Calumet, Inc. /DE (CLMT): what the price requires

At today's price, Calumet, Inc. /DE (CLMT) is priced for today's economics sustained for ~32.4 years. boothcheck doesn't publish a fair value or a price target; it shows what the price assumes, so you can judge whether that bar is too high.

Generated: 2026-07-19 · Source: https://boothcheck.com/report/CLMT

Headline

FieldValue
TickerCLMT
CompanyCalumet, Inc. /DE
Current price$39.79/sh
CompositionSpecialty Products and Solutions - Lubricating oils 18% / Specialty Products and Solutions - Solvents 10% / Specialty Products and Solutions - Waxes 4% / Specialty Products and Solutions - Fuels, asphalt and other by-products 32% / Montana/Renewables - Gasoline 3% / Montana/Renewables - Diesel 2% / Montana/Renewables - Jet fuel 0% / Montana/Renewables - Asphalt, heavy fuel oils and other 4% / Montana/Renewables - Renewable fuels 19% / Performance Brands 8%

What The Price Requires (Inversion)

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

FieldValue
Inversion basiswhole-company
Operating margin today0.1%
Must persist for32.4y
Multiple paid3099x operating income

Solve inputs: computed at a 7.2% cost of capital; growth searched up to the 25% self-funding ceiling; each 1pp moves the implied horizon ~4 years.

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

ReferenceValue
sustained it ~10 years at this level15%
implied end-window share4%

Valuation X-Ray

The price is justified by relative-multiple.

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
Asset—0—
Earnings—0—
Relative0.69x1justifies
Growth—0—

Families that justify the price: Relative

The models below discount at their own flat-beta convention rates (cost of equity 9.3%, WACC 6.2%); the inversion above states its own rate.

Per-Model Detail (n=1)

ModelFamilyFVPrice/FVApplicableMethodology
DCF Perpetual GrowthGrowth$0.00—noFCF base $0.1B, growth 0% (input: historical growth), terminal g 0.5%, WACC 6.2%, 5yr projection
DCF Exit MultipleGrowth$29.681.34xnoExit EV/EBITDA: 28.1x / 33.1x / 38.1x (bear / base = today's held flat / bull), 5yr
Relative ValuationRelative$57.560.69xyesP/S fallback (negative EPS): Sector P/S 1.2x × TTM revenue — excluded from consensus
Simple DDMGrowth——no—
Two-Stage DDMGrowth——no—
Simple Excess ReturnAsset——no—
Two-Stage Excess ReturnAsset——no—
Discounted Future Market CapGrowth$25.931.53xnoRev $4.2B, growth 0% (input: historical growth; tapered), Terminal P/S: 0.6x / 0.8x / 1.0x (bear / base = today's held flat / bull, cap 6x)
Peter Lynch Fair ValueRelative$0.00—noNegative/zero EPS — earnings-based value floored at $0
Margin TrajectoryGrowth——no—
Earnings Power ValueEarnings——no—
Residual IncomeAsset——no—
Graham NumberAsset——no—
EV/EBITDA RelativeRelative$0.013979.00xyesEBITDA $0.17B × sector EV/EBITDA 6.0x (excluded from median)
FCF YieldEarnings$0.013979.00xyesFCF $63.8M / Kₑ 9.3% — zero-growth perpetuity (excluded from median)
SBC-Adj FCF YieldEarnings$0.013979.00xyesSBC-adj FCF $0.03B (FCF $0.06B − SBC $0.04B) capitalized at Kₑ (excluded from median)
Ben Graham FormulaEarnings——no—
ROIC-Justified P/BAsset——no—
P/Sales SectorRelative$57.560.69xnoRevenue $4.17B × sector P/S 1.2x
PEG Fair ValueRelative——no—
Earnings YieldEarnings——no—
Funds From Operations MultipleRelative——no—
Clinical Phase NPVGrowth——no—
MertonAsset——no—
V5 Mechanical———no—

Solvency

FieldValue
Net debt$2.2b
Net debt / NOPAT (after-tax)1462.56x
Net debt / operating income (pre-tax)1155.42x
Interest coverage0.0x
Share count CAGR (dilution)3.2%
Burning cashno

Bullet Takeaways

Bull Case

Start with what Calumet actually earns its keep on, because it is not the refinery that grabs headlines. The specialty side, lubricating oils, solvents, waxes, asphalt by-products, and the Performance Brands portfolio, is the kind of business that turns barrels into branded, spec-controlled products that sell on formulation and service rather than on the crack spread of the day. That is a structurally better place to stand than commodity fuels. A pure refiner lives and dies on the seasonal spread between feedstock cost and product price; CVR Energy describes that exposure plainly in its own filing, noting that to "realize value from our processing capacity, a positive spread between the cost of raw materials and" products must hold. Specialty products dampen exactly that volatility, and they are the larger part of Calumet's mix.

The bull bet layers a growth option on top of that base. Montana Renewables is no longer a story about intentions. The MaxSAF expansion completed its turnaround and started up, and management frames it as a four-to-fivefold increase in sustainable aviation fuel volumes on an annual run-rate basis. The segment's adjusted EBITDA in the most recent quarter was $10.2 million against $3.3 million a year earlier, the first sign that the plant is converting from capital sink to cash generator. The financing behind it is the unusual part: a $1.44 billion DOE loan guarantee that recapitalized the renewables business and, per the company, eliminated roughly $80 million in annual cash debt service. Government-rate project debt funding a low-capital-cost SAF expansion is a cost-of-capital advantage most independents cannot match.

The price reflects this as a relative-value read, not a cash-flow one. Of the methods that can run on a company with negative trailing earnings, the peer-multiple lens is the only one that reaches the price, and it places Calumet at a sales multiple roughly in line with its refining-and-specialty cohort rather than at a premium. If the specialty book holds its margins and Montana ramps to the run-rate management describes, today's price is paying close to fair for the established business and getting the SAF optionality lightly priced. The brand-and-service moat on the specialty side is the kind Valvoline articulates for its own franchise, that it "works diligently to preserve margins by adjusting its pricing in response to changes in costs", and Calumet's Performance Brands lean on the same pricing logic. That is the bull: a defensible specialty base, a financed growth engine, and a price that does not yet credit the ramp.

Bear Case

The balance sheet is where the bear case lives, and it is not a subtle point. Calumet carries about $2.2 billion of net debt against $138.6 million of liquid assets, book equity is negative, and trailing operating income is slightly below zero. Put plainly, the company owes more than it has earned the right to owe, and there is no current profit cushion underneath the debt. Interest coverage on trailing operating income is negative. A refiner with this leverage profile is fine in a good spread environment and fragile in a bad one, and the fragility is structural rather than seasonal.

That fragility compounds because the underlying business is commodity-cyclical at its edges and capital-hungry at its center. The renewable-fuels economics swing on policy and on volatile inputs: the company's most recent quarter showed a $317.0 million net loss driven largely by non-cash RINs and derivative mark-to-market moves, the kind of swing that makes reported results hard to underwrite quarter to quarter. The seasonality that hits any refiner hits here too. CVR Energy notes that demand and margins "for the first and fourth calendar quarters are generally lower", and Calumet's fuels and asphalt by-products carry the same calendar. A business that loses money in the trough quarters needs the peak quarters to more than make up for it, and the debt load shrinks the room for error.

What the price requires is the part that should give a buyer pause. Today's price implies the company-wide operating economics grow at close to the self-funding ceiling for roughly three decades, a duration that only about 15% of comparable fast-growers have sustained even ten years. The relative-multiple method that justifies the price does so on a sales multiple, which is the lens you reach for precisely because there are no earnings to capitalize. If the Montana ramp slips, if SAF policy support softens, or if specialty margins compress, the equity sits behind $2.2 billion of debt with negative book value as the starting point. The refinancing path so far has worked, debt down by over $220 million in 2025 and near-term maturities pushed out with new 2031 notes, but each refinancing is a fresh negotiation, and the leverage that makes it necessary is the same leverage that makes it expensive.

Valuation

Calumet does not lend itself to a clean valuation, and the reason is the same fact the bear case turns on: with negative trailing earnings and negative book equity, the standard cash-flow and asset-value methods have nothing to anchor to. The discounted cash-flow approaches and the book-value methods all fall away here, leaving the peer-multiple lens as the only one that can run on the numbers. That alone tells you what kind of company this is, one valued on revenue and forward promise rather than on demonstrated profit.

On that surviving lens, the price reads as roughly fair to slightly cheap against the refining-and-specialty cohort. The sales-multiple method lands above today's price on a sector price-to-sales of about 1.2 times applied to roughly $4.2 billion of trailing revenue, which is why the only family that reaches the price reads it as supported rather than stretched. Set against that, working the price backward shows what it is betting on the operating side: it embeds company-wide operating growth held near the self-funding ceiling for about thirty years. That is the durability question in numeric form, and it is a long bet for a business whose trailing operating margin is currently slightly negative.

Solvency is the binding constraint on any read of the downside. Net debt of about $2.2 billion against $138.6 million of liquid assets, with no demonstrated through-cycle operating margin to normalize the leverage against, means a conventional years-to-repay figure cannot be computed honestly here, which is itself the point. The share count has grown at roughly 3% a year rather than falling, so the equity base is being diluted, not returned. The DOE-financed Montana build-out is the offsetting fact: project-level debt at government rates that removed roughly $80 million of annual cash service is real relief on the renewables side. But it sits inside a corporate structure where the parent's leverage and negative equity define the floor, and that floor, not a model's point estimate, is what a buyer at today's price is standing on.

Catalysts

The near-term catalyst is the Montana Renewables ramp. The MaxSAF expansion completed its turnaround and commenced operations in early May, targeting a four-to-fivefold increase in sustainable aviation fuel on an annual run-rate basis, with management guiding the project toward 120 to 150 million annual gallons of SAF at relatively low capital cost. The first quarter's Montana/Renewables adjusted EBITDA of $10.2 million versus $3.3 million a year earlier is the early read on whether that ramp converts to cash; the next several prints will show whether the run-rate holds.

Financing milestones carry weight here beyond the usual. Montana Renewables has taken its first drawdown of roughly $782 million from the $1.44 billion DOE loan facility, and the company spent 2025 cutting debt by over $220 million and refinancing near-term maturities, including new 9.75% senior notes due 2031 issued in January 2026. Each successful refinancing step pushes the wall further out and lowers the immediate solvency risk that anchors the bear case.

Analyst sentiment has firmed alongside the refinancing progress. TD Cowen raised its price target to $34 from $25 while keeping a Hold rating, and Goldman Sachs moved to Neutral from Buy with a target of $36, up from $34. The reported quarterly net loss of $317.0 million was driven largely by non-cash RINs and derivative mark-to-market adjustments rather than operating cash burn, so the next earnings date is the event to watch for whether underlying operating EBITDA, stripped of those non-cash swings, continues to build.

Peer Cohorts (Per Segment, With Filing Citations)

Specialty Products and Solutions (reported)

Performance Brands (reported)

Montana/Renewables (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

company press release, Montana Renewables DOE drawdown · Q1 2026 earnings release · company DOE loan announcement, February 2025 · Q1 2026 earnings transcript · company refinancing disclosures, January 2026 · company refinancing disclosures · analyst notes, 2026

View the full interactive CLMT report on boothcheck