Are You Considering All The Risks For First Financial Bankshares Inc’s (NASDAQ:FFIN)?
The banking sector has been experiencing growth as a result of improving credit quality from post-GFC recovery. First Financial Bankshares Inc (NASDAQ:FFIN) is a small-cap bank with a market capitalisation of US$4.2b. Its profit and value are directly impacted by its borrowers’ ability to pay which is driven by the level of economic growth. This is because growth determines the stability of a borrower’s salary as well as the level of interest rates. Risk associated with repayment is measured by bad debt which is written off as an expense, impacting First Financial Bankshares’s bottom line. Since the level of risky assets held by the bank impacts the attractiveness of it as an investment, I will take you through three metrics that are insightful proxies for risk.
View our latest analysis for First Financial Bankshares
How Good Is First Financial Bankshares At Forecasting Its Risks?
First Financial Bankshares’s ability to forecast and provision for its bad loans indicates it has a good understanding of the level of risk it is taking on. If the level of provisioning covers 100% or more of the actual bad debt expense the bank writes off, then it is relatively accurate and prudent in its bad debt provisioning. With a bad loan to bad debt ratio of 194.25%, the bank has cautiously over-provisioned by 94.25%, which illustrates a safe and prudent forecasting methodology, and its ability to anticipate the factors contributing to its bad loan levels.
How Much Risk Is Too Much?
First Financial Bankshares’s operations expose it to risky assets by lending to borrowers who may not be able to repay their loans. Generally, loans that are “bad” and cannot be recovered by the bank should make up less than 3% of its total loans. When these loans are not repaid, they are written off as expenses which comes out directly from First Financial Bankshares’s profit. Since bad loans make up a relatively small 0.68% of total assets, the bank exhibits strict bad debt management and faces low risk of default.
Is There Enough Safe Form Of Borrowing?
First Financial Bankshares operates by lending out its various forms of borrowings. Customers’ deposits tend to carry the smallest risk given the relatively stable interest rate and amount available. As a rule, a bank is considered less risky if it holds a higher level of deposits. First Financial Bankshares’s total deposit level of 93% of its total liabilities is very high and is well-above the sensible level of 50% for financial institutions. This may mean the bank is too cautious with its level of its safer form of borrowing and has plenty of headroom to take on risker forms of liability.
Next Steps:
The recent acquisition is expected to bring more opportunities for FFIN, which in turn should lead to stronger growth. I would stay up-to-date on how this decision will affect the future of the business in terms of earnings growth and financial health. Below, I’ve listed three fundamental areas on Simply Wall St’s dashboard for a quick visualization on current trends for FFIN. I’ve also used this site as a source of data for my article.
Future Outlook: What are well-informed industry analysts predicting for FFIN’s future growth? Take a look at our free research report of analyst consensus for FFIN’s outlook.
Valuation: What is FFIN worth today? Has the future growth potential already been factored into the price? The intrinsic value infographic in our free research report helps visualize whether FFIN is currently mispriced by the market.
Other High-Performing Stocks: Are there other stocks that provide better prospects with proven track records? Explore our free list of these great stocks here.
To help readers see past the short term volatility of the financial market, we aim to bring you a long-term focused research analysis purely driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis does not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements.
The author is an independent contributor and at the time of publication had no position in the stocks mentioned. For errors that warrant correction please contact the editor at editorial-team@simplywallst.com.
