BRINK’S CO (BCO): what the price requires
The current priced-in claim for BRINK’S CO (BCO) is temporarily suppressed because the live engine record is unavailable. The dated report remains a snapshot, not a current market read.
Generated: 2026-07-14 · Exported: 2026-07-16 · Source: https://boothcheck.com/report/BCO
Headline
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| Ticker | BCO |
| Company | BRINK’S CO |
| Current price | $107.14/sh |
| Composition | Cash and Valuables Management 72% / DRS and AMS 28% |
What The Price Requires (Inversion)
The assumption today's price embeds, recovered by inverting the valuation.
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| Inversion basis | whole-company |
| Operating margin needed | 5.3% |
| Operating margin today | 9.8% |
| Margin compression implied | -4.5pp |
| Multiple paid | 15x operating income |
The operating-margin requirement is derived from the framework's value band at year 12, a separately labeled basis from the headline growth/duration solve.
The price sits below what even a 5%/yr operating-profit decline would warrant; the inversion reports a bound, not a solved growth path.
Solve inputs: computed at a 7% cost of capital with 4% terminal growth over a 5-year stage (computed at the 7% minimum rate; the CAPM rate 6.4% sits below it).
Reconcile: at the x-ray's 9.3% required return this reads ~7.9%/yr; the models below use their own rates.
How unusual the bet is: within-range
| Reference | Value |
|---|---|
| vs own history | -0.63σ |
| cohort percentile (of 225 peers) | 23 |
| implied end-window share | 0% |
Valuation X-Ray
The price is supported by earnings-power and relative-multiple and growth-DCF value, while asset-based lands below the price. A value/asset-supported name, not a pure growth bet.
How the valuation models price the stock relative to the market price. Price/FV above 1.0 means the market pays more than that lens defends (expensive); at or below 1.0 the lens can defend the price.
| Family | Median price/FV | Models | Reads |
|---|---|---|---|
| Asset | 1.83x | 4 | expensive |
| Earnings | 1.21x | 3 | expensive |
| Relative | 0.79x | 5 | justifies |
| Growth | 1.02x | 2 | expensive |
Families that justify the price: Earnings, Relative, Growth Families that call it expensive: Asset
The models below discount at their own flat-beta convention rates (cost of equity 9.3%, WACC 5.2%); the inversion above states its own rate.
Per-Model Detail (n=14)
| Model | Family | FV | Price/FV | Applicable | Methodology |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| DCF Perpetual Growth | Growth | — | — | no | — |
| DCF Exit Multiple | Growth | $130.96 | 0.82x | yes | Exit EV/EBITDA: 6.4x / 8.4x / 10.4x (bear / base = today's held flat / bull), 6yr |
| Relative Valuation | Relative | $133.48 | 0.80x | yes | P/E 18x (static sector reference · 2026-04), scenarios: 15.0x / 18.0x / 21.0x (bear / base = reference held flat / bull), EV/EBITDA 12x |
| Simple DDM | Growth | — | — | no | — |
| Two-Stage DDM | Growth | — | — | no | — |
| Simple Excess Return | Asset | $46.94 | 2.28x | yes | BV/sh $6.31, ROE (TTM) 68.8%, ke 9.3% |
| Two-Stage Excess Return | Asset | $190.29 | 0.56x | yes | 5yr excess ROE then converge to ke=9.3% |
| Discounted Future Market Cap | Growth | $87.58 | 1.22x | yes | Rev $5.4B, growth 7% (input: historical growth; tapered), Terminal P/S: 0.7x / 0.8x / 1.0x (bear / base = today's held flat / bull, cap 8x) |
| Peter Lynch Fair Value | Relative | $90.68 | 1.18x | yes | EPS $4.28, growth 21% (input: historical EPS growth), PEG=1.16 (Fair) |
| Margin Trajectory | Growth | — | — | no | — |
| Earnings Power Value | Earnings | $88.51 | 1.21x | yes | Normalized EBIT (5y avg op income, one-time charges added back) $0.45B × (1−24%) / WACC 5.2% → EPV (no growth) |
| Residual Income | Asset | $77.77 | 1.38x | yes | BV $6.31 + 5yr PV of (ROE (TTM) 68.8% − Kₑ 9.3%) × BV; BV grows 8.8%/yr |
| Graham Number | Asset | $24.66 | 4.34x | yes | √(22.5 × EPS $4.28 × BVPS $6.31) — Graham's conservative floor |
| EV/EBITDA Relative | Relative | $183.07 | 0.59x | yes | EBITDA $0.88B × sector EV/EBITDA 12.0x |
| FCF Yield | Earnings | $0.01 | 10713.50x | yes | FCF $170.5M / Kₑ 9.3% — zero-growth perpetuity (excluded from median) |
| SBC-Adj FCF Yield | Earnings | $0.01 | 10713.50x | yes | SBC-adj FCF $0.14B (FCF $0.17B − SBC $0.03B) capitalized at Kₑ (excluded from median) |
| Ben Graham Formula | Earnings | $138.10 | 0.78x | yes | EPS $4.28 × (8.5 + 2×15.0%) × (4.4 / 5.3%) |
| ROIC-Justified P/B | Asset | $3.22 | 33.27x | yes | BV $6.31 × (ROIC 2.6% / WACC 5.2%) (excluded from median) |
| P/Sales Sector | Relative | $324.67 | 0.33x | yes | Revenue $5.39B × sector P/S 2.5x |
| PEG Fair Value | Relative | $136.02 | 0.79x | yes | EPS $4.28 × (PEG 1.5 × growth 21.2% (input: historical EPS growth)) → PE 31.8x |
| Earnings Yield | Earnings | $46.27 | 2.32x | yes | EPS $4.28 / required return 9.3% (Rf 4.3% + ERP 5.0%) |
| Funds From Operations Multiple | Relative | — | — | no | — |
| Clinical Phase NPV | Growth | — | — | no | — |
| Merton | Asset | — | — | no | — |
| V5 Mechanical | — | — | — | no | — |
Solvency
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| Net debt | $3.0b |
| Net debt / NOPAT (after-tax) | 7.73x |
| Net debt / operating income (pre-tax) | 5.88x |
| Interest coverage | 2.1x |
| Share count CAGR (buyback) | -3.7% |
| Burning cash | no |
Bullet Takeaways
- Brink's is shifting from armored trucks toward recurring technology contracts: the ATM Managed Services and Digital Retail Solutions lines grew 15% organically in the first quarter, the thirteenth straight quarter at that pace, and now sit alongside the legacy cash-handling business that still produces the bulk of segment profit.
- The balance sheet is the central risk: net debt of about $3.0 billion leaves leverage above five times pre-tax operating income, and interest coverage sits near 2.3 times, thin for a business with this much fixed cost.
- Watch the second-quarter print, which management has guided to revenue of $1.37 to $1.43 billion and EPS of $1.85 to $2.25; the question is whether the recurring lines keep expanding margin while Latin America currency pressure stays contained.
Bull Case
Cash-logistics is an awkward business to value, and that awkwardness is where the bull case starts. Brink's looks like an industrial: trucks, vaults, route density, a heavy fixed-cost base. But the part of it growing fastest does not look industrial at all. The company has built two technology lines on top of the armored-car network, ATM Managed Services and Digital Retail Solutions, and they grew 15% organically last quarter, the thirteenth consecutive quarter at or above that rate. The 10-K describes DRS as services that let a retailer move cash without visiting a bank and provide customers with enhanced analytics and visibility, built around the patented Brink's Complete and CompuSafe products, while AMS layers cash forecasting, cash optimization, ATM remote monitoring, service call dispatching onto the same physical footprint. The trucks become the moat the software rides on.
The segment economics carry the case. Total segment operating profit reached $846.0 million in 2025, up from 772.8 in 2024 and 754.6 in 2023, a steady climb even as the legacy mix shifted. Geography matters here in a way it does not for most domestic peers: Latin America turned 1,289.6 million of revenue into 243.9 million of operating profit, a margin near 19%, and Rest of World did 799.5 million at 178.2 million, above 22%. North America, the largest revenue region at 1,742.6 million, runs a thinner 14%. The high-margin emerging-market routes are doing real work, and the AMS momentum management called out this quarter was strongest in Rest of World.
Valuation is the quiet part of the bull case. At today's price the market pays roughly 14 times company-wide operating income, and the price sits below where peer-multiple and earnings-power methods land. The static methods, the ones built on what the business already earns rather than on a growth story, support the price comfortably; this is not a name where you are underwriting a moonshot. The share count has fallen about 3.7% a year, so the recurring-revenue mix is being concentrated into fewer shares while the technology lines compound. Onboarding a customer like Pandora into DRS this quarter is the kind of win that does not announce itself loudly but recurs every period thereafter.
Bear Case
The advantage Brink's has spent a century building, physical control of cash in transit, is the slow-erosion bear case. Cash use is not collapsing, but it is not growing either in the developed markets, and the long arc of digital payments points one direction. The company's answer is to sell technology and services on top of the network, which is the right strategic move, but it also reframes the competitive question. In armored transport the moat was capital and licensing. In cash forecasting, remote ATM monitoring, and retail cash automation, the competition includes payments processors and fintech entrants who never owned a truck and carry none of the fixed cost. The defensible part of the business is being asked to subsidize the part that is exposed.
The balance sheet sharpens the risk. Net debt is about $3.0 billion against gross debt of $4.6 billion, which is more than five times pre-tax operating income, and interest coverage sits near 2.3 times. That is a tight cushion for a business with heavy operating leverage and large foreign-currency exposure. The 10-K notes that subsidiaries in highly inflationary countries must use the reporting currency (the U.S. dollar) as the functional currency, with remeasurement gains and losses flowing through net income, which is the accounting tell for the Argentina and Latin America exposure that drives so much of the segment profit. A region producing 19% margins is also a region where the currency can move against you in a single quarter.
The priced-in read complicates the cheap-stock story. The market pays about 14 times operating income, and on the asset-based methods the price already looks full; only the earnings and multiple methods make it look like value. So the bear is not that the stock is wildly expensive. It is that the price already credits steady mid-single-digit organic growth and continued margin expansion, exactly what management guides to, with little room for the legacy cash business to fade faster than the technology lines can replace it. Corporate expense, 147.0 million in 2025, sits above the segment results and has to be carried regardless. If the recurring lines slow from 15% toward the company's own mid-single-digit framework, the multiple has less to defend than it looks.
Valuation
Start with what the price is paying for. At about 14 times company-wide operating income, today's price embeds an assumption that is unusually modest for a business with a 15%-growth technology line inside it: it sits below what even a 5%-a-year decline in operating profit would warrant. The market is not betting on acceleration here. It is paying for steadiness, and on Brink's recent record, mid-single-digit organic growth with slow margin expansion, that is close to what the company has actually delivered.
The methods disagree in a revealing pattern. Peer-multiple and earnings-power approaches land near or above today's price, and the growth-DCF method reaches it as well. The asset-based methods are the dissenters, reading the price as full against book value, which makes sense for a capital-light-services business layered onto a capital-heavy network: book value understates a company whose value lives in route density and recurring contracts rather than trucks on the balance sheet. So the price is supported by what the business earns and by what comparable companies trade at, and looks expensive only on the asset lens. That is the signature of a value or asset-supported name, not a growth bet.
The build of the business helps explain why the static methods work. Segment operating profit was $846.0 million in 2025, with the high-margin Latin America and Rest of World regions contributing 243.9 and 178.2 million respectively, before 147.0 million of corporate expense. The earnings power is real and diversified across geographies. Where the framework demands caution is solvency: net debt near $3.0 billion sits at more than five times pre-tax operating income with interest coverage around 2.3 times. The leverage is the boundary on the downside, not the operating story. A falling share count, down about 3.7% a year, shows capital returning to holders even while the debt load stays elevated, which is the trade-off a buyer at today's price is accepting.
Catalysts
First-quarter results landed at the upper end of guidance, with revenue up about 10% to $1.38 billion and EPS of $1.80 against a roughly $1.70 estimate. The driver was the recurring side: AMS and DRS grew 15% organically, the thirteenth straight quarter at that level, helped by onboarding Pandora into DRS and AMS momentum in the Rest of World region. That is the mix shift the bull case rests on showing up in the print.
For the second quarter, ending June 30 2026, management guided to revenue of $1.37 to $1.43 billion, adjusted EBITDA of $245 to $265 million with about 40 basis points of margin expansion, and EPS of $1.85 to $2.25. The full-year framework was left unchanged: mid-single-digit organic growth, 30 to 50 basis points of EBITDA margin expansion, and free-cash-flow conversion of 40 to 45%. The unchanged framework after an upper-end quarter is the conservative read; the recurring lines are running ahead of it.
Analyst price targets cluster in the $145 to $163 range against a stock that has drifted lower year to date amid broader macro uncertainty. The gap between that street range and the current price reflects what the sell side credits in the recurring-revenue trajectory and Latin America margins; the next print is the test of whether the 15% technology growth holds as the comparison base gets harder.
Peer Cohorts (Per Segment, With Filing Citations)
Core business (reported)
- AAL (American Airlines Group Inc.)
- (no filing in the citation store)
- AD (AD)
- (no filing in the citation store)
- ADT (ADT Inc.)
- (no filing in the citation store)
- AHCO (AdaptHealth Corp.)
- (no filing in the citation store)
- AIN (AIN)
- (no filing in the citation store)
- ALGT (ALLEGIANT TRAVEL COMPANY)
- (no filing in the citation store)
- ALK (ALASKA AIR GROUP, INC.)
- (no filing in the citation store)
- ALLE (Allegion plc)
- (no filing in the citation store)
Methodology Note
- Priced-in inversion: the valuation is inverted on the current price to recover the operating-income growth, duration, and steady-state margin the price embeds (ROE for financials, FFO growth for REITs).
- Valuation x-ray: the valuation models, grouped into four families (asset, earnings, relative, growth). Each model is expressed as a price/FV ratio (distance from price), not a point fair-value estimate. The spread across families is the disagreement.
- Solvency: net cash/debt, net-debt-to-NOPAT, interest coverage, and share-count CAGR from EDGAR financials (net debt / FFO and fixed-charge coverage for REITs; regulatory-capital framing for financials).
- Peer cohorts: per-segment comparables with deep-linkable SEC filing citations.
Fundamentals sourced from SEC EDGAR filings. Current price from Databento. The priced-in inversion and valuation x-ray are computed by the boothcheck engine; narrative composed by AI from the structured data.
Sources
Brink's Q1 2026 earnings call, May 6 2026 · analyst estimates, June 2026