Seeking Alpha: BB&T Looking To Leverage Its Strengths In The Quarters Ahead

Whether you like BB&T (NYSE:BBT) as an investment or not, I think even the bears (the rational ones, at least) will acknowledge that BB&T has a well-deserved reputation for excellent cost management, a diversified revenue and fee mix, solid growth-through-acquisition, and an ability to reposition itself as the market demands. Those are all traits that are going to be critically important to the company in the coming quarters, as the bank will be integrating two large acquisitions (and a third deal that's not exactly trivial), repositioning its lending portfolio, and leveraging additional cross-selling opportunties.

How cheap (or not) BB&T is depends on your horizon. In terms of near-term performance (estimated 2015 returns on tangible common equity), BB&T does indeed look expensive relative to some of its peers. Look a few years out, though, and factor in the synergies of acquisitions, higher rates, and a different loan book and I believe that a low-double digit ROE supports a fair value in the low $40's.

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BB&T Looking To Leverage Its Strengths In The Quarters Ahead