FITB · Financials(state commercial banks) · 10 years of annual accounts filed with the SEC · latest fiscal year ended 2025-12-31
Of the $27.5 billion its operations generated over 10 years, 27.9% went to buybacks and 27.8% to dividends; the share count fell 9.2%. On the accounting screens, it passes 6 of 6 Piotroski tests; none of the six cross-checks between its statements fires.
Revenue, fiscal 2025—
Operating margin—gross margin —
Return on invested capital19.9%14.5% on average over 5 years
Free cash flow after stock pay3.8B
Net debt ÷ EBITDA1.1×net debt 11.0B
Piotroski F-score6/6tests of improvement passed
Is it growing?
Revenue and the operating income it turns into. Growth that does not reach operating income is growth bought with margin.
RevenueOperating income
02.5B5.0B7.5B10.0B
2017Revenue 554.0MOperating income 3.7B
2018
2018Revenue 549.0MOperating income 3.8B
2019Revenue 565.0MOperating income 4.7B
2020Revenue 559.0MOperating income 2.6B
2021Revenue 600.0MOperating income 4.0B
2022Revenue 589.0MOperating income 4.1B
2023Revenue 577.0MOperating income 6.9B
2024Operating income 8.5B
2025Operating income 9.2B
2017201820182019202020212022202320242025
Compound growth a year
3 yrs
5 yrs
9 yrs
Operating income
+31.2%
+28.9%
+10.7%
Net income
+1.0%
+12.1%
+1.6%
Earnings per share
+2.1%
+13.6%
+2.7%
Free cash flow per share
-12.6%
+129.5%
+14.5%
Dividend per share
+9.0%
+7.7%
+12.9%
Shares
-1.1%
-1.3%
-1.1%
Falling shares are buybacks: each remaining share owns more of the company.
Does it earn more than its capital costs?
Margins say how much of each sale is kept; return on invested capital says how much the business earns on the money it needs to operate. Growth only creates value when that return is above the cost of the capital.
Needs a cost of capital, which comes from the valuation below.
Return on equity
11.6%
Return on assets
1.2%
Asset turnover
—
Is the profit cash, and where does the cash go?
Net income is an accounting opinion; free cash flow is what was left in the bank after investing. Stock-based pay does not leave the bank — shareholders pay it through dilution — so it is shown taken off as well.
Net incomeFree cash flowAfter stock-based pay
-2.0B02.0B4.0B6.0B8.0B
2017Net income 2.2BFree cash flow 1.3BAfter stock-based pay 1.2B
2018
2018Net income 2.2BFree cash flow 2.7BAfter stock-based pay 2.5B
2019Net income 2.5BFree cash flow 1.6BAfter stock-based pay 1.4B
2020Net income 1.4BFree cash flow 66.0MAfter stock-based pay -57.0M
2021Net income 2.8BFree cash flow 2.4BAfter stock-based pay 2.3B
2022Net income 2.4BFree cash flow 6.1BAfter stock-based pay 5.9B
2023Net income 2.3BFree cash flow 4.0BAfter stock-based pay 3.8B
2024Net income 2.3BFree cash flow 2.4BAfter stock-based pay 2.2B
2025Net income 2.5BFree cash flow 3.9BAfter stock-based pay 3.8B
2017201820182019202020212022202320242025
Where 10 years of operating cash went, 2017–2025
27.5B generated by the business. Each band is its share of that total.
Reinvested in the business 11%3.1B
Acquisitions 0%0
Dividends 28%7.6B
Share buybacks 28%7.7B
Kept, or used to pay down debt 33%9.1B
Over the same years it paid 1.3B in stock. The share count fell 9.2%. 6.4B of the buybacks went beyond offsetting that dilution.
Per share
Earnings per shareFree cash flow per shareDividend per share
$0.00$2.50$5.00$7.50$10.00
2017Earnings per share $2.94Free cash flow per share $1.73Dividend per share $0.58
2018
2018Earnings per share $3.20Free cash flow per share $3.89Dividend per share $0.68
2019Earnings per share $3.49Free cash flow per share $2.20Dividend per share $0.92
2020Earnings per share $1.98Free cash flow per share $0.09Dividend per share $1.19
2021Earnings per share $3.89Free cash flow per share $3.37Dividend per share $1.26
2022Earnings per share $3.52Free cash flow per share $8.75Dividend per share $1.33
2023Earnings per share $3.42Free cash flow per share $5.84Dividend per share $1.54
2024Earnings per share $3.37Free cash flow per share $3.51Dividend per share $1.71
2025Earnings per share $3.75Free cash flow per share $5.84Dividend per share $1.73
2017201820182019202020212022202320242025
Shares outstanding
Diluted shares
660.0M680.0M700.0M720.0M740.0M760.0M
2017Diluted shares 740.7M
2018
2018Diluted shares 685.5M
2019Diluted shares 720.1M
2020Diluted shares 719.7M
2021Diluted shares 711.2M
2022Diluted shares 695.0M
2023Diluted shares 687.7M
2024Diluted shares 687.3M
2025Diluted shares 672.5M
2017201820182019202020212022202320242025
How strong is the balance sheet?
Debt is not bad in itself; debt the business cannot service in a bad year is. Net debt is debt minus cash, and below zero the company holds more cash than it owes.
Net debt
05.0B10.0B15.0B20.0B
2017Net debt 14.9B
2018
2018Net debt 14.4B
2019Net debt 11.7B
2020Net debt 11.8B
2021Net debt 8.8B
2022Net debt 10.2B
2023Net debt 13.2B
2024Net debt 16.0B
2025Net debt 11.0B
2017201820182019202020212022202320242025
Net debt ÷ EBITDA
1.1×
Interest coverage
2× operating income ÷ interest
Current ratio
— current assets ÷ current liabilities
Cash conversion cycle
—
Three classic screens of the accounts
Each asks a different question of the same statements — is it improving, does it look like a company heading for distress, do the accounts resemble ones that were manipulated. None is a verdict; each shows what moves it.
Piotroski F-score
Is the business improving? Nine yes-or-no tests, this year against last.
6of 6 tests passed
✓ProfitableReturn on assets above zeropassed
✓Cash from operationsOperating cash flow above zeropassed
✓Profitability improvedReturn on assets higher than a year beforepassed
✓Profit backed by cashOperating cash flow above net income (low accruals)passed
✓Less long-term debtLong-term debt as a share of assets fellpassed
–More liquidCurrent ratio higher than a year before — not reportedno data
✓No new sharesShare count did not growpassed
–Better gross marginGross margin higher than a year before — not reportedno data
–Sells more per assetAsset turnover higher than a year before — not reportedno data
Where it misleads: it measures change, not level. An excellent business that stood still for a year scores low; a poor one recovering from a disaster scores high.
Altman Z''-score
Does the balance sheet look like those of companies that went bankrupt?
The accounts lack a line it needs (retained earnings, current assets or liabilities).
Beneish M-score
Do the accounts resemble those of companies that manipulated their earnings?
The accounts lack too many of the lines it needs.
Where the statements disagree
Cross-checks between the income statement, the balance sheet and the cash flow for the latest year, each with the benign reading and the worrying one.
None of the six cross-checks fires for the latest year: receivables and inventory move with revenue, profit turns into cash, investment keeps up with depreciation, the tax rate is ordinary and debt is moderate.
What is it worth, under which assumptions?
A company is worth the cash it will generate, brought back to today. This model projects revenue with growth that fades over the years, applies a free cash flow margin, and discounts the result at the cost of capital. Every assumption says where it came from, and all of them can be changed.
The SEC accounts lack the lines needed for revenue, free cash flow or the share count, so there is no DCF for this company.
What it has filed lately
The last twelve months at the SEC, most important first: annual and quarterly reports, events, large holders and insiders.
Accounts from the company's own SEC filings; lines some companies do not report are shown as a dash rather than estimated. The risk-free rate is the 10-year US Treasury yield. A DCF is a way of making assumptions explicit, not a forecast: it states what the company would be worth if the assumptions held. The scores are screens that point where to look, not verdicts. Nothing here is a recommendation to buy or sell.