DOVER Corp (DOV): what the price assumes

In the published model solve dated 2026-Q2, anchored at $198.68, DOVER Corp (DOV) is priced for +17.3% growth. 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/DOV

Headline

FieldValue
TickerDOV
CompanyDOVER Corp
Sector / IndustryIndustrials
Current price$198.68/sh
CompositionUnited States 54% / Europe 22% / Asia 11% / Other Americas 9% / Other 4%

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)15.8%
Operating margin today16.9%
Margin compression (value-band)-1.1pp
Implied growth17.3%
Multiple paid21x 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 9.3% cost of capital with 4% terminal growth over a 5-year stage.

How unusual the bet is: within-range (limited comparison data)

ReferenceValue
vs own history+0.94σ
cohort percentile (of 225 peers)53

Valuation X-Ray

Asset, earnings-power and peer-multiple models all land far below the price; ONLY the growth-DCF reaches it. The bet is durable compounding the static frames structurally cannot price (a moat/durability premium).

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
Asset1.92x5expensive
Earnings2.60x2expensive
Relative0
Growth1.22x1expensive

Families that justify the price: Growth Families that call it expensive: Asset, Earnings

The models below discount at their own flat-beta convention rates (cost of equity 9.3%, WACC 8.1%); the inversion above states its own rate.

Per-Model Detail (n=8)

ModelFamilyFVPrice/FVApplicableMethodology
DCF Perpetual GrowthGrowth$0.00noNegative/zero FCF — equity value floored at $0
DCF Exit MultipleGrowth$0.00noNegative/zero FCF or EBITDA — equity value floored at $0
Relative ValuationRelativenoP/E 18x (static sector reference · 2026-04), scenarios: 15.1x / 18.0x / 20.9x (bear / base = reference held flat / bull), EV/EBITDA 12x
Simple DDMGrowthno
Two-Stage DDMGrowthno
Simple Excess ReturnAsset$91.092.18xyesBV/sh $57.20, ROE (TTM) 14.7%, ke 9.3%
Two-Stage Excess ReturnAsset$113.621.75xyes5yr excess ROE then converge to ke=9.3%
Discounted Future Market CapGrowth$162.251.22xyesRev $8.4B, growth 8% (input: historical growth; tapered), Terminal P/S: 2.7x / 3.2x / 3.7x (bear / base = today's held flat / bull, cap 8x)
Growth-Adjusted P/ERelativeno
Margin TrajectoryGrowthno
Earnings Power ValueEarnings$66.462.99xyesNormalized EBIT (5y avg op income, one-time charges added back) $1.34B × (1−21%) / WACC 8.1% → EPV (no growth)
Residual IncomeAsset$116.801.70xyesBV $57.20 + 5yr PV of (ROE (TTM) 14.7% − Kₑ 9.3%) × BV; BV grows 8.8%/yr
Graham NumberAsset$103.361.92xyes√(22.5 × EPS $8.30 × BVPS $57.20) — Graham's conservative floor
EV/EBITDA RelativeRelativenoEBITDA $1.81B × sector EV/EBITDA 12.0x
FCF YieldEarningsno
SBC-Adj FCF YieldEarningsno
Ben Graham FormulaEarnings$6.9628.55xyesEPS $8.30 × (8.5 + 2×-5.0%) × (4.4 / 5.3%) (excluded from median)
ROIC-Justified P/BAsset$18.6810.64xyesBV $57.20 × (ROIC 2.7% / WACC 8.1%)
P/Sales SectorRelativenoRevenue $8.42B × sector P/S 2.5x
PEG Fair ValueRelativeno
Earnings YieldEarnings$89.732.21xyesEPS $8.30 / 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
Engineered Productsoperatingenterprise$1.1b$217.3m operating-incomewithheldunresolved no unit value
Clean Energy & Fuelingoperatingenterprise$2.1b$418.1m operating-incomewithheldunresolved no unit value
Imaging & Identificationoperatingenterprise$1.2b$314.7m operating-incomewithheldunresolved no unit value
Pumps & Process Solutionsoperatingenterprise$2.1b$651.6m operating-incomewithheldunresolved no unit value
Climate & Sustainability Technologiesoperatingenterprise$1.6b$265.6m operating-incomewithheldunresolved 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$2.2b
Net debt / NOPAT (after-tax)1.96x
Net debt / operating income (pre-tax)1.55x
Interest coverage12.5x
Share count CAGR (buyback)-1.6%
Burning cashno

Bullet Takeaways

Bull Case

Every backward-looking way of valuing this company lands below today's price. Book value plus profitability sits under it, the capitalized-earnings lenses sit well under it, and the comparable-company multiples sit under it too. Only the forward method, which carries revenue ahead and holds today's sales multiple flat, reaches the price. That spread is not an accusation. It is a description of what the buyer thinks they are getting: an industrial that compounds instead of cycling, and no static method knows how to price that.

The best evidence for the claim sits in one segment. Pumps and process solutions grew segment earnings $115.0 million, or 21.4%, in 2025, and the segment turned 30.3% of its own revenue into profit, up from 28.3%, which the 10-K attributes to volume, productivity work, mix and acquisitions. Put that against the flow-control cohort and the number stands out. FLS ran an 8.3% operating margin, XYL 13.6%, ITT 15.9%, PH 22.8%, and GGG, the strongest of the group, 27.5%. Dover's pump business is out-earning companies whose entire identity is pumps.

The order book supports the case rather than contradicting it. Bookings rose 6.0% over the prior year to $8.1 billion for 2025, and the increase was broad across the portfolio rather than concentrated in one franchise. Orders arriving faster than revenue is how a diversified industrial tells you the next year before the income statement does.

The other half of the return comes back directly. Dover struck a $500.0 million accelerated share repurchase with JP Morgan on November 10, 2025, ran it under the existing authorization, and funded it out of cash on hand rather than new borrowing. Share count has fallen about 1.7% a year across four years. In the March 2026 quarter free cash flow reached $131.2 million, equal to 6.4% of revenue and 54.9% of earnings from continuing operations, and up $21.9 million year over year. Buying back stock with cash the business generated, rather than with debt, is the version of the trade that actually creates value.

Financing sits where it should. Trailing operating income covers the interest bill about twelve times over, the borrowing covenant only requires a coverage ratio of three to one, and there were no drawings under the revolving facilities at either the March 2026 quarter end or the December year end. On April 2, 2026 the company replaced its existing credit agreements with a new five-year revolver running to April 2031, undrawn. The compounding case does not need a financing story, which is exactly what makes it a compounding case.

Bear Case

Look at how the growth is actually being manufactured. Dover states its own long-term ambition plainly in the annual report: organic sales growth above that of gross domestic product (4% to 6% annually on average) over a long-term business cycle. In 2025 organic revenue grew 1.6%. The annual report puts the consolidated line next to it: Revenue for the year ended December 31, 2025 increased $346.7 million, or 4.5%, to $8.1 billion compared with 2024. The difference between those two figures is bought rather than grown. That is a legitimate strategy and Dover has run it for decades, but it changes what a holder is underwriting: not a business that expands on its own, but a management team that must keep finding assets cheaper than the multiple its own stock carries, and keep integrating them, indefinitely.

The price has a view on how well that goes. Today's level embeds something close to 22% annual operating-profit growth sustained for five years. Set that beside the 1.6% organic figure and the gap has to be closed by wider profitability, by acquisition and by buyback, all pulling together for half a decade. History says that combination is hard to hold: among comparable fast-growers, only about 34% sustained a pace like that for five years. The other two-thirds slowed.

What makes the slowdown scenario uncomfortable is where the methods sit. Nothing that values Dover on its existing assets or existing earnings reaches today's price. If the compounding assumption softens, there is no static valuation floor waiting underneath, because every static lens is already below the stock.

Geography is the near-term stress. A little over half of revenue comes from the United States, with Europe near a fifth and Asia around a ninth, and both of the non-American blocks are shrinking on an organic basis. In 2025, organic revenue in Europe declined 0.9% and in Other Americas declined 4.3%. In the March 2026 quarter, organic revenue fell 4.7% across Asia, Europe and the remaining geographies together, with only Other Americas growing, at 3.0%. A third of the company is going backwards organically, and the consolidated line is being held up by North America and by pricing.

The balance sheet is not a problem, but it is not free either. Gross borrowings run near 4.0 billion dollars, against a credit covenant that requires consolidated earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortization to cover consolidated net interest at least three times over. Coverage today is far above that, at roughly twelve times on trailing operating income. The obligation stack includes notes maturing in 2026, in 2027 and in 2033, part of it denominated in euros, which quietly ties refinancing cost to a currency the company is also losing organic revenue in.

And the buyback deserves a harder look than it usually gets. Repurchasing $500.0 million of stock while every method that values the existing business lands below the market price means the company is retiring shares above what its current assets and current earnings support. That is a defensible bet on future compounding. It is not, on today's numbers, a value purchase.

Valuation

Today's price puts an enterprise value on the company of about 23 times its last twelve months of operating profit. Invert that and it embeds an assumption of something near 22% annual growth in operating profit, held for five years. The company converted 16.6% of trailing revenue into operating profit to get there, so the demand is not for a margin transformation; it is for a compounding rate, sustained.

How often has that held? Among comparable companies that reached a similar pace, only about 34% were still running it five years later. That is the single most useful number in this report, because it converts a valuation debate into a base rate. Two out of three did not make it.

The methods agree with each other about the shape of the bet even where they disagree about the level. The forward lens, which projects revenue and holds today's sales multiple flat, reaches the price. Book value plus profitability lands below it. The capitalized-earnings read, which takes a five-year average of operating income of about $1.32 billion and values it with no growth at all, lands far below it. So does the comparable-company lens. When only the forward frame reaches the price, the premium is not an error in the other methods. It is what the market pays for durability, which those methods are structurally unable to see.

One honest caveat about precision. The implied growth figure moves about 7.4 percentage points for every additional percentage point of discount rate. That is a large swing on a small input, so the 22% should be read as an order of magnitude rather than a measurement.

Against the cohort, the picture is mixed in a specific way. Dover's 16.6% trailing operating margin sits mid-pack: ITT ran 15.9% and DCI 15.1%, while ROP managed 28.1%, GGG 27.5% and NDSN 26.4%. Yet the multiple the market assigns sits in the upper half of the peer group's range. The market is paying an above-median multiple for a middle-of-the-pack consolidated margin, on the view that the mix keeps shifting toward the parts of the portfolio that earn like the pumps business.

Solvency does not constrain the outcome. Trailing operating income covers the interest bill around twelve times over, the revolving facilities were undrawn at the March 2026 quarter end, and free cash flow of $131.2 million in that quarter funded the return of capital without new borrowing. The balance sheet buys the compounding thesis time. Whether the thesis needs more time than that is what the price is really asking.

Catalysts

Two financing actions landed just after the March quarter closed. On April 2, 2026 Dover replaced its existing credit agreements with a new five-year revolving credit facility running to April 2031, and there were no loans outstanding under it. That removes a 2026 facility maturity from the calendar and resets the revolver for the rest of the decade at a moment when the company is also carrying notes due in 2026 and 2027. The refinancing question for the next two years is now about the notes, not the bank lines.

Capital return has been running ahead of the operating story. On November 10, 2025 the company entered a $500.0 million accelerated share repurchase agreement with JP Morgan Chase Bank, executed under the authorization already in place and funded with cash on hand. In the March 2026 quarter free cash flow came in at $131.2 million, representing 6.4% of revenue and 54.9% of earnings from continuing operations, an increase of $21.9 million from the comparable quarter on compensation payment timing and higher operating earnings, offset in part by heavier capital spending.

The operating detail to watch is the split between what is growing and what is not. Climate and sustainability technologies revenue rose $63.2 million, or 18.2%, in the March 2026 quarter, with organic growth of 15.2% and a further 3.0% from currency, and customer pricing adding about 2.0%. Against that, organic revenue across Asia, Europe and the remaining geographies fell 4.7% in the same quarter while Other Americas grew 3.0%. Bookings for 2025 had already risen 6.0% to $8.1 billion, broad-based across the portfolio, so the order book says the second half of the year should read better than the geography does.

Peer Cohorts (Per Segment, With Filing Citations)

Engineered Products (reported)

Clean Energy & Fueling (reported)

Imaging & Identification (reported)

Pumps & Process Solutions (reported)

Climate & Sustainability Technologies (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

Q1 FY2026 10-Q, filed April 2026 · FY2025 10-K, filed February 2026

View the full interactive DOV report on boothcheck