Share count
16Mpeak FY2018
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MBWM, Mercantile Bank Corporation
Banks financial
Our banks are state banking companies that operate under the laws of the State of Michigan, pursuant to charters issued by the Michigan Department of Insurance and Financial Services.
Our banks, through their combined 54 office locations, provide commercial banking services, primarily to small- to medium-sized businesses, and retail banking services.
The business
What it sells, where the money comes from, the kind of company it is.
Revenue · FY2025
$243M
+4.8% YoY · 8% 5-yr CAGR
Vital signs · FY2025, with 5-yr average
Revenue $243M 5-yr avg $214M
The business in brief
read the 10-K →What this business is and what moves its needle, from its own SEC filings.
- What moves the needle
- Net interest margin, loan losses, and book value. A lender is read on the quality of its balance sheet, not an earnings multiple, and the worst year of credit losses matters more than the best. On its own account, the filing leans hardest on pricing power & competition, set against the numbers in what the filing emphasizes, below.
- Is it a good business?
- Return on equity has hovered around the cost of equity (median 12%, above 12% in 5 of 10 years). It runs at a 56% efficiency ratio, lean. A bank that earns above its cost of equity through the cycle compounds book value; whether this one did it by underwriting discipline or by reaching for risk is what the 10-K, and the worst years in the record, will tell you.
Every line is arithmetic on the company's filings, shown in full in the sections below.
The record
Ten years of arithmetic, read across the cycle.
The record, 2016–2025
realized figures from each filing · older years to the left| 2016’16 | 2017’17 | 2018’18 | 2019’19 | 2020’20 | 2021’21 | 2022’22 | 2023’23 | 2024’24 | 2025’25 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Income statement | ||||||||||
| $127M | $129M | $139M | $151M | $167M | $180M | $190M | $226M | $231M | $243M | RevenueRevenue |
| $106M | $110M | $120M | $125M | $122M | $124M | $158M | $194M | $191M | $201M | Net interest incomeNet int. |
| $21M | $19M | $19M | $27M | $45M | $56M | $32M | $32M | $40M | $42M | Noninterest incomeFee inc. |
| $3M | $3M | $1M | $2M | $14M | ($4M) | $7M | $8M | $7M | $3M | Credit-loss provisionProvision |
| $32M | $31M | $42M | $49M | $44M | $59M | $61M | $82M | $80M | $89M | Net incomeNet inc. |
| 32% | 32% | 19% | 18% | 20% | 20% | 19% | 20% | 19% | 14% | Effective tax rateTax rate |
| Cash flow & returns | ||||||||||
| 1.0% | 1.0% | 1.2% | 1.4% | 1.0% | 1.1% | 1.3% | 1.5% | 1.3% | 1.3% | Return on assetsROA |
| 9% | 9% | 11% | 12% | 10% | 13% | 14% | 16% | 14% | 12% | Return on equityROE |
| 4% | 5% | 4% | 8% | 6% | 9% | 9% | 12% | 10% | 9% | Retained to equityRetained/eq |
| 11% | 10% | 13% | 14% | 11% | 15% | 16% | 17% | 15% | 14% | Return on tangible equityROTCE |
| 61% | 62% | 62% | 59% | 59% | 61% | 57% | 51% | 54% | 56% | Efficiency ratioEffic. |
| Balance sheet | ||||||||||
| $3.1B | $3.3B | $3.4B | $3.6B | $4.4B | $5.3B | $4.9B | $5.4B | $6.1B | $6.8B | Total assetsAssets |
| $2.4B | $2.5B | $2.5B | $2.7B | $3.4B | $4.1B | $3.7B | $3.9B | $4.7B | $5.3B | DepositsDeposits |
| $49M | $49M | $49M | $49M | $49M | $49M | $49M | $49M | $49M | $73M | GoodwillGoodwill |
| $341M | $366M | $375M | $417M | $442M | $457M | $441M | $522M | $585M | $725M | Shareholders’ equityEquity |
| Per share | ||||||||||
| 16.3M | 16.5M | 16.6M | 16.4M | 16.3M | 16.0M | 15.9M | 16.0M | 16.1M | 16.2M | Shares out (diluted)Shares |
| $1.96 | $1.90 | $2.53 | $3.01 | $2.71 | $3.69 | $3.85 | $5.13 | $4.93 | $5.47 | EPS (diluted)EPS |
| $1.15 | $0.73 | $1.66 | $1.04 | $1.10 | $1.16 | $1.24 | $1.31 | $1.39 | $1.47 | Dividends / shareDiv/sh |
| $20.89 | $22.19 | $22.60 | $25.39 | $27.14 | $28.56 | $27.83 | $32.60 | $36.24 | $44.64 | Book value / shareBVPS |
| $17.25 | $18.73 | $19.28 | $22.14 | $23.95 | $25.38 | $24.68 | $29.51 | $33.17 | $38.91 | Tangible book / shareTBVPS |
Per-share growththe realized rate an owner's share compounded
| 9-yr | 5-yr | |
|---|---|---|
| Revenue / share | +7.5%/yr | +7.7%/yr |
| EPS | +12.1%/yr | +15.0%/yr |
| Dividends / share | +2.8%/yr | +6.0%/yr |
| Book value / share | +8.8%/yr | +10.5%/yr |
The record, charted
FY2016–2025Each measure over its full record; the current point and the worst year marked.
Revenue
$243Mlow FY2016
Quality & stewardship
Returns, the balance sheet, capital allocation, and pay.
Owner’s Scorecard
FY2025 10-K · source on SEC EDGAR →
Is it a good business?
- Return on equity 12%AdequateNet income $89M ÷ equity $725MIndustry peers: median 12%
What this means
The bank's north star, what it earns on shareholders' capital. Cost of equity is roughly 10%, so a return durably above that builds value and below it destroys it. One year is noisy; the durability across a full credit cycle is what counts.
- SolidNet income ÷ (equity − goodwill $73M − intangibles $20M)Industry peers: median 12%
What this means
The cleaner return, stripping out the goodwill paid for past acquisitions. This is the number a buyer of the whole bank actually earns on the hard capital.
- Efficiency ratio 56%Low cost ratio (<58%)Noninterest expense $136M ÷ (net interest income + fees)Industry peers: median 59%
What this means
The share of revenue eaten by running costs; lower is better, and below about 60% marks a genuinely efficient operation. A low ratio held for years is the operational side of a moat.
Is it sound?
- Capital (equity / assets) 10.6%Well capitalizedEquity $725M ÷ assets $6.8B
What this means
A plain-English leverage read: how much of the balance sheet is the owners' own money. This is a rough proxy; the regulatory figure is the CET1 ratio, which is risk-weighted and reported in the filing. The point is the same, how much loss the bank can absorb before depositors are at risk.
- Deposit funding 77%Deposit-fundedDeposits $5.3B ÷ assets $6.8B
What this means
Low-cost, sticky deposits are a bank's real moat, the cheap raw material it lends out at a spread. A bank funded mostly by deposits earns more durably than one that rents its money in the wholesale market.
- Credit cost (provision / NII) 2%LowProvision for credit losses $3M ÷ net interest income $201M
What this means
What the bank set aside this year against loans going bad, as a share of its lending income. This swings hard with the cycle, low in good years and spiking in recessions, so read it across the record, not in one year. Disciplined underwriting shows up as low, stable provisions through a downturn.
Does AI threaten the moat?
Low contestabilityThe moat is physical, regulated or balance-sheet-funded, the kind AI cuts costs within but does not contest.
In its own filing Raised, but not as a competitor
The filing raises AI among its risks, but in other terms (security, regulation, energy or the like), not as a competitor to its product.
AI is unlikely to contest a moat that is physical, regulated or balance-sheet-funded; here it reads more as a cost tool than a threat.
Read from the filing's own risk factors, paired with the industry's structure under its SIC code; the durability is read above, the price below.
All figures as filed; the source filing is linked above.
Debt maturity
the debt note, SEC EDGAR →Not how much it owes, but when it falls due, and against what. The ladder the company files, beside cash on hand and a year's owner earnings.
Bars scaled to the largest single year; “later” is everything due after 2030, shown apart since it dwarfs the years.
Due in the next 12 months$900Mthe first rung: what must be repaid or rolled over within the year
Within two years$1.8Bthe near wall, the part most exposed to today’s credit conditions
Biggest single year$1.1Bin 2030the lumpiest maturity, where a refinancing, if needed, is largest
Total scheduled principal$26.2Bevery year plus what lies beyond, as the footnote totals it
Against what the business has and earns
Cash & short-term investments, Mar 31, 2026$115M
Together, against $900M due next year0.13×
Cash on hand as of Mar 31, 2026 comes to $115M against the $900M due in the twelve months after the Dec 31, 2025 schedule: about 13% of it, so the near maturities lean on refinancing or the rest of the year’s cash.
Maturity schedule extracted from the company’s Dec 31, 2025 annual report and reconciled to the schedule’s own arithmetic.
Management, ownership & pay
read the proxy →From the proxy: how much of the business the people running it own, and how they are paid, beside what the business earned for its owners in the same years.
| Fiscal year | Pay, as filed | “Actually paid” | Net income |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2021 | $1.2M | $2.0M | $59M |
| 2022 | $1.4M | $1.7M | $61M |
| 2023 | $1.5M | $1.8M | $82M |
| 2024 | $599k | $661k | $80M |
| 2024 | $1.2M | $1.3M | $80M |
| 2025 | $1.8M | $1.2M | $89M |
Both pay figures are the company’s own, from the pay-versus-performance table its proxy statement files. “As filed” is the Summary Compensation Table total: salary, bonus, and equity awards at their value on the day of grant. “Actually paid” is the SEC’s prescribed recalculation, which re-marks those equity awards to what they became as they vested; it can swing far above or below the filed figure in either direction, and negative years occur. Net income is the whole business's, as filed, for the same fiscal years.
- Insider ownership2.5%
The stake all directors and executive officers hold together, per the 2026 proxy: skin in the game, the first thing Munger reads.
- CEO pay ratio25:1
What the chief earns for every dollar the median employee makes, per the 2026 proxy. A high ratio alone settles nothing; some businesses are genuinely top-heavy in scarce skill. A runaway figure is where Buffett starts asking whether the board is doing its job.
- Stock-based compensation$3M
The slice of the business handed to employees in shares this year, 1% of revenue, equal to 2% of operating profit. Buffett's oldest accounting fight: this is compensation, compensation is an expense, real whether or not the headline earnings admit it. One trap: the cash-flow statement adds SBC back, so the operating cash, and the owner earnings drawn from it, are flattered by exactly this amount; counted as the cost it is, what an owner keeps is lower.
Peers, Banks
The same industry, side by side on the bank lens. Each figure is a through-cycle median, so a peak or trough year can’t distort it; the group median at the foot is the line to read each against.
| Company | Revenue | ROE | ROTCE | Efficiency | NII / assets |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| CCBGCapital City Bank Group | $254M | 9% | 12% | 74% | 3.0% |
| ORRFOrrstown Financial Services Inc. | $252M | 9% | 10% | 76% | 3.0% |
| MBWMMercantile Bank Corporation | $243M | 12% | 14% | 59% | 3.3% |
| NPBNorthpointe Bancshares Inc. | $242M | 12% | 12% | 61% | 2.1% |
| HBTHBT Financial Inc. | $237M | 14% | 16% | 57% | 3.8% |
| SBSISouthside Bancshares Inc. | $237M | 10% | 14% | 56% | 2.6% |
| GSBCGreat Southern Bancorp Inc. | $229M | 12% | 12% | 59% | 3.5% |
| WASHWashington Trust Bancorp Inc. | $229M | 12% | 15% | 58% | 2.4% |
| Group median | — | 12% | 13% | 59% | 3.0% |
The price
What a price has to assume.
What the price implies
price / tangible bookA bank is worth a multiple of its tangible book value, and the multiple it deserves is set by the return it earns on that book. Type today’s price; we show what you would be paying against what Mercantile Bank Corporation’s record justifies.
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The assumptions
Tangible book / share, delivered10%/yr’20→’25
The justified multiple is (return on tangible equity − growth) ÷ (cost of equity − growth). A bank earning exactly its cost of equity is worth about one times tangible book; the premium above that prices each point of durable excess return. A higher cost of equity lowers the justified multiple for a bank.
Enter a price above to run it.
Price / tangible book—
Justified by the return—
Normalized return on tangible equity14%
Price / book—
Earnings yield—
P/E (3-yr avg ’23–’25)—
Graham’s price gate—
Graham applied the same standards to financial enterprises (Intelligent Investor ch.14): the 15× multiple cap on averaged earnings, and P/E times price-to-book at most 22.5. The gate marks the bargain-hunter’s floor, not a verdict.
A dated snapshot of the price you typed, the assumptions you set, and what the page showed for them. A snapshot is never edited after it is saved. Your notebook is yours alone — the commitment states what is stored and what we will never do.
Tangible book $632M on 17M shares, a 14% normalized return on it. The dials set the multiple such a return would justify; your price sets the multiple you are paying. It assumes the bank keeps earning that return; a credit cycle, a rate shock or a bad acquisition changes it, which is what the record and the 10-K are for.
Cite: Owner Scorecard, "Mercantile Bank Corporation (MBWM), the owner's record," https://ownerscorecard.com/c/MBWM, data as of 2026-07-09.
Manual order: ← MBUU its page in the Manual MCB →
Industry order: ← MBINN the Banks chapter MCB →