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Royal Bank of Canada (RY)

Q4 2016 Earnings Call· Wed, Nov 30, 2016

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Transcript

Executive

Management

Dave Mun - SVP and Head, IR Dave McKay - President and CEO Janice Fukakusa - Chief Administrative Officer and CFO Mark Hughes - Group Chief Risk Officer Jennifer Tory - Group Head, Personal & Commercial Banking Doug Guzman - Group Head, Wealth Management & Insurance Doug McGregor - Group Head, Capital Markets and Investor & Treasury Services

Analyst

Management

Robert Sedran - CIBC Gabriel Dechaine - Canaccord Genuity John Aiken - Barclays Capital Steve Theriault - Dundee Capital Markets Doug Young - Desjardins Capital Markets Mario Mendonca - TD Securities Peter Routledge - National Bank Financial Meny Grauman - Cormark Securities

Operator

Operator

Good morning ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the RBC 2016 Fourth Quarter Results Conference Call. I would now like to turn your meeting `over to Mr. Dave Mun, Senior Vice President and Head of Investor Relations. Please go ahead, Mr. Mun.

Dave Mun

Management

Thanks very much and good morning and thank you for joining us. Presenting to you this morning are Dave McKay, President and Chief Executive Officer; Janice Fukakusa, Chief Administrative Officer and Chief Financial Officer and Mark Hughes, Group Chief Risk Officer. Following their comments, we will open the call for questions. The call is one hour long and will end at 9:00 A.M. To give everyone a chance to participate, please keep it to one or two questions and re-queue. We will post management’s remarks on our website shortly after the call. Joining us for your questions in the room are our business heads. Jennifer Tory, Group Head, Personal & Commercial Banking, Doug Guzman, Group Head, Wealth Management & Insurance; and Doug McGregor, Group Head, Capital Markets and Investor & Treasury Services. Also Rod Bolger, CFO effective tomorrow is also with us. As noted on Slide 2, our comments may contain forward-looking statements, which involve applying assumptions and have inherent risks and uncertainties. Actual results could differ materially from these statements. I'll now turn the call over to Dave.

Dave McKay

Management

Good morning everyone and thank you for joining us this morning. This morning we reported fourth quarter earnings of over $2.5 billion. This capped off a record year with earnings of $10.5 billion, up 4% from last year. I’m pleased with these results, particularly given challenges in the operating environment including sustained low interest rates and energy prices, as well as the subdued macroeconomic factor off across our key markets. We continue to focus on prudently managing our cost; expenses were up 8% or down 1% excluding the impact to City National. We achieved this while incurring about $130 million of severance charges in 2016, higher than our typical run rate of about $90 million to $100 million, and this additional charge was taken in the fourth quarter. Our results illustrate of our diversified business model, driving sustainable growth, a disciplined approach to cost management, and our commitment to maintaining a strong financial profile. Turning to slide 4, we use key financial performance objectives to measure progress against our medium term goals, which we define as over 3 to 5 years. This year we did not meet our EPS growth and ROE targets. Both of these measures were impacted by the issuance of common shares related to the acquisition of City National. On our capital objective, we exited 2016 with a strong CET1 ratio of 10.8%, four quarters after having closed the largest acquisition in our history. Our strong capital position continues to provide us with flexibility to investment in our businesses for long term growth, while also returning capital to our shareholders. During the year, we repurchased 4.6 million of our common shares, and increased our quarterly dividend twice for a total dividend increase of 5%. We ended the year at the high-end of our dividend pay-out ratio of…

Janice Fukakusa

Management

Thank you Dave and good morning everyone. Starting on slide 7, our fourth quarter earnings of over $2.5 billion reflects solid underlying results across our businesses. Earnings were down $15 million or 2%, mainly due to the lower effective tax rate last year of 7.6%, which was driven by favorable income tax adjustments. At the enterprise level, our effective tax rate for the fiscal year was 21.4%. Based on our forecast to the earnings mix, we expect our 2017 tax rate to remain with in the 22% to 24% range. Compared to last quarter, earnings were down 12% or 4% excluding the gain of $235 million after tax from the sale of our home in Auto Insurance business. Our growth in adjusted earnings from the prior quarter reflects higher results in insurance, investor and treasury services and wealth management. These factors were more than offset by lower earnings in capital markets and personal and commercial banking, which were largely impacted by seasonality. Turning to slide 8, our common equity tier one ratio was strong at 10.8%, up 30 basis points from last quarter, driven by internal capital generation. In November, the sale of Moneris USA to Vantiv was announced and is expected to close in the first quarter of 2017. We estimate the transaction will result in an after tax gain of approximately $200 million, with an expected impact to our CET1 ratio of about 8 basis points. Our strong capital ratios and focus on balance sheet optimization provide us the flexibility to fund all growth in all of our businesses and manage pending regulatory capital changes. As Dave mentioned, we will balance our capital deployment with returning capital to the shareholders through dividends and share buybacks. Please turn to slide 9, for the performance of our business segment. Personal…

Mark Hughes

Management

Thank you Janice and good morning. Turning to slide 15, total provisions for credit losses of $358 million were up $40 million or 13% from last quarter and our PCL ratio of 27 basis points increased 3 basis points quarter-over-quarter. We believe these results reflect the strength of our diversified portfolio and benefited from low interest rates, stable employment trends and improved backdrop to the oil and gas sector and prudent risk management. Let me discuss the performance of each segment on slide 16. In personal and commercial banking, provisions of $288 million increased by $17 million from last quarter. Canadian banking provisions of $276 million increased by $11 million from last quarter largely in our retail portfolios. Caribbean and US banking provisions were up $6 million from last quarter, due to the impact of hurricane Matthew. Wealth management provisions of $22 million increased by $8 million from last quarter, mainly reflecting higher provisions of City National due to new normal loan growth and a single account in international wealth. Capital markets’ provisions of $51 million increased by $18 million from last quarter, largely reflecting higher provisions in the oil and gas sector. Turning to slide 17, gross impaired loans of $3.9 billion were up $187 million or 5% from last quarter. Our gross impaired loan ratio of 73 basis points was up 3 basis points from the prior quarter. In Canadian banking, the reduction and formations was due to a number of commercial accounts returning to performing status. This was offset by higher formations in Caribbean banking due to hurricane Matthew. In wealth management, we had an increase in formations in City National’s technology portfolio, largely offset by a reduction in the credit impaired loans acquired by City National after the financial crisis. In capital market, we had higher…

Operator

Operator

[Operator Instructions] our first question is from Robert Sedran from CIBC. Please go ahead.

Robert Sedran

Analyst

When I look at the full year adjusted operating leverage at the all bank level in the sub-packets. It’s the negative reach of the last three years. So does that reflect the bank that is sort of at peak efficiency considering all the different areas in which you need to invest, or should we expect to see that flipping deposit of operating leverage in the next couple of years?

Janice Fukakusa

Management

Hi Robert its Janice speaking. I would say that one of the functions of mix weighs heavily on the operating leverage. So I would say that if you look at our all bank operating leverage and look at, for example, NIE there are things that like restructuring charges that are embedded in that NIE run rate, and also the revenue variability depending on where we’re earning revenue if it’s capital market sensitive of course then those particular revenues have a higher cost in terms of compensation or commissions associated with them, so they impact our run rate. So I would say that at the all bank level, we’re striving for 1% to 2% operating leverage, but it depends on mix. What’s more relevant for us from an operating leverage perspective is to look at our banking platforms and efficiency ratios as well as operating leverage at that level. I think if you want to do a comparison year-over-year, you should look at our annual run rate of expenses, because I think it demonstrates how we are managing our expenses and spend vis-à-vis a the large investments we are making in technology. And we would have seen that. If you at our run rate on NIE excluding City National’s impact, we are down year-over-year. And I think that year-over-year is a good metric because it eliminates some of the seasonality that happens. So I would start with that.

Robert Sedran

Analyst

Okay. So when you think about the banking outlooks and Janice and maybe I’m asking you to put your successor on the spot. But when you think about the coming years, even there the efficiency ratio is at the low end of the group. Is there room to still take the banking efficiency ratio lower?

Janice Fukakusa

Management

I think Jennifer will answer that Rob.

Jennifer Tory

Analyst

We continue to target a low 40s efficiency ratio, and as Dave mentioned, this year we’re at a historic low. We continue to reduce expenses across the board; both with changes we’re making in our infrastructure in terms of technology spend on the back office. In fact we’ve reduced our FTE base by 1100 in 2016, mostly through attrition, and we continue to have opportunity in that area, as well as continuing to look at our branch network and gain efficiencies on the service side as we spend on digital technology to enhance the client experience. But we’re investing through all of that in our sales capacity, as well as increasing our spend on technology. So I think our guidance on operating leverage for 2017 continues in the 1% to 2%, and in fact I would say at the higher end of that range just as we finish that this year as well.

Operator

Operator

Our following question is from Gabriel Dechaine from Canaccord Genuity. Please go ahead.

Gabriel Dechaine

Analyst

My first question is on the mortgage business and you said Mark that you’re reviewing that portfolio for obvious reasons. We’ve seen some of the numbers coming out of [DC], volumes down, prices down and I know you see the trend in your mortgage Brooks and Alberta, who are nearing negative growth at some point. At what point do we start to wonder about the indirect impact of the mortgage business similar to what we were doing at oil earlier in the year, where you got the job losses tied to the construction sector instead of the oil and gas business?

Dave McKay

Management

Gabriel it’s Dave. Are you talking about the GDP impact from slower housing?

Gabriel Dechaine

Analyst

Pretty much, yes.

Janice Fukakusa

Management

On the quality?

Dave McKay

Management

Well if you look at it I think housing starts, they are off just a bit, but housing starts are just annualized in about 170,000 to 180,000 range. So you’re seeing purchase activity down in Vancouver. You’re not seeing a lot of purchase activity change in GTA that’s for sure. So there are definitely policy impacts that you’re seeing in Vancouver from the taxes and from the Department of Finance Changes, still have to work their way through the system. So I would separate - the markets are different. There are certainly demand formation that’s continuing in core markets in Canada, whether total formation or immigration in to the city continued to have demand formation. There continues to be supply constraints in a number of key markets particularly the GTA which is giving prices support and price inflation, which you’re not seeing as demand starts to fall off in Vancouver, and some of that is actually shifting in to the GTA. So you’re seeing healthy demand creation, you’re still seeing relatively healthy housing starts; you’re seeing good capacity uptakes. So there will be a moderation in supply and therefore will be somewhat of a moderation on the impact in GDP going forward, I think you should expect that. But I think it’s going to be gradual and it won’t be a shock to the system.

Gabriel Dechaine

Analyst

Just wondering when Mark was talking about the review of that book, what are the areas of concern here you’re looking at in particular?

Dave McKay

Management

No, it’s wasn’t a concern that we do the review. We do this particular review of lost rates both annually for both the retail and the wholesale books. We normally do them in Q1, that’s sort of then allows us to take the prior years’ performance in to account to add it to our historical performance. With the retail books, we actually had the results finished in this quarter, and so we bought them forward and took them in Q4. And the primary change, as I mentioned in my remarks, is a one-time change that is related to a valuation insurance program we had with the third party which has been terminated. We do not expect that change to go forward, and we expect to revert back to the PCL performance for the residential mortgage book that we would have had in prior quarters.

Gabriel Dechaine

Analyst

And my next question’s for Dough, in the trading performance discussion looks like three out of the four main regions indicated that equities trading was down and I’ve seen the numbers as well. Equities trading was pretty weak, can you give me a sense of what was going on there that my kind of business or some of the more esoteric stuff and depending whether that’s reversed in Q1 or if there’s any other tailwinds that have emerged in Q1 in the wake of the US elections?

Doug McGregor

Analyst

The cash equities business in particular is quite influenced by new issue activity and new issue activity has been pretty slow really throughout the year. But there was actually a month last quarter where we didn’t book run a deal in Canada which hasn’t happened for many years. So we saw significant slowdown in new issue activity and declines just prior to the elections were stopped repositioning if you will. So those businesses were weak quarter-over-quarter and year-over-year. We’ve seen a significant impact on new issue activity and trading, as people are new repositioning after the elections. So yeah its better now, and hopefully that will sustain itself.

Gabriel Dechaine

Analyst

Quite a bit better or do you feel if it’s shaping up there will be a good quarter for trading?

Doug McGregor

Analyst

Yeah, I would say there’s a number of things going on in terms of the business, and one of them is that we’ve gone through a period of significant weakness in energy. We went through a period of not terrific credit market and so it was hard to issue leverage finance in high yield. And these are all big businesses for us, and so now through November, we’ve been doing a lot more business in the loan syndication business especially in the US. You’ve seen some large energy infrastructure clear Canada over the course of this week and earlier in the month. So, yeah activity is up and those are really very big businesses for us that have seen much better markets.

Operator

Operator

Our following question is from John Aiken from Barclays. Please go ahead.

John Aiken

Analyst

I’m trying to square some of the commentary about City National versus the disclosure that you had in terms of US dollar revenues in AUA in Wealth Management segment. So if the contribution from City National was up strongly on a sequential quarter basis, yet we actually had a decline in AUA and essentially flat revenues. Does this mean that we’re getting incremental efficiency at City National, or was the US business in wealth management outside of City National facing some headwinds in the quarter?

Doug Guzman

Analyst

I can start with that. As we look back one of our business is convergent, we sold, so you would have seen a decline in AUA from that largely, but all other kind of core volume drivers in the business are very strong with loans up double digits, with deposits up double digits. AUM is strong, but the AUA would have been our ultra-high net worth family office that we sold over the quarter. Very small operation, but it neutralized any type of growth.

John Aiken

Analyst

And then carrying on with wealth management, the rising PCLs that we’re seeing coming through this, is this a seasoning of the portfolio and should we expect this to carry on for a little while or should we - essentially what are the expectations that we’re going to see for provisions going forward?

Mark Hughes

Management

Basically as you know when we acquired City National, we used the purchase price accounting. So as we’ve now are growing the business, we are essentially rebuilding the reserves that we have, and as loan growth grows, we take incremental reserves on PCL. So it’s not really a credit quality aspect, it is a growth aspect typical of every US bank operation.

Janice Fukakusa

Management

And you can see that John through the purchase accounting adjustments. Just see that, they’re all related to City National loan.

Operator

Operator

Our following question is from Steve Theriault from Dundee Capital Markets. Please go ahead.

Steve Theriault

Analyst

Couple of questions, one on rates, but starting with capital markets. It’s been highlighted in some past quarters the strength and positive trajectory in Europe. But with the sequential decline after a very strong Q3 on the back of Brexit tailwinds, can you talk a bit about your outlook for the European component of capital markets now that Brexit tailwinds have passed. Do you still view this as an area of potential strength looking out over the next year or two or has Brexit or European turbulence generally amended your expectations at all?

Mark Hughes

Management

I was over there a week before last, and spent several days with all the people around the businesses over there. I would say the big improvement has really been in our fixed income business in Europe and just a new leadership and it’s just better people doing the right things there. They are doing reasonably well as we started the quarter, and so I expect that they will continue to improve that business and they certainly have plans to. In the equity or in the investment banking business, the numbers have been improving year-over-year and they are starting off with reasonably decent backlog of business. So, I expect that that will be okay. I would say that Europe is more difficult than say the United States in terms of margins and growth rates of the European economies. So I think we have more leverage certainly in the US right now. It’s a much bigger business, the US versus Europe. But overall I would say that we’re just better in Europe than we were and we expect we’ll continue to do get better.

Steve Theriault

Analyst

Do you think if you think of your plan over the next couple of years, I think Europe’s been running about maybe 14%, 15% of revenue, would you expect that to change?

Mark Hughes

Management

No. I think really what we’re focused on is sustaining our leadership in Canada doing all the business we can do in Canada. But we do expect the growth opportunity and margin opportunity is to continue to grow our business in the US. And so that will be the focus. So it would be difficult for Europe to take a significantly bigger share of our business over the coming couple of years especially given what’s going on in the US right now.

Steve Theriault

Analyst

And then my second question probably for Janice. I think it was last quarter you talked about de-risking and shortening duration in your funding and liquidity portfolio. So I’m wondering how you were positioned rates wise in to the US election, should we expect to see a noticeable lift in treasure revenue or margin in Q1 if the curve’s deepening holds?

Janice Fukakusa

Management

I would feel that we were positioned the same way for the election that we had positioned for Brexit. So we took maturities longer and we always plan for the worst, but hope for the best. The actual last quarter part of the de-risking and part of the reduction in our LCR had to do with the fact that we had a buffer that we thought was too large, vis-à-vis what we needed. And so that was more of a one-time step and you’ll see us run investors around where we are today, where we reported.

Steve Theriault

Analyst

So maturities being longer, does that help you with the steepening curve, will we see that at all through the revenue line next quarter?

Janice Fukakusa

Management

No, I think that what you’ll see is more of a neutral position, because the longer maturities were in response to the two significant events and we would have gone on to a normal run rate at this point. Although you can’t tell what happened in the credit spread end market volatility. I would say that‘s the caveat.

Operator

Operator

Our following question is from Doug Young from Desjardins Capital Markets. Please go ahead.

Doug Young

Analyst

Just on the ROE medium target reduction to 16% from 18% plus, I believe Dave maybe you said and correct me if I’m wrong that part of that reduction is the result of potentially more cumbersome regulatory capital rules or any. And I’m hoping if that’s the case you can elaborate a little bit about that, and if you can give any further updates maybe on the changes that potentially could come from Basel.

Dave McKay

Management

I think what drove this is, as we - a year in to our acquisition with City National we had significant rate uncertainty leading up to the close and then in the past year. So our expectation on rates and rate outcomes have the largest impact on our ROEs as far as tailwinds go and earnings lift in that continued uncertainty of that trajectory in the US and in Canada, I think weighs heaviest on our decision to move it down in addition to the expected mix. But I think tertiary to that is, as we await the decision, I think they’re making this with, the FSB and the regulators to go through training with final treatments any capital floors that may come out. And we have enormous flexibility with a 10.8% CET1 ratio; we’re running at the high end of where we thought we’d be. So we’ve got a flexibility there. So I don’t think there’s anything specific honestly Dough that I can articulate right now. It’s just we’re carrying a little bit more capital for the uncertainty of all of those aspects and we’re reducing our expectations of ROE, given that uncertainty going forward, but our goal and so our strong goal is to continue to drive a premium top decile ROE growth we expect to grow back to that 18% plus, but it’s going to take a little bit longer to do that with a capital and interest rate environment.

Doug Young

Analyst

So what was the big change last quarter to this quarter that made you move, because rates have moved up a little bit obviously and the outlook looks a little bit more optimistic. So the delta of last quarter to this quarter is it just its not moving up as much as you anticipated, just wondering if there is something else I’m missing.

Dave McKay

Management

No, it’s an annual process we go through to reaffirm our medium term objective. So we wouldn’t have made the change in Q2, Q3 or Q1 even. So as we go through that with our Board and we sit down and talk about our expectations going forward, we do that each year. So we would not have made that change anywhere else and at Q4 and heading in to a new fiscal year.

Doug Young

Analyst

And then just secondly, in capital markets it just looked like net interest income was down and that was up relative to what we were looking for. Just wondering on the corporate banking side, because I didn’t see significant change in loan balances that would account for that is there reduction in fees or just wanted to see if there’s additional color you could provide?

Dave McKay

Management

At the start of the year in particular there was an increase in funding cost of that book that obviously gets netted off, and some decrease in margins. We’ve seen some relief in terms of the funding cost issue in the latter part of the years. And the balances in that business were pretty stable during the course of the year. We expect and given the business activity that we’re seeing right now, we expect to grow the balances of that book this year, but it will be in the sort of low to mid-single digits.

Doug Young

Analyst

Do you expect further margin pressure, is that been the biggest impact?

Dave McKay

Management

I have seen margin stabilizing over the course of the last several months. And a lot of the growth in the book or most of the growth in that book is in the US and we have seen some stabilization there. So I’m hopeful that will continue.

Operator

Operator

Our following question is from Mario Mendonca from TD Securities. Please go ahead.

Mario Mendonca

Analyst

Dave the extent to which a close call on being labeled a G-SIFI, did that inform your decision to reduce the ROE guidance at all?

Dave McKay

Management

No, because I think as we’ve talked about before if the G-SIFI was in Canada where we look at where level one G-SIFI’s are; we’re always going to maintain in our commentary that we do not expect it’s a major capital issue for us. There are obviously cost of compliance and there’s resolution planning requirement that would change, but we never felt that in our dialog with our regulator that where we’re capitalized and where level 1 G-SIFI’s are capitalized that was going to be a capital issues. So that didn’t factor in to our expectation going forward. Again it’s a medium term objective and we’ve revised that every year, but we’re really trying to look forward and anticipate the rate environment and where growth’s going to occur and where the returns are for that growth for all industry players and our view is that over the next three plus years it’s going to take us a little longer to get back to where we thought we’d be when we entered in to the year about 18 months ago.

Mario Mendonca

Analyst

Okay, so when you refer to regulatory uncertainty, you’re not suggesting uncertainty associated with being labeled a G-SIFI or not, and you’re referring to all the other factors that could play in 2017?

Dave McKay

Management

Exactly, correct.

Mario Mendonca

Analyst

A slightly different question related to Royal's mortgage mix. Can you speak to any observed changes in fixed rate mortgage margins, and if you could discuss that in the context of the recent move in the five year - the Government of Canada five year bond yield?

Dave McKay

Management

Yeah, certainly, I think I’m going to hand it to Jennifer. We’re seeing margin compression in our roll-over of our fixed rate mortgages, as we’re seeing lower spreads in the environment we are competing in. But Jennifer do you want to comment on your margins and the decision to change your fixed rate to pricing?

Jennifer Tory

Analyst

So we’ve seen continuing pressure on our margins, and so if you saw on November 16, we revised our variable and fixed rate to have mortgage pricing. We consider a number of factors and we’re making changes to mortgage rates in concluding, finding costs in market conditions and I think that we’re comfortable for the moment that we review on a daily basis our rate to make sure we continue to grow our business and meet client expectations. The prices changes are only on newly originated loans, so I think that as opposed to the much larger existing portfolio, we’re on renewals and so we don’t anticipate an uplift in NIM in the near term, but we did want to address some of the pressure that was in the rate environment.

Mario Mendonca

Analyst

So despite the changes in mortgage rates, you’re saying you would not guide us to any improvement in NIM in the near term?

Jennifer Tory

Analyst

Not in the near term, no.

Mario Mendonca

Analyst

Okay, then any update on wholesale funding costs, this is just a more generally for the bank? Are you seeing anything there, again in the context of higher rates?

Dave McKay

Management

In our wholesale funding --?

Mario Mendonca

Analyst

Yes wholesale funding cost. Just generally for the bank.

Dave McKay

Management

On a five year spread or --.

Janice Fukakusa

Management

I’ll answer that Mario and I don’t think we haven’t seen any significant movement and you know that when we do our funding, we try to fund in advance in all durations and period. So we try to fund type B, so we try to minimize any of those types of spread intact, but we haven’t seen anything significant.

Dave McKay

Management

I would say Janice one of the other things we’ve done this year or we did earlier in the year, throughout the year its extended term when we saw quite a flat yield curve in that wholesale book, and so I think that will benefit us going forward in terms of the certainty and the cost of funding.

Operator

Operator

Our following question is from Peter Routledge from National Bank Financial. Please go ahead.

Peter Routledge

Analyst

Dave, I guess a question for you just on the ROE target change, certainly, City National probably put a little bit of a downward pressure on the bank's ROE. So in your opening comments you seem to identify other future acquisitions as something you might look at. To what extent will you limit the bank's acquisitions to only those that are ROE accretive or not materially dilutive?

Dave McKay

Management

No, I don’t think our strategy is changed in how we’re going to deploy our capital. We’ve got enormous flexibility with a 10.8 CT1 ratio. We see significant organic growth potential. So our capital first and foremost is going to be deployed organically across all our businesses. And one of the themes that really do want to make sure comes out is that, we feel we’re exiting here with enormous organic momentum cross all our businesses. Doug referenced the momentum that we’ve got in our capital markets business after a bit of a slow choppy Q4. We’ve exited the year across our investment banking business, our lending businesses and our trading businesses in a better shape. Doug Guzman referenced the significant momentum we have on the flow side in our asset management business and in our wealth franchise. If you look at Jennifer’s numbers, as we exit Q4 with strong momentum now across almost all our product categories, from mortgages to business deposits to better business loan performance, you’ve got INTS and insurance. So we’ve got significant momentum across all those businesses that we feel really good about, and continuing that momentum will consume some of that organic capital going forward. So I think we feel good about that. We continue to look for opportunities to return capital to shareholders. As a core tool we’ll have - and then my view on inorganic growth remains the same. We will look for selective small tuck-in opportunities to grow City National in the US if it makes sense. We’re looking for a wider range of synergies that’s more accretive to the shareholder and will not be as dilutive as the City National move. Now valuations in the U.S. are quite unattractive right now with the run-up in banks. That will obviously play to our mind despite our own strong currency. So the answer to your question is yes, we’re being very prudent and we will look to drive strong shareholder returns and with the strong organic momentum we have and organic growth opportunities that our priority.

Dave Mun

Management

And Operator we’ll take one more question before handing it back to Dave for final remarks.

Operator

Operator

Our last question is from Meny Grauman from Cormark Securities. Please go ahead.

Meny Grauman

Analyst

Dave in your opening remarks, you talked about some of the impacts of mortgage rule changes, and you mentioned that you see opportunity in some segments of the mortgage market. And I was wondering if you could just elaborate on that comment specifically?

Dave McKay

Management

In the absence of any monetary tightening in Canada, we welcome the rule changes. We want a sustainable long term mortgage market in Canada. It matches with our sustainable long term growth strategy within the organization. So in the absence of any monetary tightening, we need the policy changes that we’re seeing to slow down some very hot markets out there. We continue to grow our sales force to continue to target premium clients. We’ve had enormous success with new comers and first time home buyers. We continue to rely on a proprietary channel so we can control the credit risk in those incoming into the bank, and I think we feel good about our business model and we feel good about our scale and the growth in our investment of that business. We feel good about the credit we’ve taken on a little bit more insurance. So I think as you look at how we’ve invested prudently in that business, where we’re positioned for growth geographically, we feel good about the business going forward and we had very strong results in 2016 with 7% plus growth. We had market share gain, the quality of our book is strong, Mark articulated, and the one-time change that we went through in Q4 due to our valuation insurance changes. But we continue to expect that portfolio to perform strongly. We’ve got 47% insurance on the portfolio now. So we feel good about how we’ve grown and our ability to continue to grow.

Meny Grauman

Analyst

Just as a follow-up on that, would you say that the rule changes benefits you maybe at the expense of some of the smaller players? Would you say that there's an element of that going on or what's your view on that?

Dave McKay

Management

It’s hard to say. Certainly there are smaller players in the market whose funding model will be impacted and you should expect to see some channel shifts. And we would hope to be the beneficiary of that with our expanded sales force. How that plays out is hard to predict, but certainly there are more challenges to some of the smaller players in the market who’ve relied on traditional funding models.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. I would now like to turn the meeting back over to Mr. Mun.

Dave McKay

Management

Maybe I’ll take it. Thanks everyone for your questions this morning and your participation, and we look forward to seeing you again in another three months. Thank you.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. The conference has now ended. Please disconnect your lines at this time, and we thank you for your participation.