Huntsman Corporation (HUN): what the price assumes

In the published model solve dated 2026-Q2, anchored at $11.69, Huntsman Corporation (HUN) is priced for -0.5% 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 2026-07-24.

Generated: 2026-07-29 · Exported: 2026-08-01 · Source: https://boothcheck.com/report/HUN

Headline

FieldValue
TickerHUN
CompanyHuntsman Corporation
Sector / IndustryBasic Materials
Current price$11.69/sh
CompositionDiversified 83% / Specialty 17% / Other 1% / Eliminations -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)3.2%
Operating margin (mid-cycle)6.2%
Margin compression (value-band)-3.0pp
Trailing margin (depressed year)-3.3%
Implied growth-0.5%
Multiple paid11x mid-cycle 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 9.6% cost of capital with 4% terminal growth over a 5-year stage; each 1pp of cost of capital moves the implied operating-profit growth ~5.2pp.

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

ReferenceValue
vs own history+0.13σ
implied end-window share0%

Valuation X-Ray

The price is supported by asset-based and relative-multiple value, while earnings-power/growth-DCF land 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.

FamilyMedian price/FVModelsReads
Asset0.80x2justifies
Earnings2.62x1expensive
Relative0.24x2justifies
Growth1.89x3expensive

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

The models below discount at their own flat-beta convention rates (cost of equity 9.3%, WACC 6.1%); the inversion above states its own rate.

Per-Model Detail (n=8)

ModelFamilyFVPrice/FVApplicableMethodology
DCF Perpetual GrowthGrowth$0.00noFCF base $0.1B, growth -5% (input: historical growth), terminal g 0.5%, WACC 6.1%, 5yr projection
DCF Exit MultipleGrowth$9.591.22xyesExit EV/EBITDA: 42.3x / 44.3x / 46.3x (bear / base = today's held flat / bull), 5yr
Relative ValuationRelative$49.360.24xyesP/S fallback (negative EPS): Sector P/S 1.5x × TTM revenue — excluded from consensus
Simple DDMGrowth$1.507.79xyesDPS $0.37, g=-12.4% (sustainable: ROE (TTM) × retention; not the terminal-growth assumption), ke=9.3%
Two-Stage DDMGrowth$-4.57noStage 1: -200% for 5yr, Stage 2: 3.5% perpetual
Simple Excess ReturnAsset$15.500.75xyesReference only (book value floor): BV/sh $15.50, ROE negative
Two-Stage Excess ReturnAsset$13.950.84xyesReference only (book value with convergence): BV/sh $15.50, ROE converges to ke
Discounted Future Market CapGrowth$6.201.89xyesRev $5.7B, growth -5% (input: historical growth; tapered), Terminal P/S: 0.3x / 0.4x / 0.4x (bear / base = today's held flat / bull, cap 8x)
Peter Lynch Fair ValueRelative$0.00noNegative/zero EPS — earnings-based value floored at $0
Margin TrajectoryGrowthno
Earnings Power ValueEarnings$4.462.62xyesNormalized EBIT (5y avg op income, one-time charges added back) $0.26B × (1−21%) / WACC 6.1% → EPV (no growth)
Residual IncomeAssetno
Graham NumberAssetno
EV/EBITDA RelativeRelative$0.011169.00xyesEBITDA $0.10B × sector EV/EBITDA 8.0x (excluded from median)
FCF YieldEarnings$0.011169.00xyesFCF $135.0M / Kₑ 9.3% — zero-growth perpetuity (excluded from median)
SBC-Adj FCF YieldEarnings$0.011169.00xyesSBC-adj FCF $0.10B (FCF $0.14B − SBC $0.03B) capitalized at Kₑ (excluded from median)
Ben Graham FormulaEarningsno
ROIC-Justified P/BAssetno
P/Sales SectorRelative$49.360.24xyesRevenue $5.69B × sector P/S 1.5x
PEG Fair ValueRelativeno
Earnings YieldEarningsno
Funds From Operations MultipleRelativeno
Clinical Phase NPVGrowthno
MertonAssetno
V5 Mechanicalno

Solvency

FieldValue
Net debt$1.7b
Net debt / NOPAT (after-tax)6.07x
Net debt / operating income (pre-tax)4.79x
Share count CAGR (buyback)-5.3%
Burning cashno

Leverage and coverage are computed on normalized mid-cycle operating income (mid-cycle margin 6.2%); the trailing year was depressed.

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

Bullet Takeaways

Bull Case

The case for owning Huntsman today is largely a case for owning a slice of something bigger. Olin and Huntsman agreed an all-stock merger of equals in which each Huntsman share converts into 0.5476 Olin shares, leaving Huntsman holders roughly 45.5% of a business to be renamed OlinHuntsman Corporation and headquartered in The Woodlands, Texas. The two companies describe the result as an integrated North American chemicals platform, and the fit is not cosmetic: Olin's chlor-alkali output sits directly upstream of the raw material chain Huntsman's polyurethanes business buys from third parties today.

The numbers attached to that fit are the reason to care. The companies identified more than $400 million of total cost synergies and integration benefits, of which more than $300 million is cost synergies from purchasing, raw material integration, operational optimisation and overhead. Set against a Huntsman that generated $73 million of adjusted EBITDA in the March quarter, a figure of that size is not a rounding item bolted onto a press release. It is the entire thesis.

The self-help was working before any of that was announced. Huntsman targeted $100 million of annualised savings and has realised roughly $110 million, with about $45 million of further year-over-year benefit expected to land during 2026. Advanced Materials, the smallest division, grew adjusted EBITDA 25% to $45 million in the quarter while the two larger ones went backwards. It is also the division least exposed to the construction and durable-goods cycle that is currently pinning the rest of the portfolio.

There are early signs the cycle itself is turning. Management guided second-quarter adjusted EBITDA to a range of $100 million to $130 million against $73 million in the first quarter, and Polyurethanes volumes rose 4% year over year on demand in the Americas and Europe. A sequential step of that size in commodity chemicals is usually volume and pricing moving together rather than one of them alone.

And the shares change hands below the accounting value of the assets. On book value and its convergence, the price sits at about 0.88 times where those methods land. For a producer whose plants take years and permits to replicate, an equity trading under the carried value of that plant is the sort of thing a strategic counterparty eventually notices. One just did.

Bear Case

Take the merger away and what is left is a chemicals company in the worst stretch of its cycle carrying too much debt. Huntsman lost $53 million in the March quarter on $1,420 million of revenue, used $53 million of cash in operations and burned $91 million of free cash flow. Trailing operating income across the last twelve months is negative, a loss margin of roughly 1.5% of revenue. The company's own leverage measure climbed to 6.1 times net debt to adjusted earnings from 4.0 times a year earlier, liquidity fell to $867 million from $1.29 billion, and all three major rating agencies downgraded the credit.

The merger does not fix that quickly, and it introduces problems of its own. Because it is all stock, Huntsman holders are exchanging one trough asset for a share of a combined trough asset. The exchange ratio was struck against the thirty-day volume-weighted average of both stocks through the close on June 12, 2026, which fixed the relative terms at a moment when both companies were depressed. And the synergies, all $400 million of them, are expected to be fully realised only by 2031. That is a long stretch to hold a leveraged commodity producer for a benefit arriving at the far end of it.

There is also the plain risk that nothing completes. Both shareholder bases vote at virtual special meetings on August 25, 2026, the registration statement became effective only on July 13, 2026, and completion is targeted for the first half of 2027 subject to regulatory clearance. Until then, Huntsman's quote is substantially Olin's quote multiplied by a fixed ratio and discounted for deal risk, which is a different exposure from the one a chemicals investor believes they are buying. If the agreement falls over, the standalone balance sheet is what remains.

On the standalone economics, what the quote asks for looks modest and is still not obviously safe. The price implies operating profit compounding at about 1.6% a year, and it asks that of a through-cycle earnings base rather than of the trailing loss. That assumption does the heavy lifting: it credits the company with the roughly 6.2% operating margin its own record supports, at a moment when the last twelve months delivered a loss. The bet is not really about growth. It is about reversion, and reversion in commodity chemicals depends on other producers' capacity decisions rather than on anything Huntsman controls.

The dividend already told this story. The quarterly payout now stands at $0.0875 a share, reduced from its earlier level, and the cash it consumes still has to come from a business producing $141 million of trailing free cash flow against $2,056 million of gross debt.

The valuation frames split badly, and one of them is unusable. The single earnings-power method puts the price at about 2.59 times its estimate, and the forward-looking methods at about 1.89 times, both reflecting a trough year fed in as the input. A sector revenue multiple applied to a company earning nothing produces an answer several times the quote, which is an artefact of arithmetic rather than a finding about the business.

Valuation

The first thing to understand about this quote is that it is only partly Huntsman's. Since mid June each share has carried the right to receive 0.5476 Olin shares under an agreed all-stock merger of equals, so the $12.90 price now tracks Olin's, adjusted for whatever odds the market assigns to completion. What follows describes the business sitting underneath that ratio, which is what a holder ends up owning in either outcome.

On its own economics the shares carry about 11.4 times mid-cycle operating income, and the price implies operating profit compounding at roughly 1.6% a year. Mid-cycle is the word doing the work. Trailing operating income is negative, a loss margin of around 1.5% of revenue, so the calculation runs on the through-cycle profitability the company's own record supports, a margin near 6.2%, rather than on the trough it currently occupies. Read the implied figure as a statement about reversion, not about expansion.

Where the various approaches land is unusually informative here. Book value roughly brackets the quote: the price sits at about 0.88 times where those methods come out, meaning the market pays slightly less than the carried accounting value of the plants. The forward-looking methods put the price at about 1.89 times their estimate, and the single earnings-power method at about 2.59 times, both of which follow mechanically from a loss-making year being the input. The revenue-multiple comparison is the one to set aside entirely: applying a sector average to a company with no earnings returns a figure several times the quote, and that says more about the method than about Huntsman.

The peer set is a genuine one for once. LyondellBasell, Dow, Olin, Celanese and Eastman are real comparables for the polyurethanes and performance products lines, and Avient, Celanese, Eastman, Chemours and Rogers for advanced materials. What the cohort has in common right now is that the entire North American commodity chemicals complex is operating below mid-cycle, which is precisely the condition that makes consolidation attractive to the participants and makes any single company's trough multiple hard to interpret in isolation.

Solvency decides how much time there is. Cash was $369 million against total debt of $2,056 million at the end of March, leaving net debt of $1,687 million. Measured against through-cycle operating income, that is roughly 4.75 times over, which is manageable in a normal year. Measured the way the rating agencies measure it, net leverage reached 6.1 times and all three of them downgraded, with liquidity down to $867 million. The share count has come down about 5.3% a year over the past four years, which is part of the explanation for where the balance sheet now sits: capital returned before the downturn is capital not available during it.

What governs the outcome from here is the calendar more than the cycle. Approve the deal on August 25 and clear the regulators, and a Huntsman holder becomes the owner of roughly 45.5% of a larger company with more than $400 million of identified synergies to pursue. Fail to, and the trough balance sheet described above is the entirety of the position.

Catalysts

Three dates and one ratio shape the next six months.

Huntsman releases second-quarter results after the market close on July 30, 2026, with the call the following morning. Management guided total adjusted EBITDA to a range of $100 million to $130 million against $73 million in the first quarter. The size of that step is the cleanest test available of whether the increases Huntsman pushed through after feedstock costs spiked in March have actually held. Polyurethanes volumes were up 4% year over year in the March quarter; volume and pricing together would confirm a real turn, volume on its own would not.

The merger vote is August 25, 2026, when both shareholder bases meet in virtual special meetings. The registration statement became effective on July 13, 2026, which cleared the procedural path to those meetings. Approval hands the question to regulators, with completion targeted for the first half of 2027.

The figure worth tracking between those dates is leverage. Net debt to adjusted earnings reached 6.1 times in the March quarter, up from 4.0 times a year earlier, with liquidity at $867 million. A cyclical recovery pulls that down with no deal required. A second soft quarter does the reverse, and does it directly into a shareholder vote.

Peer Cohorts (Per Segment, With Filing Citations)

Polyurethanes (reported)

Performance Products (reported)

Advanced Materials (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

Olin and Huntsman joint announcement, June 16, 2026, and joint proxy statement, July 2026 · Huntsman first quarter 2026 results and investor presentation, May 2026 · Huntsman first quarter 2026 results, May 2026, and earnings-call schedule, June 30, 2026 · Olin and Huntsman joint announcement, June 16, 2026 · Huntsman first quarter 2026 results, May 2026 · Huntsman first quarter 2026 investor presentation, May 2026 · Olin and Huntsman joint proxy statement, July 2026 · Huntsman second quarter 2026 dividend declaration, May 2026 · Huntsman earnings-call schedule, June 30, 2026 · Huntsman first quarter 2026 earnings call, May 2026 · Olin and Huntsman securities filing, July 2026

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