AMP, Ameriprise Financial Inc
Ameriprise Financial, Inc. is a diversified financial services company with a more than 130-year history of providing solutions to help clients confidently achieve their financial objectives.
Read top to bottom, the owner's questions in the order an owner asks them: what the business is, whether the record holds, whether it survives and is any good, and what you would be paying. New to the questions? Start with the Method.
The business in brief
read the 10-K →What this business is and what moves its needle, read from the numbers in its filings. The quantitative detail is in the sections below; the verdict is left to you.
- What it is
- A balance-sheet business, read on book value, net interest margin and credit losses rather than an earnings multiple.
- What moves the needle
- Net interest margin, loan losses, and book value. A lender is read on the quality of its balance sheet, not on an earnings multiple.
- Is it a good business?
- Return on equity has run high across the record (median 38%, above 12% in 10 of 10 years). 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 here is arithmetic from the company's own filings, not a model's opinion, and each figure appears in full in the sections below.
The record, 2016–2025
realized figures from each filing, no estimates| 2016’16 | 2017’17 | 2018’18 | 2019’19 | 2020’20 | 2021’21 | 2022’22 | 2023’23 | 2024’24 | 2025’25 | TTMTTMMar 2026 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| RevenueRevenue | $11.8B | $12.2B | $12.9B | $13.1B | $12.0B | $13.4B | $14.3B | $16.1B | $17.9B | $18.9B | $19.3B |
| Net incomeNet inc. | $1.3B | $1.5B | $2.1B | $1.9B | $1.5B | $3.4B | $3.1B | $2.6B | $3.4B | $3.6B | $3.9B |
| EPS (diluted)EPS | $7.81 | $9.44 | $14.20 | $13.92 | $12.20 | $28.48 | $27.70 | $23.71 | $33.05 | $36.28 | $41.22 |
| Return on equityROE | 21% | 25% | 38% | 32% | 25% | 71% | 83% | 54% | 65% | 54% | 63% |
| Return on tangible equityROTCE | 26% | 32% | 49% | 41% | 32% | 107% | 142% | 85% | 95% | 75% | 88% |
| DepositsDeposits | — | — | — | — | $17.6B | $20.2B | $30.8B | $37.3B | $35.8B | $33.8B | $33.3B |
| Book value / shareBVPS | $37.39 | $38.26 | $37.83 | $43.46 | $48.77 | $40.31 | $33.45 | $43.87 | $50.81 | $66.69 | $65.74 |
| Tangible book / shareTBVPS | $30.18 | $29.88 | $29.21 | $34.05 | $38.56 | $26.55 | $19.54 | $28.02 | $34.65 | $48.40 | $46.73 |
| Dividends / shareDiv/sh | $2.85 | $3.13 | $3.43 | $3.71 | $3.95 | $4.26 | $4.70 | $5.10 | $5.58 | $6.07 | — |
Owner’s Scorecard
Is it a good business?
- Return on equity 54%ExceptionalNet income $3.6B ÷ equity $6.5B
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.
- ExceptionalNet income ÷ (equity − goodwill $1.4B − intangibles $356M)
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.
- Not enough data
Noninterest expense or revenue missing.
Is it sound?
- Capital (equity / assets) 3.4%ThinEquity $6.5B ÷ assets $190.9B
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 18%Leans on wholesale fundingDeposits $33.8B ÷ assets $190.9B
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 —Not enough data
Provision or net interest income missing.
Solvent is not the same as cheap; growing is not the same as good. These are vital signs, not a verdict, the judgment is yours, and the filing is one click away.
Management & pay
Two questions Buffett actually asks about pay: is stock compensation, a real expense, whatever the income statement pretends, quietly large, and is the top wildly out of line with the floor. He's no populist about it; he just wants pay that's rational and earned, and comp committees that aren't lapdogs.
- Stock-based compensation$206M
The slice of the business handed to employees in shares this year, 1% of revenue, equal to 4% of operating profit. Buffett's oldest accounting fight: this is compensation, compensation is an expense, real whether or not the headline earnings admit it. And note the trap, the cash-flow statement adds SBC back, so the operating cash, and the owner earnings drawn from it, are flattered by exactly this amount; counted as the cost it is, what an owner keeps is lower.
What the price implies
price / tangible bookA 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 Ameriprise Financial Inc’s record justifies. Nothing is stored; the number stays in your browser.
Enter a price above to run it.
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; every point of durable excess return above that is worth paying up for. Raise the cost of equity and the justified multiple falls: that is interest-rate gravity on a bank.
Tangible book $4.4B on 95M shares, a 49% normalized return on it. This is a lens, not a target. 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.
What the filing emphasizes, FY2025
read the 10-K →Each year a 10-K must name what could go wrong, in the company's own words. Here are the ones Graham and Buffett would stop on, each set against the figure from the same filings that bears on it, anchored to a period you can find in the record above. We point; the judgment is yours.
- Pricing power & competitionBusiness
Whether the company sets its price or takes it. Durable pricing power is the surest mark of a moat; price competition is the surest mark there isn't one.
“Alongside, we continually invest in programs and capabilities to ensure a highly competitive employee value proposition, focused on culture, career, well-being, rewards and work environment.”
From the recordOperating margin27.6% now (TTM), off a 31.3% peak (FY2021) - Concentrated dependenceRisk Factors
What the whole business leans on, a product, a platform, a partner. Concentration cuts both ways, and the filing is where management has to admit it.
“In addition, a significant portion of our revenue is derived from investment management agreements with the Columbia Management family of mutual funds or other investment managers which are terminable on 60 days' notice.”
From the recordOwner-earnings margin at stake (TTM)36% - Debt terms & refinancingMD&A
The fine print behind the debt. Covenants and near-term maturities decide who is really in control when a year goes badly.
“Our credit facility contains various administrative, reporting, legal and financial covenants.”
From the recordBalance sheet (TTM)+$69M net cash · no real interest burden - Litigation & contingenciesRisk Factors
Claims an owner inherits. Most disclosure is boilerplate; this fires only on an actual matter, a named suit, a settlement, a contingency, a number.
“The threat of patent litigation from non-practicing entities could impact financial services firms and successful resolution could still have a significant financial impact.”
A judgment, not a number, weigh it against the filing yourself. - Regulation & policyMD&A
Rules that can rewrite the economics, tariffs, antitrust, data, export controls.
“For example, RiverSource Life payments in excess of statutory unassigned funds require advanced notice to the Minnesota Department of Commerce ("MN DOC"), RiverSource Life's primary regulator, and are subject to potential disapproval.”
A judgment, not a number, weigh it against the filing yourself.
What changed, FY2025 vs FY2024
read the 10-K →Most of a 10-K is boilerplate carried over verbatim; the signal is in what's new. These lines appear this year and weren't there last, figure updates filtered out, so only the language shift remains.
- “Net Revenues Net investment income, which excludes net realized investment gains or losses, the market impact of hedges to offset interest rate and currency changes on unrealized gains or losses for certain investments, integration and restructuring charges, and the impact of consolidating CIEs, dec…”
- “Net investment income decreased $78 million, or 2%, for 2025 compared to the prior year primarily reflecting lower average invested assets supporting certificates and the unfavorable impact of declining investment portfolio yields, partially offset by the favorable impact of growth in structured var…”
- “Remeasurement (gains) losses of future policy benefit reserves increased $54 million for 2025 compared to the prior year primarily reflecting the unfavorable impact of unlocking in the current period compared to a favorable impact of unlocking for the prior year period.”
- “Expenses Remeasurement (gains) losses of future policy benefit reserves increased $42 million for 2025 compared to the prior year primarily 48 Index Ameriprise Financial, Inc. reflecting the net unfavorable unlocking changes in LTC morbidity and mortality assumptions.”
- “Market conditions, regulatory actions, tax laws, and our competitive industry environment are among the reasons current shareholders in our mutual funds, closed-end funds, ETFs, hedge funds, OEICs, SICAVs, unit trusts, investment trusts and other pooled investment vehicles, contractholders in our an…”
Classic text analysis over the filing itself, no model wrote a word of this, and every quote is the company's own.
Peers, Asset management
The same industry, side by side on the bank lens, compare, don't rank by a single number.● marks best in the group.
| Company | Revenue | ROE | ROTCE | Efficiency | Net int. margin |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| AMPAmeriprise Financial Inc | $18.9B | 54% | 75% | — | — |
| BENFranklin Resources, Inc. | $8.8B | 4% | 31% | — | — |
| TROWPrice T Rowe Group Inc | $7.3B | 19% | 26% | — | 0.0% |