...Ratings Recently Reviewed: First Republic Bank's (FRC) ratings were recently reviewed and affirmed in January 2016. FRC's ratings reflect its focused strategy, its strong franchise and conservative credit culture that have led to consistent performance over time. These strengths are offset by FRC's geographic and product concentration, which are consistent with the company's core competencies but present unique challenges and limit rating upside over the near to medium term. Relationship-Focused: FRC is heavily focused on relationship banking that targets an affluent customer base and uses jumbo residential mortgage products lending as a feeder to its private banking and wealth management activities. This focused strategy, along with a fairly unique, high-touch, single point-of-contact approach to relationship management, creates customer loyalty and execution that is difficult to emulate. Spread Reliant but Franchise Building: Currently, FRC's earnings profile is heavily dependent on spread...
