Central Garden & Pet Company
boothcheck covers Central Garden & Pet Company (CENT) but does not put one priced-in number on it: here the defensible answer is the evidence rather than a point estimate. boothcheck publishes no house fair value, target price, or buy/sell rating. Narrative composed July 25, 2026.
• Sales went down and profit went up: the 10-K records that ⟦"Operating income improved $64.7 million, or 34.9%, to $250.0 million in fiscal 2025"⟧ on a revenue base that shrank, driven by a wider gross margin and lower overhead rather than by volume. • The garden half of the business is a weather bet with a calendar attached, since ⟦"approximately 64% of our Garden segment's net sales occurring during the second and third fiscal quarters"⟧ means one bad spring cannot be made up later in the yea
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167 institutional managers reported holding CENT in 13F filings for the quarter ended 2026-03-31. Together they hold about 14% of the company; the top 10 hold 10%. 21 opened new positions that quarter. Held by BlackRock, Vanguard Group, Dimensional Fund Advisors, among others. On the short side, 396k shares were sold short as of the 2026-06-15 count, about 0.6% of shares outstanding (5 days of typical volume to cover).
Quarterly 13F filings arrive up to 45 days after quarter end, so the picture is never current (filed through 2026-05-29). Nothing here is investment advice.
CENT has cut its share count 11% over the past five years, spending $326.54M on repurchases. It pays no dividend. Cash returned over the past three years: $210.76M in repurchases.
Share counts are split-adjusted; repurchase totals are gross of share issuance. Nothing here is investment advice.
No open-market insider buys on file at CENT over the trailing three years. Absence is a fact about the company, not a signal. 18 officers and directors are on file.
Code P open-market purchases from SEC Form 4 filings, non-derivative, excluding scheduled 10b5-1 plans. Nothing here is investment advice.
CENT's recent reports: the day-one move, then what the following quarter actually did.
| report | day one | next quarter |
|---|---|---|
| 2023-08-04 | +15.6% | -4.7% |
| 2023-11-29 | -9.8% | +19.7% |
| 2024-02-09 | +5.5% | -4.1% |
| 2024-05-10 | +11.9% | -18.1% |
Day-one is the close-to-close move around the filing. Nothing here is investment advice.
CENT's latest 8-K filings: 2026-08-05 (items 2.02, 9.01); 2026-07-27 (items 8.01, 9.01); 2026-05-06 (items 2.02, 9.01); 2026-02-18 (items 5.02, 5.07, 8.01, 9.01); 2026-02-04 (items 2.02, 9.01).
Item codes are the SEC's own classification of what each report discloses. Dates link to the filing on EDGAR. Nothing here is investment advice.
Model solve date: 2026-Q2
Narrative composed: July 25, 2026
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For informational and research purposes only. Not investment advice. Not a recommendation to buy, sell, or hold any security. boothcheck is not a registered investment adviser. Past performance does not guarantee future results.