GLACIER BANCORP, INC. (GBCI): what the price requires

At today's price, GLACIER BANCORP, INC. (GBCI) is priced for 15.1% 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: 2026-07-19 · Source: https://boothcheck.com/report/GBCI

Headline

FieldValue
TickerGBCI
CompanyGLACIER BANCORP, INC.
Current price$51.73/sh

What The Price Requires (Inversion)

The assumption today's price embeds, recovered by inverting the valuation.

FieldValue
Inversion basisfinancials
Price-to-book1.58x
Return on equity now5.7%

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 11% cost of equity; ROE searched up to the 12.4% ROE ceiling.

Reconcile: at the x-ray's 9.3% required return this reads ~12.3%; the models below use their own rates.

How unusual the bet is: extreme

ReferenceValue
vs own history+2.77σ
cohort percentile (of 119 peers)70
sustained it ~10 years at this level60%
implied end-window share0%

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.

FamilyMedian price/FVModelsReads
Asset2.34x3expensive
Earnings1.49x2expensive
Relative1.44x3expensive
Growth1.01x1expensive

Families that justify the price: Growth Families that call it expensive: Asset

The models below discount at their own flat-beta convention rates (cost of equity 9.3%, WACC 5.6%); the inversion above states its own rate.

Per-Model Detail (n=9)

ModelFamilyFVPrice/FVApplicableMethodology
DCF Perpetual GrowthGrowth——no—
Bank Fair Value (P/TBV)—$9.985.18xyesTBVPS $21.27 × 0.47x (ROE (TTM) 6.3% / CoE 9.3%, g=4.1% (sustainable: 65% retention × ROE, 5% cap; not the terminal-growth assumption), credit 1.23% allowance/loans → ×0.94)
Relative ValuationRelative$35.871.44xyesP/E 14.58x (blended: static sector reference 10x + trailing (TTM) 25x), scenarios: 11.7x / 14.6x / 17.5x (bear / base = reference held flat / bull), EV/EBITDA N/Ax
Simple DDMGrowth——no—
Two-Stage DDMGrowth——no—
Simple Excess ReturnAsset$22.132.34xyesBV/sh $32.62, ROE (TTM) 6.3%, ke 9.3%
Two-Stage Excess ReturnAsset$17.872.89xyes5yr excess ROE then converge to ke=9.3%
Discounted Future Market CapGrowth$51.101.01xyesRev $1.0B, growth 30% (input: historical growth; tapered), Terminal P/S: 5.6x / 7.0x / 8.4x (bear / base = today's held flat / bull, cap 12x)
Peter Lynch Fair ValueRelative$34.261.51xyesEPS $2.14, growth 16% (input: historical EPS growth), PEG=1.58 (Overvalued)
Margin TrajectoryGrowth——no—
Earnings Power ValueEarnings——no—
Residual IncomeAsset——no—
Graham NumberAsset$39.631.31xyes√(22.5 × EPS $2.14 × BVPS $32.62) — Graham's conservative floor
EV/EBITDA RelativeRelative——no—
FCF YieldEarnings——no—
SBC-Adj FCF YieldEarnings——no—
Ben Graham FormulaEarnings$69.050.75xyesEPS $2.14 × (8.5 + 2×15.0%) × (4.4 / 5.3%)
ROIC-Justified P/BAsset——no—
P/Sales SectorRelative——no—
PEG Fair ValueRelative$51.391.01xyesEPS $2.14 × (PEG 1.5 × growth 16.0% (input: historical EPS growth)) → PE 24.0x
Earnings YieldEarnings$23.142.24xyesEPS $2.14 / required return 9.3% (Rf 4.3% + ERP 5.0%)
Funds From Operations MultipleRelative——no—
Clinical Phase NPVGrowth——no—
MertonAsset——no—
V5 Mechanical———no—

Solvency

FieldValue
Share count CAGR (dilution)4.1%

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

Bull Case

Glacier Bancorp's structural advantage is its operating model: a multi-bank holding company that runs a network of locally branded community banks across the Mountain West and intermountain region. Each bank keeps its name, local decision-making, and relationships while sharing Glacier's back office, technology, and balance-sheet scale. That design produces an unusually low-cost, sticky deposit base in markets where Glacier is often the dominant local lender, and it shows up in the funding line: total funding costs fell to 1.40% in Q1 2026, a level large urban competitors cannot match. The FY2025 10-K frames the net interest margin as the spread on earning assets on a tax-equivalent basis (FY2025 10-K, accession 0000868671-26-000023), and Glacier's whole model is built to widen that spread.

The margin recovery is the story right now. Net interest margin expanded to 3.80% in Q1 2026 from 3.58% the prior quarter and just 3.04% a year earlier, as loan yields rose and funding costs fell. Core net interest income jumped to $267 million from $190 million a year earlier. That margin expansion drove net income to $82.1 million, up 51% year over year, with diluted EPS of $0.63. After a stretch of compressed margins, Glacier is moving sharply in the right direction as deposits reprice down and assets reprice up.

Growth comes from a disciplined acquisition machine. Glacier completed the Guaranty Bancshares acquisition on October 1, 2025 for about $470 million, capping a record M&A year with more than $4.7 billion in acquired assets, and the deal is immediately accretive with cost savings targeted at 20% of Guaranty's expense base, half realized in 2026 and fully thereafter. Glacier has a long history as a serial, conservative acquirer that integrates community banks without breaking their local franchises. The current trailing ROE near 6.3% is depressed by acquisition and merger costs; as those roll off and Guaranty synergies land on top of the wider margin, the normalized earnings power is meaningfully higher than the trailing number suggests.

Bear Case

The thing to face directly is that the price is built on normalized earnings the bank is not currently producing. Trailing ROE is only about 6.3%, well below the roughly 9% cost of equity, which means that on its actual recent returns Glacier is earning below its hurdle, the textbook condition for a bank that should trade below tangible book. Yet the price sits at a premium: the bank fair-value model marks tangible book at just 0.47x given that 6.3% ROE, landing near $10, while the stock trades near $48, almost 5x that estimate. The structural concern is in the capital math: a serial acquirer's book value is inflated with goodwill and intangibles from years of deals, so a price near 1.5x stated book of $32.62 is a richer multiple of tangible book, and that premium only holds if the post-Guaranty ROE recovers quickly and durably toward double digits.

The balance-sheet fragility specific to Glacier is its asset-liability and securities position. Like many banks that grew deposits cheaply in the low-rate era, Glacier holds a securities book whose mark-to-market value fell when rates rose, an unrealized loss that sits in equity and constrains capital flexibility. The margin recovery to 3.80% is welcome, but it is partly a function of the rate environment; a sharp move in either direction, faster Fed cuts that compress asset yields or renewed deposit competition that lifts the 1.40% funding cost, would stall the expansion the price is extrapolating.

The acquisition strategy compounds the risk. Each deal adds integration cost, dilutes tangible book at closing, and concentrates the franchise further in the intermountain and Texas markets it has bought into. A regional economic downturn in those geographies would hit a focused loan book harder than a diversified national bank. The engine's own read is that asset, earnings-power, and peer-multiple models all say richly valued and only the growth-DCF reaches the price, a moat-and-durability premium. For a bank earning below its cost of equity on trailing numbers, that is a demanding bet: it requires the normalization to arrive on schedule, with little cushion if the margin or credit cycle disappoints.

Valuation

Glacier is a financial, so the inversion runs on return on equity, and the read is the opposite of a value bank: the engine characterizes the price as elevated, with asset, earnings-power, and peer-multiple models all saying richly valued and only the growth-DCF reaching it, a durability premium.

The model X-ray is stark. The bank fair-value model marks tangible book at only 0.47x because trailing ROE of 6.3% sits below the 9.3% cost of equity, landing near $10, so the price is about 4.8x that frame. The simple and two-stage excess-return models land near $18 to $22 off a $32.62 book value, the earnings-yield method near $23, and the Graham number near $40. The blended landing across applicable methods is near $28, well below the market.

The spread is the information. Every frame anchored to Glacier's current depressed returns says expensive; only the frames that assume earnings normalize justify the price. The investable question is whether the 6.3% trailing ROE is a trough, suppressed by Guaranty integration costs and the prior margin squeeze, or a fair read of the franchise. The bull view is that net interest margin at 3.80% and rising, plus Guaranty synergies, lift normalized ROE back toward double digits and the premium is earned.

Catalysts

Glacier Bancorp reported Q1 2026 with net income of $82.1 million, up 29% sequentially and 51% year over year, and diluted EPS of $0.63 (from $0.49 the prior quarter and $0.48 a year earlier). Net interest margin expanded to 3.80% from 3.58% the prior quarter and 3.04% a year earlier, with total funding costs falling to 1.40% and core net interest income rising to $267 million. The market reaction was mixed, with the stock dipping about 4% as a revenue line missed even though earnings beat.

The defining near-term driver is the integration of Guaranty Bancshares, acquired October 1, 2025 for about $470 million, with cost savings targeted at 20% of Guaranty's non-interest expense, 50% realized in 2026 and 100% thereafter. The key data points are whether net interest margin continues to expand as deposits reprice down, whether the Guaranty synergies land on schedule, and whether trailing ROE recovers toward the bank's historical double-digit range, since the valuation premium rests on that normalization. Further accretive M&A is the likely growth catalyst given Glacier's serial-acquirer track record, while the Fed's rate path and credit quality in its intermountain and Texas markets are the macro variables to watch.

Sources: Glacier Bancorp Q1 2026 results (StockTitan, Simply Wall St, ChartMill, 2026); FY2025 10-K (accession 0000868671-26-000023).

Peer Cohorts (Per Segment, With Filing Citations)

Core business (reported)

Methodology Note

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.

View the full interactive GBCI report on boothcheck