Greenbrier Companies
GBX on NYSE. Greenbrier sells rail freight cars and services to railroads, shippers, and leasing companies. Market value $1.3bn.
Price checks use the past 12 months to May 2026. Quality checks use five annual reports, the latest for the year to August 2025.
Should I look at this?
Not a fit for our list right now
Why it could be worth it
See Industrials stocks that passed both tests
This is not advice. Check the numbers below.
For every $100 of what the whole company costs, it produced $-8.96 of spare cash in the past 12 months. A savings account pays about $4.
You pay 14.6 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: 46 of 100. Price score: 61 of 100. Our list needs 70 on quality and 60 on price.
$40.53 a share, 6% above its 1-year low
Over the past year the price has ranged from $38.23 to $59.19.
Dividend: 3.2% a year
Paid every year for at least 5 years
Prices from Monday’s close (5 October).
Five years of cash, in billions
Spare cash swings from quarter to quarter here: a shortfall of $112 million in the past 12 months, a shortfall of $15 million in the year to August 2025.
| Revenue | |||||
| Revenue | $1.7bn | $3.0bn | $3.9bn | $3.5bn | $3.2bn |
| Operating margin | |||||
| Operating margin | 2.3% | 4.0% | 4.5% | 9.2% | 11.1% |
| Debt to equity | |||||
| Debt to equity | n/a | n/a | n/a | 1.28 | 1.14 |
| Shares outstanding | |||||
| Shares outstanding | 0.03bn | 0.03bn | 0.03bn | 0.03bn | 0.03bn |
Health checks
- Free cash flow positive0 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
- Debt1.14× equity
- Revenue growth, five yearsSlow, 3.0% a year
- Buying back its own sharesYes, 5% fewer since 2021
The quarter to May 2026
How the business did, compared with the same quarter a year earlier.
- Sales: $577 million last quarter, down 32% on a year ago.
- Profit: $19 million, down 69% on a year ago.
- It keeps 7 cents of each $1 of sales as operating profit, down from 12 cents a year earlier.
- Over the past 12 months it spent $112 million more cash than it brought in. A year earlier it had $76 million spare.
- 1% fewer shares than a year ago. Each share owns a bit more of the company.
- Sales did not grow on a year ago in any of the last 4 quarters.
| Quarter to | Amount |
|---|---|
| August 2024 | $1.1bn |
| November 2024 | $876m |
| February 2025 | $762m |
| May 2025 | $843m |
| August 2025 | $760m |
| November 2025 | $706m |
| February 2026 | $588m |
| May 2026 | $577m |
| Quarter to | Amount |
|---|---|
| August 2024 | $62m |
| November 2024 | $55m |
| February 2025 | $52m |
| May 2025 | $60m |
| August 2025 | $37m |
| November 2025 | $36m |
| February 2026 | $15m |
| May 2026 | $19m |
From the company's quarterly reports to the SEC.
Dates
- Next results (estimated)
- n/a
- Last annual report (10-K)
- 28 October 2025
- Next quarterly (estimated, 10-Q)
- 30 September 2026
Who owns it
6 long-term investors we follow own it, up from 4 last quarter. 269 funds in all.
- GAMCO InvestorsMario Gabelli
- Value
- $7m
- Share of fund
- <0.1%
| Fund | Value | Share of that fund | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| LSV Asset ManagementJosef Lakonishok | $37m | <0.1% | Cut |
| Donald Smith & Co.Jon Hartsel | $32m | 0.6% | New |
| Hotchkis & WileyHotchkis & Wiley team | $23m | <0.1% | Added |
| GAMCO InvestorsMario Gabelli | $7m | <0.1% | |
| Heartland AdvisorsBill Nasgovitz | $5m | 0.2% | New |
| Horizon KineticsMurray Stahl | $377,377 | <0.1% | Cut |
Largest holders overall
- BlackRock$244mCut
- Vanguard Portfolio Management$104mCut
- Dimensional Fund Advisors LP$98m
- Toronto Dominion Bank$93m
- American Century Companies$87mAdded
- Vanguard Capital Management$66m
- State Street$61mAdded
- Mirae Asset Global Etfs Holdings$40mAdded
- Geode Capital Management$39mAdded
- Atlas FRM$39mAdded
From 13F filings for the quarter ended 30 June 2026.
Big holders and activists
6 investors own more than 5%.
- BlackRock, Inc.Passive investor15.6%Since 31 March 2025
- Vanguard Portfolio ManagementPassive investor7.2%Since 31 March 2026
- Dimensional Fund Advisors LPPassive investor6.6%Since 31 March 2025
- The Toronto-Dominion BankPassive investorat least 6.2%+0.2 pts(filed with 1 related holder)Since 31 March 2026
- American Century Investment Management, Inc.Passive investorat least 5.7%(filed with 3 related holders)Since 30 June 2026
- Vanguard Capital ManagementPassive investor5.1%Since 31 March 2026
- Barrow HanleyPassive investorSold down below 5%Since 31 December 2024
- The Vanguard GroupPassive investorSold down below 5%Since 13 March 2026
| Holder | Stake | Since | |
|---|---|---|---|
BlackRock, Inc. Passive investor | 15.6% | 31 March 2025 | |
Vanguard Portfolio Management Passive investor | 7.2% | 31 March 2026 | |
Dimensional Fund Advisors LP Passive investor | 6.6% | 31 March 2025 | |
The Toronto-Dominion Bank Passive investor | at least 6.2%+0.2 pts (filed with 1 related holder) | 31 March 2026 | |
American Century Investment Management, Inc. Passive investor | at least 5.7% (filed with 3 related holders) | 30 June 2026 | |
Vanguard Capital Management Passive investor | 5.1% | 31 March 2026 | |
Barrow Hanley Passive investor | Sold down below 5% | 31 December 2024 | |
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. 2 sold $492,604.
- Glenn WilliamSVP & President, EuropeSold
- Date
- 13 July 2026
- Shares
- 4,000
- Price
- $48.15
- Value
- $192,604
- Krueger William J.SVP, COO, The AmericasSold
- Date
- 30 January 2026
- Shares
- 6,000
- Price
- $50.00
- Value
- $300,000
| Date | Who | Did | Shares | Price | Value |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 13 July 2026 | Glenn William SVP & President, Europe | Sold | 4,000 | $48.15 | $192,604 |
| 30 January 2026 | Krueger William J. SVP, COO, The Americas | Sold | 6,000 | $50.00 | $300,000 |
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 28 Oct 2025, plus the 10-Q filed 1 Jul 2026 and 9 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
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
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.