venture with [closely held] First Data and will own 46.5% of the combined entity. Full financial details will be disclosed in conjunction with second-quarter earnings, but we estimate the transaction values the merchant processing business at approximately $2.5 billion-$3 billion, providing a modest capital benefit to Bank of America.
Through both internal growth and acquisitions, Bank of America has built a powerful consumer-banking franchise over the last decade with leading market share in some of the more attractive regions of the country, such as the Southeast, Northeast and the West, with a more modest presence in the slower-growth Midwest.
We believe Bank of America has more effectively used scale to its advantage through the addition of new products in the retail-bank channel as well. We believe that Bank of America is among the most profitable preprovision banks in the industry, with significant earnings power, while possessing the industry's best deposit franchise along with a collection of solid businesses as well as strategic stakes in entities such as BlackRock (BLK), Banco Itau (ITUB) and China Construction Bank [of Beijing].
Like many banks, abnormally low levels of credit costs and strength in capital markets related businesses played a role in Bank of America's improved earnings-per-share growth trends in recent years. We expect higher losses in Bank of America's credit-card and home-equity portfolios, combined with higher credit costs associated with a broadening of the credit cycle.
Bank of America's capital needs resulting from the regulatory stress test were $33.9 billion, the company has exceeded this amount through various capital-raising initiatives. We also think that the company's strategic investments including China Construction Bank (about $16 billion), BlackRock (about $11 billion), Columbia Management and Visa (V) (about $5 billion combined) represent unlocked value in the shares.
After having raised the required capital, we believe that Bank of America should now be able to get through the current cycle with a low risk of governmental equity ownership. We estimate the new common equity would take Bank of America's tangible common equity to the 4.5% area, which we believe should be adequate to enable the company to earn through the current cycle with a low likelihood of needing additional government capital.
We estimate Bank of America's normalized earnings power to be $2.90 per share, making the stock among the most inexpensive in the group. The stock is also trading at about 2.5 times pretax, pre-provision earnings, significantly below the group average and its historical average of 5.7 times.
Bank of America shares are currently trading at roughly 1.2 times tangible book value, a modest discount to the peer group average of around 1.3 times. We now have increased confidence in Bank of America's potential capital needs and believe government ownership risks are minimal.
With more than $34 billion of fresh capital, we think Bank of America has enough levers to avoid a government common equity stake. From our perspective, Bank of America will generate PPNR (preprovision net revenue) in excess of Treasury's estimates, and potential asset sales (Columbia and First Republic) provide additional levers to Bank of America.
Despite the company's share of negative headlines in recent months, the core earnings power is intact, and we believe Bank of America can generate $2.90 in normalized EPS.
We find the risk/reward to be attractive at current prices and rate the shares Outperform. Our $18 target price assumes the stock trades at 1.5 times our year-end 2010 tangible book value estimate, discount to its historical average of 2.8 times tangible book.
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