← All companies ← NTRA Manual NTRSO → ← NTB Banks NTRSO →

NTRS, Northern Trust Corporation

Banks financial

Northern Trust Corporation is a leading provider of wealth management, asset servicing, asset management and banking solutions to corporations, institutions, families and individuals.

Asset management and related services are provided to Asset Servicing and Wealth Management clients primarily by the Asset Management business.

ASSET SERVICING Asset Servicing (AS) is a leading global provider of asset servicing and related services to corporate and public retirement funds, foundations, endowments, fund managers, insurance companies, sovereign wealth funds, and other institutional investors around the globe.

Latest annual: FY2025 10-K

NTRS · Northern Trust Corporation

The business

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

Revenue · FY2025

$8.1B

−2.5% YoY · 6% 5-yr CAGR

Vital signs · TTM, with 5-yr average

Revenue $9.1B 5-yr avg $7.3B

Return on equity 17% 5-yr avg 13%

Return on tangible equity 18% 5-yr avg 13%

Efficiency ratio 67% 5-yr avg 72%

Equity / assets 7.5% 5-yr avg 7.4%

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 hovered around the cost of equity (median 12%, above 12% in 5 of 10 years). It runs at a 67% efficiency ratio, about average. A bank that earns above its cost of equity through the cycle compounds book value; whether this one did it by underwriting discipline or by reaching for risk is what the 10-K, and the worst years in the record, will tell you.

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

Where the money comes from

read the 10-K →

30% of revenue comes from outside the United States.

Revenue by geography, FY2025

United States70%$5.7B
International30%$2.4B

From the segment footnote of the company's own 10-K. Shares are of total revenue; the profit bar shows each segment's share of segment operating profit, before unallocated corporate costs.

The record

Ten years of arithmetic, read across the cycle.

Most recent quarterly filing 10-Q filed Jul 30, 2026 Source at SEC EDGAR →

Revenue up 35.0% year over year; operating income up 19.0%

figures computed from the filing's XBRL

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	TTMTTMJun 2026
											Income statement
$5.0B	$5.4B	$6.0B	$6.1B	$6.1B	$6.5B	$6.8B	$6.8B	$8.3B	$8.1B	$9.1B	RevenueRevenue
$1.4B	$1.8B	$2.3B	$2.5B	$1.6B	$1.4B	$2.9B	$7.3B	$9.8B	$8.6B	—	Interest incomeInt. inc.
$182M	$340M	$699M	$822M	$200M	$24M	$991M	$5.3B	$7.6B	$6.2B	—	Interest expenseInt. exp.
$1.2B	$1.4B	$1.6B	$1.7B	$1.4B	$1.4B	$1.9B	$2.0B	$2.2B	$2.4B	$2.6B	Net interest incomeNet int.
$3.7B	$3.9B	$4.3B	$4.4B	$4.7B	$5.1B	$4.9B	$4.8B	$6.1B	$5.7B	$6.5B	Noninterest incomeFee inc.
—	—	($18M)	($9M)	$92M	($59M)	$2M	$38M	$600K	($3M)	($19M)	Credit-loss provisionProvision
$1.5B	$1.6B	$2.0B	$1.9B	$1.6B	$2.0B	$1.8B	$1.5B	$2.7B	$2.3B	—	Pretax incomePretax
$1.0B	$1.2B	$1.6B	$1.5B	$1.2B	$1.5B	$1.3B	$1.1B	$2.0B	$1.7B	$2.2B	Net incomeNet inc.
32%	27%	21%	23%	26%	23%	24%	24%	24%	26%	26%	Effective tax rateTax rate
											Cash flow & returns
0.8%	0.9%	1.2%	1.1%	0.7%	0.8%	0.9%	0.7%	1.3%	1.0%	1.3%	Return on assetsROA
11%	12%	15%	13%	10%	13%	12%	9%	16%	13%	17%	Return on equityROE
7%	8%	11%	9%	5%	8%	5%	4%	11%	9%	12%	Retained to equityRetained/eq
11%	13%	16%	15%	11%	14%	13%	10%	17%	14%	18%	Return on tangible equityROTCE
70%	70%	67%	68%	71%	70%	74%	78%	68%	71%	67%	Efficiency ratioEffic.
$333M	$357M	$405M	$530M	$585M	$583M	$750M	$622M	$602M	$592M	$597M	Dividends paidDiv. paid
$411M	$523M	$924M	$1.1B	$300M	$268M	$35M	$348M	$938M	$1.3B	—	BuybacksBuybacks
($10.2B)	($14.0B)	$4.3B	($3.4B)	($29.9B)	($18.6B)	$25.9B	$4.8B	($2.6B)	($20.2B)	—	Investing cash flowInv. cash
$7.5B	$11.3B	($5.8B)	$616M	$27.9B	$16.1B	($26.4B)	($7.2B)	$3.4B	$15.2B	—	Financing cash flowFin. cash
$59M	$235M	($213M)	$75M	$85M	($160M)	($287M)	($90M)	($504M)	$656M	—	Exchange-rate effectFX
($1.1B)	($814M)	$64M	($122M)	($70M)	($1.3B)	$1.6B	$137M	($114M)	$1.2B	—	Change in cashΔ cash
											Balance sheet
$33.8B	$32.6B	$32.4B	$31.4B	$33.8B	$40.5B	$42.9B	$47.6B	$43.4B	$41.9B	—	Loans held for investmentLoans
$161M	$131M	$113M	$105M	$191M	$138M	$144M	$179M	$168M	$164M	—	Credit-loss allowanceAllowance
$123.9B	$138.6B	$132.2B	$136.8B	$170.0B	$183.9B	$155.0B	$150.8B	$155.5B	$177.1B	$179.3B	Total assetsAssets
$101.7B	$112.4B	$104.5B	$109.1B	$143.9B	$159.9B	$123.9B	$116.2B	$122.5B	$142.8B	$145.6B	DepositsDeposits
$519M	$606M	$669M	$697M	$707M	$706M	$691M	$702M	$695M	$713M	$710M	GoodwillGoodwill
$114.2B	$128.4B	$121.7B	$125.7B	$158.3B	$171.9B	$143.8B	$138.9B	$142.7B	$164.2B	—	Total liabilitiesTotal liab.
$9.8B	$10.2B	$10.5B	$11.1B	$11.7B	$12.0B	$11.3B	$11.9B	$12.8B	$13.0B	$13.4B	Shareholders’ equityEquity
											Per share
229M	230M	224M	216M	209M	209M	209M	208M	202M	192M	186M	Shares out (diluted)Shares
$4.51	$5.22	$6.93	$6.92	$5.79	$7.40	$6.40	$5.33	$10.06	$9.03	$12.07	EPS (diluted)EPS
$1.45	$1.55	$1.81	$2.46	$2.80	$2.79	$3.59	$2.99	$2.98	$3.08	$3.21	Dividends / shareDiv/sh
$42.64	$44.49	$46.81	$51.40	$55.92	$57.52	$53.91	$57.32	$63.35	$67.40	$72.16	Book value / shareBVPS
$40.19	$41.15	$43.21	$47.60	$52.54	$54.14	$50.60	$53.94	$59.91	$63.69	$67.83	Tangible book / shareTBVPS

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

	9-yr	5-yr
Revenue / share	+7.7%/yr	+7.6%/yr
Owner earnings / share	+18.6%/yr	+27.5%/yr
EPS	+8.0%/yr	+9.3%/yr
Dividends / share	+8.7%/yr	+1.9%/yr
Capital spending / share	−2.6%/yr	−9.9%/yr
Book value / share	+5.2%/yr	+3.8%/yr

III

Quality & stewardship

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

Owner’s Scorecard

FY2025 10-K · source on SEC EDGAR →

Is it a good business?

Return on equity 13%

Strong

Net income $1.7B ÷ equity $13.0B

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 14%

Solid

Net income ÷ (equity − goodwill $713M − intangibles $0)

Industry peers: median 13%

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 71%

Average

Noninterest expense $5.8B ÷ (net interest income + fees)

Industry peers: median 61%

What this means
The share of revenue eaten by running costs; lower is better, and below about 60% marks a genuinely efficient operation. A low ratio held for years is the operational side of a moat.

Is it sound?

Capital (equity / assets) 7.3%

Modest

Equity $13.0B ÷ assets $177.1B

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 $142.8B ÷ assets $177.1B

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 (provision / NII) -0%

Net reserve release

Provision for credit losses ($3M) ÷ net interest income $2.4B

What this means
What the bank set aside this year against loans going bad, as a share of its lending income. This swings hard with the cycle, low in good years and spiking in recessions, so read it across the record, not in one year. Disciplined underwriting shows up as low, stable provisions through a downturn.

The franchise and the credit cycle

Deposit franchise 19%

Solid core deposits

Noninterest-bearing deposits $27.3B ÷ deposits $142.8B

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 —

Not enough data

What this means
Not derivable from the filings' structured data — some filers carry recoveries only on segment axes, and a gross figure dressed as net would be a wrong number.
Held-to-maturity marks 9%

Manageable

HTM at cost $23.4B − fair value $22.4B = $1.0B, against tangible equity $12.2B

What this means
Bonds held to maturity are carried at cost, so rate rises open a gap between the books and reality that only shows in this disclosure. 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.

Lease obligations

the lease note, SEC EDGAR →

Debt by another name. What the business owes on the property, aircraft, stores and equipment it rents rather than owns is a fixed claim due on a schedule; added back to the debt, it is the true leverage. That ladder, and what it adds to the debt on the page above.

'26$98M

'27$99M

'28$86M

'29$71M

'30$70M

later$315M

Lease payments by year, scaled to the largest; “later” is everything beyond year five, shown apart. These are the contractual cash payments, before the interest the filing imputes back out to the balance-sheet liability.

Due in the next 12 months$98Ma fixed cash payment, owed whether or not the business has a good year

Total lease payments$740Mevery year plus the tail, undiscounted: the full cash the leases will take

On the balance sheet$624Mthe present value of those payments, the recognised lease liability

True leverage: debt plus leases

On-balance-sheet debt$3.4B

Lease obligations (present value)$624M

Total fixed claims on the business$4.0B

Counting the leases the way Buffett does, the fixed claims on this business come to $4.0B, of which the leases are 16%. The lease wall above and the debt schedule together are the calendar of what must be paid, and when.

Lease ladder read from the ASC 842 tags in the company’s Dec 31, 2025 annual report and reconciled: the yearly buckets sum to the undiscounted total, which less the imputed interest equals the balance-sheet liability; a ladder that doesn’t tie out is withheld.

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	Mr. O’Grady	$10.4M	$18.5M	$1.3B
2022	Mr. O’Grady	$10.8M	$4.0M	$2.3B
2023	Mr. O’Grady	$10.2M	$11.2M	$2.5B
2024	Mr. O’Grady	$10.9M	$21.3M	($588M)
2025	Mr. O’Grady	$10.1M	$21.6M	$5.5B

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 ownership<1%
The stake all directors and executive officers hold together, per the 2026 proxy: skin in the game, the first thing Munger reads.
CEO pay ratio136:1
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.

What an owner would ask, FY2025

read the 10-K →

Which reported numbers are a judgment call?
Management names Pension & retirement, Credit & receivables, Insurance reserves 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
STTState Street Corporation	$13.9B	10%	15%	74%	0.9%	13%
MTBM&T Bank Corporation	$9.7B	9%	13%	57%	3.2%	28%
FCNCAFirst Citizens BancShares Inc.	$9.5B	12%	13%	64%	3.0%	25%
FITBFifth Third Bancorp	$9.0B	12%	16%	58%	2.7%	25%
CFGCitizens Financial Group Inc.	$8.2B	8%	11%	61%	2.6%	22%
WFWoori Financial Group Inc.	$8.2B	8%	8%	—	1.7%	—
HBANHuntington Bancshares Incorporated	$8.2B	10%	14%	62%	2.8%	18%
NTRSNorthern Trust Corporation	$8.1B	12%	13%	70%	1.2%	19%
Group median	—	10%	13%	62%	2.7%	22%

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 Northern Trust Corporation’s record justifies.

Today’s price $

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

Tangible book / share, delivered4%/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 equity13%

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 $12.6B on 183M shares, a 13% 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 NTRS against another business →

Cite: Owner Scorecard, "Northern Trust Corporation (NTRS), the owner's record," https://ownerscorecard.com/c/NTRS, data as of 2026-07-18.

Manual order: ← NTRA its page in the Manual NTRSO →

Industry order: ← NTB the Banks chapter NTRSO →