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CIBC announced the PrivateBancorp Inc. deal, which if completed would mark its largest ever acquisition, last June. But a special meeting of the U.S. bank’s stockholders to vote on the transaction scheduled for Dec. 8 was postponed after U.S. bank shares soared in the wake of the U.S. election (and President Donald Trump’s plans to cut banking regulations and the corporate tax rate).

CIBC offered US$18.80 in cash and 0.3657 of a CIBC common share for each PrivateBancorp share, which at the time worked out to US$47 per share. Based on CIBC’s U.S. share price of about US$90, that now equals US$51.71 a share.

Shares of PrivateBancorp closed at US$57.21 on Thursday.

Investors, while likely pleased by the strong earnings beat, are left with lingering questions about the PrivateBancorp transaction, analysts say.

“What the market is talking about is just the lack of information … leading us to wonder how serious CIBC is in terms of pursuing this,” said John Aiken, an analyst at Barclays in Toronto.

Both parties have until June 29 to walk away from the deal without penalty, said Dodig.

However, CIBC also left its options open, announcing that it is seeking Toronto Stock Exchange approval of a normal course issuer bid to buy back up to 8 million or 2 per cent of its common shares over the next 12 months.

“We want to make sure that we have every avenue open to us for our shareholders (for capital deployment),” Dodig said. “And we may have to in fact simply be more active in terms of buying back more stock over time if we are not able to consummate that deal, in this period of time.”