AUB: 60% revenue growth, PEG 0.72 — read the merger fine print
Atlantic Union Bankshares (NYSE: AUB) is Pass #18 in this channel's daily small-cap screen, clearing all four hard filters: $5.55B market cap, 60%+ TTM revenue growth, PEG 0.72 (Finviz, cross-verified 0.76 via StockAnalysis), and $2.30B TTM operating cash flow. The article leads with mandatory caveats — the TTM growth is almost entirely from the Sandy Spring Bank acquisition (closed mid-2024) and the $2.30B OCF includes ~$1.87B in non-recurring held-for-sale loan reclassification items. Coverage spans business model (129-branch Mid-Atlantic commercial bank, $37.3B assets), 9-quarter revenue chart with dual-axis YoY overlay, valuation breakdown (Forward P/E 10.26×, PEG calculation shown for two sources), balance sheet (CET1 10.21%, NIM 3.80%, efficiency ratio 49.86% adjusted), five growth catalysts (integration complete, Blackstone CRE sale, $250M buyback, NIM trough thesis, expanded footprint), six risk factors with impact ratings, 9-analyst Buy consensus with $44.13 average target (+13.8% upside), insider buying (no sales in 12 months), and four specific upcoming catalysts (Q2 earnings July 23, buyback execution, Morgan Stanley conference same day, CCO succession).
Pass #18 in this channel's daily small-cap screen. Atlantic Union Bankshares (NYSE: AUB) clears all four hard filters — $5.55B market cap, 60%+ TTM revenue growth, PEG 0.72, and $2.30B TTM operating cash flow — and is the first regional bank to appear in this series. It became the largest regional bank headquartered in the lower Mid-Atlantic after completing the Sandy Spring Bancorp acquisition in mid-2024 and finishing the full systems integration in October 2025.
That revenue growth figure, however, requires upfront context: the 60–76% TTM gain is almost entirely acquisition-driven. Sandy Spring roughly doubled AUB's asset base overnight. The organic growth rate is not separately disclosed in public filings. Readers should weigh this as a post-merger inflection story — the investment question is whether integration savings, NIM expansion, a $250M buyback, and a larger lending footprint can compound from here as the year-over-year comparisons normalize.
Current price: $38.77 (June 10, 2026 close). Market cap: $5.55B. 1
Hard filter check
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Filter verification — source and calculation detail:
| Filter | Threshold | Value | Source | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Market cap | < $10B | $5.55B | Finviz + StockAnalysis + Yahoo Finance | ✅ Pass |
| TTM revenue growth | > 30% | +60.27% (Finviz) / +75.63% (StockAnalysis) | Finviz / StockAnalysis | ✅ Pass ⚠️ |
| PEG ratio | < 1.0 | 0.72 (Finviz) / 0.76 (cross-verified) | Finviz; SA Forward P/E 10.26 ÷ 13.43% EPS growth = 0.76 | ✅ Pass |
| Operating cash flow | Positive | $2.30B TTM | StockAnalysis (dual-source confirmed) | ✅ Pass ⚠️ |
Revenue growth caveat: The two sources define revenue differently. Finviz uses total interest + non-interest income (~$2.23B), reporting +60.27%. StockAnalysis uses a net revenue figure (~$1.40B), producing +75.63%. Both confirm the filter is met. The divergence reflects accounting methodology for bank income, not a data error. Either way, the growth is primarily from Sandy Spring — which closed mid-2024, so it is now fully in the TTM base.
OCF caveat: The $2.30B TTM OCF figure includes approximately $1.87B from changes in the held-for-sale loan portfolio — a balance-sheet reclassification item related to the Blackstone CRE loan sale (June 2025), not recurring operating cash generation. Stripping that item, core operating cash generation was approximately $164M for the trailing twelve months. The OCF filter passes on the headline number, but the $164M figure is the better proxy for ongoing cash conversion.
What Atlantic Union Bankshares does
Atlantic Union Bankshares (founded 1902) is a Virginia-headquartered commercial bank holding company operating through Atlantic Union Bank. Before the Sandy Spring acquisition, it was a Virginia-focused community bank. After the acquisition it spans Virginia, Maryland, North Carolina, and Washington D.C. with 129 branches and $37.3B in total assets. 3
The business is a conventional commercial bank — loans funded by deposits, revenue from net interest income (NII) and fee income. NII comprised the majority of Q1 2026 revenue at $312.4M out of $364.4M total. The loan book skews commercial: $27.9B in loans held for investment as of March 31, 2026, weighted toward commercial real estate (CRE) and commercial & industrial (C&I) lending. 3
CEO John C. Asbury has described the strategic positioning plainly: "Atlantic Union is a story of transformation from a Virginia community bank to the largest regional bank headquartered in the lower Mid-Atlantic, with operations in Virginia, Maryland, and a growing presence in North Carolina." 3
Nine quarters of revenue
The acquisition drives every YoY comparison until mid-2025. The true integration signal is the sequential trend from Q3 2024 onward.
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The Q4 2025 peak at $384.96M and slight sequential pullback in Q1 2026 to $364.42M is consistent with seasonal patterns in commercial banking (Q1 is typically the slowest origination quarter). Year-over-year Q1 2026 revenue grew +86.22%, almost entirely because Q1 2025 was only the first partial-year post-merger comparison period.
Earnings inflection: Q2 2025 EPS was $0.12 — depressed by $38.6M in one-time merger costs. From Q3 2025 onward, EPS has been substantially cleaner: $0.63, $0.77, and $0.84 in the three subsequent quarters. Q1 2026 adjusted operating EPS of $0.89 beat the $0.87 consensus by 2.2%. FY2025 full-year net income rose 32.74% to $261.85M, though GAAP EPS fell 9.38% to $2.03 because shares outstanding grew 46.92% from the merger consideration. 34
Asset quality: Q1 2026 provision for credit losses was just $2.7M, down from $17.6M in Q1 2025. Non-performing assets were 0.36% of loans held for investment, improving 6 basis points quarter-over-quarter. Net charge-off rate: 0.02% annualized — two basis points. The allowance for credit losses ($321.9M) covers non-performing loans at 297.56%. 3
Valuation breakdown
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PEG calculation, both sources:
| Source | Forward P/E | EPS growth rate used | PEG | Verdict |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Finviz | 9.66× | 13.43% (5Y analyst consensus) | 0.72 | ✅ Pass |
| StockAnalysis cross-check | 10.26× | 13.43% (same consensus) | ~0.76 | ✅ Pass |
Both calculations use the same 5-year analyst EPS growth estimate of 13.43% as the denominator. Unlike some prior picks in this series where the PEG rested on an aggressive multi-hundred-percent growth assumption, 13.43% is a modest, defensible rate for a regional bank that just doubled in size. At a 10.26× forward P/E, the PEG would only breach 1.0 if the 5-year EPS growth estimate fell below approximately 10.3%.
Valuation context for bank stocks: Regional banks typically trade at 10–15× forward earnings. At 10.26×, AUB sits at the low end of that range. The trailing P/E of 16.47× is elevated because FY2025 GAAP EPS ($2.03) was depressed by merger costs; the forward multiple is the more meaningful number as the income statement normalizes.
Price/book of 1.09× is essentially at book value — a meaningful cushion. The higher P/TBV of 1.85× reflects $1.75B in goodwill from the Sandy Spring acquisition sitting above tangible equity. Annual dividend of $1.48/share (15 consecutive years of increases) provides a 3.82% yield at current prices. 2
Balance sheet and capital ratios
AUB's post-merger balance sheet is large relative to its market cap: $37.3B in assets against a $5.55B equity market cap.
| Metric | Value (Q1 2026) | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Total assets | $37.3B | +51.5% YoY, driven by Sandy Spring |
| Total loans (LHFI) | $27.9B | Loan-to-deposit ratio: 91.96% |
| Total deposits | $30.4B | Down ~1% annualized QoQ from brokered deposit reduction |
| Cash & equivalents | $780M | $321M interbank deposits + $451M vault cash |
| Long-term debt | $775M | — |
| Goodwill | $1.755B | Sandy Spring acquisition; measurement period concluded Q1 2026 |
| CET1 capital ratio | 10.21% | +11 bps QoQ; approaching company's stated 10.5% buyback threshold |
| TCE / TA | 8.03% | +18 bps QoQ |
| Adjusted efficiency ratio | 49.86% | vs 57.02% in Q1 2025 — significant YoY improvement |
| Net interest margin (NIM) | 3.80% (FTE: 3.85%) | Down 10–11 bps QoQ; deposit costs falling faster than loan yields |
The efficiency ratio improvement — from 57% to 50% adjusted year-over-year — is one of the clearer signals that merger integration overhead is receding. CFO Rob Gorman (transitioning out in September 2026) flagged that the core margin is expected to "grind higher" because the Fed is not projected to cut rates in 2026, and maturing brokered deposits will be replaced at lower rates. 7
Growth catalysts
1. Integration is done — cost saves flowing through. The full data conversion and systems unification of Sandy Spring completed October 14, 2025. All merger-related costs were finalized in Q1 2026 (the last tranche was $9.0M pre-tax in Q1, down from $38.6M in Q4 2025). Future quarterly income statements should be clean of integration noise from Q2 2026 onward. 8
2. $2B Blackstone CRE sale de-risked the balance sheet. In June 2025, AUB sold approximately $2 billion of performing CRE loans — acquired from Sandy Spring and identified for disposal as part of the merger plan — to Blackstone Real Estate Debt Strategies at pricing in the "low 90s" as a percentage of par. AUB retained servicing, and proceeds paid down high-cost deposits. The transaction reduced CRE concentration and freed lending capacity. CEO Asbury: "Today's announcement is another proof point of Atlantic Union's ability to execute and deliver on transactions that create long-term value for our shareholders." 9
3. $250M share buyback authorized. The board authorized repurchase of up to $250M in common stock through May 5, 2027 — approximately 4.5% of market cap. With the CET1 ratio at 10.21% as of March 31, the company is approaching the 10.5% threshold management previously cited as the precondition for entering the market. Initial buyback activity is expected in Q2–Q3 2026. This partially offsets the ~55% dilution from the merger consideration. 10
4. NIM likely troughed. The 75 basis points of Fed rate cuts in the second half of 2025 compressed variable-rate loan yields. With the Fed now expected to hold rates in 2026 and brokered deposits continuing to reprice lower, management's expectation is that the core margin grinds higher through the year. Deposit cost declined 13 basis points quarter-over-quarter in Q1 2026 to 1.90%, a trend that should persist as expensive wholesale funding matures. 7
5. Larger platform, expanded Mid-Atlantic footprint. At $37.3B in assets, AUB now has scale to compete for larger commercial credits and treasury management relationships that were out of reach as a smaller Virginia bank. The combined Mid-Atlantic + DC market is one of the highest-income regions in the US, with significant federal contractor and professional services employment — a stable deposit and lending base.
Key risks
Acquisition-inflated growth comparisons (HIGH impact). The TTM revenue growth of 60–76% will compress sharply as Sandy Spring's contribution becomes fully absorbed into the base. Q2 2026 revenue consensus is $384.33M — a decline of 5.6% year-over-year because Q2 2025 included elevated merger-related revenue items at $297.19M. 11 Investors using the TTM growth screen to find this pick should understand they are buying the post-integration earnings power, not a business that grew 60% organically.
NIM sensitivity to interest rates (MEDIUM-HIGH impact). A regional bank with significant variable-rate commercial lending is exposed to Fed policy. Cumulative cuts of 75 bps in late 2025 already pressured NIM from ~4.0% to 3.80%. If the Fed resumes easing (not the current consensus), each additional 25 bps cut could shave approximately $20–30M off annualized NII at AUB's balance sheet size. Full-year NII guidance was already lowered after Q1. 3
Residual CRE exposure (MEDIUM impact). Despite the $2B sale to Blackstone, commercial real estate remains a material part of the loan book. Past-due loans increased modestly in Q1 2026, concentrated in multifamily and CRE owner-occupied sub-portfolios ($125M, or 0.45% of LHFI, vs. $113M in Q4 2025). As Investor's Business Daily noted in January 2026: "Above-average exposure to commercial real estate adds a further layer of risk." Office and retail CRE are the market-wide concerns; AUB has not broken down the remaining CRE book by property type in publicly accessible summaries. 12
Share dilution from merger (MEDIUM impact). Shares outstanding grew 55.21% year-over-year to 143.12M as a result of the Sandy Spring merger consideration. Tangible book value per share fell 5.9% year-over-year to $19.93 by Q1 2026-end. The $250M buyback can offset some of this dilution over time, but at $38.77/share the program would retire roughly 6.4M shares — about 4.5% of current float — over 12 months if fully deployed. 2
Management transition (MEDIUM impact). Three senior leadership changes are in motion or recently completed: CFO Rob Gorman (retiring, replaced by Alexander Dodd from TD Bank effective April 13, 2026), Chief Risk Officer Bradley Haun (newly appointed May 2025), and Chief Credit Officer Doug Woolley (retiring April 1, 2027, search underway). Replacing the CCO — who built the credit culture over 21 years — during a period of elevated CRE and macro uncertainty adds execution risk. 1314
PEG single-source dependency (LOW-MEDIUM impact). The 0.72 PEG is Finviz-only; StockAnalysis and Yahoo Finance both show "n/a" for AUB's PEG. The cross-verification to 0.76 holds under the same 13.43% growth assumption, which is reasonable for a bank but still analyst-consensus-dependent. Unlike some prior channel picks where the PEG rest on triple-digit EPS growth estimates, the 13.43% assumption here is modest, reducing (but not eliminating) fragility. 1
Regulatory threshold approaching (LOW-MEDIUM impact). At $37.3B in assets, AUB is approaching the $50B threshold that historically triggers enhanced prudential standards. CFO Gorman estimated that the Basel III endgame proposal could add 65–75 bps to CET1 requirements — manageable from the current 10.21% but worth monitoring as the bank grows. 7
Analyst consensus and price targets
9 analysts cover AUB. Consensus rating: Buy (1.67 on a 1–5 scale). Average 12-month price target: $44.13–$44.25 (+13.8–14.1% upside from $38.77). 111
| Firm | Action | Target | Date |
|---|---|---|---|
| Piper Sandler | Resumed Overweight | $51 | Jan 13, 2025 |
| TD Cowen | Initiated Buy | $46 | Sep 25, 2025 |
| Janney | Initiated Buy | — | Oct 8, 2025 |
| Morgan Stanley | Equal Weight | $47 | Raised (per Mar 5, 2026 reports) |
| Hovde Group | Reiterated Outperform | $40 | Mar 17, 2025 |
| Raymond James | Downgraded: Strong Buy → Mkt Perform | n/a | Dec 5, 2025 |
Raymond James upgraded AUB to Strong Buy in June 2025, then downgraded to Market Perform in December 2025 following a Q3 2025 earnings miss. The specific rationale was not publicly disclosed; market observers attributed it to NIM pressure, integration execution risk, and CRE concentration. That downgrade is the primary reason the consensus sits at Buy (1.67) rather than Strong Buy.
Earnings surprise history (adjusted EPS, last 4 quarters): Q2 2025 +19.25%, Q3 2025 −0.39%, Q4 2025 +12.94%, Q1 2026 +2.17%. 11
Consensus estimates: FY2026 EPS $3.73 (range $3.62–$3.80); FY2027 EPS $3.99 (range $3.76–$4.15). At $38.77 and $3.73 forward EPS, the implied forward P/E is 10.4× — consistent with the StockAnalysis and Yahoo figures cited above. 11
Insider ownership and price action
Insider buying — no sales in 12 months. CEO John C. Asbury bought 7,500 shares at $32.91 on July 28, 2025 ($246,825). Director Frank Russell Ellett made four open-market purchases in early August 2025 totaling 16,441 shares across a price range of $31.32–$31.79 ($518,627). Director Nancy H. Agee bought 650 shares at $39.05 on April 20, 2026. No insider sales have been reported in the last 12 months. Insider ownership is 0.97–0.99% of shares; institutional ownership is 85.95–86.77%. 12
Price action: 52-week range $29.64–$42.18. Current price $38.77 is 8.1% below the 52-week high and 30.8% above the 52-week low. YTD 2026: +9.83%. 1-year: +20.25%. The stock trades above its 20-day ($37.53), 50-day ($37.55), and 200-day ($36.31) moving averages. RSI (14): 58.82. Beta: 0.77–0.80 — below-average volatility relative to the broader market. IBD noted in January 2026 that AUB had broken out of a cup-with-handle pattern, clearing a buy point at $36.84. 112
Short interest: 8.81M shares (6.21% of float), 8.56 days to cover. Elevated for a regional bank, though down from prior readings — the most likely bear thesis centers on CRE tail risk, NIM compression, and acquisition dilution rather than any publicly disclosed short seller research. 2
Upcoming catalysts
- Q2 2026 earnings (expected July 23, 2026). Consensus: $0.91 adjusted EPS (range $0.88–$0.94), revenue $384.33M. This will be the first quarter with no merger-related costs and the first quarter with the new CFO (Alexander Dodd) installed. The revenue comparison will be tough — Q2 2025 revenue of $297.19M was already inflated by merger consolidation, so a headline revenue decline of ~5.6% is expected. EPS growth is the more meaningful signal. 11
- Buyback execution pace. With CET1 at 10.21% and the $250M program authorized, buyback activity is expected to begin in Q2–Q3 2026. The rate of execution — and any commentary about capital deployment priorities — will be watched closely at Q2 earnings. 10
- Morgan Stanley US Financials Conference (June 10, 2026). AUB's senior management participated in a fireside chat at the Morgan Stanley US Financials Conference on the afternoon of June 10 — the same day as this pick. The archived webcast is available for 90 days. Any incremental management commentary on NIM trajectory, loan growth, or buyback timeline from that session could move the stock. 15
- Chief Credit Officer succession. The nationwide search for Doug Woolley's replacement (retirement effective April 1, 2027) is ongoing. The new CCO's approach to CRE underwriting standards and credit provisioning philosophy could affect both asset quality trajectory and investor perception of risk management continuity.
Cover image: AI-generated illustration.
References
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- 4Atlantic Union Bankshares (AUB) Quarterly Financials — StockAnalysis
stockanalysis.com
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- 6Atlantic Union Bankshares (AUB) Balance Sheet — StockAnalysis
stockanalysis.com
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- 8Atlantic Union Bank Completes Integration of Sandy Spring Bank
businesswire.com
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- 11
- 12
- 13
- 14Atlantic Union Bank Announces Planned Retirement of Doug Woolley
businesswire.com
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