CARRIER GLOBAL CORPORATION (CARR): what the price assumes

In the published model solve dated 2026-Q2, anchored at $58.79, CARRIER GLOBAL CORPORATION (CARR) is priced for today's economics sustained for ~6.7 years. boothcheck publishes no house fair value, target price, or buy/sell rating; individual model outputs and user-controlled scenarios are analytical inputs, not Boothcheck targets. Narrative composed 2026-07-25.

Generated: 2026-08-30 · Exported: 2026-08-31 · Source: https://boothcheck.com/report/CARR

Headline

FieldValue
TickerCARR
CompanyCARRIER GLOBAL CORPORATION
Sector / IndustryIndustrials
Current price$58.79/sh
CompositionClimate Solutions Americas - Product 43% / Climate Solutions Americas - Service 5% / Climate Solutions Europe - Product 21% / Climate Solutions Europe - Service 2% / Climate Solutions Asia Pacific, Middle East & Africa - Product 12% / Climate Solutions Asia Pacific, Middle East & Africa - Service 3% / Climate Solutions Transportation - Product 12% / Climate Solutions Transportation - Service 1%

What The Price Assumes (Inversion)

The assumption today's price embeds, recovered by inverting the valuation.

FieldValue
Inversion basiswhole-company
Operating margin (value-band context)9.0%
Operating margin today8.2%
Margin expansion (value-band)+0.8pp
Must persist for6.7y
Multiple paid33x operating income

The operating-margin figure is value-band context at year 12: derived from the framework's value band, a separate calculation — not part of the priced-in solve.

Solve inputs: computed at a 9.2% cost of capital; growth searched up to the 25% self-funding ceiling.

How unusual the bet is: elevated (limited comparison data)

ReferenceValue
vs own history+1.03σ
cohort percentile (of 225 peers)84

Valuation X-Ray

Every valuation family lands below the price. The price therefore sits beyond what those standard frames encode.

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.

FamilyMedian price/FVModelsReads
Asset3.36x4expensive
Earnings5.25x4expensive
Relative0
Growth1.67x3expensive

Families that call it expensive: Asset, Earnings, Growth

The models below discount at their own flat-beta convention rates (cost of equity 9.3%, WACC 8.2%); the inversion above states its own rate.

Per-Model Detail (n=11)

ModelFamilyFVPrice/FVApplicableMethodology
DCF Perpetual GrowthGrowth$11.025.33xyesFCF base $1.7B, growth -2% (input: historical growth), terminal g 0.5%, WACC 8.2%, 5yr projection
DCF Exit MultipleGrowth$47.451.24xyesExit EV/EBITDA: 31.3x / 33.3x / 35.3x (bear / base = today's held flat / bull), 5yr
Relative ValuationRelativenoP/E 23.78x (blended: static sector reference 18x + trailing (TTM) 37x), scenarios: 20.1x / 23.8x / 27.5x (bear / base = reference held flat / bull), EV/EBITDA 18.39x
Simple DDMGrowthno
Two-Stage DDMGrowthno
Simple Excess ReturnAsset$17.053.45xyesBV/sh $16.20, ROE (TTM) 9.7%, ke 9.3%
Two-Stage Excess ReturnAsset$17.483.36xyes5yr excess ROE then converge to ke=9.3%
Discounted Future Market CapGrowth$35.271.67xyesRev $21.9B, growth -2% (input: historical growth; tapered), Terminal P/S: 1.9x / 2.2x / 2.6x (bear / base = today's held flat / bull, cap 8x)
Growth-Adjusted P/ERelativeno
Margin TrajectoryGrowthno
Earnings Power ValueEarnings$18.793.13xyesNormalized EBIT (5y avg op income, one-time charges added back) $2.77B × (1−21%) / WACC 8.2% → EPV (no growth)
Residual IncomeAsset$17.563.35xyesBV $16.20 + 5yr PV of (ROE (TTM) 9.7% − Kₑ 9.3%) × BV; BV grows 6.3%/yr
Graham NumberAsset$23.612.49xyes√(22.5 × EPS $1.53 × BVPS $16.20) — Graham's conservative floor
EV/EBITDA RelativeRelativenoEBITDA $1.80B × sector EV/EBITDA 12.0x
FCF YieldEarnings$8.466.95xyesFCF $1686.0M / Kₑ 9.3% — zero-growth perpetuity
SBC-Adj FCF YieldEarnings$7.517.83xyesSBC-adj FCF $1.61B (FCF $1.69B − SBC $0.07B) capitalized at Kₑ
Ben Graham FormulaEarnings$1.2845.93xyesEPS $1.53 × (8.5 + 2×-5.0%) × (4.4 / 5.3%) (excluded from median)
ROIC-Justified P/BAsset$1.6535.63xyesBV $16.20 × (ROIC 0.8% / WACC 8.2%) (excluded from median)
P/Sales SectorRelativenoRevenue $21.87B × sector P/S 2.5x
PEG Fair ValueRelativeno
Earnings YieldEarnings$16.543.55xyesEPS $1.53 / required return 9.3% (Rf 4.3% + ERP 5.0%)
Funds From Operations MultipleRelativeno
Clinical Phase NPVGrowthno
MertonAssetno
V5 Mechanicalno

Economic-Unit Decomposition (Sum Of The Parts)

One or more material disclosed units has unresolved economics. Unknown/general is not evidence of homogeneity: segment SOTP is primary but incomplete, consolidated cash flow may remain only a secondary cross-check when every unit shares an enterprise basis, and one sector multiple or target margin is withheld.

UnitRoleValuation basisRevenueReported profitValue evidenceStatus
Climate Solutions Americasoperatingenterprise$10.5bwithheldunresolved no unit value
Climate Solutions Europeoperatingenterprise$5.0bwithheldunresolved no unit value
Climate Solutions Asia Pacific, Middle East & Africaoperatingenterprise$3.3bwithheldunresolved no unit value
Climate Solutions Transportationoperatingenterprise$2.9bwithheldunresolved no unit value

No total common-equity value is stated. One or more material units lack a supported unit value. The displayed values are an indicative subtotal; consolidated debt and cash cannot be applied to a fraction of the company.

Solvency

FieldValue
Net debt$11.8b
Net debt / NOPAT (after-tax)8.28x
Net debt / operating income (pre-tax)6.54x
Share count CAGR (buyback)-0.9%
Burning cashno

Interest expense is not separately reported in the latest filings, so interest coverage cannot be computed.

Bullet Takeaways

Bull Case

The most valuable thing Carrier owns is already installed. Rooftop units, boilers, chillers and container refrigeration boxes sit in service around the world, and every one of them is a claim on parts, maintenance and eventual replacement revenue for as long as it runs. The FY2025 10-K frames the portfolio as industry-leading brands such as Carrier, Viessmann, Toshiba, Automated Logic and Carrier Transicold, and describes equipment built to offer services and aftermarket parts and components over the life of the product. Sell the box once, then sell against it for as long as it runs.

The segment reporting makes that concrete. Each of the four regional businesses reports a product line and a service line separately, and the service lines carry the annuity shape. Service and installation revenue is recognized as the work is performed rather than on shipment, so the money often arrives as an obligation before it arrives as revenue: Carrier recognized $506 million during 2025 from contract liabilities that were already sitting on its balance sheet on the first day of the year. That is customers paying up front for work not yet done, which is a position weak vendors do not get to occupy.

Here is the case in its plainest form. Carrier turned $21.7 billion of 2025 net sales into $2.2 billion of operating profit, close to a tenth of each sales dollar. TT, running a comparable mix of commercial climate equipment and transport refrigeration, converts 18.2%; LII converts 19.7% on a smaller North American base; DOV converts 16.7%. Carrier currently earns closer to what WSO earns at 9.9%, and WSO is a distributor that sells other companies' equipment out of warehouses rather than manufacturing it. The bull case is not that Carrier already has manufacturer margins. It is that a company with these brands and this installed base has no structural reason to sit at distributor economics, and that the gap is an integration problem with an end date.

Evidence sits behind that. The 10-K credits business integration synergies associated with the acquisition of the VCS Business alongside lower selling, general and administrative costs for part of the year's margin improvement, and management is actively removing the revenue that dilutes the mix. Carrier agreed in December 2025 to sell its Riello business to Ariston Group for expected gross proceeds of approximately $430 million. Divestitures took 22 percentage points off the Transportation segment's 2025 net sales while what remained grew 4% organically. Shrinking headline revenue and rising margin are the same event seen from two angles, and both are visible in the filings.

Capital keeps coming back to holders through all of it. Carrier repurchased $2.9 billion of its own stock during 2025, then took 5.0 million more shares off the register for $306 million in the first quarter of 2026, leaving roughly $5.0 billion of authorization unused. Principal came down at the same time, with 1.2 billion dollars of long-term borrowings repaid across 2025. A business that can retire equity and repay principal inside the same twelve months is generating real money, whatever any single quarter's reported earnings line does.

Bear Case

Follow the money out of Carrier and the picture is less tidy than the repurchase headline suggests. The FY2025 10-K itemizes what the company paid for the Viessmann climate business in January 2024: $11,156 million plus common stock. Nothing about the aftermath has been quiet. Long-term borrowings came down $1.2 billion during 2025, and $2.9 billion went into repurchases over the same twelve months. Four years of that effort produced a share count falling at 0.9% a year. For that level of repurchase spending, a decline that shallow means much of the buying has been absorbing stock issued elsewhere rather than concentrating what long-term holders own.

The asset all that money bought is the one management looked at hardest. The FY2025 10-K states that Climate Solutions Europe was the only reporting unit requiring a full quantitative goodwill test rather than a qualitative screen, and on completion the reporting unit had a fair value of approximately 14% above its carrying value. Fourteen percent is headroom, but it is thin headroom on a business whose 2025 net sales grew 1% to $5.0 billion, and the filing names exactly what would close it: a meaningful rise in the discount rate, a fall in the long-term growth rate, or substantial reductions in the forecast. That consideration also keeps arriving through the income statement as amortization, $213 million in the first quarter of 2026 alone, drawn against a customer relationships intangible of 4,787 million dollars that is written off across a 17-year life.

What today's price requires makes that fragility load-bearing. At $68.89 the market is paying for the Transportation business, the cold chain operation that keeps food and medicine cold in transit, to grow operating profit at the fastest pace it can fund from its own cash flow, roughly 25% a year, and to hold that pace for about 14 years. Transportation is the smallest of the four businesses at around 13% of revenue, and its 2025 net sales fell 17% to $2.9 billion, with the underlying business up 4% organically. Trim a single percentage point off the assumed growth rate and the required run stretches by nearly three more years. Of companies that have compounded at that pace, only about one in seven kept it going even a decade. Every family of valuation method lands below the price, so if that requirement mean-reverts toward what peer economics support, the multiple compresses toward roughly half of where the stock trades.

The near-term numbers are moving the wrong way while that clock runs. First-quarter 2026 net sales rose to $5.34 billion, but gross margin fell 14% to $1.24 billion, or 23.3% of net sales, and pre-tax earnings of $170 million landed against a prior-year quarter of $548 million. Rising sales with falling margin is a cost and mix problem, and it is arriving in the same year management says it is still assessing tariff exposure. Net borrowings sit at roughly 5.1 times operating profit against $1.37 billion of liquid assets, with quarterly interest expense of $111 million. None of that is distress. It is a balance sheet with limited capacity to absorb a European writedown, a cost shock it cannot price through, and a fourteen-year compounding requirement all in the same window.

Valuation

Start with what $68.89 asks for. The most demanding assumption embedded in the price does not sit in the big Americas business; it sits in Transportation, the container and truck refrigeration operation that makes up about 13% of revenue. The price implies that segment grows operating profit at the ceiling its own cash flow can fund, roughly 25% a year, and holds that pace for about 14 years. Keep those approximate: they come from a single solve at a 9.5% cost of capital, and shifting the growth assumption by one percentage point moves the required run by nearly three years. The shape of the demand survives the rounding. Fourteen years is a long time to stay at a sprint.

Against that, the methods disagree with the price rather than with each other. Grouped by what they actually look at, none of the four groups reaches $68.89. The forward-growth methods come closest, and the price still sits about 67% above where they land; the peer-multiple methods reach roughly half that far, so the price sits at about double their central estimate; the book-value and earnings-power lenses land further below still. The single method that gets nearest does so by holding today's trading multiple flat through a five-year projection and never letting it compress, which is an assumption rather than a finding. When every family lands under the price, the issue is not that one lens is unflattering. The price sits outside what any of the standard frames encode.

The cohort explains part of the distance. Carrier's FY2025 10-K reports $21.7 billion of net sales and $2.2 billion of operating profit, close to a tenth of every sales dollar reaching operating profit. TT converts 18.2%, PNR 20.6%, LII 19.7% and DOV 16.7%. Carrier's conversion sits nearer WSO at 9.9%, and WSO is a distribution business rather than a manufacturer. Today's price asks a company earning distributor-grade margins to be valued closer to the way manufacturers with a decade of margin discipline are valued, and to grow into that position from here.

The balance sheet sets how long that can take. Gross borrowings of $13.16 billion against $1.37 billion of liquid assets leave the net figure at roughly 5.1 times operating profit, serviceable rather than comfortable. The FY2025 10-K reports interest expense of $458 million for the year, down from $580 million the year before, so the annual carrying cost is falling as principal is repaid. Cash generation is positive, the share count is drifting down, and roughly $5.0 billion of repurchase authorization is still open. The combination buys time. It does not buy much room, because the same balance sheet has to cover the European carrying value, the cost pressure showing up in gross margin, and a fourteen-year growth requirement priced in today.

Catalysts

The first quarter of 2026 gave the clearest recent read on the operating story, and it was not a flattering one. Net sales rose to $5.34 billion from $5.22 billion, but gross margin fell 14% to $1.24 billion, taking it to 23.3% of net sales, and earnings before income taxes came in at $170 million against $548 million in the same quarter of 2025. Sales up with margin down points at cost and mix rather than demand, which makes the next quarterly print the one that shows whether pricing catches up with input costs.

Two portfolio moves are still working through the numbers. Carrier agreed on December 16, 2025 to sell its Riello business to Ariston Group for expected gross proceeds of approximately $430 million, and Riello sits predominantly inside Climate Solutions Europe, the reporting unit already carrying the thinnest goodwill headroom. Separately, divestitures took 22 percentage points off the Transportation segment's 2025 net sales, against 4% organic growth and one point from currency. The Carrier that reports in 2027 will be a materially different collection of businesses from the one that reported in 2024.

Tariffs are the open variable management has flagged in its own words. The company states it fully mitigated the 2025 impact of tariffs implemented that year, pricing actions among the levers used, and that it continues through 2026 to evaluate potential exposure including effects on supply chains and cost structures. On capital return, 5.0 million shares were repurchased for $306 million during the first quarter of 2026, leaving approximately $5.0 billion available under the current authorization. That authorization is the lever most directly under management's control if the operating numbers stay soft.

Peer Cohorts (Per Segment, With Filing Citations)

Climate Solutions Americas (reported)

Climate Solutions Europe / Climate Solutions Asia Pacific, Middle East & Africa (reported)

Climate Solutions Transportation (reported)

Methodology Note

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

FY2025 Form 10-K, filed February 2026 · Q1 2026 Form 10-Q, period ended March 31, 2026 · FY2025 Form 10-K · Q1 2026 Form 10-Q

View the full interactive CARR report on boothcheck