TRIMAS CORPORATION (TRS): what the price requires
The current priced-in claim for TRIMAS CORPORATION (TRS) is temporarily suppressed because the live engine record is unavailable. The dated report remains a snapshot, not a current market read.
Generated: 2026-07-14 · Exported: 2026-07-16 · Source: https://boothcheck.com/report/TRS
Headline
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| Ticker | TRS |
| Company | TRIMAS CORPORATION |
| Sector / Industry | Industrials / Industrial Machinery |
| Current price | $40.72/sh |
| Composition | Consumer Products 68% / Industrial 32% |
What The Price Requires (Inversion)
The assumption today's price embeds, recovered by inverting the valuation.
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| Inversion basis | whole-company |
| Operating margin needed | 3.3% |
| Operating margin today | 8.7% |
| Margin compression implied | -5.4pp |
| Multiple paid | 12x operating income |
The operating-margin requirement is derived from the framework's value band at year 12, a separately labeled basis from the headline growth/duration solve.
The price sits below what even a 5%/yr operating-profit decline would warrant; the inversion reports a bound, not a solved growth path.
Solve inputs: computed at a 7.8% cost of capital with 4% terminal growth over a 5-year stage.
Reconcile: at the x-ray's 9.3% required return this reads ~-0.5%/yr; the models below use their own rates.
How unusual the bet is: within-range
| Reference | Value |
|---|---|
| vs own history | +0.08σ |
| cohort percentile (of 225 peers) | 11 |
| implied end-window share | 0% |
Valuation X-Ray
The price is supported by asset-based and earnings-power and relative-multiple 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.
| Family | Median price/FV | Models | Reads |
|---|---|---|---|
| Asset | 1.17x | 3 | expensive |
| Earnings | 1.09x | 3 | expensive |
| Relative | 0.70x | 3 | justifies |
| Growth | 0.87x | 3 | justifies |
Families that justify the price: Asset, Earnings, Relative, Growth
The models below discount at their own flat-beta convention rates (cost of equity 9.3%, WACC 7.4%); the inversion above states its own rate.
Per-Model Detail (n=12)
| Model | Family | FV | Price/FV | Applicable | Methodology |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| DCF Perpetual Growth | Growth | $49.74 | 0.82x | yes | FCF base $0.0B, growth 1% (input: historical growth), terminal g 1.3%, WACC 7.4%, 5yr projection |
| DCF Exit Multiple | Growth | $46.99 | 0.87x | yes | Exit EV/EBITDA: 8.4x / 10.4x / 12.4x (bear / base = today's held flat / bull), 5yr |
| Relative Valuation | Relative | $57.97 | 0.70x | yes | P/S fallback (negative EPS): Sector P/S 2.5x × TTM revenue — excluded from consensus |
| Simple DDM | Growth | — | — | no | — |
| Two-Stage DDM | Growth | — | — | no | — |
| Simple Excess Return | Asset | $38.74 | 1.05x | yes | Reference only (book value floor): BV/sh $38.74, ROE negative |
| Two-Stage Excess Return | Asset | $34.86 | 1.17x | yes | Reference only (book value with convergence): BV/sh $38.74, ROE converges to ke |
| Discounted Future Market Cap | Growth | $30.76 | 1.32x | yes | Rev $0.9B, growth 1% (input: historical growth; tapered), Terminal P/S: 1.5x / 1.8x / 2.0x (bear / base = today's held flat / bull, cap 8x) |
| Peter Lynch Fair Value | Relative | $0.00 | — | no | Negative/zero EPS — earnings-based value floored at $0 |
| Margin Trajectory | Growth | — | — | no | — |
| Earnings Power Value | Earnings | $47.50 | 0.86x | yes | Normalized EBIT (5y avg op income, one-time charges added back) $0.07B × (1−21%) / WACC 7.4% → EPV (no growth) |
| Residual Income | Asset | — | — | no | — |
| Graham Number | Asset | — | — | no | — |
| EV/EBITDA Relative | Relative | $43.38 | 0.94x | yes | EBITDA $0.06B × sector EV/EBITDA 12.0x |
| FCF Yield | Earnings | $37.22 | 1.09x | yes | FCF $48.3M / Kₑ 9.3% — zero-growth perpetuity |
| SBC-Adj FCF Yield | Earnings | $33.87 | 1.20x | yes | SBC-adj FCF $0.04B (FCF $0.05B − SBC $0.01B) capitalized at Kₑ |
| Ben Graham Formula | Earnings | — | — | no | — |
| ROIC-Justified P/B | Asset | $4.93 | 8.26x | yes | BV $38.74 × (ROIC 0.9% / WACC 7.4%) |
| P/Sales Sector | Relative | $57.97 | 0.70x | yes | Revenue $0.87B × sector P/S 2.5x |
| PEG Fair Value | Relative | — | — | no | — |
| Earnings Yield | Earnings | — | — | no | — |
| Funds From Operations Multiple | Relative | — | — | no | — |
| Clinical Phase NPV | Growth | — | — | no | — |
| Merton | Asset | — | — | no | — |
| V5 Mechanical | — | — | — | no | — |
Solvency
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| Net cash | $835.5m |
| Net debt / NOPAT (after-tax) | -18.31x (net cash) |
| Net debt / operating income (pre-tax) | -14.47x (net cash) |
| Interest coverage | 3.1x |
| Share count CAGR (buyback) | -3.5% |
| Burning cash | no |
Bullet Takeaways
- TriMas sold its aerospace business in March 2026 for net proceeds of $1.24 billion, leaving a company with $913 million of net cash against a $1.55 billion market cap and two remaining segments, led by Packaging, which the 10-K reports at "net sales: $535.5 million; operating profit: $68.1 million".
- The headline numbers mislead in both directions: the trailing P/E near 2x is an artifact of the one-time sale gain, while the real question is whether a mid-single-digit-margin packaging business plus a cash pile deserves more than the market is paying.
- Watch capital deployment: roughly 4.5 million shares repurchased since the divestiture announcement, full-year guidance of 3% to 6% sales growth with over 300 basis points of operating margin improvement, and adjusted diluted EPS of $1.50 to $1.70.
Bull Case
The balance sheet is the story, and it is an unusual one: TriMas holds $913 million of net cash against a market capitalization of $1.55 billion. Nearly six dollars of every ten in the stock price is cash, the residue of the aerospace divestiture completed March 16 for approximately $1,456.9 million, netting $1,241.8 million after tax. Management is not sitting on it politely. Roughly 1.5 million shares were repurchased in the March quarter alone and about 4.5 million since the divestiture was announced, better than a tenth of the company, with trailing-year buybacks totaling $157.4 million. When a management team sells a division at a premium and immediately directs the proceeds at its own discounted shares, it is telling you where it thinks the value is.
The business left behind is better than the melted-down multiple suggests. The core is Packaging, which the 10-K reports at "net sales: $535.5 million; operating profit: $68.1 million", a 12.7% segment margin on products the filing describes as largely "custom-designed and engineered to meet customer-specific" requirements, the sticky end of dispensing and closure products where specifications, not price lists, hold customers. The March quarter showed the growth engine intact, with net sales up 10.4% year over year on 7.3% organic growth, and continuing-operations income up 51% to $9 million. Guidance points the same way: 3% to 6% sales growth, more than 300 basis points of operating margin expansion as stranded costs come out, and adjusted diluted earnings per share of $1.50 to $1.70.
The valuation asks almost nothing. Every method family lands at or above the price, with asset-based approaches far above it, and unwinding the price shows it sits below what even a 5%-a-year operating-profit decline would warrant. Book value per share stands at $38.74 against a $41.40 stock. The filing adds the kicker: "Strategic acquisitions are a core component of TriMas' long-term growth strategy", and with this much cash and, in the filing's words, a strong free cash flow profile, the company can buy growth for the Packaging platform without leverage.
Bear Case
Face the structural fact first: the business that made TriMas interesting was sold in March. Aerospace, the fast-growing, high-margin fastener and engineered-components franchise, went out the door for $1.46 billion, and what remains is a packaging company with a small specialty-products attachment that together earned $9 million of continuing-operations income in the March quarter. The $21.40 of headline quarterly earnings per share was the accounting gain on selling the crown jewel, which makes the trailing P/E near 2x a mirage; on the guided adjusted earnings of $1.50 to $1.70, the stock trades at roughly 25 times forward adjusted earnings, a full industrial-compounder multiple for a business that has not yet demonstrated compounder economics.
The remaining operations carry real, disclosed frictions. Company-wide operating margin runs about 6.2% today, and first-quarter operating income actually fell 3.6% year over year even as sales grew. The 10-K is candid about the environment: "Many of the markets we serve are highly competitive, which could limit sales volumes and reduce our operating margins", and 2025 brought "higher input costs as a direct result of tariffs imposed on certain raw materials and components imported from China", only partially passed through to customers. Corporate costs still carry legacy weight, including $5.5 million of asbestos-related expense disclosed in the segment reconciliation, and the Specialty Products unit, at $110.2 million of sales, is subscale in cyclical industrial channels.
The biggest risk is what happens to the money. Nine hundred million of net cash earning money-market returns dilutes the very margin story the guidance promises, and the stated strategy, that "Strategic acquisitions are a core component" of long-term growth, is exactly how mid-cap industrials historically converted divestiture windfalls into goodwill impairments. The buyback is the disciplined path, but it is being executed at prices the earnings-anchored methods only barely support, and the common dividend, at $0.04 per share declared last fiscal year, offers no floor while shareholders wait. If redeployment disappoints, the stock becomes what remains after the mirage fades: a 6%-margin packaging business at a premium forward multiple, holding cash that belongs to a strategy not yet named.
Valuation
The price is best read as a bound rather than a bet. At $41.40 (July 10, 2026), TriMas trades at about 12x operating income on the framework's continuing-operations base, a level low enough that the price sits below what even a 5%-a-year operating-profit decline would warrant. The margin requirement is similarly undemanding: about 3.3% long-run against the roughly 6.2% the company earns today. Two operating-income bases need one bridge sentence: the framework's record basis runs near $75 million while the trailing EDGAR quarters show about $41 million, the gap being divestiture-period noise and stranded costs, and the guided margin recovery of more than 300 basis points is management's claim about which number describes the go-forward business.
Every method family supports the price, with asset-based approaches far above it, which is what happens when $913 million of net cash and a $38.74 book value sit under a $41.40 stock: the market is paying roughly the balance sheet and getting the operating business at close to nothing. Earnings-power methods land at 1.1x the price, peer multiples at 0.9x, and growth methods at 0.8x. The composition of the remaining company anchors those reads in disclosed numbers: the 10-K reports Packaging at "net sales: $535.5 million; operating profit: $68.1 million" alongside Specialty Products at $110.2 million of sales, so the segment carrying the value earns a 12.7% margin even while the consolidated figure digests transition costs.
Solvency is not a topic; the balance sheet is net cash by a wide margin, and the trailing year returned $163.9 million to shareholders, almost entirely through buybacks. The variable that decides the next leg is arithmetic on the guided range: adjusted earnings of $1.50 to $1.70 puts the forward multiple in the mid-20s on operations alone, so either the margin expansion lands and grows into that multiple, or the cash gets deployed into earnings that do. The current price pays for the cash and the packaging franchise as they are, which is why the downside reads as bounded and the upside as a management-execution question.
Catalysts
The transformation is weeks old, so the catalysts are mostly about deployment. The aerospace divestiture closed March 16, 2026, generating $1,241.8 million of net proceeds and a $1,040.0 million pre-tax gain, and leaving net cash of $913 million. Management repurchased nearly 1.5 million shares during the first quarter, about 4.5 million since the divestiture announcement, taking shares outstanding to 36.3 million at quarter end. Each subsequent quarter's buyback pace, and any announced acquisition for the Packaging platform, is the primary repricing event; the 10-K names strategic acquisitions as a core component of long-term growth, so a deal of size is a matter of when and what, not whether.
The operating calendar tests the guidance. Management guided 2026 to sales growth of 3% to 6%, operating margin improvement of more than 300 basis points as stranded costs come out, and adjusted diluted earnings per share of $1.50 to $1.70. The first quarter started on pace, with net sales up more than 10% year over year to $168 million on 7.3% organic growth and continuing-operations income up 51% to $9 million. The summer print shows whether the margin bridge is tracking, with the tariff-driven input costs on Chinese raw materials that the 10-K flagged in 2025 as the main external swing factor on the cost line. A capped watch item: legacy corporate expenses, including asbestos-related costs, shrinking as a share of a now-smaller company is part of the 300-basis-point promise.
Peer Cohorts (Per Segment, With Filing Citations)
Packaging (reported)
- ATR (AptarGroup, Inc)
- (no filing in the citation store)
- SLGN (SILGAN HOLDINGS INC)
- (no filing in the citation store)
- AMCR (AMCOR PLC)
- (no filing in the citation store)
- CCK (CROWN HOLDINGS, INC.)
- (no filing in the citation store)
- GPK (Graphic Packaging Holding Co)
- (no filing in the citation store)
- OI (O-I GLASS, INC.)
- (no filing in the citation store)
Specialty Products (reported)
- WOR (WORTHINGTON ENTERPRISES, INC)
- (no filing in the citation store)
- GTLS (CHART INDUSTRIES, INC.)
- (no filing in the citation store)
- MWA (MUELLER WATER PRODUCTS, INC.)
- (no filing in the citation store)
- GGG (GRACO INC.)
- (no filing in the citation store)
- NDSN (NORDSON CORPORATION)
- (no filing in the citation store)
- ITT (ITT INC.)
- (no filing in the citation store)
- DCI (DONALDSON COMPANY, INC.)
- (no filing in the citation store)
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.
- 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.
Sources
Q1 2026 10-Q, April 2026 · Q1 2026 earnings call, April 30, 2026 · Q1 2026 earnings, April 2026 · Q1 2026 earnings call, April 2026 · Q1 2026 10-Q and earnings call, April 2026