On November 13, an entity known as HoldCo Asset Management submitted documentation to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission-a ritual as opaque as it is obligatory-disclosing the acquisition of 1.24 million shares of Columbia Banking System (COLB 1.06%), a transaction valued at $31.48 million. The sum, while precise, felt like a drop in the void, swallowed whole by the machinery of capital.
The Mechanism of Acquisition
According to the filing, a document that might as well have been etched into parchment by some forgotten clerk, HoldCo’s position in Columbia Banking System expanded during the third quarter. The new stake, 5.72 million shares, carried a valuation of $147.30 million as of September 30-a date chosen not for its significance but by the arbitrary rhythm of quarterly reckonings. The bank, with its branches sprawling across Washington, Oregon, Idaho, and California, now constitutes 15.55% of HoldCo’s $947.56 million 13F AUM, a fraction that seems both deliberate and absurd.
The Order of Things
The portfolio’s hierarchy, as revealed in the filing, presents a taxonomy of power: NYSE: CMA at 16.56%, NASDAQ: COLB at 15.55%, NASDAQ: FIBK at 13.29%, and so on-a hierarchy that feels as inevitable as gravity, yet as meaningless as counting grains of sand. The shares, priced at $27.95 as of Thursday, have risen 3.5% over the past year, a crawl beneath the shadow of the S&P 500’s 16% ascent. The disparity is a quiet indictment, a reminder that even in growth, there is failure.
The Institution
| Metric | Value |
|---|---|
| Revenue (TTM) | $2.07 billion |
| Net Income (TTM) | $478.68 million |
| Dividend Yield | 5% |
| Price (as of Thursday) | $27.95 |
The Architecture of the Bank
- Columbia Banking System offers a comprehensive suite of personal and business banking products, including checking and savings accounts, mortgages, commercial real estate loans, and wealth management services-a labyrinth of offerings designed to ensnare both client and clerk.
- The bank serves small and medium-sized businesses, professionals, and individual consumers across a network of hundreds of branches, each a satellite in the orbit of some distant, unseen sun.
- Headquartered in Tacoma, Washington, it casts its shadow over the Pacific Northwest and California, a colossus straddling regions with the indifference of a bureaucrat filing away a life.
Columbia Banking System, Inc., a regional financial institution, operates hundreds of branches, its tentacles rooted in the Pacific Northwest and California. It leans on a diversified banking model, balancing lending with non-interest income, a duality that sustains both its growth and the quiet erosion of shareholder patience. Its strength lies in a product suite so vast it borders on the infinite, and in a regional footprint that binds it to places where the rain never stops-a geography as much a prison as a home.
The Fool’s Calculus
Columbia Banking System has just completed a transformative acquisition, swelling its total assets to $67.5 billion, a number that exists only on paper yet dictates the fates of many. Its net interest margin, that most fragile of metrics, rose to 3.84% from 3.56% a year prior-a climb achieved through the alchemy of core deposit growth, which surged $14 billion quarter over quarter to $55.8 billion, the Pacific Premier deal a cog in the machine.
GAAP EPS fell to $0.40 from $0.73, burdened by merger costs and a $70 million credit provision, a sacrifice to the gods of acquisition. Yet operating EPS, stripped of its accouterments, stood at $0.85, with return on tangible common equity exceeding 18%-a figure that matters only to those who believe in normalizing chaos. The bank’s management, in a gesture of defiance or delusion, authorized a $700 million share repurchase program through 2026, a promise of confidence in a future no one can predict.
The Lexicon of Power
Asset Management: The ritual of overseeing investments, a priesthood tending to the altar of capital.
AUM (Assets Under Management): The sum of all things monetized, a number that grows like mold in the dark.
13F: A quarterly confession to the SEC, a scroll detailing holdings that shift like sand.
Dividend Yield: The crumbs tossed to shareholders, measured against the ever-rising price of bread.
TTM: The trailing twelve months, a window that reveals nothing but the past.
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2026-01-01 22:33