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CoreCivic

CXW on NYSE. CoreCivic operates prisons and immigrant detention centers for the U.S. government. Market value $3.3bn.

Watch this stockFree. We tell you when something changes.

Price checks use the past 12 months to June 2026. Quality checks use five annual reports, the latest for the year to December 2025.

The company doesn't report operating profit, so we work it out from pre-tax profit and interest.

Should I look at this?

Good business, but not cheap right now

Why it could be worth it

What to watch out for

See cheaper Real estate stocks on the list

This is not advice. Check the numbers below.

Compare with another stock

Cash yield
past 12 months to June 2026
1.9%low

For every $100 of what the whole company costs, it produced $1.88 of spare cash in the past 12 months. A savings account pays about $4.

Price to profit
past 12 months to June 2026
17.8×full

You pay 17.8 years of operating profit for the business. The average large US company costs around 18.

Return on capital
five annual reports to December 2025
5.4%five-year median

Each dollar kept in the business earns 5 cents a year. Above 10 is good.

Quality score: 71 of 100. Price score: 55 of 100. Our list needs 70 on quality and 60 on price.

$31.78 a share, 102% above its 1-year low

Over the past year the price has ranged from $15.74 to $36.55.

Dividend: 0.0% a year

Paid every year for at least 5 years

Prices from Tuesday’s close (6 October).

Five years of cash, in billions

0.2
0.1
0.2
0.2
0.1
0.1
2021202220232024202512 monthsto Jun '26
Revenue
$1.9bn$1.8bn$1.9bn$2.0bn$2.2bn
Operating margin
9.2%13.6%8.9%8.1%9.9%
Debt to equity
1.130.880.750.670.88
Shares outstanding
0.11bn0.11bn0.11bn0.10bn0.10bn

Health checks

  • Free cash flow positive5 of 5 years
  • Accounting looks honest (Beneish)Not enough data
  • Financial strength (Piotroski)7 of 8 checks we could run
  • Profit backed by cash (accruals)Yes
  • Debt0.88× equity
  • Revenue growth, five yearsSlow, 3.0% a year
  • Buying back its own sharesYes, 14% fewer since 2021

The quarter to June 2026

How the business did, compared with the same quarter a year earlier.

  • Sales: $685 million last quarter, up 27% on a year ago.
  • Profit: $37 million, down 4% on a year ago.
  • Spare cash over the past 12 months: $59 million, down from $171 million.
  • 9% fewer shares than a year ago. Each share owns a bit more of the company.
  • Debt is $1.2 billion more than cash, up from $901 million a year ago.
  • Sales grew on a year ago in each of the last 4 quarters.
Sales by quarter
Sales by quarter
Quarter toAmount
September 2024$492m
December 2024$479m
March 2025$489m
June 2025$538m
September 2025$580m
December 2025$604m
March 2026$615m
June 2026$685m
Profit by quarter
Profit by quarter
Quarter toAmount
September 2024$21m
December 2024$19m
March 2025$25m
June 2025$39m
September 2025$26m
December 2025$27m
March 2026$38m
June 2026$37m

From the company's quarterly reports to the SEC.

Dates

Next results (estimated)
n/a
Last annual report (10-K)
20 February 2026
Next quarterly (estimated, 10-Q)
5 November 2026

Who owns it

2 long-term investors we follow own it, unchanged from 2 last quarter. 278 funds in all.

Jun '25
Dec '25
Jun '26
Largest holders overall

From 13F filings for the quarter ended 30 June 2026.

Big holders and activists

4 investors own more than 5%.

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. 10 sold $18m, $3m of it under preset trading plans.

  • Carter, Cole G.
    Chief Administrative Officer
    Sold
    under a preset trading plan
    Date
    1 October 2026
    Shares
    12,500
    Price
    $32.02
    Value
    $400,250
  • Swenson Daren
    EVP, Chief Corr & Reentry Ofcr
    Sold
    Date
    11 September 2026
    Shares
    20,000
    Price
    $34.85
    Value
    $697,000
  • Carter, Cole G.
    Chief Administrative Officer
    Sold
    under a preset trading plan
    Date
    1 September 2026
    Shares
    12,500
    Price
    $32.44
    Value
    $405,500
  • PRANN JOHN R JR
    Director
    Sold
    Date
    26 August 2026
    Shares
    3,098
    Price
    $34.00
    Value
    $105,332
  • Grande Anthony L
    EVP, Chief Development Officer
    Sold
    Date
    26 August 2026
    Shares
    12,564
    Price
    $33.85
    Value
    $425,291
  • Emkes Mark A
    Director
    Sold
    Date
    24 August 2026
    Shares
    30,000
    Price
    $34.25
    Value
    $1m
  • Grande Anthony L
    EVP, Chief Development Officer
    Sold
    Date
    24 August 2026
    Shares
    7,436
    Price
    $34.25
    Value
    $254,683
  • GARFINKLE DAVID
    EVP & Chief Financial Officer
    Sold
    Date
    21 August 2026
    Shares
    50,000
    Price
    $33.96
    Value
    $2m
  • PRANN JOHN R JR
    Director
    Sold
    Date
    21 August 2026
    Shares
    22,298
    Price
    $34.00
    Value
    $758,132
  • PRANN JOHN R JR
    Director
    Sold
    Date
    17 August 2026
    Shares
    40,000
    Price
    $33.54
    Value
    $1m

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 serious warning signs we check for were found. 1 thing worth knowing.

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 20 Feb 2026, plus the 10-Q filed 6 Aug 2026 and 9 later 8-Ks.

  • One big customer

    Worth knowing

    One customer brings in a big share of sales: 35% last year. Losing that customer would hurt.

    “ICE accounted for 35%, 29%, and 30% of total revenue for 2025, 2024, and 2023, respectively, all in the Company's CoreCivic Safety segment.”

    From the 10-K filed 20 February 2026, Item 8. Financial Statements and Notes. Read it in the filing

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

Cheap for a reason is the question the numbers cannot answer.

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
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What a finished deep dive looks like

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.