BFST

Business First Bancshares, Inc. (BFST) Economic Moat Analysis (2026)

Invetso Score: 5.8/10 — Balanced · Last Updated: 2026-08-01

Overall Score

Scale Market Position

Regional bank with a roughly $1.05B market cap and $1.09B enterprise value, indicating a modest competitive footprint.

Revenue per share of 13.97 and price-to-sales of 2.31 suggest a stable but not dominant market position.

Pricing Power Margins

Gross margin of 56.4% and net margin of 20.4% indicate solid profitability for a bank.

EBIT margin of 13.1% and pretax margin of 25.5% show acceptable spread capture, but not clear moat-level pricing power.

Customer Stickiness Retention

Receivables turnover of 11.7 and a 31.2-day operating cycle point to reasonably efficient customer/payment relationships.

No direct evidence of exceptional retention or switching costs is visible in the current metrics.

Capital Efficiency Returns

Return on equity of 9.8% is respectable, but return on invested capital of 0.5% and return on capital employed of 0.7% remain weak.

Asset turnover of 0.05 and operating return on assets of 0.7% suggest the business is not yet generating strong incremental returns on capital.

Balance Sheet Resilience

Current ratio of 2.05 and cash ratio of 1.92 indicate strong near-term liquidity.

Debt-to-equity of 0.61 and net debt to EBITDA of 0.65 suggest leverage is manageable, though interest coverage of 0.31 is a caution flag.

Moat Durability Intangibles

Tangible book value per share of 25.79 versus book value per share of 30.96 implies limited intangible asset contribution.

The company shows no clear evidence of a wide moat, but its profitability and liquidity support a stable franchise profile.

Sources

  • Company filings (10-K, 10-Q, investor presentations)
  • Financial and market data providers
  • Public news and industry information

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