Share count
110Mpeak FY2018
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SFB, Stifel Financial Corp
Capital Markets & Asset Management financial
We operate in the following segments: Global Wealth Management, Institutional Group, and Other.
Our principal subsidiary is Stifel, Nicolaus & Company, Incorporated ("Stifel"), a full-service retail and institutional wealth management and investment banking firm.
Finance 500 is a brokerage and investment services provider focused on underwriting FDIC-insured Certificates of Deposit and fixed income securities trading.
The business
What it sells, where the money comes from, the kind of company it is.
Revenue · FY2025
$6.3B
+6.7% YoY · 11% 5-yr CAGR
Vital signs · TTM, with 5-yr average
Revenue $6.5B 5-yr avg $5.4B
Revenue $1.0B +19.9% vs yr-ago qtr
Net income $251M yr-ago $53M
Net margin 24.9% yr-ago 6.3%
The business in brief
read the 10-K →What this business is and what moves its needle, from its own SEC filings.
- What it is
- Revenue is Global Wealth Management (60%) and Institutional Group (40%).
- 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). 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.
Where the money comes from
read the 10-K →Global Wealth Management is 60% of revenue, with Institutional Group the other meaningful segment at 40%.
Revenue by reportable segment, FY2025
- Global Wealth Management60%$2.3B
- Institutional Group40%$1.5B
- Other0%$250K
By geographyAmericas93%United Kingdom4%Canada2%Other1%
From the segment footnote of the company's own 10-K. Shares are of total revenue; the profit bar shows each segment's share of segment operating profit, before unallocated corporate costs.
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 | TTMTTMMar 2026 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Income statement | |||||||||||
| $2.6B | $3.0B | $3.2B | $3.5B | $3.8B | $4.8B | $4.6B | $5.2B | $6.0B | $6.3B | $6.5B | RevenueRevenue |
| $18M | $26M | $20M | $11M | $34M | ($12M) | $34M | $25M | $25M | — | $38M | Credit-loss provisionProvision |
| $82M | $183M | $394M | $448M | $503M | $825M | $662M | $523M | $731M | $684M | $882M | Net incomeNet inc. |
| 43% | 32% | 26% | 25% | 23% | 23% | 25% | 26% | 21% | 22% | 22% | Effective tax rateTax rate |
| Cash flow & returns | |||||||||||
| 0.4% | 0.9% | 1.6% | 1.8% | 1.9% | 2.4% | 1.8% | 1.4% | 1.8% | 1.7% | 2.1% | Return on assetsROA |
| 3% | 6% | 12% | 12% | 12% | 16% | 12% | 10% | 13% | 11% | 15% | Return on equityROE |
| 3% | 6% | 12% | 12% | 12% | 16% | 12% | 10% | 13% | 11% | 15% | Retained to equityRetained/eq |
| 5% | 11% | 20% | 20% | 17% | 23% | 17% | 14% | 18% | 16% | 20% | Return on tangible equityROTCE |
| Balance sheet | |||||||||||
| $19.1B | $21.4B | $24.5B | $24.6B | $26.6B | $34.0B | $37.2B | $37.7B | $39.9B | $41.3B | $42.9B | Total assetsAssets |
| $11.5B | $13.4B | $15.9B | $15.3B | $17.4B | $23.3B | $27.1B | $27.3B | $29.1B | $29.8B | $30.8B | DepositsDeposits |
| $962M | $1.0B | $1.0B | $1.2B | $1.2B | $1.3B | $1.3B | $1.4B | $1.4B | $1.5B | $1.5B | GoodwillGoodwill |
| $2.7B | $2.9B | $3.2B | $3.6B | $4.2B | $5.0B | $5.3B | $5.3B | $5.7B | $6.0B | $6.0B | Shareholders’ equityEquity |
| Per share | |||||||||||
| 175M | 182M | 183M | 177M | 172M | 178M | 176M | 170M | 166M | 165M | 163M | Shares out (diluted)Shares |
| $0.47 | $1.00 | $2.15 | $2.54 | $2.93 | $4.64 | $3.76 | $3.07 | $4.39 | $4.14 | $5.40 | EPS (diluted)EPS |
| $15.69 | $15.69 | $17.31 | $20.44 | $24.66 | $28.32 | $30.22 | $31.11 | $34.16 | $36.21 | $36.61 | Book value / shareBVPS |
| $9.51 | $9.36 | $11.00 | $12.78 | $16.97 | $20.14 | $21.96 | $22.17 | $25.10 | $26.69 | $27.06 | Tangible book / shareTBVPS |
Share counts before 2018 are restated ×1.5 for a stock split, so per-share figures sit on one basis.
Share counts before TTM are restated ×1.5 for a stock split, so per-share figures sit on one basis.
Per-share growththe realized rate an owner's share compounded
| 9-yr | 5-yr | |
|---|---|---|
| Revenue / share | +10.9%/yr | +11.6%/yr |
| Owner earnings / share | — | −7.5%/yr |
| EPS | +27.4%/yr | +7.2%/yr |
| Capital spending / share | +9.8%/yr | −2.5%/yr |
| Book value / share | +9.7%/yr | +8.0%/yr |
The year, in the company's words
the filing →Verbatim from the 10-K's management discussion. Each sentence is shown only because its subject, direction, and stated figures check out against the filed numbers on this page. The words are the company's; the arithmetic is the record's.
- Asset Management+10.7%
“Asset management – For the year ended December 31, 2025, asset management revenues increased 10.7% to a record $1.70 billion from $1.54 billion in 2024. The increase is primarily attributable to higher asset values due to improved market conditions and net new asset growth.”
✓ figure matches the filed record
The record, charted
FY2016–2025Each measure over its full record; the current point and the worst year marked. Share counts on the current split basis.
Revenue
$6.3Blow 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 11%AdequateNet income $684M ÷ equity $6.0BIndustry 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.
- StrongNet income ÷ (equity − goodwill $1.5B − intangibles $108M)Industry peers: median 15%
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.
- Not enough dataIndustry peers: median 72%
What this means
Noninterest expense or revenue missing.
Is it sound?
- Capital (equity / assets) 14.5%Well capitalizedEquity $6.0B ÷ assets $41.3B
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 72%Deposit-fundedDeposits $29.8B ÷ assets $41.3B
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 —Not enough data
What this means
Provision or net interest income missing.
Does AI threaten the moat?
Moderate contestabilityAI is likely to reshape costs and some products here without clearly contesting or sparing the core moat; how the company itself frames it is the tell.
In its own filing Framed as a capability
The filing positions AI as something the company uses, not something it fears.
“Artificial Intelligence Act, which has tiered compliance dates, poses further challenges for organizations in managing transparency, fairness, and accountability for AI use.”
The question is whether a moat the record shows as durable outlasts a technology that lowers the cost of part of what the firm sells. The durability is read in the record above, the filing's own framing of AI beside it; the industry label decides nothing on its own.
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.
Lease obligations
the lease note, SEC EDGAR →Debt by another name. What the business owes on the property, aircraft, stores and equipment it rents rather than owns is a fixed claim due on a schedule; added back to the debt, it is the true leverage. That ladder, and what it adds to the debt on the page above.
Lease payments by year, scaled to the largest; “later” is everything beyond year five, shown apart. These are the contractual cash payments, before the interest the filing imputes back out to the balance-sheet liability.
Due in the next 12 months$111Ma fixed cash payment, owed whether or not the business has a good year
Total lease payments$1.2Bevery year plus the tail, undiscounted: the full cash the leases will take
On the balance sheet$856Mthe present value of those payments, the recognised lease liability
True leverage: debt plus leases
On-balance-sheet debt$721M
Lease obligations (present value)$856M
Total fixed claims on the business$1.6B
Counting the leases the way Buffett does, the fixed claims on this business come to $1.6B, of which the leases are 54%, more than the debt itself. The lease wall above and the debt schedule together are the calendar of what must be paid, and when.
Lease ladder read from the ASC 842 tags in the company’s Dec 31, 2025 annual report and reconciled: the yearly buckets sum to the undiscounted total, which less the imputed interest equals the balance-sheet liability; a ladder that doesn’t tie out is withheld.
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 | Chief executive | Pay, as filed | “Actually paid” | Owner earnings |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2021 | Ronald J. Kruszewski | $13.6M | $24.5M | $827M |
| 2022 | Ronald J. Kruszewski | $12.9M | $8.9M | $1.1B |
| 2023 | Ronald J. Kruszewski | $13.3M | $18.0M | $447M |
| 2024 | Ronald J. Kruszewski | $16.1M | $36.4M | $417M |
| 2025 | Ronald J. Kruszewski | $18.9M | $42.8M | $1.1B |
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. Owner earnings are the whole business's, from the record above, for the same fiscal years.
- Insider ownership3.4%
The stake all directors and executive officers hold together, per the 2026 proxy: skin in the game, the first thing Munger reads.
- CEO pay ratio145:1
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.
What an owner would ask, FY2025
read the 10-K →- Which reported numbers are a judgment call?Management names Credit & receivables as critical estimates
each rests partly on management's judgment; the filing's note sets out the assumptionsverify →
The questions the record and the charts do not answer on their own; each carries the figure and the place to look.
Peers, Capital Markets & Asset Management
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| MSMorgan Stanley | $70.6B | 11% | 13% | 72% | 0.6% |
| GSGoldman Sachs Group Inc. (The) | $58.3B | 10% | 10% | 65% | 0.4% |
| SCHWCharles Schwab Corporation (The) | $23.9B | 13% | 18% | — | 1.9% |
| RJFRaymond James Financial Inc. | $15.9B | 16% | 18% | 82% | 2.1% |
| SFBStifel Financial Corp | $6.3B | 12% | 17% | — | — |
| FRHCFreedom Holding Corp. | $2.2B | 17% | 18% | — | 1.5% |
| OPYOppenheimer Holdings Inc. | $1.6B | 7% | 9% | — | — |
| Group median | — | 12% | 17% | — | — |
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 Stifel Financial Corp’s record justifies.
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The assumptions
Tangible book / share, delivered9%/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 equity17%
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 $4.4B on 156M shares, a 17% 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, "Stifel Financial Corp (SFB), the owner's record," https://ownerscorecard.com/c/SFB, data as of 2026-07-09.
Manual order: ← SF its page in the Manual SFBS →
Industry order: ← SF the Capital Markets & Asset Management chapter SII →