WORTHINGTON ENTERPRISES, INC (WOR): what the price requires
At today's price, WORTHINGTON ENTERPRISES, INC (WOR) is priced for today's economics sustained for ~9.3 years. boothcheck doesn't publish a fair value or a price target; it shows what the price assumes, so you can judge whether that bar is too high.
Generated: 2026-07-14 · Exported: 2026-07-16 · Source: https://boothcheck.com/report/WOR
Headline
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| Ticker | WOR |
| Company | WORTHINGTON ENTERPRISES, INC |
| Current price | $53.84/sh |
| Composition | Consumer Products 43% / Building Products 57% |
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 | 3.7% |
| Operating margin today | 5.6% |
| Margin compression implied | -1.9pp |
| Must persist for | 9.3y |
| Multiple paid | 39x operating income |
The operating-margin requirement is derived from the framework's value band at year 10, a separately labeled basis from the headline growth/duration solve.
Solve inputs: computed at a 9.9% cost of capital; growth searched up to the 25% self-funding ceiling; each 1pp moves the implied horizon ~2 years.
How unusual the bet is: high
| Reference | Value |
|---|---|
| vs own history | -0.10σ |
| cohort percentile (of 76 peers) | 88 |
| sustained it ~9.3 years at this level | 16% |
| implied end-window share | 0% |
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.
| Family | Median price/FV | Models | Reads |
|---|---|---|---|
| Asset | 2.02x | 5 | expensive |
| Earnings | 2.10x | 5 | expensive |
| Relative | 1.34x | 5 | expensive |
| Growth | 0.69x | 3 | justifies |
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 8.2%); the inversion above states its own rate.
Per-Model Detail (n=18)
| Model | Family | FV | Price/FV | Applicable | Methodology |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| DCF Perpetual Growth | Growth | $124.54 | 0.43x | yes | FCF base $0.2B, growth 25% (input: historical growth), terminal g 4.0%, WACC 8.2%, 5yr projection |
| DCF Exit Multiple | Growth | $73.72 | 0.73x | yes | Exit EV/EBITDA: 34.5x / 39.5x / 44.5x (bear / base = today's held flat / bull), 5yr |
| Relative Valuation | Relative | $32.83 | 1.64x | yes | P/E 16.97x (blended: static sector reference 14x + trailing (TTM) 24x), scenarios: 12.7x / 17.0x / 20.4x (bear / base = reference held flat / bull), EV/EBITDA 17.45x |
| Simple DDM | Growth | — | — | no | — |
| Two-Stage DDM | Growth | — | — | no | — |
| Simple Excess Return | Asset | $24.34 | 2.21x | yes | BV/sh $20.18, ROE (TTM) 11.2%, ke 9.3% |
| Two-Stage Excess Return | Asset | $26.63 | 2.02x | yes | 5yr excess ROE then converge to ke=9.3% |
| Discounted Future Market Cap | Growth | $78.12 | 0.69x | yes | Rev $1.3B, growth 30% (input: historical growth; tapered), Terminal P/S: 1.5x / 2.0x / 2.4x (bear / base = today's held flat / bull, cap 6x) |
| Peter Lynch Fair Value | Relative | $79.10 | 0.68x | yes | EPS $2.26, growth 35% (input: historical EPS growth), PEG=0.68 (Undervalued) |
| Margin Trajectory | Growth | — | — | no | — |
| Earnings Power Value | Earnings | $12.09 | 4.45x | yes | Normalized EBIT (5y avg op income, one-time charges added back) $0.10B × (1−25%) / WACC 8.2% → EPV (no growth) |
| Residual Income | Asset | $27.07 | 1.99x | yes | BV $20.18 + 5yr PV of (ROE (TTM) 11.2% − Kₑ 9.3%) × BV; BV grows 7.3%/yr |
| Graham Number | Asset | $32.04 | 1.68x | yes | √(22.5 × EPS $2.26 × BVPS $20.18) — Graham's conservative floor |
| EV/EBITDA Relative | Relative | $5.26 | 10.24x | yes | EBITDA $0.08B × sector EV/EBITDA 8.0x |
| FCF Yield | Earnings | $28.71 | 1.88x | yes | FCF $164.4M / Kₑ 9.3% — zero-growth perpetuity |
| SBC-Adj FCF Yield | Earnings | $25.68 | 2.10x | yes | SBC-adj FCF $0.15B (FCF $0.16B − SBC $0.01B) capitalized at Kₑ |
| Ben Graham Formula | Earnings | $72.92 | 0.74x | yes | EPS $2.26 × (8.5 + 2×15.0%) × (4.4 / 5.3%) |
| ROIC-Justified P/B | Asset | $4.30 | 12.52x | yes | BV $20.18 × (ROIC 1.7% / WACC 8.2%) |
| P/Sales Sector | Relative | $40.10 | 1.34x | yes | Revenue $1.33B × sector P/S 1.5x |
| PEG Fair Value | Relative | $84.75 | 0.64x | yes | EPS $2.26 × (PEG 1.5 × growth 25.0% (input: historical EPS growth)) → PE 37.5x |
| Earnings Yield | Earnings | $24.43 | 2.20x | yes | EPS $2.26 / required return 9.3% (Rf 4.3% + ERP 5.0%) |
| Funds From Operations Multiple | Relative | — | — | no | — |
| Clinical Phase NPV | Growth | — | — | no | — |
| Merton | Asset | — | — | no | — |
| V5 Mechanical | — | — | — | no | — |
Solvency
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| Net debt | $306.1m |
| Net debt / NOPAT (after-tax) | 5.52x |
| Net debt / operating income (pre-tax) | 4.14x |
| Interest coverage | 18.5x |
| Share count CAGR (buyback) | -11.8% |
| Burning cash | no |
Bullet Takeaways
- Capital allocation is the story: the 50/50 WAVE joint venture with Armstrong has paid Worthington more than 500 million dollars in dividends since fiscal 2022, and equity income from WAVE and ClarkDietrich totaled 144.8 million dollars in the latest year (FY2025 10-K, accession 0000950170-25-100137), cash collected from ventures it co-owns rather than operates.
- Fiscal 2026 fourth-quarter sales rose 17 percent to 371.5 million dollars and EPS jumped to 0.97 dollars, supported by the Ragasco acquisition, a consistent 0.19-dollar quarterly dividend, share repurchases, and conservative leverage.
- The risk is that the profit is venture-dependent and the moat shared: JV equity income recently declined from 167.7 to 144.8 million dollars, the standalone earnings-power frame reads near zero, and the price sits well above all asset and earnings-power frames, implying roughly 22 percent growth against low-single-digit organic results.
Bull Case
Worthington Enterprises deploys capital in a way that quietly compounds, and the clearest example is what it does not have to spend. Its 50/50 WAVE joint venture with Armstrong World Industries, the North American leader in ceiling-suspension systems, has paid Worthington more than 500 million dollars in cash dividends since fiscal 2022, cash that arrives without Worthington funding the working capital or capex itself. Equity income from WAVE and ClarkDietrich, reported within the Building Products segment, totaled 144.8 million dollars in the most recent fiscal year (FY2025 10-K, accession 0000950170-25-100137). A company that collects nine-figure cash distributions from joint ventures it does not have to operate day to day is generating returns on a capital base far smaller than its reported equity, which is why a modest 11 percent ROE understates the true economics.
Management is recycling that cash into a disciplined, returns-focused portfolio. Worthington acquired Hexagon Ragasco for roughly 98 million dollars and restructured its energy exposure by forming a joint venture with Hexagon Composites, sharpening the company around its two core segments, Consumer Products and Building Products. It maintains a consistent dividend, recently declared at 0.19 dollars a quarter, alongside meaningful share repurchases, and runs a conservative balance sheet that analysts cite approvingly. The fiscal 2026 fourth quarter showed the portfolio working: net sales rose 17 percent to 371.5 million dollars, including acquisitions plus 3 percent organic growth, and net earnings jumped to 48.1 million dollars from 3.6 million a year earlier, with EPS of 0.97 dollars.
The demand backdrop favors the building-products mix. WAVE's equity earnings are growing on commercial demand tied to data centers, healthcare, and education construction, the same secular verticals lifting the broader building-materials sector. Worthington's Building Products segment spans HVAC, metal roofing components, ceiling grid, and metal framing, products levered to non-residential construction and renovation. The valuation engine reads the price as a moat-and-durability premium, with only the growth-DCF reaching it, which fits a company whose value sits in durable joint-venture cash flows and a focused branded-products portfolio that single-period frames cannot fully capture. The bull case is a well-managed capital allocator collecting JV cash, buying carefully, and returning the rest to shareholders.
Bear Case
The advantage Worthington leans on, its joint ventures and its branded building products, is more exposed to erosion than the headline equity income suggests. The 144.8 million dollars of equity income from WAVE and ClarkDietrich is the single largest pillar of profitability, and it is not wholly within Worthington's control: WAVE is a 50/50 venture with Armstrong, and ClarkDietrich is a metal-framing business in a commoditized, cyclical category. Equity income from these ventures actually declined in the recent period, falling from 167.7 million dollars to 144.8 million dollars (FY2025 10-K, accession 0000950170-25-100137), a reminder that the cash distributions the bull case celebrates can shrink. When a company's profitability depends on ventures it co-owns rather than controls, the moat is shared, and a partner's strategy or a downturn in commercial construction can reduce the contribution without Worthington being able to offset it.
The core wholly-owned operations carry thinner, more contested economics. The Consumer Products segment sells tools, propane cylinders, and outdoor-living products into retail channels where private-label and lower-cost competitors steadily pressure shelf space and price. The Building Products segment competes in metal framing, ceiling grid, and HVAC components against larger, well-capitalized building-materials players. The normalized earnings-power read on the wholly-owned business is strikingly weak, with the zero-growth earnings-power value landing near zero, because the five-year-average operating income of the standalone enterprise, stripped of equity income and adjusted for the spinoff transition, is thin. That gap between strong reported earnings and weak normalized earnings power is the warning that much of the profit is venture-dependent.
Valuation leaves little protection for a business in transition. Worthington became a standalone company only after separating from its steel-processing operations, and the short operating history as Worthington Enterprises makes the durable-compounding premium harder to underwrite. The asset and earnings-power frames both read the stock as richly valued, with the price more than twice the asset-based excess-return reads on a book value of 20.18 dollars per share. The inversion implies roughly 22 percent annual operating growth, far above the low-single-digit organic growth the business has shown, so the price is leaning heavily on acquisitions and JV recovery to deliver. If commercial construction softens, if a JV partner shifts strategy, or if the acquisition pipeline slows, the premium has no asset or earnings-power floor near the price to fall back on.
Valuation
Worthington Enterprises is a hybrid of wholly-owned branded products and joint-venture equity income, and that structure makes its valuation X-ray unusually split. The growth-DCF family reaches the 60-dollar price, with perpetual-growth DCF near 56 dollars and exit-multiple DCF near 57 dollars. Every static frame lands lower. The relative-valuation read at a blended P/E near 18 times lands around 31 dollars, the asset-based excess-return reads near 24 to 27 dollars on a book value of 20.18 dollars per share, and the Graham number near 32 dollars. The earnings-power frame is the extreme outlier, reading near zero, because the normalized five-year-average operating income of the standalone wholly-owned business is thin once joint-venture equity income is excluded.
The engine characterizes the premium as a moat-and-durability bet, and that is a fair description: a meaningful share of Worthington's economic earnings comes from joint ventures like WAVE that the income statement reports as equity income rather than operating income, so the single-period operating-based frames understate the true profitability. Inverting the price puts the embedded bet at roughly 22 percent annual operating growth, which is high relative to the low-single-digit organic growth the segments produce, with each one-percentage-point change in the cost of capital moving the implied growth by about 7.8 points, so read it directionally.
The honest synthesis is that the right way to value Worthington is to credit the joint-venture cash flows the operating frames miss, while discounting for the fact that those flows are shared and have recently declined. The asset floor near 24 to 32 dollars is real but far below the price, so the downside in a building-construction downturn is substantial. The price is defensible only if you believe the JV income stream is durable and the acquisition-led growth continues; on the wholly-owned operations alone, the static frames say the stock is expensive. This is a quality-conglomerate-style name where the sum-of-the-parts, including the off-balance-sheet earnings, matters more than any single multiple, and the premium assumes the parts keep delivering.
Catalysts
The dominant catalyst is the trajectory of joint-venture equity income, particularly WAVE. Equity income from WAVE and ClarkDietrich declined in the most recent year, so whether it reaccelerates on commercial construction demand tied to data centers, healthcare, and education, or continues to soften, is the single largest swing factor for reported earnings. Each quarter's equity-income contribution and WAVE cash distribution is the metric to watch, because it drives a disproportionate share of profitability.
The second catalyst is the acquisition-and-portfolio strategy. The Ragasco acquisition and the Hexagon Composites energy joint venture show management actively reshaping the portfolio, so the pace of further bolt-on deals, their accretion, and the integration of recent acquisitions will determine whether the implied growth is achievable. Organic demand in the Consumer Products and Building Products segments, levered to retail and non-residential construction respectively, is the underlying signal beneath the deal activity. Capital return is a steady catalyst: the 0.19-dollar quarterly dividend and the share-repurchase pace reflect management's confidence and conservative balance-sheet posture, and the completion of facility modernization targeted by mid-fiscal-2027 should support margins.
Sources: Worthington Enterprises boosts sales 20 percent and hikes dividend, stocktitan.net; Worthington Enterprises reports Q4 and full-year fiscal 2026 results, globenewswire.com; Worthington Q4 FY26 slides, investing.com; Worthington Q3 2026 earnings transcript, fool.com.
Peer Cohorts (Per Segment, With Filing Citations)
Consumer Products (reported)
- MLI (MUELLER INDUSTRIES INC)
- (no filing in the citation store)
- TRS (TRIMAS CORPORATION)
- (no filing in the citation store)
- SWK (STANLEY BLACK & DECKER, INC.)
- (no filing in the citation store)
- MAS (Masco Corporation)
- (no filing in the citation store)
- FBIN (Fortune Brands Innovations, Inc.)
- (no filing in the citation store)
- AOS (A. O. Smith Corporation)
- (no filing in the citation store)
Building Products (reported)
- AOS (A. O. Smith Corporation)
- (no filing in the citation store)
- AWI (ARMSTRONG WORLD INDUSTRIES, INC.)
- (no filing in the citation store)
- EXP (EAGLE MATERIALS INC.)
- (no filing in the citation store)
- MAS (Masco Corporation)
- (no filing in the citation store)
- FBIN (Fortune Brands Innovations, Inc.)
- (no filing in the citation store)
- OC (Owens Corning)
- (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.