Custom Truck One Source
CTOS on NYSE. Custom Truck One Source rents and sells specialty trucks to infrastructure crews. Market value $2.2bn.
Price checks use the past 12 months to June 2026. Some use the latest annual report instead, as marked. Quality checks use five annual reports, the latest for the year to December 2025.
Cash flow or capital spending isn't reported, so free cash flow is unknown.
Recent profit includes a one-time gain, so we price the company excluding that gain.
Should I look at this?
Not a fit for our list right now
Why it could be worth it
See Technology stocks that passed both tests
This is not advice. Check the numbers below.
We could not compute this from the filings.
You pay 36.5 years of operating profit for the business. The average large US company costs around 18.
The filings do not give us enough to work this out.
Quality score: 58 of 100. Price score: 16 of 100. Our list needs 70 on quality and 60 on price.
$9.96 a share, 92% above its 1-year low
Over the past year the price has ranged from $5.18 to $12.23.
Pays no dividend
Prices from Tuesday’s close (6 October).
Five years of cash, in billions
| Revenue | |||||
| Revenue | $1.2bn | $1.6bn | $1.9bn | $1.8bn | $1.9bn |
| Operating margin | |||||
| Operating margin | -3.6% | 6.6% | 9.2% | 7.0% | 6.4% |
| Debt to equity | |||||
| Debt to equity | 1.54 | 1.54 | 1.63 | 1.77 | 2.03 |
| Shares outstanding | |||||
| Shares outstanding | 0.25bn | 0.24bn | 0.23bn | 0.23bn | 0.23bn |
Health checks
- Free cash flow positiveNot enough data
- Accounting looks honest (Beneish)Nothing unusual
- Financial strength (Piotroski)5 of 9
- Profit backed by cash (accruals)Yes
- Debt2.03× equity
- Revenue growth, five yearsStrong, 45.1% a year
- Buying back its own sharesYes, 8% fewer since 2021
The quarter to June 2026
How the business did, compared with the same quarter a year earlier.
- Sales: $563 million last quarter, up 10% on a year ago.
- Profit: $10 million, after a loss of $28 million a year ago.
- It keeps 8 cents of each $1 of sales as operating profit, up from 7 cents a year earlier.
- 1% more shares than a year ago. Each share owns a bit less of the company.
- Debt is $1.6 billion more than cash, about the same as a year ago.
- Sales grew on a year ago in each of the last 4 quarters.
| Quarter to | Amount |
|---|---|
| September 2024 | $447m |
| December 2024 | $521m |
| March 2025 | $422m |
| June 2025 | $511m |
| September 2025 | $482m |
| December 2025 | $528m |
| March 2026 | $462m |
| June 2026 | $563m |
| Quarter to | Amount |
|---|---|
| September 2024 | -$17m |
| December 2024 | $28m |
| March 2025 | -$18m |
| June 2025 | -$28m |
| September 2025 | -$6m |
| December 2025 | $21m |
| March 2026 | -$4m |
| June 2026 | $10m |
From the company's quarterly reports to the SEC.
Dates
- Next results (estimated)
- n/a
- Last annual report (10-K)
- 10 March 2026
- Next quarterly (estimated, 10-Q)
- 2 November 2026
Who owns it
4 long-term investors we follow own it, unchanged from 4 last quarter. 186 funds in all.
| Fund | Value | Share of that fund | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| First Eagle Investment ManagementMatthew McLennan | $20m | <0.1% | Added |
| Boston PartnersBoston Partners team | $19m | <0.1% | Cut |
| Heartland AdvisorsBill Nasgovitz | $8m | 0.4% | Cut |
| Hotchkis & WileyHotchkis & Wiley team | $5m | <0.1% | Cut |
Largest holders overall
- Platinum Equity Advisors$1.9bn
- Dimensional Fund Advisors LP$73mAdded
- Mirae Asset Global Etfs Holdings$73mAdded
- Canvas Wealth Advisors$71mCut
- BlackRock$54mAdded
- Vanguard Capital Management$30mAdded
- Allspring Global Investments Holdings$30mCut
- Arrowstreet Capital, Limited Partnership$26mAdded
- Goldman Sachs Group$22mAdded
- Geode Capital Management$20mAdded
From 13F filings for the quarter ended 30 June 2026.
Big holders and activists
2 investors own more than 5%.
- Platinum Equity, LLCPassive investorat least 69.6%(filed with 11 related holders)Since 30 January 2025
What they said
Item 4 of the Schedule 13D is hereby amended and supplemented as follows: Stock Purchase Agreement Item 3 above summarizes the ECP Stock Purchase Agreement and is incorporated herein by reference. General The Reporting Persons acquired the securities described in this Schedule…
Read the filing - Energy Capital Partners GP III, LPPassive investorat least 7.0%(filed with 10 related holders)Since 19 December 2024
- Mark EinSold down below 5%Since 17 October 2025
What they said
Item 4 of the Schedule 13D is hereby amended and supplemented with the following: Distribution In-Kind On October 17, 2025, Management IV distributed 3,670,279 shares of Common Stock to its members without consideration on a pro rata basis. As part of this distribution, Mr. Ein…
Read the filing - ECP ControlCo, LLCPassive investorSold down below 5%Since 30 January 2025
What they said
Item 4 of the Statement is hereby amended and supplemented as follows: Stock Repurchase Agreements On January 30, 2025, NESCO Holdings, LP and ECP Cardinal Holdings, LP (together, the "Record Holders") entered into two stock purchase agreements, pursuant to which the Record…
Read the filing
| Holder | Stake | Since | |
|---|---|---|---|
Platinum Equity, LLC Passive investor | at least 69.6% (filed with 11 related holders) | 30 January 2025 | What they saidItem 4 of the Schedule 13D is hereby amended and supplemented as follows: Stock Purchase Agreement Item 3 above summarizes the ECP Stock Purchase Agreement and is incorporated herein by reference. General The Reporting Persons acquired the securities described in this Schedule… Read the filing |
Energy Capital Partners GP III, LP Passive investor | at least 7.0% (filed with 10 related holders) | 19 December 2024 | |
Mark Ein | Sold down below 5% | 17 October 2025 | What they saidItem 4 of the Schedule 13D is hereby amended and supplemented with the following: Distribution In-Kind On October 17, 2025, Management IV distributed 3,670,279 shares of Common Stock to its members without consideration on a pro rata basis. As part of this distribution, Mr. Ein… Read the filing |
ECP ControlCo, LLC Passive investor | Sold down below 5% | 30 January 2025 | What they saidItem 4 of the Statement is hereby amended and supplemented as follows: Stock Repurchase Agreements On January 30, 2025, NESCO Holdings, LP and ECP Cardinal Holdings, LP (together, the "Record Holders") entered into two stock purchase agreements, pursuant to which the Record… Read the filing |
From Schedule 13D and 13G filings: anyone owning more than 5% must file one.
What insiders did
No insider bought or sold on the open market in the last 12 months.
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 10 Mar 2026, plus the 10-Q filed 3 Aug 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
- It carries a lot of debt: 2.0× its equity.
- It isn't cheap on profits: 36.5× operating profit.
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.