Alongside fluctuations in the interest rate environment, the banking industry has seen increasing competition for deposits in recent years. Improved loan demand in the post-recession period has led to greater funding needs, while competition from traditional banking channels has been compounded by the increased prevalence of online deposit products, often offering higher rates. All of these trends have combined to make strong core deposit bases increasingly valuable in bank acquisitions in the post-recession years. One question to ponder, however, is how much the value attributable to core deposits may ease given the reduction in rates that has occurred recently.

Part 3 of the Community Bank Valuation series explores important relationships between banks and their holding companies, focusing particularly on cash flow and leverage.

The valuation issue relates to using transaction data from investments in other money losing enter­prises. Is it always valid to apply multiples paid by investors in a funding round of a money-losing business to value another money-losing business?

Unlike many privately held, less regulated companies, banks produce reams of financial reports covering every minutia of their operations. For analytical personality types, it’s a dream.

The approach taken to analyze a bank’s performance, though, must recognize depositories’ unique nature, relative to non-financial companies.

Through late July, M&A activity in 2019 is on pace to match the annual deal volume achieved in the last few years. Since 2014, approximately 4%-5% of banks have been absorbed each year via M&A. According to data provided by S&P Global Market Intelligence, there were 136 announced transactions in the year-to-date period, which equates to 2.5% of the 5,406 FDIC-insured institutions that existed as of year-end 2018.

This article begins a series focused on the two issues most central to our work at Mercer Capital: What drives value for a depository institution and how are these drivers distilled into a value for a given depository institution? At its core, though, value is a function of a specified financial metric or metrics, growth, and risk.

Since Bank Watch’s last review of net interest margin (“NIM”) trends in July 2016, the Federal Open Market Committee has raised the federal funds rate eight times after what was then the first rate hike (December 2015) since mid2006. With the past two years of rate hikes and current pause in Fed actions, in this article, we’ll look at the effect of interest rate movements on the NIM of small and large community banks.

I ventured into the Arizona desert again this year to Bank Director’s Acquire or Be Acquired Conference (“AOBA”) in Phoenix in late January. This year I was struck by the dichotomous outlook for the banking sector that reminded me of Dicken’s famous line: “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times…”

Last week, the Mercer Capital Bank Group headed south for a scenic trip through the fields of the Mississippi Delta, including the town of Clarksdale located about 90 miles from Memphis.

One attraction put Clarksdale on the map – the Crossroads. At the intersection of Highways 49 and 61, the bluesman Robert Johnson (who lived from 1911 to 1938), as the story goes, met the Devil at midnight who tuned his guitar and played a few songs. In exchange for his soul, Johnson realized his dream of blues mastery.

The point of this article is not that Lucifer lurked behind the revaluation of asset prices in the fourth quarter of 2018. Instead, the market gyrations laid bare the dichotomy between bank expectations regarding asset quality and the market’s view of mounting credit risk that was overlaid by a need to meet margin calls among some investors. Indeed, credit quality faces its own crossroads.

To state the obvious: markets—but not fundamentals so far—are signaling 2019 (and maybe 2020) will be a more challenging year than was assumed a few months ago in which the economy slows and credit costs rise. The key question for 2019 then is: how much and is a slowdown fully priced into stocks?

In the last few weeks, I presented at two events geared towards helping community banks achieve better performance: the Moss Adams Community Banking Conference in Huntington Beach, California and the FI FinTech Unconference in Fredericksburg, Texas.

Much of the discussions at both conferences focused on the ability of community banks to adapt, survive, and thrive rather than thin out like the once massive North American buffalo herd. Beyond thinking that I will miss the great views and weather I had for both trips, I came away with a few questions bankers should consider.

Many family offices are built from the success of once fledgling businesses that many would now know as household names. Successor generations seek to maintain and build that wealth through prudent investments in equities, fixed income, and private equity investments in mature companies. In recent years, however, family offices have started taking notes from their entrepreneurial beginnings and are investing more in early-stage ventures. Though more often seen as LPs in traditional venture capital funds, family offices are also increasingly taking on the role of direct—and sometimes lead—venture investors.

With the Fed positioned to hike the Fed Funds and IOER rates several more times following the September meeting, it is a good time to look at the recent trend in core deposit values.

Struggling to find a page-turning read for that late summer beach escape?  May we recommend the 184 pages of blissful decadence that comprise the Internal Revenue Service’s August 2018 Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPR) regarding the Qualified Business Income (QBI) deduction under the Tax Cuts & Jobs Act (TCJA).  Like a tightly wound murder mystery, the regulations weave a complex web.  Tax code sections take the place of characters, the regulation’s intricacies unspooling as the narrative continues, relationships between Tax Code sections becoming (somewhat) clearer as the story (i.e., the regulation) progresses.  As the NPR continues its inexorable march, certain storylines (i.e., planning opportunities) are forestalled, yet the NPR creates a glimmer of other opportunities.1

After a slow start, M&A activity among U.S. commercial banks and thrifts picked up to the point where 2018 should look like recent years. Historically, approximately 2% to 4% of the industry is absorbed each year via M&A. Since 2014, the pace has been at or slightly above 4% as a well performing economy, readily available financing, rising stock prices for bank acquirers, and strong asset quality and earnings of would be sellers have supported activity.

On May 15, the AICPA’s Financial Reporting Executive Committee released a working draft of the AICPA Accounting and Valuation Guide Valuation of Portfolio Company Investments of Venture Capital and Private Equity Funds and Other Investment Companies. The document provides guidance and illustrations for preparers of financial statements, independent auditors, and valuation specialists regarding the accounting for and valuation of portfolio company investments of venture capital and private equity funds and other investment companies. In this introduction to the Guide, we provide a brief overview of the chapters and appendices with which PE and VC managers should develop familiarity.

Jay Wilson recently attended FinXTech, an industry event where the hosts at Bank Director bring together FinTech founders and bank directors and executives for productive conversations about the road ahead as partners (and competitors). In this post, Jay gives an overview of three key takeaways from the conference.

The pending acquisition of commercial finance lender NewStar Financial, Inc. (“NewStar”; Nasdaq-NEWS) is an example where the acquisition price outwardly seems to be low, at least until other factors are considered.

For those readers unable to escape the cold to attend Bank Director’s Acquire or Be Acquired (AOBA) conference in Scottsdale, AZ, we reflect on the major themes: bank M&A and scarcity, tax reform and valuation, and FinTech. For those unfamiliar with the three-day event, over 1,000 bankers, directors, and advisors gather to discuss pertinent industry issues.

Fortunately for bank stock valuations, the tax reform plank materialized in the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 (the “Act”). The Act has sweeping implications for banks, influencing more than their effective tax rates. This article explores these lesser known ramifications of the Act.

Determining the value of your bank is more complicated than simply taking a financial metric from one of your many financial reports and multiplying it by the relevant market multiple. However, examination of current and long term public pricing trends can shed some light on how certain quantitative factors may affect the value of your bank.

Complying with the revised disclosure requirements of ASU 2016-01 may necessitate that banks adopt new methodologies to determine the fair value of the bank’s loan portfolio.  

Current community bank M&A trends are mixed. With the spike in bank stock prices following the November 2016 national elections, the ability of buyers—at least the publicly traded ones—to more easily meet sellers’ price expectations seemingly would lead more banks to sell. However, that has not happened as the pace of consolidation declined.

In this article, we also look at the presence of non-traditional bank acquirers and the impact of FinTech as a growing M&A trend. While FinTech acquisitions of banks have been limited, viewing FinTech as a benefit of a transaction is an increasing trend.