EAGLE MATERIALS INC. (EXP): what the price assumes

In the published model solve dated 2026-Q2, anchored at $197.56, EAGLE MATERIALS INC. (EXP) is priced for -4.9% 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 2026-07-26.

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

Headline

What The Price Assumes (Inversion)

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

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)

Valuation X-Ray

The price is supported by asset-based and growth-DCF value. 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.

Families that justify the price: Asset, Growth

The models below discount at their own flat-beta convention rates (cost of equity 9.3%, WACC 7.3%); the inversion above states its own rate.

Per-Model Detail (n=10)

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.

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

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

Bullet Takeaways

• Two of four segments carry Eagle: gypsum wallboard earned 286.8 million dollars of segment operating earnings on 764.5 million of revenue in fiscal 2026, and cement earned 328.3 million on 1.30 billion, margins no other building-products name in its cohort matches.

• The risk is timing rather than quality: segment operating earnings have slipped in each of the last two years, to 672.5 million dollars in fiscal 2026 from 716.9 million in fiscal 2024, while the company commits to expansions that lift cement capacity at one plant by nearly half and wallboard capacity at another by a quarter.

• Capital spending more than doubled to 416.7 million dollars, and the payoff dates are stated rather than guessed: the modernized Laramie plant is expected to start up in late calendar 2026, and the 330 million dollar Oklahoma wallboard project completes in the second half of calendar 2027.

Bull Case

Run Eagle Materials through the standard cash-flow lens and fiscal 2026 looks like a poor year. Operations threw off 614.2 million dollars; 416.7 million went straight back out to contractors, more than double the prior year's outlay. What remains is a thin residue, and any method that capitalises that residue will produce an unflattering answer. The method is not wrong. It is simply reading a construction site as though it were an operating business.

What the money is buying is described precisely, with dates and quantities. At the Mountain Cement facility in Laramie, Wyoming, the filing says the finished plant's "manufacturing capacity will increase by nearly 50% to approximately 1.2 million tons" of cement, and that "manufacturing costs will be reduced by approximately 25%", with start-up expected in late calendar 2026. At Duke, Oklahoma, a 330 million dollar programme lifts gypsum wallboard capacity by a quarter, to 1.5 billion square feet, finishing in the second half of calendar 2027. More capacity at lower unit cost, in a business whose economics turn on being the low-cost producer in a freight-limited regional market, is about as legible as a growth plan gets.

Meanwhile the business that already exists converts sales into profit at rates its usual comparisons do not reach. Gypsum wallboard produced 286.8 million dollars of segment operating earnings on 764.5 million of segment revenue in fiscal 2026, a margin above 37%. ARMSTRONG WORLD (AWI) runs a 25.9% operating margin and FORTUNE BRANDS (FBIN) 10.8%. Cement earned 328.3 million on 1.30 billion of segment revenue, better than 25%, against MARTIN MARIETTA (MLM) at 22.1% and VULCAN MATERIALS (VMC) at 20.6%. Even recycled paperboard, the smallest line, turned 199.2 million of revenue into 44.5 million of operating earnings, roughly double the margin PACKAGING CORP (PKG) reports at 11.7% and triple GRAPHIC PACKAGING (GPK) at 7.0%.

Capital return has been running alongside the building programme rather than instead of it. The diluted share count in the filed statements has fallen from 40.93 million in fiscal 2022 to 32.19 million in fiscal 2026, a fifth of the company retired in four fiscal years. Owning a fifth more of a business whose capacity is about to rise is the compounding that does not depend on a forecast.

On demand, the company is not making an aggressive claim. Its own read is that "The macroeconomic environment continues to be constructive for our products" and that cement demand should "remain steady in the near term supported by bipartisan federal, state, and local support for public infrastructure projects". Steady is enough. The bull case here does not need a construction boom; it needs the existing volumes to hold while a modernized plant takes roughly a quarter off the cost of making the product.

Bear Case

The methods disagree here in a way that is itself the argument. What the company owns, and what a peer multiple would pay for it, both land around today's price. The approach that lands well below is the one that credits no future growth at all and simply capitalises the earnings stream as it stands. For a cyclical building-materials producer whose segment earnings have fallen in each of the last two fiscal years, the conservative approach has the better claim to honesty, because it is the only one not quietly assuming the cycle turns back.

The trend is not subtle. Segment operating earnings were 716.9 million dollars in fiscal 2024, 699.5 million in fiscal 2025 and 672.5 million in fiscal 2026. Gypsum wallboard, the highest-margin line, did most of the damage in the latest year, dropping to 286.8 million dollars from 350.8 million. Corporate general and administrative expense went the other way, from 73.9 million to 89.2 million. Earnings before income taxes fell to 542.0 million dollars from 591.5 million. None of that is a crisis. All of it is the wrong direction for a company committing record sums to new capacity.

That commitment is the second problem, and the filing supplies the frame for it without meaning to. "Demand for our products is generally cyclical and seasonal, depending on economic and geographic conditions." The same document warns that prices are "subject to material changes in response to relatively minor fluctuations in supply and demand, general economic conditions, and other market conditions beyond our control", and names "Increases in the production capacity of industry participants for products such as gypsum wallboard or cement" as one of the things that moves them. Eagle is one of those industry participants, and it is adding a quarter more wallboard capacity into a wallboard market whose profit contribution just fell by 18%. Regional pricing is the mechanism by which that could go wrong, and it is not a mechanism Eagle controls.

The balance sheet is where the two threads meet. Interest expense, net rose about 15% in fiscal 2026, to 46.5 million dollars, driven mainly by 5.000% senior unsecured notes due May 2036 issued in November 2025 and a larger term loan. Borrowings stood at 1.78 billion dollars against 297.9 million of liquid assets at the fiscal year end. That is comfortable at present earnings and would stay comfortable through an ordinary downturn. It is less comfortable if the wallboard slide continues while the Oklahoma project still has more than a year of spending ahead of it, because the spending is contracted and the earnings are not.

Which leaves the requirement embedded in today's price. Value the enterprise against the operating profit the fiscal 2026 statements actually show, after corporate overhead, and the price is not pricing a decline into the business. It is paying for the current level of earnings to hold and then improve, at a moment when the reported direction has been down for two consecutive years and the improvement depends on two plants that are not yet running. The bear case is not that Eagle is a poor business. It is that a good cyclical business, priced for the recovery leg, offers no discount for arriving at the wrong point in the cycle.

Valuation

Begin with what the buyer is capitalising. Eagle's four segments produced 672.5 million dollars of operating earnings in fiscal 2026; corporate overhead of 89.2 million comes out of that, leaving operating profit of 583.4 million before interest and tax. The whole enterprise, equity plus borrowings less liquid assets, is being valued at roughly fourteen times that figure. For a producer of cement and wallboard, whose earnings swing with construction cycles, that is a price paid for the current earnings level to persist rather than for it to be discounted.

The methods split along a clean line. Book value plus profitability, peer multiples, and the forward cash-flow approaches all land at or above the current quote, which is why this reads as an asset-supported name rather than a growth bet. The approach that lands well beneath it is the one that credits no growth whatever and capitalises today's earnings stream in perpetuity. That single disagreement is the whole valuation question: the price is defensible if the current earnings level is a fair representation of the business, and stretched if fiscal 2026 sits above what the cycle delivers on average.

The cohort does not resolve it, but it does frame it. MARTIN MARIETTA (MLM) grew revenue 10.1% at a 22.1% operating margin; VULCAN MATERIALS (VMC) grew 7.4% at 20.6%; UNITED STATES LIME (USLM) grew 9.5% at 41.6%. Eagle's cement line earns better than 25% and its wallboard line better than 37%, so the margin comparison flatters it. The growth comparison does the opposite: consolidated revenue moved from 2.26 billion dollars to 2.31 billion between fiscal 2025 and fiscal 2026, roughly 2%, while the aggregates majors grew several times faster. A buyer is paying a mid-cohort valuation for above-cohort margins and below-cohort growth.

One number explains most of the cash-flow disagreement. Capital spending was 416.7 million dollars in fiscal 2026 against 195.3 million the year before and 120.3 million the year before that. Depreciation, depletion and amortisation ran 164.7 million. Spending two and a half times the depreciation charge is what expansion looks like on a cash-flow statement, and it is why methods anchored on free cash flow read this business as substantially weaker than the earnings statement does. Neither reading is wrong; they are measuring different years.

Solvency is not the constraint. Borrowings stood at 1.78 billion dollars against 297.9 million of liquid assets, and interest expense of 46.5 million is covered better than twelve times over by fiscal 2026 operating profit. The company generates rather than consumes cash. What the balance sheet cannot do is shorten the wait: the Oklahoma project runs into the second half of calendar 2027, and until both plants are running, the earnings the price is capitalising are the earnings the current asset base can produce.

Catalysts

The first quarter of fiscal 2027 reports on July 29, 2026, a date the company confirmed in a scheduling release on July 15, 2026. The quarter it follows was better than the street expected: fourth-quarter earnings of 1.91 dollars a share against a fourth-quarter consensus near 1.54 dollars, reported May 19, 2026. What the July print should show for the first time is a full quarter of the seasonally strong spring build, set against wallboard comparisons that have been falling.

Two brokers moved on the same day and arrived at the same place from opposite directions. On July 8, 2026 Wells Fargo cut its target to 240 dollars from 246 while keeping an Overweight rating, and Citi raised its target to 240 dollars from 217 while keeping a Neutral one. Both sit above the current quote, and the split in rating with no split in number is a reasonable summary of where the debate stands: nobody disputes the asset quality, and the disagreement is entirely about what the cycle does next.

The operational milestones matter more than either. Start-up of the modernized Laramie cement plant is expected in late calendar 2026, which would put the first meaningful contribution into the fiscal year ending March 2027. The Oklahoma wallboard expansion runs until the second half of calendar 2027, so capital spending stays elevated through the intervening quarters. Between now and then, the reported numbers will keep showing the cost of the build without the output from it, and that gap is the thing most likely to be misread.

Peer Cohorts (Per Segment, With Filing Citations)

Cement (reported)

• MLM (MARTIN MARIETTA MATERIALS INC)
• FY2025 10-K: …single-family housing starts decreased 8% to approximately 0.9 million units compared with 2024. Housing demand far exceeds supply in the Company's key markets; however, a housing recovery is not expected until mortgage rates decline and/or affordability headwinds recede. Form 10-K ♦ Page 42 Part II ♦ Item 7 -…
• FY2025 10-K: …and cement, which serve as key raw materials in the production of hot mix asphalt and ready mixed concrete, respectively. Some of these raw materials we produce internally, but most are purchased from third parties. These purchased raw materials are subject to potential supply constraints and significant price…
• VMC (VULCAN MATERIALS COMPANY)
• FY2025 10-K: …process requires liquid asphalt cement, which we purchase from third-party producers. We do not anticipate any significant difficulties in obtaining the raw materials necessary for this segment to operate. We serve our Asphalt segment customers directly from our local production facilities. Form 10-K 14 Part I 3.…
• FY2025 10-K: …the concrete is recycled following use. This technology also reduces the demand for cement and other cement-related materials which reduces the supply side carbon footprint. The resulting concrete is also stronger than it would have been without use of the technology. Scope 1 and Scope 2 GHG reductions will come by…
• CRH (CRH public limited company)
• FY2025 10-K: % of CRH's Total revenues and 29% of Adju sted EBITDA. Materials and Products The following materials and products are produced and supplied by CRH's connected portfolio of businesses. Aggregates Aggregates are naturally occurring mineral deposits such as granite, limestone and sandstone. CRH extracts these deposits…
• FY2025 10-K: …essential materials, infrastructure products, and value-added services positions us to capture further value and accelerate growth. • Water: addressing the urgent need to modernize and expand water infrastructure through engineered solutions and management systems for water-resilient communities. • Circularity:…
• USLM (UNITED STATES LIME & MINERALS INC)
• FY2025 10-K: …and products. All operations are in the United States. During 2024, the Company determined that the activities of its natural gas interests and the associated level of review of those activities by the CODM precluded the natural gas activities from meeting the definition of an operating segment, as provided in ASC…
• FY2025 10-K: …and the high capital cost of the plants and facilities. These considerations reinforce the premium value of operations having permitted, long-term, high-quality limestone resources and good locations and transportation relative to markets. Lime producers tend to be concentrated on known high- quality limestone…
• MDU (MDU RESOURCES GROUP, INC.)
• FY2025 10-K: …fluctuations in basis differentials. Legislative and regulatory initiatives on increased pipeline safety regulations and environmental matters such as the reduction of methane emissions could also impact the price and demand for natural gas. The pipeline segment is subject to extensive regulation related to certain…
• FY2025 10-K: …the JETx line was filed with the NDPSC in August 2025. JETx is expected to be placed in service at the end of 2028. 42 MDU Resources Group, Inc. Form 10-K Index Part II Earnings overview - The following information summarizes the performance of the electric segment. 2025 vs. 2024 2024 vs. 2023 Years ended December…

Concrete and Aggregates (reported)

• VMC (VULCAN MATERIALS COMPANY)
• FY2025 10-K: …with their aggregates requirements from our Aggregates segment. These intersegment sales are made at local market prices for the particular grade and quality of product used in the production of asphalt mix and ready-mixed concrete and are excluded from total revenues. Customers for our Asphalt and Concrete segments…
• FY2025 10-K: …sand and gravel, sand, and other aggregates) and related products and services. During 2025, the Aggregates segment principally served markets in twenty-three states, the U.S. Virgin Islands, Washington D.C., and the local markets surrounding our operations in Freeport, Bahamas; British Columbia, Canada; and…
• MLM (MARTIN MARIETTA MATERIALS INC)
• FY2025 10-K: …and poured at the project site of a customer of the Company. The coarse aggregates used for ready mixed concrete are a washed material with limited amounts of fines ( i.e. , dirt and clay). The Company operates ready mixed concrete plants in Arizona and Texas as of December 31, 2025. The Texas ready mixed concrete…
• FY2025 10-K: …balance sheets. When acquired, new locations sometimes do not satisfy the Company's internal safety, maintenance, pit development or other standards, and may require additional investments before benefits of the acquisitions are fully realized. Management believes its aggregates reserves are sufficient to permit…
• CRH (CRH public limited company)
• FY2025 10-K: % of CRH's Total revenues and 29% of Adju sted EBITDA. Materials and Products The following materials and products are produced and supplied by CRH's connected portfolio of businesses. Aggregates Aggregates are naturally occurring mineral deposits such as granite, limestone and sandstone. CRH extracts these deposits…
• FY2025 10-K: …In Road Solutions, Total revenues were 7% ahead of 2024, with volumes and prices in readymixed concrete ahead by 11% and 4%, respectively, benefiting from volume growth and contributions from acquisitions. Asphalt volumes declined 4%, while pricing was in line with the prior year. Total revenues in Building &…
• MDU (MDU RESOURCES GROUP, INC.)
• FY2025 10-K: …mdu:NaturalGasDistributionMember 2025-01-01 2025-12-31 0000067716 us-gaap:OperatingSegmentsMember mdu:ResidentialUtilitySalesMember mdu:PipelineandMidstreamMember 2025-01-01 2025-12-31 0000067716 us-gaap:OperatingSegmentsMember mdu:ResidentialUtilitySalesMember us-gaap:CorporateAndOtherMember 2025-01-01 2025-12-31…
• FY2025 10-K: 29/25 1-03480 10(cc) Amended and Restated Credit Agreement, dated as of December 11, 2025, by and among MDU Resources Group, Inc., U.S. Bank National Association, as administrative agent, and the several lenders party thereto, as lenders. 8-K 10.1 12/12/25 1-03480 10(dd) Badger Wind Purchase and Sale Agreement…
• USLM (UNITED STATES LIME & MINERALS INC)
• FY2025 10-K: …and products. All operations are in the United States. During 2024, the Company determined that the activities of its natural gas interests and the associated level of review of those activities by the CODM precluded the natural gas activities from meeting the definition of an operating segment, as provided in ASC…
• FY2025 10-K: …varying the mixes of fuel used in our kilns, and by passing on some of any increase in costs to our customers, where possible, 27 Table of Contents through higher prices and/or surcharges on certain products. In addition, we continually look for other ways to better manage our energy costs at our plants. Finally, we…

Gypsum Wallboard (reported)

• OC (Owens Corning)
• FY2025 10-K: …oc:BuildingMaterialsBusinessExitMember 2024-01-01 2024-12-31 0001370946 us-gaap:EmployeeSeveranceMember oc:BuildingMaterialsBusinessExitMember 2025-01-01 2025-12-31 0001370946 oc:EmployeeSeveranceAndOtherExitCostsMember oc:AcquisitionRelatedRestructuringPrinevilleMember 2025-06-30 0001370946…
• FY2025 10-K: 0001370946 us-gaap:EmployeeSeveranceMember 2025-12-31 0001370946 oc:BuildingMaterialsBusinessExitMember 2023-12-31 0001370946 oc:AcquisitionRelatedRestructuringMember 2023-12-31 0001370946 oc:GlobalCompositesRestructuringMember 2023-12-31 0001370946 oc:ProtectivePackagingExitMember 2023-12-31 0001370946…
• JHX (JAMES HARDIE INDUSTRIES PLC)
• (no filing in the citation store)
• AWI (ARMSTRONG WORLD INDUSTRIES, INC.)
• FY2025 10-K: …maintaining strong brand awareness and trust. We are committed to delivering profitable revenue growth, strong cash flow generation and sustainable shareholder value by strengthening our core Mineral Fiber segment and expanding our Architectural Specialties segment into new, adjacent business categories and sectors.…
• FY2025 10-K: …customer demand for building products that align with their sustainability goals. These efforts also include our mineral fiber ceilings recycling program, which aims to divert reclaimed ceiling tiles from landfills. We expect that there will be increased demand over time for products, systems and services that meet…
• FBIN (Fortune Brands Innovations, Inc.)
• FY2025 10-K: …centers and mass merchandisers. This segment is increasingly investing in and developing digital products and "smart" home capabilities. In aggregate, sales to The Home Depot and Lowe's comprised approximately 21% of net sales of the Water segment in 2025. This segment's chief competitors include Masco, Kohler, LIXIL…
• FY2025 10-K: 2023-12-31 2024-12-28 0001519751 us-gaap:ReclassificationOutOfAccumulatedOtherComprehensiveIncomeMember us-gaap:AccumulatedDefinedBenefitPlansAdjustmentMember 2023-12-31 2024-12-28 0001519751 us-gaap:SalesRevenueNetMember fbin:LowesMember us-gaap:CustomerConcentrationRiskMember 2023-12-31 2024-12-28 0001519751…

Recycled Paperboard (reported)

• IP (INTERNATIONAL PAPER COMPANY)
• FY2025 10-K: …products industry. See Note 21 - Financial Information by Business Segment of Item 8. Financial Statements and Supplementary Data for further details regarding the Company's business segments. The majority of our business is focused on creating fiber-based packaging that protects and promotes goods, enables worldwide…
• FY2025 10-K: …products companies. We also compete, in some instances, with companies in other industries and against substitutes for wood-fiber products. Many factors influence the Company's competitive position, including price, cost, product quality and services. You can find more information about the impact of these factors on…
• PKG (PACKAGING CORP OF AMERICA)
• FY2025 10-K: …and Shipments" in "Part I, Item 1. Business" of this Form 10-K. We notified customers of a $70 per ton price increase for linerboard and medium effective March 1, 2026. Paper segment operating income was $130 million in 2025 and in 2024. Paper segment EBITDA excluding special items was $148 million in 2025, compared…
• FY2025 10-K: …for offset printing papers in February 2025 and $10 per ton in April 2025. Outlook Looking ahead to the first quarter of 2026, in our Packaging segment, we expect higher per-day volume in our legacy corrugated products plants over last year, reflecting improving demand, though shipment volume is seasonally slower…
• GPK (Graphic Packaging Holding Co)
• FY2025 10-K: …package performance and package line speed. Raw Materials The Company's main raw materials are pine and hardwood trees and recovered fiber. Pine pulpwood, hardwood pulp, paper and recovered fiber and energy used in the manufacture of paperboard, as well as poly sheeting, plastic resins and various chemicals used in…
• FY2025 10-K: , stiffness and wet and dry tear strength; leak, abrasion and heat resistance; barrier protection from moisture, oxygen, oils and greases, as well as enhanced microwave heating performance. 5 Table of Contents The Company provides a wide range of innovative, paperboard packaging solutions for the following end-use…
• SW (Smurfit Westrock plc)
• FY2025 10-K: …operations in the segment whose business is conducted as a procurement function, focusing on the procurement of low cost, high quality recycled fiber for our mill system. See Item 2. "Properties" for additional information on our annual production capacity and types of containerboard and paperboard we manufacture,…
• FY2025 10-K: …box manufacturers. We produce a wide range of high-quality corrugated containers designed to protect, ship, store, promote and display products made to our customers' specifications. Paperboard and Consumer Packaging Paperboard is a general term that describes the intermediate materials used primarily to produce…
• SLVM (SYLVAMO CORPORATION)
• FY2025 10-K: …harvested in less than seven years. Latin America operations combine sustainable forestry practices, operational excellence, strong brands and global distribution network. North America Our North American segment manufactures uncoated freesheet papers at its mills in Eastover, South Carolina and Ticonderoga, New York…
• FY2025 10-K: …in part, upon exchange rates, particularly the rate between the U.S. dollar and the Euro and the U.S. dollar and the Brazilian real. Some of our competitors have shut down or converted mills or paper machines at their mills to linerboard, pulp and boxboard capacity, which reduced the supply of UFS and other printing…

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.
• Economic-unit decomposition (SOTP): each disclosed business unit is assigned its native valuation basis before any multiple is applied. Operating units are valued on enterprise value; funded financial units are valued on their own common equity, because their borrowings fund earning assets rather than levering the parent. A company total is stated only once every material unit carries a supported value and the parent capital bridge reconciles.
• 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.