Does CapitalOne + Discover Financial = Shareholder Value?

February 21, 2024 | Premium Service | Readers of The Institutional Risk Analyst will be interested to hear that we’ve been working on several bank indices for the past little while with our partners at Thematic in Menlo Park. The WGA Bank Index is a census of superior banks which draws upon our work at Institutional Risk Analytics. 

We feature the top performing 10, 25  & 50 publicly listed banks in Peer Group 1 based upon four key measures of financial performance and market returns. The index is weighted by the actual test results, ensuring that the righteous banks have the greatest impact. No zombies please. More on this project soon.  

Imagine our surprise, therefore, when CapitalOne Financial (COF) announced the acquisition of one of the best performing banks in the US, Discover Financial Services (DFS). The fact that DFS trades at twice the book value of COF is just the start of our questions about this transaction. Below is a side-by-side comparison of the two banks based upon several key metrics. 

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