In an investor presentation at a National Bank Financial conference yesterday, Victor Dodig, CIBC's group head of wealth management, reportedly said the bank plans to leverage the global, US equities, and fixed-income products offered by American Century to Canadian institutions.

"Until last year, we could only serve them with Canadian equity and fixed income products,” Dodig was quoted as saying. He said CIBC only holds around C$2 billion of the C$850 billion market for institutional money management, and hopes to attract larger pools of capital such as sovereign wealth funds with its expanded products from American Century.

CIBC acquired 41 per cent of the Kansas asset manager from JP Morgan in a $848 million deal that closed last August. The deal gives the Canadian bank a foothold in the US market. CIBC has more than 1,000 financial advisors at CIBC Wood Gundy, its retail-brokerage unit, but the firm is looking to add more third-party distribution channels, it said.