Thursday, January 22, 2015

Seeking Alpha: PrivateBancorp Already Priced For Big Things

If you want a good growth story in banking, you're going to have to pay for it. Like Bank of the Ozarks (NASDAQ:OZRK), PrivateBancorp (NASDAQ:PVTB) is showing uncommonly good loan growth and has a large addressable opportunity supporting many years of growth. But like Bank of the Ozarks, that growth potential doesn't come with a bargain price.

I like PrivateBancorp's leverage to higher rates and its leverage to economically sensitive loan growth. I also think that the company has made excellent progress in working off legacy assets and fundamentally altering its business mix. If you want a bargain in banking, you're going to have to shop amongst banks well off the beaten path or with significant ongoing concerns/risks regarding asset growth, expense leverage, and regulatory/legal issues (names like Citigroup (NYSE:C) and Bank of America (NYSE:BAC) come to mind). PrivateBancorp doesn't look like a bargain, but if you want to ride along with a rate-sensitive growth story, there may be something here for you.

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PrivateBancorp Already Priced For Big Things

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