Clearwater Paper
CLW on NYSE. Clearwater Paper sells paperboard for packaging to independent converters in North America. Market value $325m.
Price checks use the past 12 months to June 2026. Quality checks use five annual reports, the latest for the year to December 2025.
Should I look at this?
Not a fit for our list right now
Why it could be worth it
See Materials stocks that passed both tests
This is not advice. Check the numbers below.
For every $100 of what the whole company costs, it produced $17.71 of spare cash in the past 12 months. A savings account pays about $4.
The filings do not give us enough to work this out.
Each dollar kept in the business earns 1 cents a year. Above 10 is good.
Quality score: 34 of 100. Price score: 33 of 100. Our list needs 70 on quality and 60 on price.
$19.82 a share, 69% above its 1-year low
Over the past year the price has ranged from $11.73 to $23.59.
Pays no dividend
Prices from Tuesday’s close (6 October).
Five years of cash, in billions
Spare cash swings from quarter to quarter here: $57 million in the past 12 months, a shortfall of $77 million in the year to December 2025.
| Revenue | |||||
| Revenue | $1.8bn | $1.2bn | $1.1bn | $1.4bn | $1.6bn |
| Operating margin | |||||
| Operating margin | 0.7% | 8.3% | 6.9% | -4.7% | -2.7% |
| Debt to equity | |||||
| Debt to equity | 1.29 | 1.03 | 0.66 | 0.34 | 0.43 |
| Shares outstanding | |||||
| Shares outstanding | 0.02bn | 0.02bn | 0.02bn | 0.02bn | 0.02bn |
Health checks
- Free cash flow positive3 of 5 years
- Accounting looks honest (Beneish)Nothing unusual
- Financial strength (Piotroski)5 of 8 checks we could run
- Profit backed by cash (accruals)Yes
- Debt0.43× equity
- Revenue growth, five yearsShrinking, 3.6% a year
- Buying back its own sharesYes, 4% fewer since 2021
The quarter to June 2026
How the business did, compared with the same quarter a year earlier.
- Sales: $375 million last quarter, down 4% on a year ago.
- A loss of $22 million, after a profit of $3 million a year ago.
- It loses 5 cents on each $1 of sales, compared with 1 cents a year earlier.
- Spare cash over the past 12 months: $57 million. A year earlier it spent $181 million more than it brought in.
- 1% fewer shares than a year ago. Each share owns a bit more of the company.
- Debt is $274 million more than cash, down from $291 million a year ago.
- Sales grew on a year ago in 1 of the last 4 quarters.
| Quarter to | Amount |
|---|---|
| September 2024 | $393m |
| December 2024 | $387m |
| March 2025 | $378m |
| June 2025 | $392m |
| September 2025 | $399m |
| December 2025 | $386m |
| March 2026 | $360m |
| June 2026 | $375m |
| Quarter to | Amount |
|---|---|
| September 2024 | $6m |
| December 2024 | $199m |
| March 2025 | -$6m |
| June 2025 | $3m |
| September 2025 | -$53m |
| December 2025 | $38m |
| March 2026 | -$13m |
| June 2026 | -$22m |
From the company's quarterly reports to the SEC.
Dates
- Next results (estimated)
- n/a
- Last annual report (10-K)
- 18 February 2026
- Next quarterly (estimated, 10-Q)
- 27 October 2026
Who owns it
1 long-term investor we follow owns it, unchanged from 1 last quarter. 134 funds in all.
- Southeastern Asset Management (Longleaf)Mason Hawkins
- Value
- $24m
- Share of fund
- 1.3%
| Fund | Value | Share of that fund | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Southeastern Asset Management (Longleaf)Mason Hawkins | $24m | 1.3% |
Largest holders overall
- Southeastern Asset Management (Longleaf)$24m
- BlackRock$20mAdded
- Dimensional Fund Advisors LP$17mCut
- Gate City Capital Management$15mNew
- Readystate Asset Management LP$12m
- Vanguard Capital Management$11mAdded
- JPMorgan Chase$7mAdded
- AQR Capital Management$7mAdded
- Invenomic Capital Management LP$7mAdded
- Geode Capital Management$6mAdded
From 13F filings for the quarter ended 30 June 2026.
Big holders and activists
4 investors own more than 5%.
- Southeastern Asset Management (Longleaf)Passive investorat least 8.6%+2.8 pts(filed with 2 related holders)Since 31 December 2025
- BlackRock, Inc.Passive investor7.1%−1.5 ptsSince 31 March 2026
- Dimensional Fund Advisors LPPassive investor6.6%Since 30 June 2026
- Gate City Capital Management, LLCPassive investorat least 5.8%(filed with 1 related holder)Since 30 June 2026
- The Vanguard GroupPassive investorSold down below 5%Since 13 March 2026
| Holder | Stake | Since | |
|---|---|---|---|
Southeastern Asset Management (Longleaf) Passive investor | at least 8.6%+2.8 pts (filed with 2 related holders) | 31 December 2025 | |
BlackRock, Inc. Passive investor | 7.1%−1.5 pts | 31 March 2026 | |
Dimensional Fund Advisors LP Passive investor | 6.6% | 30 June 2026 | |
Gate City Capital Management, LLC Passive investor | at least 5.8% (filed with 1 related holder) | 30 June 2026 | |
The Vanguard Group Passive investor | Sold down below 5% | 13 March 2026 |
From Schedule 13D and 13G filings: anyone owning more than 5% must file one.
What insiders did
No insider bought shares on the open market in the last 12 months. 1 sold $161,246, $161,246 of it under preset trading plans.
- Bowden Steve MSr. V.P.Soldunder a preset trading plan
- Date
- 28 November 2025
- Shares
- 8,889
- Price
- $18.14
- Value
- $161,246
| Date | Who | Did | Shares | Price | Value |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 28 November 2025 | Bowden Steve M Sr. V.P. | Sold under a preset trading plan | 8,889 | $18.14 | $161,246 |
From Form 4 filings: insiders must report trades in their own company's shares within two days.
Warning signs in its filings
Problems the company itself reported to the SEC, in its own words.
None of the warning signs we check for were found.
We look for five warning signs: doubt it can keep going, weak checks on its own accounts, a notice that its past accounts can't be relied on, a change of auditor, and one customer bringing in a big share of sales. We don't check lawsuits, investigations or debt yet.
We checked the auditor's report, internal controls, restatement notices, auditor changes and big customers in the 10-K filed 18 Feb 2026, plus the 10-Q filed 28 Jul 2026 and 4 later 8-Ks.
A 10-K is the yearly report every US company files with the SEC. An 8-K is a short notice of a big event.
What could go wrong
- Sales have shrunk: 3.6% a year.
Whether the price already reflects the risks is what the deep dive is for.
The deep dive
Everything above is arithmetic on public filings. The deep dive reads the last ten years of annual reports, the proxy statements, and the earnings calls, then argues the case the way Buffett, Klarman, and Hohn would, and checks every claim against the source.
- What the business is worth, as a range, and the margin of safety at today’s price
- Prices to start buying, buy, and buy hard
- The three things that would make this a mistake
- Every number footnoted to the filing it came from
Your first deep dive is free.
Not advice. Numbers on this page come from SEC filings and are updated each night; prices are updated again after the US market closes. The five-year figures are rounded.