BANK FIRST CORPORATION (BFC): what the price requires
At today's price, BANK FIRST CORPORATION (BFC) is priced for 12.6% return on equity. boothcheck doesn't publish a fair value or a price target; it shows what the price assumes, so you can judge whether that bar is too high.
Generated: 2026-07-14 · Exported: 2026-07-16 · Source: https://boothcheck.com/report/BFC
Headline
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| Ticker | BFC |
| Company | BANK FIRST CORPORATION |
| Current price | $146.67/sh |
What The Price Requires (Inversion)
The assumption today's price embeds, recovered by inverting the valuation.
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| Inversion basis | financials |
| Price-to-book | 2.00x |
| Return on equity now | 11.1% |
The implied return on book is non-physical at this price-to-book and is suppressed as misleading. The price sits beyond a 12.4% return on equity sustained for 40 years and is not resolvable as a sustainable-ROE point. The rarity read below is the honest signal.
Solve inputs: computed at a 8.3% cost of equity; ROE searched up to the 12.4% ROE ceiling.
How unusual the bet is: extreme
| Reference | Value |
|---|---|
| vs own history | +0.57σ |
| cohort percentile (of 119 peers) | 82 |
| sustained it ~10 years at this level | 68% |
| implied end-window share | 0% |
Valuation X-Ray
Asset, earnings-power and peer-multiple models all land far below the price; ONLY the growth-DCF reaches it. The bet is durable compounding the static frames structurally cannot price (a moat/durability premium).
How the valuation models price the stock relative to the market price. Price/FV above 1.0 means the market pays more than that lens defends (expensive); at or below 1.0 the lens can defend the price.
| Family | Median price/FV | Models | Reads |
|---|---|---|---|
| Asset | 2.07x | 3 | expensive |
| Earnings | 1.55x | 2 | expensive |
| Relative | 1.70x | 3 | expensive |
| Growth | 0.91x | 1 | justifies |
Families that justify the price: Growth Families that call it expensive: Asset, Earnings, Relative
The models below discount at their own flat-beta convention rates (cost of equity 9.3%, WACC 5.8%); the inversion above states its own rate.
Per-Model Detail (n=9)
| Model | Family | FV | Price/FV | Applicable | Methodology |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| DCF Perpetual Growth | Growth | — | — | no | — |
| Bank Fair Value (P/TBV) | — | $41.16 | 3.56x | yes | TBVPS $47.19 × 0.87x (ROE (TTM) 8.9% / CoE 9.3%, g=5.0% (sustainable: 65% retention × ROE, 5% cap; not the terminal-growth assumption), credit 1.28% allowance/loans → ×0.94) |
| Relative Valuation | Relative | $107.02 | 1.37x | yes | P/E 13.72x (blended: static sector reference 10x + trailing (TTM) 22x), scenarios: 11.2x / 13.7x / 16.3x (bear / base = reference held flat / bull), EV/EBITDA N/Ax |
| Simple DDM | Growth | — | — | no | — |
| Two-Stage DDM | Growth | — | — | no | — |
| Simple Excess Return | Asset | $70.78 | 2.07x | yes | BV/sh $73.28, ROE (TTM) 8.9%, ke 9.3% |
| Two-Stage Excess Return | Asset | $69.57 | 2.11x | yes | 5yr excess ROE then converge to ke=9.3% |
| Discounted Future Market Cap | Growth | $161.16 | 0.91x | yes | Rev $0.2B, growth 19% (input: historical growth; tapered), Terminal P/S: 7.9x / 9.7x / 11.6x (bear / base = today's held flat / bull, cap 12x) |
| Peter Lynch Fair Value | Relative | $86.28 | 1.70x | yes | EPS $7.19, growth 6% (input: historical EPS growth), PEG=3.88 (Overvalued) |
| Margin Trajectory | Growth | — | — | no | — |
| Earnings Power Value | Earnings | — | — | no | — |
| Residual Income | Asset | — | — | no | — |
| Graham Number | Asset | $108.88 | 1.35x | yes | √(22.5 × EPS $7.19 × BVPS $73.28) — Graham's conservative floor |
| EV/EBITDA Relative | Relative | — | — | no | — |
| FCF Yield | Earnings | — | — | no | — |
| SBC-Adj FCF Yield | Earnings | — | — | no | — |
| Ben Graham Formula | Earnings | $120.87 | 1.21x | yes | EPS $7.19 × (8.5 + 2×5.8%) × (4.4 / 5.3%) |
| ROIC-Justified P/B | Asset | — | — | no | — |
| P/Sales Sector | Relative | — | — | no | — |
| PEG Fair Value | Relative | $62.33 | 2.35x | yes | EPS $7.19 × (PEG 1.5 × growth 5.8% (input: historical EPS growth)) → PE 8.7x |
| Earnings Yield | Earnings | $77.73 | 1.89x | yes | EPS $7.19 / required return 9.3% (Rf 4.3% + ERP 5.0%) |
| Funds From Operations Multiple | Relative | — | — | no | — |
| Clinical Phase NPV | Growth | — | — | no | — |
| Merton | Asset | — | — | no | — |
| V5 Mechanical | — | — | — | no | — |
Solvency
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| Share count CAGR (dilution) | 10.3% |
Deposit/float-funded balance sheet: debt is funding, not corporate leverage, and GAAP operating cash flow follows loan flows. Net-debt, interest-coverage, and cash-burn lenses do not apply. The solvency frame for a financial is regulatory capital and payout capacity (CET1, stress buffer, dividends plus buybacks against earnings).
Bullet Takeaways
- Bank First is a Wisconsin community bank that grows largely by acquiring other banks, most recently completing the Centre 1 Bancorp merger on January 1, 2026, which added roughly $1.58 billion of assets and issued about 1.38 million shares.
- The market pays roughly two times book value, a premium that assumes the bank sustains a return on equity near 12.4% against the 11.1% it has recently earned, so the price leans on the deal machine widening returns.
- Capital return is escalating: the board raised the quarterly dividend to $0.55, up 22.2% year over year, signaling management's confidence even as the share count rises from acquisition currency.
Bull Case
Bank First's capital-allocation playbook is the clearest read on how management sees value, and it runs in two directions at once. On one side, the bank buys other community banks and folds them into a higher-return platform: the Centre 1 Bancorp merger, completed January 1, 2026, brought First National Bank and Trust of Beloit, Wisconsin into the fold, adding about $1.58 billion of assets for roughly $168.8 million in consideration and 1.38 million shares. On the other, it returns cash aggressively, lifting the quarterly dividend to $0.55, a 22.2% increase year over year. A bank that can both acquire and raise its dividend sharply in the same quarter is signaling that the combined franchise earns more than enough to fund both.
The returns support the premium the market assigns. Bank First has recently earned a return on equity around 11.1%, strong for a community bank, and first-quarter net income rose to $19.99 million from $18.24 million a year earlier even as integration costs weighed on the reported figure. Adjusted for acquisition and asset-sale items, net income was $25.1 million, or $2.24 per share, which is the cleaner read on the underlying earning power. The deposit franchise and the relationship-banking model in stable Midwestern markets give the bank a low-cost funding base, the foundation of durable returns in regional banking.
The reframe is that Bank First is less a bank than a disciplined consolidator of banks. It uses its premium valuation as currency to buy smaller institutions, captures the cost synergies, and re-rates the acquired deposits and loans onto its own higher-return economics. The Centre 1 deal added meaningful core deposit intangibles, the accounting recognition that the acquired deposits are themselves a valuable, sticky asset. As long as the bank keeps finding sensibly priced targets and integrating them without diluting returns, the model compounds book value per share faster than an organic-only peer could.
Bear Case
The cycle is the bear's first concern, because a serial bank acquirer is buying loan books at whatever point in the credit cycle the deals happen to close. Community-bank earnings are levered to net interest margin and credit quality, both of which turn with the economy and with interest rates the bank does not control. Bank First has grown rapidly through acquisition, and each deal layers in another loan portfolio underwritten by a different team in a different rate environment. The Centre 1 merger added about $1.58 billion of assets and generated $71.26 million of goodwill plus $31.91 million of core deposit intangibles; goodwill of that size is a bet that the acquired franchise performs, and goodwill is exactly what gets written down when a credit cycle turns or deposit costs spike.
The dilution from the acquisition model is a real cost to existing holders. Diluted earnings per share actually fell to $1.78 from $1.82 year over year because the share count rose after the deal, even as total net income grew. The share count has been growing about 6.5% a year as stock is issued to fund mergers, which means per-share progress depends on the synergies more than offsetting the dilution every time. If a deal underwhelms or integration drags, holders are left with more shares against earnings that did not grow to match.
What the price requires makes the model's execution non-negotiable. At roughly two times book value, no valuation family reaches the price; even the most generous lens reads it as full, and the asset-based method calls it expensive outright. The premium assumes the bank sustains a return on equity near 12.4%, above the 11.1% it has actually been earning. That gap has to be closed by the acquisition machine widening returns, in a sector where regional-bank multiples compress quickly when credit concerns surface or deposit competition intensifies. A bank priced for above-trend returns through stock-funded growth carries two risks at once: the cycle and its own deal discipline.
Valuation
A bank is worth the return it earns on its capital, so Bank First is read on price-to-book rather than an operating multiple, and the price is demanding. At roughly two times book, the level implies a sustained return on equity near 12.4%, above the 11.1% the bank has recently delivered. That premium is the market crediting the acquisition model to keep lifting returns; it is not justified by the current earnings on the current capital alone.
The method pattern is unusual in its breadth: no family reaches the price. The asset-based lens reads it as outright expensive, and even the earnings, peer-multiple, and forward-growth families fall short of today's level. When every method says the price is above what it supports, the premium rests on something the standard frames cannot capture, here the bank's record of buying and integrating other banks at returns above its cost of equity. The right peer comparison is to other high-quality regional consolidators, where Bank First's valuation sits among the richer names, a position it has to keep earning deal by deal.
For a bank, the balance-sheet read is capital strength and credit quality, not the leverage math that applies to an industrial. Deposits are the funding base, not debt, and the relevant questions are capital headroom for the next acquisition and the credit performance of the acquired loan books. The escalating dividend, raised 22.2% year over year, signals management sees ample capital-return capacity even while funding growth. The downside boundary is the bank's capital and the quality of its underwriting through a cycle; the risk to the price is that the premium assumes a return on equity it has yet to consistently demonstrate, and that any credit deterioration or integration stumble compresses both the returns and the multiple at once.
Catalysts
The defining event of the quarter was the Centre 1 Bancorp merger, completed January 1, 2026. Bank First absorbed First National Bank and Trust of Beloit, Wisconsin, adding roughly $1.58 billion of assets and $1.48 billion of liabilities, issuing about 1.38 million shares and paying total consideration near $168.8 million, which generated $71.26 million of goodwill and $31.91 million of core deposit intangibles. The deal is the latest step in the bank's consolidation strategy and the main driver of the year-over-year balance-sheet growth.
Reported earnings reflected the integration. First-quarter net income rose to $19.99 million from $18.24 million a year earlier, but diluted EPS slipped to $1.78 from $1.82 as the post-merger share count rose. On an adjusted basis, excluding acquisition and asset-sale items, net income was $25.1 million, or $2.24 per share, the cleaner view of underlying performance.
Capital return stepped up alongside the deal: the board declared a quarterly dividend of $0.55, a 22.2% increase year over year and 10% sequentially. The signposts ahead are the pace of Centre 1 integration and synergy capture, the credit performance of the combined loan book, and whether management finds its next acquisition target. The return on equity trajectory toward or away from the priced-in level is the cleanest measure of whether the premium is being earned.
Peer Cohorts (Per Segment, With Filing Citations)
Bank First (consolidated bank) (reported)
- BANF (BancFirst Corporation)
- (no filing in the citation store)
- CBU (COMMUNITY FINANCIAL SYSTEM, INC.)
- (no filing in the citation store)
- LKFN (LAKELAND FINANCIAL CORPORATION)
- (no filing in the citation store)
- WAFD (WAFD, INC.)
- (no filing in the citation store)
- TRMK (Trustmark Corporation)
- (no filing in the citation store)
- OFG (OFG Bancorp)
- (no filing in the citation store)
- HOMB (HOME BANCSHARES, INC.)
- (no filing in the citation store)
- ABCB (Ameris Bancorp)
- (no filing in the citation store)
Methodology Note
- Priced-in inversion: the valuation is inverted on the current price to recover the operating-income growth, duration, and steady-state margin the price embeds (ROE for financials, FFO growth for REITs).
- Valuation x-ray: the valuation models, grouped into four families (asset, earnings, relative, growth). Each model is expressed as a price/FV ratio (distance from price), not a point fair-value estimate. The spread across families is the disagreement.
- Solvency: net cash/debt, net-debt-to-NOPAT, interest coverage, and share-count CAGR from EDGAR financials (net debt / FFO and fixed-charge coverage for REITs; regulatory-capital framing for financials).
- Peer cohorts: per-segment comparables with deep-linkable SEC filing citations.
Fundamentals sourced from SEC EDGAR filings. Current price from Databento. The priced-in inversion and valuation x-ray are computed by the boothcheck engine; narrative composed by AI from the structured data.
Sources
Bank First Q1 2026 results / 8-K · Bank First Q1 2026 results