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Hexcel

HXL on NYSE. Hexcel sells carbon fiber and composite materials to aircraft and industrial manufacturers. Market value $6.5bn.

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.

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 Industrials stocks on the list

This is not advice. Check the numbers below.

Compare with another stock

Cash yield
past 12 months to June 2026
3.9%fair

For every $100 of what the whole company costs, it produced $3.93 of spare cash in the past 12 months. A savings account pays about $4.

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

You pay 32.5 years of operating profit for the business. The average large US company costs around 18.

Return on capital
five annual reports to December 2025
6.4%five-year median

Each dollar kept in the business earns 6 cents a year. Above 10 is good.

Quality score: 80 of 100. Price score: 34 of 100. Our list needs 70 on quality and 60 on price.

$86.01 a share, 41% above its 1-year low

Over the past year the price has ranged from $60.82 to $111.74.

Dividend: 0.8% a year

Paid every year for 4 years

Prices from Tuesday’s close (6 October).

Five years of cash, in billions

0.1
0.1
0.1
0.2
0.2
0.3
2021202220232024202512 monthsto Jun '26

Spare cash swings from quarter to quarter here: $256 million in the past 12 months, $157 million in the year to December 2025.

Revenue
$1.3bn$1.6bn$1.8bn$1.9bn$1.9bn
Operating margin
3.9%11.1%12.0%9.8%9.1%
Debt to equity
0.550.470.410.460.79
Shares outstanding
0.08bn0.08bn81002.13bn0.08bn0.08bn

Health checks

  • Free cash flow positive5 of 5 years
  • Accounting looks honest (Beneish)Nothing unusual
  • Financial strength (Piotroski)7 of 9
  • Profit backed by cash (accruals)Yes
  • Debt0.79× equity
  • Revenue growth, five yearsSlow, 4.7% a year
  • Buying back its own sharesYes, 10% fewer since 2021

The quarter to June 2026

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

  • Sales: $529 million last quarter, up 8% on a year ago.
  • Profit: $49 million, up 265% on a year ago.
  • It keeps 12 cents of each $1 of sales as operating profit, up from 7 cents a year earlier.
  • Spare cash over the past 12 months: $256 million, up from $171 million.
  • 5% fewer shares than a year ago. Each share owns a bit more of the company.
  • Debt is $897 million more than cash, up from $751 million a year ago.
  • Sales grew on a year ago in 3 of the last 4 quarters.
Sales by quarter
Sales by quarter
Quarter toAmount
September 2024$457m
December 2024$474m
March 2025$457m
June 2025$490m
September 2025$456m
December 2025$491m
March 2026$502m
June 2026$529m
Profit by quarter
Profit by quarter
Quarter toAmount
September 2024$40m
December 2024$6m
March 2025$29m
June 2025$14m
September 2025$21m
December 2025$46m
March 2026$37m
June 2026$49m

From the company's quarterly reports to the SEC.

Dates

Next results (estimated)
n/a
Last annual report (10-K)
11 February 2026
Next quarterly (estimated, 10-Q)
28 October 2026

Who owns it

5 long-term investors we follow own it, unchanged from 5 last quarter. 530 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

5 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. 5 sold $3m.

  • Lehman Gail E
    See Remarks
    Sold
    Date
    3 September 2026
    Shares
    13,829
    Price
    $92.10
    Value
    $1m
  • Fitzsimons Gina
    See Remarks
    Sold
    Date
    14 August 2026
    Shares
    9,675
    Price
    $103.14
    Value
    $997,871
  • Evans Amy S
    See Remarks
    Sold
    Date
    27 February 2026
    Shares
    1,500
    Price
    $92.80
    Value
    $139,200
  • Winterlich Patrick
    EVP, CFO
    Sold
    Date
    29 October 2025
    Shares
    3,413
    Price
    $73.34
    Value
    $250,309
  • Smith Lyndon John
    see remarks
    Sold
    Date
    27 October 2025
    Shares
    2,077
    Price
    $73.02
    Value
    $151,663

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 11 Feb 2026, plus the 10-Q filed 29 Jul 2026 and 8 later 8-Ks.

  • One big customer

    Worth knowing

    One customer brings in a big share of sales: 39% last year. Losing that customer would hurt.

    “For the years ended December 31, 2025 and December 31, 2024, approximately 39% and 40% of our total consolidated sales, respectively, were to Airbus, and its related subcontractors and approximately 13% and 15% of our total consolidated sales, respectively, were to Boeing and its related subcontractors.”

    From the 10-K filed 11 February 2026, Item 1A. Risk Factors. 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

  • It isn't cheap on profits: 32.5× 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
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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.