02/26: Tariff’s Potential Impact on Financial Statements and Borrower Repayment Ability

Tariffs raise the cost of imported goods and services, and if U.S. trading partners respond with tariffs of their own, American exports become more expensive overseas. This may result in reduced demand both at home and abroad.

This session will examine how these dynamics affect domestic borrowers—particularly the pressure of declining sales and rising input costs. It will also highlight key indicators lenders can monitor to assess how tariffs may influence a borrower’s financial health, including balance‑sheet strength, income‑statement performance, and operating cash flow available for repayment.

A frequent speaker, instructor, advisor and writer on credit risk and commercial banking topics and issues, Dev is principal of Devon Risk Advisory Group and engages in consulting, speaking and training on a wide range of risk, credit, and lending topics. As former SVP and senior credit policy officer at SunTrust Bank, Atlanta, he was responsible for developing, implementing, and administering credit policies for SunTrust’s wholesale lines of business–commercial, commercial real estate, corporate investment banking, capital markets, business banking and private wealth management. He also spent three years as managing director and credit approver in SunTrust’s Florida commercial lending and corporate investment banking areas, respectively. Prior to SunTrust, Dev was chief credit officer for Barnett Bank’s Palm Beach market. Besides stints at other banks in Florida, Kansas City, and Ohio, Dev’s experiences outside of banking include CFO of a Honolulu construction company, combat engineer officer in the U.S. Army, and college economics instructor in Hawaii, Missouri, and Florida. A graduate of Ohio State University and the ABA Stonier Graduate School of Banking, he earned his M.B.A. from the University of Hawaii.

Dev serves as an instructor in the Stonier Graduate School of Banking and the American Bankers Association’s (ABA) Commercial Lending. He has also taught at the Southwest Graduate School of Banking and the Wisconsin School of Banking. His school, conference, and workshop audiences have included participants drawn from the ABA, RMA, OCC, Federal Reserve, FDIC, FFIEC, SBA, the Institute of Management Accountants (IMA) and the AICPA.

Dev has written about credit risk management, financial analysis and related subjects for the Risk Management Association’s RMA Journal, and other business professional journals. He is the author of Analyzing Construction Contractors and its related RMA workshop. A past national chair of RMA and former Florida Chapter president, Dev served as a member of the RMA Journal’s advisory board and the advisory board of the Atlanta Chapter of the Professional Risk Managers’ International Association (PRMIA) He has consulted on credit risk issues with banks in Morocco, Egypt, and Angola through the US State Department’s Financial Service Volunteer Corps (FSVC). He was also on the Private Company Council (PCC) of the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB); the PCC reviews current and proposed generally accepted principles (GAAP) and recommends revisions that simplify their use for privately held organizations.