Numbers

Figures converted from EUR at historical FX rates — see data/company.json.fx_rates for the rate table. Ratios, margins, and multiples are unitless and unchanged.

The Numbers

BAWAG is no longer a typical European retail bank — it is a serial-acquirer, capital-light deposit franchise that compounds tangible book at ~20% per year while paying out 55% of net profit. The single number that explains the stock's two-and-a-half-year rerating is RoTCE: it stepped up from 16% in 2019–2021 to 25–27% from 2023 onwards and management is guiding to 20%+ as the floor, not the ceiling. Whether the current price holds depends on one thing — does that step-up survive the next rate cycle, or does the market fade RoTCE back toward a 14–16% European-bank average?

Snapshot

Price as of 2026-04-30. Market cap reflects 76.98M shares outstanding after seven years of net buybacks. The $180.92 consensus target sits ~6% above spot — the sell side has caught up to the rerating but not yet pushed past it.

Is this a well-run bank?

The quality scorecard for a European bank reduces to five questions: how profitable is equity, how efficient is the cost base, how clean is the loan book, how strong is capital, and is the funding self-sufficient? BAWAG sits at the high end of every one.

Earnings power — seven years of compounding

Operating income has nearly doubled in six years ($1.39B → $2.60B), but net profit has not kept pace — risk costs jumped from $85M in 2024 to $268M in 2025 as the Knab and easybank consumer books hit the P&L. That widening gap between pre-provision profit and net profit is the single most important line to watch in 2026.

The 2022 RoTCE figure shown is the adjusted 18.6% (excluding the City of Linz write-off); reported was 11.6%. The clean step-change from a 16% bank to a 25%+ bank happened in 2023 when rates normalised and NIM expanded by ~70bp. Cost-income ratio drifted up in 2024–25 as acquisitions consolidated — management targets reversion to under 33% by 2028.

Quarterly trajectory — does the run-rate hold?

The Q1 FY2026 print delivered $267M net profit and 27.6% RoTCE — narrowly ahead of Q4 2025 and tracking management's $1.10B FY26 net profit target ($275M quarterly run-rate). The one blemish: pre-tax profit of $360M was below the $379M sell-side estimate, the first earnings miss since 2023.

Revenue mix — where the money is made

Net interest income now contributes 83% of operating income, up from 71% in 2019 — the rate cycle and the Knab acquisition (a deposit-heavy Dutch online bank) have made BAWAG more rate-sensitive, not less. Fees grew 31% in 2025 alone, reflecting the consumer-bank consolidation, but they remain a sideshow.

Capital allocation — the shareholder-return engine

Since IPO in October 2017, BAWAG has returned roughly $3.0B in dividends and $1.3B in buybacks while completing 14 acquisitions — capital has been deployed against a clear 20% RoTCE hurdle, not sprayed at shareholders. Management's stance on M&A vs distribution shifts with the opportunity set; the 2024 pivot away from buybacks coincided with the Knab signing.

Balance sheet — bigger after deals, still well-capitalised

The 2024 jump in total assets and customer loans is Knab and easybank consolidation. Risk-weighted assets grew far less ($4B vs $13B in customer loans) — these acquired books are mortgage-heavy and low risk-weight, which is why the deals were earnings-accretive without a capital strain.

CET1 of 14.2% (post-dividend) and 14.6% pro-forma sits 170bp above the 12.5% management target — that is roughly $550M of excess capital available for further M&A or special distribution. Leverage ratio compression to 4.9% reflects deal-driven asset growth, not loosening capital discipline. NPL of 0.8% is half the 2019 level despite a more diversified geographic footprint.

Per-share economics

Tangible book per share has compounded at 5.7% per year since 2019 ($34.70 → $50.72) despite $4.3B of capital being returned along the way. That is the cleanest evidence the franchise generates real, retainable equity rather than rate-cycle accounting profit. EPS growth of 18% CAGR is helped by buybacks shrinking the share count from 87.9M (2019) to 77.0M (2025).

Valuation — the centerpiece

The stock has rerated from sub-1.0x book in 2020 to nearly 3.0x today. This is the single chart that determines whether the price is sustainable.

At 2.91x book and 13.4x trailing earnings, BAWAG trades at roughly twice its seven-year average P/B and 44% above its average P/E. The bull case for paying this multiple: ROTCE of 25%+ produces a justified P/B of 3–4x at a 10% cost of equity. The bear case: the rate cycle is rolling over, NIM peaked at 3.29% in Q4 2025, and risk costs have already started normalising upward ($268M in 2025 vs $85M in 2024).

Peer comparison — Bawag vs European integrated retail banks

Direct peer multiples are not in the dataset; the comparison below uses share-price levels, 52-week ranges, and country exposure to frame relative positioning. BAWAG's premium versus continental universals is unambiguous and largely RoTCE-driven.

Note: peer RoTCE/CET1/NPL figures are most-recent disclosed and approximate; native trading currency is EUR for all and figures here are converted at the latest period FX rate. BAWAG's RoTCE of 26.9% is roughly 80% above the peer-median 14.5%, which is the gap the premium multiple is paying for. Of the comparators, only the Irish duopoly (AIB, BIRG) is delivering similar capital returns and they trade at materially lower P/B precisely because their RoTCE is in the mid-teens.

Fair value — three lenses, one range

The honest range from spot is $130 (bear) → $189 (base) → $227 (bull). The base case lines up with both the consensus PT and a P/E held flat against guided FY26 EPS — meaning the market is pricing in management's targets being delivered, not exceeded. The asymmetry is unfavourable: another 25–30% of upside requires multiple expansion on top of earnings growth, while a single quarter of RoTCE slipping below 22% likely contracts the multiple back toward 2.0–2.5x book.

What the numbers say

Confirm. The fundamentals back the rerating story: RoTCE has held above 25% for three consecutive years, NPLs are at a cycle low, capital is excess, and management is delivering 12% net-profit CAGR guidance with credible track record (14 completed acquisitions, all hurdle-cleared). The deposit franchise expansion through Knab and easybank is working — RWA grew far less than asset additions, which is the textbook outcome of a smart consumer-mortgage acquisition.

Contradict. The popular framing that BAWAG is "still cheap because it's a small Austrian bank" is wrong — at 2.91x book it trades at a clear premium to KBC and Erste, and only a small discount to AIB. The mix toward NII (now 83% of revenue) is the highest in seven years; this is increasingly a rate-sensitive bank, not a diversified-revenue bank. And the FY25 risk-cost normalisation ($268M vs $85M) is a real signal, not noise — Q1 FY26 risk costs of $75M annualise to $300M.

Watch. Three lines for 2026: (1) does NIM hold above 3.0% as the ECB cuts; (2) does Q2/Q3 risk-cost run-rate exceed $82M (signalling the consumer book is stressing); (3) does management deploy the $550M of excess capital into a new acquisition or shift back to buybacks. The PTSB acquisition signed 2026-04-14 is the immediate test — it adds Irish exposure right as Irish house prices are at cycle highs.