Special characteristics to consider when doing a financial Due Diligence for a bank?

Hi, to answer your questions separately:

1. In principle, a bank's financial due diligence is not different from any other company's. Obviously the KPIs and metrics are different (e.g.EBITDA margin is meaningless, and instead you'd be looking at ratios related to efficiency, loans and deposits, income margin, etc.). In terms of adjustments, a common one relates to NPL ratios: it might be the case that those are understated and not enough money is set aside; if that's the case, you'll need to book the adjustment into the income statement (profit down) and decrease the book value of the loans accordingly on the balance sheet. Just an idea though, the actual adjustments you need to make will depend on the specific case!

I would say that the Legal DD becomes particularly relevant when assessing a bank - due to all the legal/compliance requirements and the potential liabilities that may arise. Also, in case of local banks, the commercial DD should place more emphasis into the state of the local economy are they are oftern intertwined.

2. DCF is not a good method when it comes to banks. Rather, you should use DDM (Dividend Discount Model), and you can then triangulate the resulting value with trading/transaction multiples.

Good luck!

Nico