Glacier Bancorp (GBCI)

Regional banking company Glacier Bancorp (NYSE:GBCI) met Wall Streets revenue expectations in Q4 CY2025, with sales up 35% year on year to $306.5 million. Its GAAP profit of $0.49 per share was in line with analysts’ consensus estimates.

Company Overview

Operating through seventeen distinct bank divisions with local brands and management teams, Glacier Bancorp (NYSE:GBCI) is a bank holding company that provides various banking services to individuals and businesses across eight western states.

Regional banks, financial institutions operating within specific geographic areas, serve as intermediaries between local depositors and borrowers. They benefit from rising interest rates that improve net interest margins (the difference between loan yields and deposit costs), digital transformation reducing operational expenses, and local economic growth driving loan demand. However, these banks face headwinds from fintech competition, deposit outflows to higher-yielding alternatives, credit deterioration (increasing loan defaults) during economic slowdowns, and regulatory compliance costs. Recent concerns about regional bank stability following high-profile failures and significant commercial real estate exposure present additional challenges.

Glacier Bancorp competes with other regional banks operating in the western United States, including Zions Bancorporation (NASDAQ:ZION), Columbia Banking System (NASDAQ:COLB), and First Interstate BancSystem (NASDAQ:FIBK), as well as national banks like Wells Fargo (NYSE:WFC) and Bank of America (NYSE:BAC) that have branches in its markets.

In general, banks make money from two primary sources. The first is net interest income, which is interest earned on loans, mortgages, and investments in securities minus interest paid out on deposits. The second source is non-interest income, which can come from bank account, credit card, wealth management, investing banking, and trading fees. Regrettably, Glacier Bancorp’s revenue grew at a sluggish 5.7% compounded annual growth rate over the last five years. This fell short of our benchmark for the banking sector and is a tough starting point for our analysis.

Long-term growth is the most important, but within financials, a half-decade historical view may miss recent interest rate changes and market returns. Glacier Bancorp’s annualized revenue growth of 12.4% over the last two years is above its five-year trend, suggesting its demand recently accelerated. Note: Quarters not shown were determined to be outliers, impacted by outsized investment gains/losses that are not indicative of the recurring fundamentals of the business.

This quarter, Glacier Bancorp’s year-on-year revenue growth of 35% was wonderful, and its $306.5 million of revenue was in line with Wall Street’s estimates.

Net interest income made up 83.4% of the company’s total revenue during the last five years, meaning Glacier Bancorp barely relies on non-interest income to drive its overall growth.

Net interest income commands greater market attention due to its reliability and consistency, whereas non-interest income is often seen as lower-quality revenue that lacks the same dependable characteristics.

Topline growth is certainly important, but the overall profitability of this growth matters for the bottom line. For banks, we look at efficiency ratio, which is non-interest expense (salaries, rent, IT, marketing, excluding interest paid out to depositors) as a percentage of total revenue.

Investors focus on efficiency ratio changes rather than absolute levels, understanding that expense structures vary by revenue mix. Counterintuitively, lower efficiency ratios indicate better performance since they represent lower costs relative to revenue.

Over the last five years, Glacier Bancorp’s efficiency ratio has increased by 11.9 percentage points, going from 53.6% to 64.5%. Said differently, the company’s expenses have increased at a faster rate than revenue, which usually raises questions unless the company is in high-growth mode and reinvesting its profits into attractive ventures.

Glacier Bancorp’s efficiency ratio came in at 61% this quarter, beating analysts’ expectations by 99 basis points (100 basis points = 1 percentage point). This result was 2.2 percentage points better than the same quarter last year.

For the next 12 months, Wall Street expects Glacier Bancorp to rein in some of its expenses as it anticipates an efficiency ratio of 58.5%.

We track the long-term change in earnings per share (EPS) for the same reason as long-term revenue growth. Compared to revenue, however, EPS highlights whether a company’s growth is profitable.

Sadly for Glacier Bancorp, its EPS declined by 6.6% annually over the last five years while its revenue grew by 5.7%. However, its efficiency ratio actually improved during this time, telling us that non-fundamental factors such as taxes affected its ultimate earnings.

Like with revenue, we analyze EPS over a more recent period because it can provide insight into an emerging theme or development for the business.

For Glacier Bancorp, EPS didn’t budge over the last two years, but at least that was better than its five-year trend. We hope its earnings can grow in the coming years.

In Q4, Glacier Bancorp reported EPS of $0.49, down from $0.54 in the same quarter last year. This print was close to analysts’ estimates. Over the next 12 months, Wall Street expects Glacier Bancorp’s full-year EPS of $1.99 to grow 56.2%.

Banks profit by intermediating between depositors and borrowers, making them fundamentally balance sheet-driven enterprises. Market participants emphasize balance sheet quality and sustained book value growth when evaluating these institutions.

This is why we consider tangible book value per share (TBVPS) the most important metric to track for banks. TBVPS represents the real, liquid net worth per share of a bank, excluding intangible assets that have debatable value upon liquidation. EPS can become murky due to acquisition impacts or accounting flexibility around loan provisions, and TBVPS resists financial engineering manipulation.

Glacier Bancorp’s TBVPS grew at a sluggish 2.9% annual clip over the last five years. However, TBVPS growth has accelerated recently, growing by 7.8% annually over the last two years from $18.06 to $21.01 per share.

Over the next 12 months, Consensus estimates call for Glacier Bancorp’s TBVPS to grow by 8.8% to $22.86, paltry growth rate.

Leverage is core to a financial firm’s business model (loans funded by deposits). To ensure economic stability and avoid a repeat of the 2008 GFC, regulators require certain levels of capital and liquidity, focusing on the Tier 1 capital ratio.

Tier 1 capital is the highest-quality capital that a firm holds, consisting primarily of common stock and retained earnings, but also physical gold. It serves as the primary cushion against losses and is the first line of defense in times of financial distress.

This capital is divided by risk-weighted assets to derive the Tier 1 capital ratio. Risk-weighted means that cash and US treasury securities are assigned little risk while unsecured consumer loans and equity investments get much higher risk weights, for example.

New regulation after the 2008 financial crisis requires that all firms must maintain a Tier 1 capital ratio greater than 4.5%. On top of this, there are additional buffers based on scale, risk profile, and other regulatory classifications, so that at the end of the day, firms generally must maintain a 7-10% ratio at minimum.

Over the last two years, Glacier Bancorp has averaged a Tier 1 capital ratio of 12.6%, which is considered safe and well capitalized in the event that macro or market conditions suddenly deteriorate.

Return on equity, or ROE, tells us how much profit a company generates for each dollar of shareholder equity, a key funding source for banks. Over a long period, banks with high ROE tend to compound shareholder wealth faster through retained earnings, buybacks, and dividends.

Over the last five years, Glacier Bancorp has averaged an ROE of 8.5%, uninspiring for a company operating in a sector where the average shakes out around 7.5%.

It was good to see Glacier Bancorp narrowly top analysts’ tangible book value per share expectations this quarter. On the other hand, its EPS was in line and its revenue was in line with Wall Street’s estimates. Overall, this was a weaker quarter. The stock remained flat at $49.86 immediately following the results.

Updated: January 22, 2026 at 11:35 PM EST

The latest quarterly earnings matters, sure, but we actually think longer-term fundamentals and valuation matter more. Investors should consider all these pieces before deciding whether or not to invest in Glacier Bancorp.

We cheer for all companies supporting the economy, but in the case of Glacier Bancorp, we’ll be cheering from the sidelines. First off, its revenue growth was uninspiring over the last five years. And while its estimated net interest income growth for the next 12 months is great, the downside is its declining EPS over the last five years makes it a less attractive asset to the public markets. On top of that, its worsening efficiency ratio shows the business has become less productive.

Glacier Bancorp’s P/B ratio based on the next 12 months is 1.5x. This valuation tells us it’s a bit of a market darling with a lot of good news priced in - we think there are better opportunities elsewhere.

Wall Street analysts have a consensus one-year price target of $53.33 on the company (compared to the current share price of $49.86).