Grupo Aval Acciones y Valores S (AVAL) Stock Price & How to Invest

Grupo Aval is a Colombian financial holding company that controls four commercial banks (Banco de Bogota, Banco de Occidente, Banco Popular and Banco AV Villas) alongside the pension manager Porvenir, the merchant bank Corficolombiana and a set of trust, brokerage and investment banking units. Together those subsidiaries make it the largest banking group in Colombia by loans and deposits, with a gross loan book of roughly COP 193.6 trillion and deposits of roughly COP 216.8 trillion as of the first quarter of 2026. The reporting currency is the Colombian peso, so every operating number is a peso number, while the ADR itself is quoted in US dollars on the NYSE. That gap matters more than it sounds: a good peso year can still be a flat dollar year for the ADR if the currency moves against holders.

The investment picture in 2026 is a bank earning through a hostile macro backdrop. Banco de la Republica has run policy tight, with the benchmark rate around 12% after hikes in March and June 2026 and inflation still near 6%, which raises funding costs and slows loan demand at the same time. On top of that, a one-time Colombian equity tax enacted this year knocked roughly COP 210 billion off first-quarter attributable net income and pushed reported return on average equity down to about 7.4%, versus roughly 12.0% excluding the levy. The ADR has responded by trading at roughly 0.66 times book with a trailing dividend yield near 3%, which is the market pricing sovereign, currency and political risk rather than doubting the franchise.

Country risk dominates: Colombian fiscal deterioration, sovereign rating actions, tax changes like the 2026 equity levy, and the political cycle all land directly on this stock, often faster than any operating result. Currency is the second layer, because results are earned in pesos and the ADR is priced in dollars, so peso weakness can erase a solid operating year for US holders. Credit quality is the third: a policy rate near 12% alongside roughly 6% inflation strains consumer and small business borrowers, and provisioning can rise quickly if unemployment worsens. Corficolombiana carries legacy infrastructure exposure and a history of legal and compliance matters tied to Colombian road concessions, which has produced headline risk in the past. Finally, the ADR is thinly traded relative to US bank stocks, the underlying is a preferred share class with limited voting rights, and the group is majority-controlled by the Sarmiento family, so minority holders have little say in capital allocation.

We give no verdict on Grupo Aval Acciones y Valores S. Both cases are real, which is why the question is contested at all, so here is the strongest version of each.

The case for buying. Deposit gathering is outpacing lending. Deposits grew roughly 11.7% year over year in the first quarter of 2026 while gross loans grew about 6%.

The case against. Country risk dominates: Colombian fiscal deterioration, sovereign rating actions, tax changes like the 2026 equity levy, and the political cycle all land directly on this stock, often faster than any operating result.

Read the full bull and bear case on AVAL, including what would have to change to break either one. Walnut is not an investment adviser.

A simple financial snapshot. These are approximations and refresh quarterly; for current figures see Grupo Aval Acciones y Valores S's investor relations page or your broker.

• Gross loans: ~COP 193.6 trillion, up ~6% year over year (1Q 2026)
• Total deposits: ~COP 216.8 trillion, up ~11.7% year over year (1Q 2026)
• Attributable net income: ~COP 336.6 billion in 1Q 2026, down ~6.9% year over year
• Return on average equity: ~7.4% reported in 1Q 2026, ~12.0% excluding the one-time equity tax
• Price to book: ~0.66x
• Dividend yield: ~3.0% trailing, ~3.8% forward on the ADR

All operating figures are reported in Colombian pesos (shown in filings as Ps), while the ADR trades in US dollars near $4.80 for a market capitalization around $5.8 billion. The sub-book valuation is the whole argument in one number: the market is applying a Colombia discount rather than pricing a broken bank, since the ex-tax return on equity near 12% is respectable for an emerging-market lender. Dividends are declared in pesos and paid monthly in Colombia, so the dollar amount a US holder receives moves with the exchange rate.

Other names that sit close to AVAL: same theme, named as a direct competitor, or held beside it in the same funds. Each entry says which. Worth a look if you are thinking about diversification within a thesis rather than concentration on one ticker.

There are three common ways to get AVAL exposure. Buy shares (or fractional shares) directly at any major broker. Hold an ETF that includes it, which spreads the position across many companies. Or build it into a focused thematic portfolio, so AVAL sits alongside other stocks that express the same thesis.

Walnut takes the portfolio route. Describe a thesis where AVAL fits (for example “AI infrastructure” or “dividend-growth large-caps”) and the AI proposes 5 to 6 constituents with target weights. You review the plan and fund it through your own broker when you're ready.

New to this? Start with how to invest in stocks, see how to analyze a stock with AI, or compare the best AI stock analyzers.

AVAL is a real, profitable, systemically important Colombian bank holding company trading below book value, and almost everything that moves the ADR sits at the country level rather than the company level.

Whether AVAL is worth buying today depends more on your time horizon and what you already hold than on any single call. We walk through valuation, what would have to go right, and the risks in is AVAL a buy or a sell?, and where the stock could go from here in the AVAL stock forecast.

For income investors, whether AVAL pays a dividend and how the payout looks is covered in does AVAL pay a dividend? And to weigh AVAL against a peer, read the full side-by-side comparisons: AVAL vs CIB and AVAL vs BCH.