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Synovus Financial
You don’t have to be a behemoth based in New York or Charlotte, N.C., to generate some financial-services pizzazz. In 2006, Synovus, a banking and credit-card processing company that hails from the sleepy south Georgia town of Columbus, saw revenues jump 20.3% and net income rise 19.5%. The source of that growth: a double-digit rise in deposits and loans in its banking division, along with new payment-processing deals with issuers of credit cards. The regional bank’s average return on equity wasn’t shabby either, at 29.5%. CEO Richard Anthony has been accelerating the company’s expansion into commercial and industrial lending and bolstering its retail banking portfolio. That includes an aggressive push into home-equity loans and, like its bigger banking brethren, a bid to soak up more income from ubiquitous fees.
| Overall Grade | A- |
|
| Market Data | SNV | |
| Market Value (2/28/2007) |
$10.5 Billion |
|
| Profitability* | 29.5% | A- |
| Sales Growth Rate** | 20.3% | B |
| 12-Month Sales | $4.1 Billion |
|
| 12-Month Net Income | $0.6 Billion |
|
| Total Return | Past 12 Months17.3% | Past 36 Months40.0% |
| Economic Sector | Financials | |
| Industry | Regional Banks | |
The overall sector letter grade reflects how the weighted average of the return on income, or return on equity, and sales growth grades compare with others in the same sector. For the overall grade as well as the ROE/ROI and sales growth grades, an "A" places a company in the top 7% of its sector and an "A-" in the top 14% of the sector. The actual ranking was done using the underlying numerical measures. Grades are for information only.
* For nonfinancial companies, three-year average pretax operating profit before interest and special items as a percentage of average invested capital. For financial companies, pretax profits as a percentage of average shareholder's equity.
*Three-year average annual sales growth based on the most recently reported 36 months, calculated using the least-squares method.
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