The bank had planned to publish its results to coincide with its annual shareholders meeting in Calgary today. But instead it was rushing to get the numbers out, after someone inadvertently sent the results to a group of employees who were not supposed to see them.
"While to the best of our knowledge the information was released only to one group of BMO employees, we deeply regret the incident and apologize for the inconvenience," BMO CEO Tony Comper said in a statement.
The actual results were overshadowed by the mix-up.
For the quarter, BMO said it earned $630 million, or $1.22 a share, a five per cent increase from last year.
The bank credited a jump in trading revenues and unusually low loan-loss provisions. Quarterly trading revenue more than doubled to $221 million. Profit rose 29 per cent to $94 million at BMO's private client division, which caters to wealthy customers.
