LITTELFUSE INC /DE (LFUS): what the price assumes

In the published model solve dated 2026-Q2, anchored at $413.52, LITTELFUSE INC /DE (LFUS) is priced for today's economics sustained for ~8.4 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 2026-07-24.

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

Headline

FieldValue
TickerLFUS
CompanyLITTELFUSE INC /DE
Sector / IndustryIndustrials
Current price$413.52/sh
CompositionElectronics - Semiconductor 28% / Electronics - Passive Products and Sensors 28% / Commercial Vehicle Products 13% / Passenger Car Products 12% / Automotive Sensors 3% / Industrial Products 15%

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)14.5%
Operating margin (mid-cycle)16.0%
Margin compression (value-band)-1.5pp
Trailing margin (depressed year)2.8%
Must persist for8.4y
Multiple paid27x 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 11% cost of capital; growth searched up to the 25% self-funding ceiling; each 1pp moves the implied horizon ~1.8 years.

Reconcile: at the x-ray's 9.3% required return this reads ~5.2 years; the models below use their own rates.

How unusual the bet is: elevated

ReferenceValue
vs own history+0.41σ
sustained it ~8.4 years at this level19%
implied end-window share0%

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
Asset4.65x3expensive
Earnings2.94x3expensive
Relative1.69x3expensive
Growth1.12x4expensive

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

The models below discount at their own flat-beta convention rates (cost of equity 9.3%, WACC 8.6%); the inversion above states its own rate.

Per-Model Detail (n=13)

ModelFamilyFVPrice/FVApplicableMethodology
DCF Perpetual GrowthGrowth$399.341.04xyesFCF base $0.4B, growth 13% (input: historical growth), terminal g 4.0%, WACC 8.6%, 6yr projection
DCF Exit MultipleGrowth$443.030.93xyesExit EV/EBITDA: 7.6x / 9.6x / 11.6x (bear / base = today's held flat / bull), 6yr
Relative ValuationRelative$244.781.69xyesP/S fallback (negative EPS): Sector P/S 2.5x × TTM revenue — excluded from consensus
Simple DDMGrowth——no—
Two-Stage DDMGrowth——no—
Simple Excess ReturnAsset$98.904.18xyesBook value floor: BV/sh $98.90, ROE negative
Two-Stage Excess ReturnAsset$89.014.65xyesBook value with convergence: BV/sh $98.90, ROE converges to ke
Discounted Future Market CapGrowth$344.681.20xyesRev $2.5B, growth 13% (input: historical growth; tapered), Terminal P/S: 3.5x / 4.2x / 5.0x (bear / base = today's held flat / bull, cap 12x)
Peter Lynch Fair ValueRelative$0.00—noNegative/zero EPS — earnings-based value floored at $0
Margin TrajectoryGrowth$195.912.11xyesMargin ramp: -2% → 12% over 7yr, rev growth 13% (input: historical growth; tapered)
Earnings Power ValueEarnings$132.773.11xyesNormalized EBIT (5y avg op income, one-time charges added back) $0.46B × (1−22%) / WACC 8.6% → EPV (no growth)
Residual IncomeAsset——no—
Graham NumberAsset——no—
EV/EBITDA RelativeRelative$519.930.80xyesEBITDA $1.13B × sector EV/EBITDA 12.0x
FCF YieldEarnings$153.142.70xyesFCF $389.6M / Kₑ 9.3% — zero-growth perpetuity
SBC-Adj FCF YieldEarnings$140.632.94xyesSBC-adj FCF $0.36B (FCF $0.39B − SBC $0.03B) capitalized at Kₑ
Ben Graham FormulaEarnings——no—
ROIC-Justified P/BAsset$31.7413.03xyesBV $98.90 × (ROIC 2.8% / WACC 8.6%)
P/Sales SectorRelative$244.781.69xyesRevenue $2.49B × sector P/S 2.5x
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$149.7m
Net debt / NOPAT (after-tax)0.48x
Net debt / operating income (pre-tax)0.38x
Interest coverage12.3x
Share count CAGR (dilution)0.4%
Burning cashno

Leverage and coverage are computed on normalized mid-cycle operating income (mid-cycle margin 16.0%); the trailing year was depressed.

Bullet Takeaways

Bull Case

A fuse costs a few dollars and protects equipment worth thousands. That asymmetry is the entire business model, and it explains something that otherwise looks odd: a components maker with about $2.5 billion of annual revenue holding operating margins in the mid-teens while selling into end markets with almost nothing in common. Nobody shops circuit protection the way they shop steel. An engineer qualifies a part, designs it into a board, and leaves it there for the life of the product, which can be a decade in an automobile and longer in industrial switchgear. Revenue that arrives that way is stickier than the components business is usually given credit for.

The first quarter showed what that looks like when the cycle turns. Sales rose 19% to $657 million with organic expansion of 9%, GAAP operating margin reached 15.4%, and free cash flow climbed 55% to $66 million. The Industrial segment grew 45.3% to $124 million, of which 39 points came from the Basler Electric business, with the balance from grid and data-center demand. Electronics, the largest piece, grew 18.1% to $363 million at a 19.4% operating margin. Those are recovery numbers in a business that spent two years absorbing a semiconductor inventory correction.

Basler is the piece worth understanding. Littelfuse paid roughly $350 million for the Highland, Illinois maker of excitation and protection controls for generators and grid equipment, closing December 11, 2025 at about 13.5 times Basler's forecast 2025 adjusted profits after the present value of expected tax benefits. Management says the integration is running ahead of its own plan. What it buys is a seat in high-power applications, which is precisely where data-center electrical infrastructure spending is going, and the company reports its data-center design wins doubled against the prior year. Design wins are the leading indicator in this industry; revenue follows them by quarters, not weeks.

The balance sheet gives management room to keep doing this. Net debt of $149.7 million is close to nothing for a business earning what this one earns, and operating profit covers the interest bill about 11 times over. A company can buy the next Basler without asking shareholders for anything. That optionality is not in any trailing figure, and for a serial acquirer in a fragmented components market it is worth real money.

The near-term setup is also more concrete than usual. Second-quarter guidance calls for $690 million to $710 million of sales, roughly 14% growth, with adjusted earnings of $3.65 to $3.85 a share. For 2025 as a whole, the company reported adjusted earnings of $10.68 a share, up 34%, on sales of $2,386 million. The bull argument does not require heroics from here. It requires the industrial and data-center pull to persist while the automotive business stops being a drag, and one of those two things is already visibly happening.

Bear Case

Only one family of valuation method reaches this price, and it is the one that credits future growth. Everything that measures the business as it stands lands well underneath. The asset-value lenses are furthest off, with the shares at about 4.6 times where that family points, and the earnings-power methods land at roughly 2.9 times where those methods reach. That is the shape of a durability premium: the buyer is not paying for what this company has earned, but for the assumption it keeps earning at this rate for a very long time. Priced out, the assumption runs to about 17.7 years of compounding at the pace the business can self-fund. Of the companies that have grown that fast, only about 15% held it even a decade.

The trailing record does not make that assumption easy to underwrite. On a twelve-month basis the company shows a GAAP loss, and while the cause is non-cash, the cause is also the point. The fourth quarter of 2025 carried a $301 million goodwill write-off against the semiconductor product business, tied to the IXYS and Dortmund acquisitions, taken because sales and profitability came in below what was originally expected. The bull case rests substantially on management's ability to buy things well. That charge is the company's own accounting judgment that it did not, at least once, at scale.

The segment mix carries the same tension. Electronics grew 18.1% and Industrial 45.3% in the first quarter, but Transportation, at $170 million, grew 5.3% with a 14.1% operating margin, the weakest of the three on both counts. Passenger car and commercial vehicle electronics are cyclical, tied to build rates the company does not control, and the durability premium in the quote leans on exactly that franchise. When the piece the price depends on is also the piece growing slowest, the margin for error narrows.

Then there is concentration in the good news. Of the 45.3% Industrial grew, 39 points came from an acquisition that closed in December. Strip it out and the underlying business grew at a rate that looks a great deal more ordinary. The same applies to the headline 19% consolidated increase against 9% organic. Acquired growth is real growth, but it is bought, and it laps: a year from now Basler is in the base and the comparison gets harder rather than easier.

The honest concession is that the balance sheet gives this company time. Net debt of $149.7 million is trivial against its earning power, interest coverage runs about 11 times, and nothing here suggests financial distress under any plausible downturn. The bear case is not solvency. It is that a business with cyclical end markets, a written-down acquisition history and a recent recovery that is partly purchased is being valued as though the recovery is structural and permanent. If the semiconductor and vehicle cycles behave the way they have always behaved, the static methods will look less pessimistic in hindsight than they do today.

Valuation

This is a components company being valued as a compounder, and the entire question is whether that is the right frame. Take the price apart and only the forward-growth methods reach it. The asset-value lenses sit furthest below, with the shares at roughly 4.6 times where that family lands, and the earnings-power methods at about 2.9 times where those methods reach. Peer comparison lands closer but still short. When one family clears and three do not, the price is paying for durability the static frames are structurally unable to price, and the size of that gap is the size of the premium.

Stated as an assumption rather than a ratio, the price embeds operating profit compounding at the pace the business can fund from its own earnings for about 17.7 years. Nothing in the recent record contradicts the rate. What the record does not yet supply is the persistence, and the block of comparable fast growers that sustained such a pace for even a decade is a small minority of the ones that started.

One accounting fact distorts nearly every backward-looking figure here and deserves stating plainly. The fourth quarter of 2025 carried a $301 million non-cash goodwill charge against the semiconductor product business, which pushed full-year GAAP results to a loss of $2.89 a share even as the company reported adjusted earnings of $10.68, up 34%. That charge sits inside the trailing twelve months the static methods consume. It depresses the book value those asset lenses start from, it eliminates the trailing profit the earnings lenses would capitalize, and it is the reason several standard earnings models cannot be run at all. The four-and-a-half-times distance from the asset family is therefore measuring a company whose recorded equity was cut by a write-off, not a company whose economics collapsed. Underneath that charge, trailing operating profit still runs to $361.5 million, and the first quarter delivered a 15.4% GAAP operating margin, up 270 basis points from a year earlier.

Solvency does not constrain anything. Net debt is $149.7 million, roughly four tenths of a year's operating profit, with interest covered about 11 times. The company held $482 million on hand against $631.5 million of total borrowings at the end of the first quarter. Share count has been essentially flat over four years, so per-share progress here comes from the business rather than from retiring stock, and the balance sheet's real function is to fund the next acquisition rather than to cushion a downturn it is unlikely to face.

What remains is a mix question. The quote leans on the transportation franchise for its durability premium, while the growth actually showing up is in Electronics and in the newly acquired industrial power business, which grew 45.3% in the first quarter with 39 of those points bought rather than built. Whether that mismatch resolves upward or downward is the practical question underneath a number as abstract as a seventeen-year horizon.

Catalysts

The next information event is close. Second-quarter results are due before the market opens on July 29, with the call the same morning. Company guidance calls for sales of $690 million to $710 million, roughly 14% above the prior year, adjusted earnings of $3.65 to $3.85 a share, and an adjusted tax rate of 21% to 22%. Two lines inside that print matter more than the headline: whether Transportation improves on the 5.3% growth and 14.1% operating margin it posted in the first quarter, and whether Industrial holds its pace once the acquired contribution is separated out.

Basler is the swing factor for the rest of the year. Management described the integration as running ahead of plan on the first-quarter call, and the business was bought for roughly $350 million to give the company a position in high-power grid and generator controls. It closed in December, so the first genuinely comparable quarter does not arrive until the end of 2026. Until then, every consolidated growth figure the company reports carries a purchased component that has to be read out by hand.

The longer-dated item is data-center design activity. The company said its data-center design wins doubled year over year when it reported 2025 results. In this industry a design win converts to revenue over several quarters rather than immediately, so the effect of that pipeline should start appearing in the Electronics and Industrial lines through the back half of this year and into next. If it does not, the durability the price is paying for becomes considerably harder to argue.

Peer Cohorts (Per Segment, With Filing Citations)

Electronics (reported)

Transportation (reported)

Industrial (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

Littelfuse Q4 and full year 2025 results, January 2026 · Littelfuse Q1 2026 results, May 6, 2026 · Littelfuse acquisition announcement, October 2025

View the full interactive LFUS report on boothcheck