Paul Danenberg ’23 pitched Citizens Financial Group (NYSE: CFG) on October 31st, 2022. Citizens Financial Group is a high-growth commercial bank serving clients across the United States and particularly in the Northeast, expanding both organically and acquisition-based through net interest margin expansion (3.24% in 3Q22) and recent M&A activity. The company is headquartered in Rhode Island with $225 billion in total assets and more than 1,200 branches spread across 14 states. The company offers deposit, lending, capital markets, wealth management, foreign exchange, derivatives, and a variety of other services to its consumer and commercial clients. Acquisitions of similar regional banks and financial institutions have become core to CFG’s successful growth, including HSBC, Investors, JMP Group, and DH Capital in 2021 and 2022. Through their recent Investors and HSBC acquisitions, CFG has grown its geographic reach to the strategic NYC metro area. These acquisitions have helped support efficiency ratio improvements and ROTCE growth. Overall, Paul’s investment rationale focused on 5 main areas: asset sensitivity, balance sheet diversity, efficiency saves in acquisitions, strong dividend payout and share repurchases, and a consistent common equity tier 1 capital ratio. SMIF voted to buy 1200 shares of Citizens Financial Group (CFG), 300 shares of the Financial Sector ETF (XLF) and simultaneously sell 6 CFG January 42.50 calls, funded through the sale of J.P. Morgan (JPM).