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EQBK, Equity Bancshares Inc.

Banks financial

A balance-sheet business, read on book value, net interest margin and credit losses rather than an earnings multiple.

Our wholly-owned banking subsidiary, Equity Bank, provides a broad range of financial services primarily to businesses and business owners as well as individuals through our network of 77 branches located in Arkansas, Kansas, Missouri and Oklahoma, as of December 31, 2025.

Elliott believed that, as a result of in-market consolidation, there existed an opportunity to build an attractive commercial banking franchise and create long-term value for our stockholders.

Latest annual: FY2025 10-K/A

EQBK · Equity Bancshares Inc.

The business

What it sells, where the money comes from, the kind of company it is.

Revenue · FY2025

$210M

−6.6% YoY · 6% 5-yr CAGR

Vital signs · FY2025, with 5-yr average

Revenue $210M 5-yr avg $190M

Return on equity 3% 5-yr avg 8%

Return on tangible equity 4% 5-yr avg 9%

Equity / assets 11.5% 5-yr avg 9.9%

Next report By 11/8 · the 10-Q for the quarter ended late September · due within 40 days of period end · has filed ~39 days after · the wire records it on arrival

The business in brief

read the 10-K →

What this business is and what moves its needle, from its own SEC filings.

What moves the needle: Net interest margin, loan losses, and book value. A lender is read on the quality of its balance sheet, not an earnings multiple, and the worst year of credit losses matters more than the best. On its own account, the filing leans hardest on pricing power & competition, set against the numbers in what the filing emphasizes, below.
Is it a good business?: Return on equity has sat below the cost of equity (median 5%, above 12% in only 1 of 10 years). The cycle and the loan book decide this one; weigh the recession years in the record, not the average, and read the 10-K.

Every line is arithmetic on the company's filings, shown in full in the sections below.

The record

Ten years of arithmetic, read across the cycle.

The record, 2016–2025

realized figures from each filing · older years to the left

2016’16	2017’17	2018’18	2019’19	2020’20	2021’21	2022’22	2023’23	2024’24	2025’25
										Income statement
$63M	$101M	$145M	$151M	$159M	$175M	$199M	$140M	$225M	$210M	RevenueRevenue
$62M	$103M	$162M	$175M	$156M	$157M	$188M	$247M	$297M	$331M	Interest incomeInt. inc.
$9M	$17M	$37M	$50M	$23M	$15M	$25M	$88M	$111M	$105M	Interest expenseInt. exp.
$53M	$86M	$125M	$126M	$133M	$143M	$163M	$159M	$186M	$226M	Net interest incomeNet int.
$10M	$15M	$20M	$25M	$26M	$33M	$36M	($19M)	$39M	($16M)	Noninterest incomeFee inc.
$2M	$3M	$4M	$18M	$24M	($8M)	—	—	—	—	Credit-loss provisionProvision
$14M	$31M	$46M	$33M	($75M)	$64M	$70M	$2M	$78M	$26M	Pretax incomePretax
$9M	$21M	$36M	$26M	($75M)	$52M	$58M	$8M	$63M	$23M	Net incomeNet inc.
32%	33%	22%	22%	—	19%	18%	—	20%	14%	Effective tax rateTax rate
										Cash flow & returns
0.4%	0.7%	0.9%	0.6%	-1.9%	1.0%	1.2%	0.2%	1.2%	0.4%	Return on assetsROA
4%	6%	8%	5%	-18%	10%	14%	2%	11%	3%	Return on equityROE
4%	—	—	—	—	10%	13%	0%	9%	2%	Retained to equityRetained/eq
5%	8%	12%	8%	-21%	12%	17%	2%	12%	4%	Return on tangible equityROTCE
75%	67%	65%	66%	—	68%	65%	—	64%	—	Efficiency ratioEffic.
$42K	—	—	—	—	$1M	$6M	$7M	$8M	$11M	Dividends paidDiv. paid
—	—	—	$11M	$19M	$19M	$33M	$18M	$12M	$14M	BuybacksBuybacks
($141M)	($223M)	($171M)	$96M	$96M	($315M)	($214M)	$232M	$124M	$137M	Investing cash flowInv. cash
$103M	$212M	$275M	($248M)	$52M	$192M	($15M)	($34M)	($193M)	$36M	Financing cash flowFin. cash
($22M)	$17M	$141M	($104M)	$191M	($21M)	($156M)	$275M	$5M	$224M	Change in cashΔ cash
										Balance sheet
$1.4B	$2.1B	$2.6B	$2.5B	—	$3.1B	$3.3B	$3.3B	$3.5B	$4.2B	Loans held for investmentLoans
$6M	$8M	$11M	$12M	$34M	$48M	$46M	$44M	$43M	$53M	Credit-loss allowanceAllowance
$2.2B	$3.2B	$4.1B	$3.9B	$4.0B	$5.1B	$5.0B	$5.0B	$5.3B	$6.4B	Total assetsAssets
$1.6B	$2.4B	$3.1B	$3.1B	$3.4B	$4.4B	$4.2B	$4.1B	$4.4B	$5.1B	DepositsDeposits
$59M	$105M	$132M	$136M	$32M	$54M	$53M	$53M	$53M	$82M	GoodwillGoodwill
$1.9B	$2.8B	$3.6B	$3.5B	$3.6B	$4.6B	$4.6B	$4.6B	$4.7B	$5.6B	Total liabilitiesTotal liab.
$258M	$374M	$456M	$478M	$408M	$501M	$410M	$453M	$593M	$732M	Shareholders’ equityEquity
										Per share
8.8M	12.7M	15.7M	15.8M	15.1M	15.3M	16.4M	15.6M	15.7M	18.5M	Shares out (diluted)Shares
$1.07	$1.62	$2.28	$1.61	$-4.97	$3.43	$3.51	$0.50	$4.00	$1.23	EPS (diluted)EPS
$0.00	—	—	—	—	$0.08	$0.34	$0.42	$0.50	$0.62	Dividends / shareDiv/sh
$29.46	$29.44	$29.03	$30.17	$27.00	$32.71	$24.95	$28.94	$37.83	$39.66	Book value / shareBVPS
$22.20	$20.34	$19.26	$20.31	$23.84	$28.18	$21.07	$25.08	$33.49	$34.04	Tangible book / shareTBVPS

The diluted share count moved ×1.45 into 2017 — shares issued, not a split the totals corroborate — and the per-share figures carry the counts as filed.

Per-share growththe realized rate an owner's share compounded

	9-yr	5-yr
Revenue / share	+5.2%/yr	+1.6%/yr
Owner earnings / share	+5.1%/yr	−1.5%/yr
EPS	+1.6%/yr	—
Dividends / share	+71.6%/yr	+69.4%/yr (4-yr)
Capital spending / share	+9.4%/yr	+2.6%/yr
Book value / share	+3.4%/yr	+8.0%/yr

III

Quality & stewardship

Returns, the balance sheet, capital allocation, and pay.

Owner’s Scorecard

FY2025 10-K/A · source on SEC EDGAR →

Is it a good business?

Return on equity 3%

Below the cost of equity

Net income $23M ÷ equity $732M

Industry peers: median 10%

What this means
The bank's north star, what it earns on shareholders' capital. Cost of equity is roughly 10%, so a return durably above that builds value and below it destroys it. One year is noisy; the durability across a full credit cycle is what counts.
Return on tangible equity 4%

Modest

Net income ÷ (equity − goodwill $82M − intangibles $22M)

Industry peers: median 11%

What this means
The cleaner return, stripping out the goodwill paid for past acquisitions. This is the number a buyer of the whole bank actually earns on the hard capital.
Efficiency ratio —

Not enough data

Industry peers: median 66%

What this means
Noninterest expense or revenue missing.

Is it sound?

Capital (equity / assets) 11.5%

Well capitalized

Equity $732M ÷ assets $6.4B

What this means
A plain-English leverage read: how much of the balance sheet is the owners' own money. This is a rough proxy; the regulatory figure is the CET1 ratio, which is risk-weighted and reported in the filing. The point is the same, how much loss the bank can absorb before depositors are at risk.
Deposit funding 81%

Deposit-funded

Deposits $5.1B ÷ assets $6.4B

What this means
Low-cost, sticky deposits are a bank's real moat, the cheap raw material it lends out at a spread. A bank funded mostly by deposits earns more durably than one that rents its money in the wholesale market.
Credit cost —

Not enough data

What this means
Provision or net interest income missing.

The franchise and the credit cycle

Deposit franchise 22%

Solid core deposits

Noninterest-bearing deposits $1.1B ÷ deposits $5.1B · pays 2.39% on the interest-bearing rest (avg of year-ends)

What this means
The share of deposits the bank pays nothing for — checking accounts that stay through rate cycles. This is the deposit moat in one number: a high share means cheap, sticky raw material for lending; a low share means the funding reprices with every rate move. Buffett's Wells letter is built on exactly this economics.
Net charge-offs 0.07%

Disciplined book

Charge-offs net of recoveries $3M ÷ loans $3.8B (avg of year-ends) · worst year on record 0.69% · allowance held at 1.26% of loans

What this means
Loans actually written off, net of what was later recovered — the realized truth the provisions were guessing at. Graham's rule applies doubly here: the worst year in the record, not the average, is the read, because a loan book's sins are committed in the good years and confessed in the bad ones.
Held-to-maturity marks No loss — fair value above cost

Marks are small

Pre-tax, as filed for FY2025: HTM at cost $5M − fair value $5M = ($161K) · widest on record FY2018: $8M (102% accreted back since)

What this means
Bonds held to maturity are carried at cost, so rate rises open a gap that only shows in this disclosure. Stated equity already carries every available-for-sale mark through accumulated other comprehensive income; the held-to-maturity book's gap sits outside equity, which is why it is read here. The figure is pre-tax as the filer states it — the true after-tax dent depends on a deferred-tax position the record does not carry. The gap never hits earnings if the bank can hold on, which is precisely why the reader checks whether it could be forced to sell: the 2023 bank failures were this number meeting deposit flight.

All figures as filed; the source filing is linked above.

Acquisitions & goodwill

from the balance sheet & the 10-year cash-flow record

Goodwill grows only when a company acquires and falls only when it concedes it overpaid. The size of that bet, the cash put into buying rather than building, and how much has already been written off.

Goodwill & intangibles$104M2% of all assets; the premium carried on the balance sheet for businesses acquired

Against book equity11%goodwill is this share of book equity; the rest is the company’s own retained and paid-in capital

Cash spent acquiring$9Mover 1 years since fiscal 2015 buying other businesses, against $81M of capital spent building over the 10-year record

$105M written down across 1 year (2020): goodwill the company has already conceded it overpaid for, charged against earnings. A write-down costs no cash (the cash went out when the deal was signed), but it is management marking its own past judgment to market.

Beside that spending sits $32M of cumulative amortization of acquired intangibles charged against earnings since fiscal 2013 — the purchase price of past deals, expensed over time. The cash figure above counts only cash consideration: goodwill of $82M against it says much of the buying was paid for in stock, which never passes through the cash-flow statement.

Goodwill, acquired intangibles and equity from the latest balance sheet; acquisition spend and amortization summed across the company's full tagged history, write-downs across the 10-year record, from the company's own filings.

Management, ownership & pay

read the proxy →

From the proxy: how much of the business the people running it own, and how they are paid, beside what the business earned for its owners in the same years.

Fiscal year	Chief executive	Pay, as filed	“Actually paid”	Owner earnings
2021	Brad S. Elliott	$2.3M	$2.7M	$98M
2022	Brad S. Elliott	$2.5M	$2.4M	$71M
2023	Brad S. Elliott	$2.6M	$2.8M	$72M
2024	Brad S. Elliott	$3.0M	$3.6M	$68M
2025	Brad S. Elliott	$3.1M	$3.1M	$45M

Both pay figures are the company’s own, from the pay-versus-performance table its proxy statement files. “As filed” is the Summary Compensation Table total: salary, bonus, and equity awards at their value on the day of grant. “Actually paid” is the SEC’s prescribed recalculation, which re-marks those equity awards to what they became as they vested; it can swing far above or below the filed figure in either direction, and negative years occur. Owner earnings are the whole business's, from the record above, for the same fiscal years.

Insider ownership14.5%
The stake all directors and executive officers hold together, per the 2026 proxy: skin in the game, the first thing Munger reads.
CEO pay ratio62:1
What the chief earns for every dollar the median employee makes, per the 2026 proxy. A high ratio alone settles nothing; some businesses are genuinely top-heavy in scarce skill. A runaway figure is where Buffett starts asking whether the board is doing its job.
Stock-based compensation$6M
The slice of the business handed to employees in shares in fiscal 2025, 2.7% of revenue, equal to 4.3% of operating profit. Buffett's oldest accounting fight: this is compensation, compensation is an expense, real whether or not the headline earnings admit it. One trap: the cash-flow statement adds SBC back, so the operating cash, and the owner earnings drawn from it, are flattered by exactly this amount; counted as the cost it is, what an owner keeps is lower.

What an owner would ask, FY2025

read the 10-K →

Which reported numbers are a judgment call?
Management names Credit & receivables as critical estimates
each rests partly on management's judgment; the filing's note sets out the assumptionsverify →

The questions the record and the charts do not answer on their own; each carries the figure and the place to look.

Peers, Banks

The same industry, side by side on the bank lens. Each column names the period it is read over; the group median at the foot is the line to read each figure against.

Company	Revenuelatest FY, USD	ROEmedian over the record	ROTCEmedian over the record	Efficiencymedian over the record	NII / assetsmedian over the record	Noninterest-bearing sharelatest FY
GSBCGreat Southern Bancorp Inc.	$229M	12%	12%	59%	3.5%	19%
COFSChoiceOne Financial Services Inc.	$228M	9%	11%	69%	2.8%	25%
MPBMid Penn Bancorp	$226M	7%	10%	70%	3.0%	16%
IBCPIndependent Bank Corporation	$226M	14%	15%	62%	3.1%	21%
FRSTPrimis Financial Corp.	$224M	7%	9%	66%	2.8%	16%
SPFISouth Plains Financial Inc.	$212M	13%	14%	66%	3.4%	26%
EQBKEquity Bancshares Inc.	$210M	5%	8%	66%	3.2%	22%
TRSTTrustCo Bank Corp NY	$188M	10%	10%	56%	2.9%	—
Group median	—	9%	10%	66%	3.1%	21%

The price

What a price has to assume.

What the price implies

price / tangible book

A bank is worth a multiple of its tangible book value, and the multiple it deserves is set by the return it earns on that book. Type today’s price; we show what you would be paying against what Equity Bancshares Inc.’s record justifies.

Today’s price $

The assumptions Cost of equity 10% Long-term growth 3%

Tangible book / share, delivered7%/yr’20→’25

The justified multiple is (return on tangible equity − growth) ÷ (cost of equity − growth). A bank earning exactly its cost of equity is worth about one times tangible book; the premium above that prices each point of durable excess return. A higher cost of equity lowers the justified multiple for a bank.

Enter a price above to run it.

Price / tangible book—

Justified by the return—

Normalized return on tangible equity8%

Price / book—

Earnings yield—

P/E (3-yr avg ’23–’25)—

Graham’s price gate—

Graham applied the same standards to financial enterprises (Intelligent Investor ch.14): the 15× multiple cap on averaged earnings, and P/E times price-to-book at most 22.5. The gate marks the bargain-hunter’s floor, not a verdict.

Tangible book $628M on 21M shares, a 8% normalized return on it. The dials set the multiple such a return would justify; your price sets the multiple you are paying. It assumes the bank keeps earning that return; a credit cycle, a rate shock or a bad acquisition changes it, which is what the record and the 10-K are for.

Weigh EQBK against another business →

The owners of EQBK: the meeting and the votes →

Cite: Owner Scorecard, "Equity Bancshares Inc. (EQBK), the owner's record," https://ownerscorecard.com/c/EQBK, data as of 2026-08-17.

Manual order: ← EPRT its page in the Manual EQH →

Industry order: ← EGBN the Banks chapter ESQ →