Munger Mode rating: 4 out of 5 — Buy. Our own rating from the research report below, on business quality first: moat durability and management, with price separating the top three.
A wonderful regional banking franchise — perhaps the best-run one in America — at a price that is fair but no longer cheap. We would buy it, hold it for decades, and sleep well. We would simply not expect the bargain returns available eighteen months ago. We have always said we like businesses we can understand, and there are few businesses simpler in concept than the one M&T runs: gather deposits from families and businesses in the communities where you operate, lend that money out carefully to people who will pay it back, and don't do anything foolish in between. That's the whole model. It was the model when the bank was founded in Buffalo in 1856 as Manufacturers and Traders Trust, and it is the model today with $219 billion in assets, roughly 950 branches, and operations stretching from Maine through the Mid-Atlantic to Virginia.
Recent filings analysed: 8-K (2026-09-14), 10-Q (2026-08-04), 8-K (2026-07-21), FWP (2026-07-16).
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