FOREIGN TRADE BANK OF LATIN AMERICA, INC. (BLX) Stock Analysis
FOREIGN TRADE BANK OF LATIN AMERICA, INC.
▾ What's in the 32/100 risk score? (higher = riskier)
Contributions (weight × component score) sum to the total. This near-term score now includes fundamental health (leverage, FCF trend). See the Financial Health section for the full balance-sheet read.
How to read BLX (bank / insurer)
Banks and insurers are valued on what they earn on their capital, not on free cash flow — a normal DCF misleads here.
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Bank / Insurance lens (P/TBV + ROE) ↓
Price-to-tangible-book versus return-on-equity is how analysts actually judge a bank cheap or rich.
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Financial-health screens ↓
Watch the trend in profitability and asset quality, not the (not-applicable) bankruptcy score.
Standard DCF doesn't fit BLX well — but that's expected for this kind of business. The Bank / Insurance Valuation Lens below uses the metrics actually used by analysts who value banks. Reverse DCF + Football Field also work as cross-checks.
How does BLX stack up against its closest peers?
We take the 8 same-industry companies most similar to BLX (similar size) and check what investors are paying for each dollar of their revenue (or profits). If BLX is much more expensive on the same yardstick, that's a red flag — unless you have a specific reason it deserves a premium. For a leveraged business, FCF yield (in the table) is usually more reliable than EV/Sales, because revenue multiples ignore differences in margins and debt.
▾ What's "EV / Sales" in plain English?
EV (Enterprise Value) = market cap + total debt − cash. It's "what you'd pay to buy the entire company outright" — you pay the market cap to shareholders and take over their debt, but you keep their cash. EV is fairer than market cap alone because it includes the debt the new owner inherits.
EV / Sales = EV ÷ annual revenue. So "2.5×" means investors pay $2.50 of enterprise value per $1 of yearly sales. Higher = market is paying more per dollar of sales (usually because they expect future growth or fat margins).
p25 / median / p75 are the 25th, 50th (middle), and 75th percentile of the peers' multiples. Half the peers fall between p25 and p75. The median (p50) is the typical peer — that's the benchmark we compare to.
Bold middle number = median peer. Half the peers trade above it, half below. Computed over 8 same-industry peers; implausible multiples excluded.
⚠️ Important caveat: peer multiples only work if the peers are genuinely comparable. Always check the peer list below — if the auto-picker grabbed micro-caps or unrelated businesses, the comparison is noise. A medical-device giant priced against tiny biotech startups won't produce a useful signal.
▾ View peer list (8)
| Ticker | Company | Industry | Mcap | EV/EBIT | FCF Yield |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| UMBFO | UMB FINANCIAL CORP | Banks | $2.0B | — | 35.9% |
| STEL | Stellar Bancorp, Inc. | Banks | $1.9B | — | 5.3% |
| SYBT | Stock Yards Bancorp, Inc. | Banks | $2.1B | — | 6.6% |
| SRCE | 1ST SOURCE CORP | Banks | $1.8B | — | 8.8% |
| WTFCN | WINTRUST FINANCIAL CORP | Banks | $1.8B | — | 46.3% |
| TBBK | Bancorp, Inc. | Banks | $2.3B | — | 8.9% |
| TFIN | Triumph Financial, Inc. | Banks | $1.7B | — | 1.5% |
| STBA | S&T BANCORP INC | Banks | $1.6B | — | 7.7% |
Quality & solvency checks
Cheap stocks can be cheap for a reason. These screens warn when a low valuation comes paired with structural fragility.
Why it matters: Cheap-looking stocks (low P/E or P/B) often have low Z-scores because the market knows the company is dying. Z-score warns you before you fall into a value trap.
Reference: > 3.0 = safe zone · 1.81–3.0 = grey zone · < 1.81 = distress zone
Full explanation →
Altman Z was calibrated on industrial firms and doesn't apply to banks or insurers — their balance sheets are dominated by loans/securities, not working capital. See the Bank Valuation Lens above for P/B, ROE and ROA — the metrics regulators and analysts actually use to assess bank solvency.
Why it matters: High score = fundamentals improving. Low score = deteriorating. Especially powerful for filtering cheap stocks: cheap + high F-score historically outperforms; cheap + low F-score is often a value trap.
Reference: 7–9 = strong · 4–6 = mediocre · 0–3 = weak
Full explanation →
Piotroski F was built for non-financial firms (gross margin, asset turnover, current ratio all assume an industrial cost structure). For banks, the equivalent quality signals are efficiency ratio, net interest margin, and provision coverage — see the Bank Valuation Lens above.
A standard discounted cash flowDCF — Discounted Cash Flow — sums up all future cash a business will produce, adjusted for the fact that future dollars are worth less than dollars today.
Why it matters: It is the most fundamentally honest valuation method when applicable — but only works for companies with predictable, positive cash flow.
Reference: Best for: mature, profitable businesses. Fails for: pre-profit growth, banks, REITs.
Full explanation → valuation is not meaningful for BLX because the model indicates a non-positive intrinsic valueIntrinsic Value — Our DCF model's estimate of what each share is mathematically worth based on projected cash flows.
Why it matters: Compare to current price. Below IV = potentially undervalued. Above IV = priced for growth that must actually happen.
Reference: Model-derived; quality depends on data and assumptions.
Full explanation →, suggesting the residual income model may not be appropriate despite positive net income and operating cash flow. Investors are likely focused on the bank's consistent profitability and cash generation within the financial sector. The #1 quantifiable risk is its low franchise/durability score of 1/5.
As of 3 months ago
Anatomy of a share
What you're buying per share. Bars are at the same scale so you can see the relative size of revenue, costs, cash flow, and debt — not just read them in a table.
What's free cash flow / what do these mean?
Revenue per share — how much the business earns from customers, divided by the number of shares outstanding. Top of the income statement.
Earnings per share — profit left after operating costs, interest, and taxes, per share. Two versions appear on this page and are not interchangeable: GAAP diluted EPS uses the company's weighted-average diluted share count during the reporting period (this is the "earnings" in "price-to-earnings"); net income per current share divides annual net income by today's share count. They differ whenever the share count has changed.
Owner-earnings free cash flow per share — the cash the business produces for shareholders. Savng's owner-earnings FCF subtracts capital expenditures and stock-based compensation from operating cash flow (SBC is a real dilution cost even though it's non-cash). This is deliberately more conservative than "standard" FCF, which subtracts only capital expenditures — so our figure is lower than the headline FCF you'll see elsewhere. FCF funds dividends, buybacks, debt repayment, and acquisitions; a company can report positive earnings yet negative FCF.
Debt per share — total interest-bearing borrowings divided by shares. High debt-per-share next to thin FCF-per-share is a fragility signal.
What you actually need to decide
Every stock price is a disagreement. Here's the single thing that must go right for the bulls, the single thing that breaks the thesis, and the concrete signposts to watch so you can update your view as real results arrive.
- Growth in net interest income
- Expansion of loan portfolio
- Improvement in asset quality metrics
The trend, in plain numbers (FY2023 → FY2024, latest reported)
Straight from the financial statements — no model, no opinion. For a small or unprofitable company, the direction of these numbers usually tells you more than any single valuation.
- Free cash flow rose to $168.1M.
- Net income grew +24% to $205.9M.
Nothing was clearly worsening year-over-year.
Management & Leadership
Daniel Tristán is the Chief Executive Officer of BLX, also known as COFIBAN. He has been instrumental in leading the bank's operations within the Latin American trade finance sector. Jorge Luis Tristán is the Chairman of the Board.
What They Make
Foreign Trade Bank of Latin America, Inc. (BLX) is a specialized financial institution that provides financing and related services to support foreign trade and integration in Latin America and the Caribbean. Its primary customers are financial institutions and corporations engaged in international trade.
End Markets
Revenue Drivers
Why Is It Priced Like This?
Why Customers Pay
What we use instead: earnings (P/E, EV/EBIT), book value & return on equity (P/TBV + ROE — how banks are actually judged) — computed from the figures this company does report, shown in the sections below. Those numbers are unaffected by the missing cash-flow data.
The market prices BLX based on its consistent profitability, with net income and operating cash flow positive for the latest five years, indicating a stable financial institution. Despite this, its low franchise/durability score of 1/5 suggests investors may be cautious about its long-term competitive advantages, leading to a valuation where a standard residual income model struggles to compute a positive intrinsic valueIntrinsic Value — Our DCF model's estimate of what each share is mathematically worth based on projected cash flows.
Why it matters: Compare to current price. Below IV = potentially undervalued. Above IV = priced for growth that must actually happen.
Reference: Model-derived; quality depends on data and assumptions.
Full explanation →.
Business Model & Valuation
How They Make Money
BLX funds itself through deposits, borrowings, and equity, with no specific dividend or buyback rates available in the provided data.
Residual Income
Balance-sheet financial (Banks): residual income model - book value is meaningful anchor.
Show advanced inputs
| Sector Default | 8.0% |
What this model does NOT do: this is a consolidated owner-earnings FCF model. Standalone segment assumptions: none. It does not project net interest income and fee-income lines independently; their combined effect is embedded in the historical revenue and cash-flow trend the model extrapolates. The calculator above can only approximate a segment's impact through the single consolidated growth rate — it cannot model any one line separately. For a true segment-level view, build a separate model from the company's segment disclosures.
Maturity & Competitive Position
Moat Signals
The company has demonstrated positive net income and operating cash flow for the latest five years.
Geography & Markets
BLX primarily operates in Latin America and the Caribbean, serving clients across various countries in the region. Specific geographic mix percentages are not available from current data sources.
Geographic Risks
Market Signals
These are timing signals, not value signals — they describe the stock's recent price behavior, not what the business is worth. Use them for the "the thesis looks good, but is now the moment?" question. Each tile below explains what it's saying.
Why it matters: Short-term contrarian indicator. Extreme readings often precede mean reversion, though not always.
Reference: 30–70 normal · >70 overbought · <30 oversold
Full explanation → (14)55.8NeutralMomentum is balanced — neither overbought nor oversold.
Why it matters: When the fast line crosses above the slow line, short-term momentum is turning up; below, turning down. A timing cue, not a value signal.
Reference: Line above signal = bullish momentum · below = bearish
Full explanation →BullishLine above signalThe fast trend is above the slow trend — short-term momentum is currently upward.
Technicals describe price, not the business. A great company can have a "bearish" tape (a buying chance) and a weak one a "bullish" tape (a trap). Pair these with the valuation and health sections above.
QUALITY
Data Quality & Risk Flags (6 notes — click to expand/collapse)
Guardrail Notes (6)
- Financial sector: using residual income model. IV = Book Value + PV(excess earnings).
- Discount rate floored from 8.7% to 9.0% (financial sector minimum).
- INVARIANT: weighted IV is non-positive. Model may not be appropriate.
- Model implies no positive equity value under these assumptions. Valuation is speculative/low-confidence.
- Model mismatch: residual income inappropriate for asset-light financial (BVPS $0.00 not meaningful vs price $56). Consider FCF model.
- DATA UNAVAILABLE: per-share values suppressed due to missing/unreliable shares data.
FINANCIALS
Financial Statements (5-year tables — click to expand)
From FOREIGN TRADE BANK OF LATIN AMERICA, INC.'s SEC filings (EDGAR).
Income (5yr)
| Year | Revenue | Net Income | EPS |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2024 | — | 205.9M | $5.63 |
| 2023 | — | 166.2M | $4.55 |
| 2022 | — | 92.0M | $2.52 |
| 2021 | — | 62.7M | $1.72 |
| 2020 | — | 63.6M | $1.74 |
Cash Flow (5yr)
| Year | Operating CF | CapEx | − SBC & adj. | Free Cash Flow |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2014 | 170.5M | 150,000 | 2.2M | 168.1M |
| 2013 | 54.6M | 476,000 | 3.0M | 51.1M |
| 2012 | 97.1M | 10.8M | 2.3M | 84.0M |
| 2011 | 180.2M | 2.2M | 2.3M | 175.7M |
| 2010 | 69.0M | 1.3M | 2.1M | 65.7M |
How we define FCF: operating cash flow − capital expenditure − stock-based compensation (owner-earnings basis — SBC is a real cost to shareholders even though it's non-cash). Latest year: 170.5M − 150,000 − 2.2M (SBC & adj.) = 168.1M. This is the same owner-earnings FCF definition the valuation model uses, though the DCF's starting value is a EPS basis (residual-income model), not this single year.
Balance Sheet
| Total Assets | 11.9B |
| Total Liabilities | 10.5B |
| Equity | — |
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