Buffett Brain · Research note
Score updated 5 Oct 2026 · analysis from 18 May 2026
ITUB· Financial Services
Itaú Unibanco
Brazil's Itaú trades at 9.5x earnings with a 29% owner-earnings yield, but bank ROIC of 1.5% and macro fragility keep this in the too-hard pile.
Buffett fit
Weak fit
Owner
35
Durability
70
Management
42
Price
70
Score updated 5 Oct 2026 · analysis from 18 May 2026
Buffett's checklist
Each number against Buffett's bar, and where it ranks among Financial Services stocks in our database.
How much profit the business makes on each dollar invested in it. Higher is better.
What is left of each sale after the cost of making the product. A high number often means pricing power.
The cash the business earns for its owners, compared with the price of the whole company.
How fast sales grew each year over the last five years.
How many years of today's profit you pay for at today's price. Lower means cheaper.
How much the company owes compared with what it owns outright. Lower is safer.
The four pillars
How the business measures up on each of Buffett's four tests.
Owning Itaú for a decade means owning Brazil, its rate cycle, its currency, its political risk.
The full reasoning comes with a free account.
Brazilian banking is structurally oligopolistic, Itaú, Bradesco, Santander Brasil, and BB share most of the deposit base.
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Share count grew 3.2% per year, which is unusual for a profitable bank, Itaú prefers dividends to .
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of 9.52 and earnings yield of 10.5% look cheap on the surface, and owner-earnings yield of 29.4% suggests substantial cash generation.
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- The full reasoning behind all four pillars
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For and against
The strongest points on each side, with the numbers behind them.
In its favor
5- 1Profitable in all 5 past years with zero max EPS decline, rare for EM banks
- 2Revenue CAGR of 19.04% over 5 years through inflation and rate cycles
- 3Owner-earnings yield of 29.4% reflects strong cash generation
- 4 of 9.52 is cheap even after adjusting for EM risk premium
Concerns
5- 1 TTM of 1.47% is very low even for a bank
- 2Debt/equity of 4.99 and net debt/EBITDA of 16.2 reflect heavy
- 3Currency and political risk in Brazil can wipe out years of operating gains
- 4Share count grew 3.17% per year, slow dilution of per-share value
Price history
$8.59+112.6%· 5-year return
Weekly closing prices. Touch or hover the line for a date.
The business
How the business works
Itaú Unibanco is Latin America's largest private bank, a deposit-funded lender to Brazilian households and corporates across retail, wholesale, and treasury. The 34.13% is normal for a bank; the 12.96% reflects credit losses cycling with the Brazilian economy. Revenue grew 19.04% per year in BRL terms (helped by inflation and rate cycles) and EPS compounded 9.71%, but the share count drifted up 3.17% annually. The franchise's real edge is distribution scale across 4,000+ branches.
What other investors would say
The same company, judged by three other documented playbooks.
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