Invictus News and Press
Two New Executive Directors for Invictus
Invictus Consulting Names Tom Rideout and Chet Gibson as Executive DirectorsRead more »
Invictus wins RiskArticles competition
RiskArticles.com invites industry professionals, academics, as well as students, to submit an article for the Risk Management Article Competition (RMAC). RiskArticles.com provides articles on various topics of risk management in financial institutions around the globe. Their mission is to promote effective risk management and governance practices in the financial services industry. The March 2013 Competition was won by Rod Guerin of Invictus for his article: "Free Capital – Know It and Use It". Read more »
Big banks getting bigger as small Arizona banks are poised to be bought
March 2013 - The biggest banks in the U.S. are getting bigger and the prospects continue to increase for smaller and community banks to get acquired. Read more »
What Banks Still Get Wrong About Capital
February 2013 - The recession of 2008 and lingering aftermath have resulted in a completely new definition and application of capital adequacy, imposing new responsibilities on bank management teams and boards.
This article appeared in the "Most Read" section of American Banker.Read more »
The New Math of Bank M&A
February 2013 -- A severe revenue drought will drive further consolidation in 2013, but is one and a half times book value the banking industry's new pricing benchmark for takeover deals?Read more »
Buy or sell: Banks split
1 February 2013 - Philadelphia Business Journal - Article by Jeff Blumenthal.
Almost as many local banks should or need to acquire other institutions as those who should or need to sell, according to quarterly stress tests by New York-based Invictus Consulting Group.
Read more »
Arizona a Sellers' Market for banks
January 2013 - A “sellers' market” for banks is shaping up in Arizona according to a new report by industry advisor Invictus Consulting Group LLC. Invictus says that 13 Arizona banks have too little capital and must or should sell, but that there is sufficient “Free Capital” among potential in-state buyers to make acquisitions.Read more »
More Than 90 Banks in Florida Should Be Sold
A study by Invictus Consulting Group found that 92 Florida-based banks must be or should be sold in the near future because of capital and earnings concerns. Several local papers have reported on the study.Read more »
California community banks could have upper hand when selling
December 2012 - California may be one of the nation's few sellers' markets for community banks over the next few years.Read more »
How Community Banks Can Fight Back Against Basel III
November 2012 - The attack that community banks need to make must be against Basel III's criteria and formula as a check-box exercise. Instead, by implementing a regular stress testing process community banks can seize the initiative.Read more »
Stress Test Economic Scenarios Released
November 2012 - The Federal Reserve Board released the three economic and financial market scenarios that will be used for the current stress test cycle on the largest financial institutions, as required under the Dodd‐Frank Act, and in connection with capital plans due in January 2013 under the Board’s capital plan rule. Invictus's Kamal Mustafa says there has been "a very subtle shift in terms of different loans being subjected to different degrees of stress… that’s really the change".Read more »
Obama’s Re-election to Bring Demise of Small Banks
November 2012 - President Barack Obama’s re-election will herald in the demise of thousands of smaller banks, analysts say. The combination of loose monetary policies supported by the White House that have kept interest rates at rock-bottom levels and tough regulations on capital levels outlined under the Dodd-Frank law won’t allow banks to drum up enough business to survive. Read more »
Thousands of banks may disappear
November 2012 - FORTUNE - Do we need to worry about Too Small to Survive? Now that President Obama has been re-elected, analysts, consultants and dealmakers have turned from whether Dodd-Frank will be repealed to what it means for banks now that it's likely here to stay. The overwhelming conclusion: Thousands of small banks will soon disappear.Read more »
Industry insiders say NIM crisis will quicken the pace of small bank M&A
October 31, 2012 SNL article by Ken McCarthy and Sudarshan Agrawal.
Even after tremendous consolidation in the industry that has seen the number of banks fall from about 14,000 in 1970 to about half of that today, the U.S. still has many more banks per capita than most of the Western world. In the United Kingdom, for example, there is one bank for about every 170,000 people, while the U.S. has a financial institution for every 22,000 residents, R. Lee Burrows Jr., CEO of Banks Street Partners, told SNL. "By almost any measure, the United States just has a tremendous number of financial institutions," Burrows said.Read more »
Analysts on PremierWest sale: Good deal, practical price
October 30, 2012, Portland Business Journal, article by Matthew KishRead more »
Merger activity is already picking up in the Northwest
October 2012 - Portland Business Journal: There are 31 commercial banks in Oregon. Based on numbers alone, that should drop to 21. Read more »
Massive Industry Consolidation Ahead - Bloomberg TV
October 2012 - Invictus sees massive industry consolidation ahead as community banks suffer from increasing regulatory costs, intense competition, and lack of growth in their local markets. Read more »
American Banker: New Tools for Dealing with Regulatory Stress Tests
October 2012 - Article by John Adams. The wild economic and political ride of the past few years has made stress testing a whole new, higher-stakes ballgame for banks. Improperly measuring the cushion against future volatility is a sure way to wind up on the wrong end of a regulatory action, if not an acquisition. As a result, stress testing is becoming broader and deeper.Read more »
Invictus on Bloomberg Radio
September 2012 - Invictus CEO Kamal Mustafa says that community banks are caught in a vice -- it's difficult to raise capital, thanks to the internet big banks can take their deposit base, and earnings are declining. They need to merge to survive.Read more »
Beware of the Traps!
Sepetmber 2012 - Invictus CEO Kamal Mustafa is interviewed on Bloomberg TV. He discusses the traps in store for banks that are seeing squeezed margins, insufficient earnings, increased Basel III capital requirements, and why they should sell and merge now.Read more »
Delay or not, stress testing likely awaits even small banks
August 2012 - Industry veteran Kamal Mustafa, chairman and CEO of Invictus Consulting Group, told SNL it does not matter when or even if regulators formally stress test your bank. All lenders face higher capital requirements and heightened scrutiny, he said. Stress testing in one form or another is coming.Read more »
Big Banks' Dividends at Risk If Economy Sputters
August 2012 - A new report from Invictus Consulting found that 80% of the largest U.S. banks could suspend dividends in an economy where unemployment hits 10%.Read more »
Invictus Announces Preliminary Stress Test Information Available on “Dodd-Frank
August 2012 - Invictus Consulting Group LLC is now offering investors, as well as bank managements, the ability to obtain preliminary stress test results on “Dodd-Frank Banks”. The tests are based on publicly available information and use Invictus’ extensive real-world stress testing experience and guidance from the Federal Reserve Bank’s initial criteria. (See the full results on our website.)
Invictus chief: 2,000 Banks Should Sell Now
July 2012 - Kamal Mustafa, a former global head of M&A at Citibank who now helps to stress-test banks at Invictus Consulting Group, fears another earnings crunch is coming and that bank valuations will sink lower than they are now. "New loans coming on the books have lower spreads, and this creates compression of yield" says Mr. Mustafa. "There are about 2,000 banks that are going to limp around with such low or negative returns over the next four years - barring a major miracle - that they don't have a financial reason to exist. Those banks have to be assimilated into the marketplace."Read more »
Latest Stress Tests Herald New Way of Life for U.S. Banks
July 2012 - The implications of the March 2012 stress tests applied to 19 of the largest U.S. financial companies are deep and broad, and ultimately impact all banks. They herald a whole new way of life for the nation’s banks. Read more »
Community Banks should start looking at how Basel III might apply
July 2012 - We don’t yet know how regulators in the U.S. will apply these new, Basel III-inspired concentration-targeted regulations, but community banks should be open to the possibility that those regulations will be turned on them, too, especially since concentrations come naturally to many community banks. Read more »
Stress Testing May Benefit Community Banks
July 2012 - Stress testing could prove to be a valuable tool for community banks, according to a research report by Invictus Consulting Group LLC.Read more »
For small banks, stress tests could prove positive
July 2012 - For small banks, stress tests could prove positive, reports Kevin Dobbs of SNL. Read more »
Bank Safety & Soundness Advisor says Stress Tests Are Coming
July 2012 - Regulators may be exempting community banks from bank-wide capital stress tests, but they're also sending an important message: bank-wide capital stress testing is the new regulatory standard for adequate capital. Read more »
The Dodd-Frank Act: Does Size Matter?
June 2012 - Dodd-Frank has become a synonym for financial reform; however, as financial institutions across the country continue to scramble in preparation for the onslaught of resulting regulations, many are now questioning whether Dodd-Frank is actually the agent of change it set out to be.Read more »