading loss day this quarter, as you can see on slide 26. The macroeconomic environment and geopolitical situation remain highly uncertain. Consequently, our performing allowances for the coming quarters will likely depend on how the economic outlook changes. Noting, however, that we do still have some COVID-related overlays in our overall balance. We remain comfortable even in the current uncertain environment that our performing loan provision is adequate relative to our expectations for impaired loan losses in the coming year. While we are pleased with our very low impaired losses this quarter, we do expect high inflation, rising interest rates, and other headwinds to result in higher impaired PCL in the coming year. Impaired PCL rates are expected to slowly move up to a level more in line with our pre-pandemic experience, which was in the range of high teens to low 20s in terms of basis points. Despite these headwinds, we are well positioned to manage current or emerging risks given the quality of our portfolio, adequate allowance, and strong risk management capabilities. I will now turn the call back to the operator for the question- and- answer portion of the call. Thank you. We will now take questions from the telephone lines. If you have a question and you are using a speakerphone, please lift your handset before making your selection. If you have a question, please press star one on your device keypad. You may cancel your question at any time by pressing star two. Please press star one at this time if you have a question. There will be a brief pause while participants register for questions. We thank you for your patience. Our first question is from John Aiken from Barclays. Please go ahead. Good morning. Dave, we wanted to discuss the U.S. deposits. Can you speak to what you saw in terms of customer behavior in the quarter and what this leads you to believe in terms of growth moving forward? Good morning, John. I think actually, I would say both in Canada and the U.S., the deposit profile matches exactly the way we modeled the deposits in this rate environment. In the U.S., we have seen a small decline quarter-over-quarter. We are not quite aggressive in terms of matching some of the competitors' rate offers. We have not moved, for example, our digital deposit offers to an active state yet. Therefore, the betas actually have been low, below where we have modeled them. We do expect the betas to go up with, you know, each additional rate increase. At one point, obviously, we will switch our digital offering on. At this point, the slow outflow matches exactly the way we thought about, you know, how the deposits would behave. You know, the margin expansion that you have seen, the 21 basis point margin expansion in the U.S. reflects that fact. Thank you. Thank you. Following question is from Ebrahim Poonawala from Bank of America. Please go ahead. Hey, good morning. I guess just wanted to follow up. Heard you loud and clear in terms of the outlook for positive operating leverage in 4Q. But when we look beyond and we look at your year-to-date adjusted efficiency ratio of around 55.4%, give us a sense of should we expect incrementally more improvement over the next year or two in a backdrop that doesn't get materially better either for capital markets and just overall for the economy? If so, what are the drivers that would lead that efficiency ratio from the 55.4% into the low 50s? Ebrahim, it's Darryl. Maybe I'll try to help you with that. Thanks for the question. As I think about the future and how we travel on our PPPT performance and our operating leverage, look, we'll fall short here of giving 2023 outlook. We do that at the end of the year, but I can give you some of the considerations as we look at our b usiness planning. We think we've got a lot of good momentum in our businesses, both on the revenue and the cost side. You're right, we're at 55.4% year- to- date. That compares to a peer set that I think averages only 100 basis points lower than that. On the one hand, I would say that number used to be several hundred basis points, the gap, and now it's pretty narrow. And at the same time, it's a little higher than the average. I think we continue to have a little bit of opportunity there. As we build our plan, as we go into 2023, we continue to think about operating leverage. We do have levers that we can continue to push on, and we'll update you more on that as we get into the beginning of 2023. Got it. If I can just quickly follow up in terms of Tayfun on your comments around the margin. I guess one near term, is it possible that we see similar level of expansion through consolidated and the segments in the fourth quarter as we did in 3Q? Beyond that, as we think about, the deposit pricing and some of the comments you made earlier, give us a sense of, does Bank of the West and when you look at their deposit betas not very different from U.S. regional bank deposit betas last cycle, how does that inform your deposit strategy in the U.S., as you move towards, deal close? Yeah. Look, I mean, I think our NIM performance continues to be very strong. Now, to be honest with you, it looks even better when you take into account how well we have protected the downside since the start of the COVID environment. We do expect margin expansion going into next year. As I said, I try not to give quarterly u pdates because it really, you know, depends on the frequency and the magnitude of the rate increases. Yes, we expect NIM expansion next quarter, and we expect NIM expansion into next year. In terms of the contribution from Bank of the West, they clearly have a very good core Deposit portfolio and core deposit portfolios tend to actually be very beneficial in terms of maintaining margins, you know, on, you know, depending upon what part of the rate cycle you're in. You know, once we actually absorb that balance sheet and start planning for the future, helped with our now national digital deposit gathering program, I do believe that we will have a better NIM profile even compared to the strong levels today, post Bank of the West. Got it. Thanks for taking my questions. Thank you. Our following question is from Doug Young from Desjardins Capital Markets. Please go ahead. Hi, good morning. Just wanted to start, can you size out the book in which you took a mark, I guess, the leveraged lending book on which you took a mark, this quarter? Maybe if you can provide any more details on sector-wise or any more details on it. Just provide some color as to or quantification as to why you feel comfortable with the marks. It sounds like you're feeling comfortable and things are improving as you move through Q4. Just hoping to get a little more detail on that. Sure. Doug, it's Pat Cronin. Thanks for the question. Maybe I'll do two things. First, I'll separate out the loan book, which is quite a bit of a different thing altogether from where the underwriting markdowns came from. The loan book, the size of that is what we disclose in the annual report. You would have seen that number in last year's annual report. It was just over, slightly over CAD 20 billion. Under our definition, I wanna be clear, our definition is sub-investment grade loans to portfolio companies of financial sponsors. That's what's under that definition. You can, you know, apply wholesale loan growth rates that you've seen since that report was published and get a sense of what the current portfolio would look like. Now, of that total, we make a very clear distinction into two segments. The first is things, parts of that portfolio that are highly secured. These would be ABL, RBL, real estate secured loans. There's some capital call loans in there. We treat those quite differently. In fact, the leverage lending limit that we apply to this business, we don't actually even include those into that limit because we view them as a very different risk profile, and that's supported by years of data around gross impaired loan rates and PCL experience. The real portion of the loan book that we limit with our internal limit is traditional cash flow deals to those financial sponsors that I just talked about. That is roughly about 55% of that total that I just talked about. You know, we're very comfortable with that whole book. The current condition is very strong, notwithstanding what you might be reading about in the environment. You know, our gross impaired loan rates continue to come down. In fact, we're about 100 basis points lower on the gross impaired loan rate than where we were a year ago. The PCL experience has been very low. I mean, we don't give out detail on the PCL for the segment, but if you look at our overall wholesale PCL this quarter, you can make a pretty good assumption that we saw almost no PCL from that segment this quarter. You know, once you size it down to that number, you realize it's actually a relatively small part of the overall portfolio. It's on any given quarter, just a little over 4% of our business and government loans. That doesn't even include some portion of that portfolio that we actually risk transfer to third parties. It's really well diversified to your sector question. It's also diversified by hold size. We on average have hold sizes in that business of less than CAD 20 million. So we're actually quite comfortable with the book. We've seen very good performance from our sponsor clients, including during stress, where they committed lots of additional capital to support those businesses. As you know, they're sitting on a lot of dry powder right now, so we would expect under stress, that to be the same. Now separate that completely from the underwriting book. These are positions that we do not intend to hold. We are intending to distribute to investor clients. You know, that's been a very good business for us over time. You know, when I look at the fee revenue that we generate relative to the risk inherent in that business, you know, as a risk professional, I think we're very well compensated for the risk that we take. We are gonna find quarters like this where, you know, the market dislocation is profound and, you know, we're not going to be immune to it. If in terms of sizing, you know, we typically don't give that, but as of the end of the quarter, that book would have been in Canadian dollar terms, just slightly north of CAD 4 billion in terms of total underwriting. I would note for you, though, that the markdowns that we did take were primarily concentrated in deals that were originated prior to Russia's invasion of Ukraine. It was quite concentrated. The markdowns that we took were quite consistent with broader base declines in the leveraged lending market. You know, if you look at the broader leveraged lending indices, that's roughly about on average, the markdowns that we took on those specific positions. Deals that we've originated since the invasion have largely been with better terms and pricing, and in fact, we see virtually none of those with valuation issues that would cause us concern. Specific to your question about valuation, we subject all of those marks to regular review, and then a rigorous and independent review of valuation by the second line at quarter end. I would say we're quite comfortable with the marks that we took for Q3. I would note that about 90% of that markdown was unrealized. We have seen a little bit of modest improvement in that market in Q4, so I'm certainly not calling for a recovery. At least we're heading in the right direction with a fair bit of unrealized. To the extent those market windows open up for distribution, we'll continue to whittle that book down. At the same time, we're originating new deals, as I said, at better terms that we're quite comfortable with. Maybe, hopefully, that answers your question. Very fulsome, no, I appreciate it. If I can sneak one more in just on corporate. Seems like you had positive earnings in corporate in the quarter. I think, and you can correct me if I'm wrong. I think in the past it was guided to CAD 50 million-CAD 75 million quarterly loss. But again, I could be, probably I'm wrong on that. Just wanted to unpack some of the drivers. Like, was there anything around fund transfer pricing or gains on interest rate hedging or anything unusual that came through corporate? Yeah, I think the corporate segment tends to move around a little bit. This quarter just happened to be there were some good mark-to-market valuations in our CRA investments in the U.S., so that had a positive impact. Compared to last quarter, we recorded the underwriting fees for our equity issuance in corporate. Those two items basically moved Q-over-Q numbers, but there's nothing that is unique this quarter that would impact the number. Thank you. Thank you. The following question is from Scott Chan from Canaccord Genuity. Please go ahead. Good morning. My question is for Deland on Wealth or asset management. You talked in the opening remarks, hiring 50 investment people on the equity and fixed income team. Just wondering kind of the strategy there, because obviously it's a pretty big investment. Is there like internalize assets opportunities or is it mostly opportunities to gather assets over the medium term? No, no, great question, Scott, and thank you. You're actually right on both accounts. When we sold the EMEA business, that took away a lot of the expertise we had in managing a lot of international portfolios, growth portfolios. We took this opportunity to restack that. It allows us to internalize a bunch of mandates that we have and then also expand the mandates to our distribution within our branches. Really it's going to solve both issues for us. Is the focus on all kinds of segments, like in particular retail or institutional or both? Actually, it's going to allow us to do both. We had very good institutional capability with the EMEA team. With that gone, that reduced the amount that we could do, especially with international portfolios, equity and fixed income. It's going to solve both retail and institutional for us. Okay, thank you. Thank you. Our following question is from Gabriel Dechaine from National Bank Financial. Please go ahead. Hi there. A couple of questions here. One, on the for Pat on the credit side, when I look at the migration, you know, in the performing portfolio, we saw stage 2 classified loans going up 18%, about CAD 7 billion worth of loans. I'm just, you know, there's a lot of moving pieces in the performing division, but I see that increase, and then I see CAD 36 million of performing, CAD 32 million of performing PCL this quarter, but the number maybe could have been higher than that. On a margin-related question, and this is pertaining to the U.S. business specifically, you know, deposit margins are increasing, or it's really driving the NIM expansion. I see deposits down 2% sequentially flat year-over-year. A little softer than some of your peers. I'm wondering how, you know, the outlook for deposit growth looks, and if you're seeing any, you know, commercial clients, you know, taking money out to put it to reinvest it in whatever. How, you know, that could trend over the next few quarters, even if the deposit base shrinks, how much of the NIM outlook dampens, I guess. Thanks. Hi, Gabe, it's Pat. I'll try and answer your first question. The audio quality was not great, but I think you were asking about the increase in stage two balances quarter-over-quarter. The answer there is quite simple. That's really almost entirely a function of the deterioration in the economic outlook that we use to calculate the provision. As you probably know, that affects staging. That really isn't migration in the traditional sense, because you would have seen, particularly in the regulatory capital supplement, that credit risk RWA actually went down this quarter, and we had positive risk rating migration in both consumer and wholesale. That's really just purely a function of that worsening economic outlook. I think the second part of your question maybe was you didn't see that maybe show up in an increase or more of an increase in the provision. If that's the question, that's really, t hat's really a function of the fact that, you know, that economic deterioration would have all else being equal, increased the size of the provision. As I said in my prepared remarks, that was largely offset by a reduction in the overlays this quarter. As you can imagine, as we get farther out of COVID, some of those specific COVID-related uncertainty overlays are starting to come down, and that's why you didn't see the provision itself go up as much as you might have expected. Okay. On the NIM question, Gabriel, again, if I heard your question correctly, in the U.S., as I said, deposit betas have been slower than we expected. You did refer to the 2% decline, which again, you know, we expected that type of decline. We continue to protect our turf. We're just not actively pricing up to attract, you know, for deposit growth because we still have excess deposits in the U.S. You know, the 20 basis point margin expansion was very strong this quarter. You know, we shouldn't expect 20 basis points every quarter for the next 3, 4 quarters. That's not going to happen. Nevertheless, we still expect expansion going forward, especially in our personal and business banking business. They are benefiting from this. More so than commercial. In terms of, I think you were asking about client behavior on deposits. Dave, would you want to comment on what you see from the client side? Sure, sure. On the commercial side, we've had a very modest decline, but very consistent with our peers on the commercial side. We had surge deposits. We maintain a large portion of those surge deposits, larger than actually we thought. Our core deposits, which is really our bread and butter, where our clients are using us for their operating business, continues to grow, and we feel real good about that. The LDRs really are still stronger today than they were pre-pandemic. We feel very good and expect to be able to manage this quite well. Hope that helps. Thank you. Our following question is from Paul Holden from CIBC. Please go ahead. Thank you. Good morning. Real quick one to start. Just to clarify the loan markdowns, was that purely mark to market or did it include some realized losses as well? Hi, Paul. It's Pat. About 90% is unrealized. These are rough numbers, and about 10% unrealized or realized. Excuse me. Perfect. Thank you. I wanna ask you a question on competitive dynamics in the commercial loan segment, both U.S. and Canada. We've heard some comments from Canadian competitors that the market's awfully competitive right now, and risk-adjusted margins are not particularly attractive in certain pockets. Some data points in the U.S. almost point to the opposite sort of conclusion that the banks are tightening up underwriting criteria in commercial loans. Just wondering what your perspective is on both of those markets. This is Dave. I would say for our business, both in Canada and the U.S., we see actually similar dynamics. Most of our clients, particularly the larger clients, do business on both sides of the border, compete in similar industries. It is more competitive, and yet if you go back over time, that's almost always said. From my perspective, and I go back a long way in time, I actually don't think it's much more competitive for us. We really, and you'll always hear this too, we never compete on price. You hear that all the time. The reality is, in our business, price is an important part, but the clients that we're actually attracting and maintaining are looking at who can do the best job for them, helping them grow over the long term. Yeah, price is important, but having a long-term perspective and being in the business as long as we have is actually more important. Is it competitive? Yeah. Is it more competitive in the U.S. or Canada? I actually don't think it is. I think we, just particularly, I can't really talk about other banks, but for BMO, I actually see really strong continued momentum on new client acquisition for clients that are really looking for long-term supporters. I wouldn't get overly exercised over what's happening today. I actually think the bank, our bank, will do very well through the cycle, and not substantially, certainly not change our risk appetite, but not change our risk reward to any extent as well. Hopefully, that helps. Might not be what you wanted to hear, but that's what's going on. No, it does help. Thank you. Thank you. Following question is from Meny Grauman from Scotiabank. Please go ahead. Hi. Good morning. Just two questions on the U.S. P&C business. Two aspects of the results that I was hoping to get a little bit more color on. One is the sequential decline in non-interest revenue, and the other one, if I look at expenses in U.S. dollars up, I think about 6% quarter-over-quarter. Wondering if you could provide more detail on that expense jump. Is there anything unusual going on in the quarter in the U.S. P&C business from an expense point of view? This is Dave again. Let me take the expense question first. We have a little bit higher expense this quarter, but nothing unusual. If you look at it over the year, we continue to have positive operating leverage. I'm really quite proud of the fact that our efficiency ratio is now well below 50% for the last several quarters, and I think that's very strong. I would expect it will continue to remain positive operating leverage in the U.S. going forward. The NIR, the NIR question, there's a couple of things there. It's not overly complicated, but there's one aspect. I think we went down about CAD 14 million in NIR quarter-over-quarter, and there was a CAD 14 million decline in what we call our lease revenue. Let me just explain that very quickly. When clients buy equipment, they have a choice. They can either buy equipment directly and we make a loan, and if we do that's all NII, that's all interest. If they decide to lease it, they actually, we get that revenue as NIR because they're going to actually take the risk at the end on the residual. The difference is over time, more of our clients have actually decided to buy the equipment as opposed to lease it, and so we move it from NIR. The income so goes from NIR to NII. That's the substantial portion of the decline. There are some other things. We had a record first quarter in terms of some syndication fees, M&A fees. Those have declined a little bit in the market as we'd expect. Lastly, it's not a big deal, it does have some impact. In Ernie's business, we have gotten rid of all of our overdraft fees, and so that has a decline as well. I think that's the right thing to do for our business. That should explain most of it. Does that help? Yeah, that's good detail. Just on the overdraft, would you be able to size that in terms of the impact? This quarter, I think it's relatively modest. I couldn't give you the exact number, but we can get back to you with some further detail. It's a portion. Thank you. It's a portion of the NIR decline. Got it. Appreciate it. Thank you. Following question is from Mario Mendonca from TD Securities. Please go ahead. Good morning. Tayfun, your comments about being able to protect the margin on the way down but still benefiting on the way up, that's an important one. Could you help me understand, like breaking out the NIM, help me understand what's happening with asset yields over the last, say, the last couple of quarters relative to deposit costs and funding costs generally. Is there a way to break that out, or do you provide that in your report to shareholders somewhere that I just haven't seen yet? Yeah, we can provide you with more details on that, Mario. In general, I think there are two factors that typically are important to note. One is the mix change as we look into our loan portfolio. That helps as well as spread changes. I'm happy to sort of follow that up with a more detailed discussion around both the commercial business as well as the retail business and give you directional comments on that. Okay. Sort of a follow-up to there. I like to look at the margins in various parts, like your domestic retail, U.S. retail, and then everything else, which I'll just call non-retail. That non-retail margin, which of course incorporates wealth, capital markets, that sort of thing, but not the trading. The margin there has been really strong. Can you talk a little bit about what's happening to the bank in, say, the treasury function or just everything non-retail that's supporting the net interest income? Yeah, look, I mean, on the treasury side, as we shared with all of you in the past, our focus has been to manage our NIM to a stable direction. We have done an excellent job in protecting the NIM, and that clearly has helped us to maintain support as rates have moved up. At the same time, we also left room for more asset sensitivity. I think the strength of the deposit franchise, you know, you mentioned the loan side and the asset side, has helped us tremendously in that sense. You know, that comes through very much so in the U.S., Canada has been more stable. Also in general, I think when I look at the composition of our loan portfolios in our P&C businesses, I believe that, you know, to a certain extent, our smaller mortgage portfolio is helping us to also have a bit of an outperformance in the way the margin is behaving as well. So. If I could just quickly follow up then. BMO is the only bank where the all bank margin today is above where it was in Q1 2020. Every other bank would be slightly below to meaningfully below where it was in Q1 2020. Would I be correct in suggesting that that is very much can be explained by the different loan composition, BMO's heavier commercial exposure? Is that the sort of structural advantages that you refer to, or one of the advantages you refer to when you open up these comments about BMO's business mix? Is that part of the story? I actually think that period to period, our hedging strategy and our, you know, very close focus in maintaining stability in our NIM is a big factor in that. But in addition to that, I think in general, our more commercial heavy exposure in our loan portfolio would also provide some help. Thank you. Mario, I'm going to add to that, it's Darryl. We talk about this a lot around here in terms of being margin managers as a core competency. The mix does matter. You're onto an important point. Whether it's in the wealth business, the capital markets business, the commercial business, when you think about them as high touch relationship businesses, I mean, we've been fond of reminding most of you that, for example, in our commercial business, 90% of our relationships are sole or lead relationships. Dave talked about how we manage those relationships over time, and you heard earlier how we talk about managing deposits. I think the way we approach the relationship manager is a significant input to the question that you're asking. Appreciate your help. Thank you. We think it's an advantage. Okay. We got time for a few more. Thank you. Our following question is from Lemar Persaud from Cormark Securities. Please go ahead. Yeah, thanks for taking my question. I appreciate the update on the status of the Bank of the West acquisition, and I noticed you guys still think it's going to close by the end of the year. What are the greatest risks to that getting pushed out? And then given the big move in interest rates from when the deal was announced to today, how should we think about the impact on the accretion estimates? Thanks. Yeah, maybe I'll take the first part, Lemar, and I'll ask Tayfun if he wants to chime in on the second. Look, we don't have. I'm gonna bore you a little bit with the answer. We don't have much more to say in terms of timing. Our best estimate at the time that we announced the acquisition back on the 20th of December was that it would take approximately a year. Based on what we see and based on what we are involved in today, we stand by that prediction. We'll update you as and if that changes. As of now, that's our current view. In terms of the impact of the rates on accretion, I just wanna remind you that the way we've hedged the exposure to higher rate mark and higher goodwill basically neutralized the impact from the moment we closed the transaction. I would say the accretion estimates with respect to you know rates is the same as we have assumed. Now going forward, depending upon the rate environment once we close the transaction, you know, we may get more strength if interest rates continue to go up and you know they bring asset sensitivity to us. At this point, our accretion estimates stay the same as we announced. Okay, thanks. For Pat, I think you mentioned you saw some of those COVID related overlays in the ACL. Can you put some numbers around that then? Can you help us think about what the performing PCL would have been if you didn't release some of those COVID overlays? Sure. The two factors that would have otherwise contributed to a build, as I mentioned, were deterioration in the macroeconomic variables and loan growth. Those two things together would have been roughly about CAD 185 million of build. That was offset by positive credit migration and the reduction in the overlays. I probably don't wanna get into the size of the overlay. I would tell you know, going into COVID, you know, we were pretty close to zero on that, ±5% of our total provision made up of judgment. You know, that would have hit a high back in Q4 of 2021 as we came out of COVID. It's been reducing for three quarters in a row now. You know, we are heading into an environment. While it's uncertain, you know, we expect that our loss estimation models can understand a typical recession. All I can tell you is I would expect it to continue to come down, all else being equal, but I think I'm gonna stop short of giving out specific numbers. That's fair. Appreciate the time. Thanks, guys. Thank you. That's all the time we have for questions. I would now like to turn the meeting back over to Darryl White. Operator, I'm just being advised that we do have time for one more if you've got somebody in the queue. Certainly. We do have Darko Mihelic from RBC Capital Markets. Please go ahead. Hey, thanks for squeezing me in. My main questions have been asked and answered, so I'm gonna be very quick, and especially in the interest of time. Just wanted to pin you down on a couple of things, though, that I heard this morning. First, Tayfun, in your answer to the question regarding corporate, one thing you left out was the expected earnings per quarter. If you can just give us a hand with that. Then on the question with respect to the marks that were taken in capital markets, if I heard correctly, it sounds like the levered lending loan book was around CAD 4 billion. Can you just confirm when I look at those marks versus those indices that are out there, do your marks include fees accrued or not? Thank you. Hi, Darko. It's Pat. Pat. First on the leveraged lending loan book, the sizing that I gave is for the loan book in particular. On that loan book, we only take provision for credit losses. You know, the markdowns that you're talking about, the CAD 88 million, apply to the underwriting book. That's a very separate book, and that is where I size that at just over CAD 4 billion. Think of those as two very separate things. One takes PCL, the other one takes mark-to-market losses that flow through Dan's business. I think that was your question or no? Did I answer it? Sorry, I went on mute. Are there fees accrued in that mark or no? Apologies. The answer to that is yes. That's inclusive of fees. Okay, thanks. Just over to Tayfun on the corporate. Yeah, on the corporate side, Darko, you know, this quarter clearly was a little bit of an aberration, so we probably will go back to the average of the prior two quarters in the near term, and then we'll give you guidance, you know, for 2023 when we get to year-end. Okay, great. Thanks very much for squeezing me in. Cheers. Thank you. That's all the time we have for questions. Back to you, Mr. White. Thank you, operator. I want to thank all of you for your questions. I hope you're not running off the call because before we close, I do want to take a moment to recognize Pat Cronin, who recently announced his intention to retire after nearly 30 years with BMO. Throughout his career, Pat has made, as I think you all know, a significant impact across our bank, including having expertly steered our COVID-19 response and our risk function through the complex credit and market environment and all of these calls that have defined the last few years. He's a trusted advisor, and he's one of the strongest bankers I have ever worked with. I look forward to introducing Piyush Agrawal, our incoming CRO, to you next quarter. I'm going to conclude with the key themes as I always do. Credit performance remains strong. We have significant allowance coverage that enables us to protect and grow the bank. Number two, overall results were fundamentally strong with year-to-date PPPT growth of 14% in our P&C businesses taken as a whole. Expenses remain really well managed, particularly given the inflationary pressures, and we're committed to delivering positive operating leverage for the year. Lastly, we're going forward from a position of strength with our advantaged mix, and we believe it's set to perform in any environment and deliver consistent financial performance. Thank you all for participating in the call, and we look forward to speaking to you again in December. Thank you. The conference has now ended. Please disconnect your lines at this time, and we thank you for your participation.