Kadant

KAI on NYSE. Kadant sells machines and systems to paper, packaging, mining and food processing companies. Market value $3.2bn.

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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?

Worth a closer look

Read what could go wrong

This is not advice. Check the numbers below.

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Cash yield
past 12 months to June 2026
5.1%fair

For every $100 of what the whole company costs, it produced $5.14 of spare cash in the past 12 months. A savings account pays about $4.

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

You pay 20.1 years of operating profit for the business. The average large US company costs around 18.

Return on capital
five annual reports to December 2025
13.0%five-year median

Each dollar kept in the business earns 13 cents a year. Above 10 is good.

Quality score: 97 of 100. Price score: 66 of 100. Our list needs 70 on quality and 60 on price.

$263.66 a share, 8% above its 1-year low

Over the past year the price has ranged from $244.87 to $354.07.

Dividend: 0.5% a year

Paid every year for at least 5 years

Prices from Tuesday’s close (6 October).

Five years of cash, in billions

0.1
0.1
0.1
0.1
0.2
0.2
2021202220232024202512 monthsto Jun '26
Revenue
$787m$905m$958m$1.1bn$1.1bn
Operating margin
14.8%18.9%17.3%16.3%14.9%
Debt to equity
0.480.310.140.340.38
Shares outstanding
0.01bn0.01bn0.01bn0.01bn0.01bn

Health checks

  • Free cash flow positive5 of 5 years
  • Accounting looks honest (Beneish)Nothing unusual
  • Financial strength (Piotroski)6 of 8 checks we could run
  • Profit backed by cash (accruals)Yes
  • Debt0.38× equity
  • Revenue growth, five yearsStrong, 10.6% a year
  • Buying back its own sharesRoughly flat

The quarter to June 2026

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

  • Sales: $313 million last quarter, up 23% on a year ago.
  • Profit: $32 million, up 24% on a year ago.
  • It keeps 15 cents of each $1 of sales as operating profit, down from 16 cents a year earlier.
  • Spare cash over the past 12 months: $160 million, up from $150 million.
  • About the same number of shares as a year ago.
  • Debt is $376 million more than cash, up from $154 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$272m
December 2024$258m
March 2025$239m
June 2025$255m
September 2025$272m
December 2025$286m
March 2026$282m
June 2026$313m
Profit by quarter
Profit by quarter
Quarter toAmount
September 2024$32m
December 2024$24m
March 2025$24m
June 2025$26m
September 2025$28m
December 2025$24m
March 2026$26m
June 2026$32m

From the company's quarterly reports to the SEC.

Dates

Next results (estimated)
n/a
Last annual report (10-K)
3 March 2026
Next quarterly (estimated, 10-Q)
11 November 2026

Who owns it

5 long-term investors we follow own it, unchanged from 5 last quarter. 324 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

6 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. 4 sold $1m.

  • KRAUSE STACY D.
    SVP, GC and Secretary
    Sold
    Date
    27 May 2026
    Shares
    1,227
    Price
    $334.17
    Value
    $410,027
  • Blanchard Thomas Andrew
    Vice President
    Sold
    Date
    18 May 2026
    Shares
    1,400
    Price
    $322.04
    Value
    $450,856
  • Russell Erin L
    Director
    Sold
    Date
    25 November 2025
    Shares
    1,435
    Price
    $282.36
    Value
    $405,187
  • O'Mara Rebecca Martinez
    Director
    Sold
    Date
    11 November 2025
    Shares
    699
    Price
    $266.91
    Value
    $186,569

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 3 Mar 2026, plus the 10-Q filed 12 Aug 2026 and 5 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.

What changed in the risks this year

Companies must list what could hurt them each year. These are the parts that changed since last year’s report.

  • Operating globally subjects us to changes in government regulations and policies in multiple jurisdictions around the world, including those related to tariffs and trade barriers, taxation, exchange controls and political risks.

    Already happened
    In 2025, the Trump Administration imposed a series of tariffs against U.S. trading partners pursuant to the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA). On February 20, 2026, the Supreme Court ruled these tariffs unlawful but did not address potential refunds for tariffs paid under IEEPA. The Trump Administration immediately imposed new global tariffs pursuant to Section 122 of the Trade Act of 1974, which allows for tariffs of up to 15% for a period of up to 150 days. Our business has been negatively affected by the IEEPA tariffs and may be negatively affected in the future by this quickly evolving tariff situation and the economic uncertainty created thereby.
    Read more

Read it in the annual report

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.