"Much of the growth that we are planning will come from the US and will be focused on asset management, private wealth management and private banking," chief executive Gerry McCaughey is reported to have said at a Scotiabank summit in Toronto. The bank is also interested in acquiring businesses in Canada.

The comments come a few days after Canada’s fifth-largest lender said its profits in the three months to 31 July, which rose, were in part driven by stronger performance of the wealth arm of the business.

A preference for larger acquisitions comes as CIBC plans to increase the percentage of overall profit it derives from its wealth management unit to more than 15 per cent from the current level of 11 percent, McCaughey said.

"As we have worked through the universe of potential acquisitions, it has become clear that choices improve as we expand the size of the universe under consideration," he said.

While rivals like Bank of Nova Scotia and Toronto-Dominion have sought assets in Latin America and the United States, CIBC has limited itself to smaller targets, largely in wealth management, Reuters, in one of the reports on McCaughey’s remarks, pointed out. The largest recent M&A deal was CIBC’s C$848 million acquisition of 41 per cent of American Century investments in 2011. Most recently, it said in April that it would acquire wealth firm Atlantic Private Wealth Management for $210 million.

Last week, CIBC said that its profits rose 5.8 per cent for the third quarter of the year, ending 31 July 2013, driven by its wealth-management unit. The firm said that its wealth management unit reported net income of $102 million for the third quarter, up $26 million or 34 per cent from the same quarter last year.