Regional banking company KeyCorp (NYSE:KEY) reported Q4 CY2025 results beating Wall Street’s revenue expectations, with sales up 12.5% year on year to $2.01 billion. Its non-GAAP profit of $0.41 per share was 6.3% above analysts’ consensus estimates.
Is now the time to buy KeyCorp? Find out by accessing our full research report, it’s free.
KeyCorp (KEY) Q4 CY2025 Highlights:
- Net Interest Income: $1.22 billion vs analyst estimates of $1.21 billion (16.4% year-on-year growth, 1% beat)
- Net Interest Margin: 2.8% vs analyst estimates of 2.8% (2 basis point beat)
- Revenue: $2.01 billion vs analyst estimates of $1.97 billion (12.5% year-on-year growth, 1.8% beat)
- Efficiency Ratio: 61.6% vs analyst estimates of 63.6% (197 basis point beat)
- Adjusted EPS: $0.41 vs analyst estimates of $0.39 (6.3% beat)
- Tangible Book Value per Share: $13.77 vs analyst estimates of $13.56 (20.9% year-on-year growth, 1.5% beat)
- Market Capitalization: $22.99 billion
Company Overview
Tracing its roots back to 1849 during the California Gold Rush era, KeyCorp (NYSE:KEY) operates KeyBank, a full-service regional bank providing retail and commercial banking, wealth management, and investment services across 15 states.
Sales Growth
Net interest income and and fee-based revenue are the two pillars supporting bank earnings. The former captures profit from the gap between lending rates and deposit costs, while the latter encompasses charges for banking services, credit products, wealth management, and trading activities. Unfortunately, KeyCorp’s 2% annualized revenue growth over the last five years was sluggish. This fell short of our benchmarks and is a tough starting point for our analysis.
Long-term growth is the most important, but within financials, a half-decade historical view may miss recent interest rate changes and market returns. KeyCorp’s annualized revenue growth of 8.2% over the last two years is above its five-year trend, but we were still disappointed by the results. 
Note: Quarters not shown were determined to be outliers, impacted by outsized investment gains/losses that are not indicative of the recurring fundamentals of the business.
This quarter, KeyCorp reported year-on-year revenue growth of 12.5%, and its $2.01 billion of revenue exceeded Wall Street’s estimates by 1.8%.
Net interest income made up 59.9% of the company’s total revenue during the last five years, meaning KeyCorp’s growth drivers strike a balance between lending and non-lending activities.
Our experience and research show the market cares primarily about a bank’s net interest income growth as non-interest income is considered a lower-quality and non-recurring revenue source.
While Wall Street chases Nvidia at all-time highs, an under-the-radar semiconductor supplier is dominating a critical AI component these giants can’t build without. Click here to access our free report one of our favorites growth stories.
Tangible Book Value Per Share (TBVPS)
Banks operate as balance sheet businesses, with profits generated through borrowing and lending activities. Valuations reflect this reality, emphasizing balance sheet strength and long-term book value compounding ability.
This explains why tangible book value per share (TBVPS) stands as the premier banking metric. TBVPS strips away questionable intangible assets, revealing concrete per-share net worth that investors can trust. Other (and more commonly known) per-share metrics like EPS can sometimes be murky due to M&A or accounting rules allowing for loan losses to be spread out.
KeyCorp’s TBVPS was flat over the last five years. However, TBVPS growth has accelerated recently, growing by 19.5% annually over the last two years from $9.65 to $13.77 per share.
Over the next 12 months, Consensus estimates call for KeyCorp’s TBVPS to grow by 4.6% to $14.41, lousy growth rate.
Key Takeaways from KeyCorp’s Q4 Results
It was encouraging to see KeyCorp beat analysts’ revenue expectations this quarter. We were also happy its tangible book value per share outperformed Wall Street’s estimates. Overall, this print had some key positives. Investors were likely hoping for more, and shares traded down 1.4% to $20.87 immediately following the results.
So should you invest in KeyCorp right now? The latest quarter does matter, but not nearly as much as longer-term fundamentals and valuation, when deciding if the stock is a buy. We cover that in our actionable full research report which you can read here (it’s free).