It is the latest move in the bank's increased activity across North America
Royal Bank of Canada announced that it boosted its stake in US-based Cherry Hill Mortgage Investment Corporation by 10.1% in the second quarter.
RBC’s strengthened presence pushed its owned shares in Cherry Hill MIC to 25,597 shares after the purchase of 2,343 shares during Q2. RBC owned 0.15% of the MIC, worth $253,000 as of its most recent filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission.
This came in the wake of RBC’s latest Q4 results announcement, which saw its capital markets arm generate net income of $920 million – increasing by around 10% ($80 million) from a year ago. The growth was largely driven by higher revenue in corporate and investment banking “as a result of increased M&A activity across all regions and higher loan syndication activity in North America,” RBC said.
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RBC saw its overall earnings grow by 20% annually in Q4, reaching $3.9 billion largely due to lower provisions for credit losses. Pre-provision, pre-tax earnings of $4.8 billion also went up by 4% from the prior year.
The major contributors to the bank’s growth were higher earnings in its personal and commercial banking arms (up 54%).
“Solid earnings growth in investor and treasury services, insurance, and wealth management also contributed to the increase,” RBC said. “Our results this year included releases of provisions on performing loans of $1.4 billion, primarily driven by improvements in our macroeconomic and credit quality outlook. In comparison, the prior year reflected elevated provisions on performing loans of $2.6 billion due to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.”
