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Back of Napkin

Community Bank System, Inc. CBU

Three-pass checkedFresh as companies report

Community Bank System renamed itself Community Financial System in 2024, and the screen that ranks it the second most expensive name in a 202-bank universe is still pricing it as a bank.

Both readings survive contact with the filing, because the fee businesses are real but smaller than the new name implies, and the tangible book they are measured against is missing $417.6M that the 2022 rate shock took out and time is quietly putting back.

Key data

Sector / industryFinancials / Regional Banks
FYE / countryDec / US
Price · 52w range$61.83 · $53.46-$71.11
Market cap · assets$3.2B · $17.8B
Filing anchorQ2-FY2026 (CQ2 CY2026); 10-Q filed Aug 7, 2026
TTMRevenue $859.1M · net income $228.1M · diluted EPS $4.31
P/TBV · forward P/E2.94x · FY26E 13.5x · FY27E 11.9x
Yield3.0%, $0.47 a quarter · 44% of trailing earnings

CBU · price with moving averages

Daily · 6MWeekly · 3Y
$36$45$55$64$73 Sep '23Apr '24Nov '24Jun '25Jan '26Sep '26 BID
EMAs82140

Source: market data.

The business

Community Bank, N.A. takes deposits and makes loans across Upstate New York, northeastern Pennsylvania, Vermont, western Massachusetts and southern New Hampshire, in towns where the branch on Main Street has one or two competitors rather than ten. Bolted onto it are three fee businesses: BPAS administers 401(k) plans and health savings accounts, OneGroup sells commercial and personal insurance, Nottingham runs trusts and manages money. Last November the bank bought seven Santander branches around Allentown, paying an 8% deposit premium for $543.7M of checking and savings accounts.

The moat is the funding side. Deposits grew 7.4% over the year while consolidated interest expense fell 6.1%, which is what a franchise looks like when the depositor is not shopping.

Inside the complete Back of Napkin

  1. 01The business
  2. 02The numbers
  3. 03Management
  4. 04How it fails or surprises you
  5. 05The shape of the payoff
  6. 06Closing thoughts
  7. 07Methodology

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