KinderCare Learning Companies
KLC on NYSE. KinderCare Learning Companies sells early education and child care to children aged six weeks to twelve. Market value $215m.
Price checks use the past 12 months to June 2026. Quality checks use five annual reports, the latest for the year to December 2025.
Recent profit includes a big one-time charge, so we price the company excluding that charge.
Should I look at this?
Look carefully before going further
Why it could be worth it
Read the warning sign in its own filings
This is not advice. Check the numbers below.
For every $100 of what the whole company costs, it produced $37.75 of spare cash in the past 12 months. A savings account pays about $4.
You pay 9.0 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: not known. Price score: 66 of 100. Our list needs 70 on quality and 60 on price.
$1.81 a share, 3% above its 1-year low
Over the past year the price has ranged from $1.75 to $6.88.
Pays no dividend
Prices from Monday’s close (5 October).
Five years of cash, in billions
| Revenue | ||
| Revenue | $2.7bn | $2.7bn |
| Operating margin | ||
| Operating margin | 3.0% | -0.7% |
| Debt to equity | ||
| Debt to equity | 1.08 | 1.23 |
| Shares outstanding | ||
| Shares outstanding | 0.12bn | 0.12bn |
Health checks
- Free cash flow positive1 of 2 years
- Accounting looks honest (Beneish)Nothing unusual
- Financial strength (Piotroski)3 of 9
- Profit backed by cash (accruals)Yes
- Debt1.23× equity
- Revenue growth, five yearsUnknown
- Buying back its own sharesRoughly flat
The quarter to June 2026
How the business did, compared with the same quarter a year earlier.
- Sales: $698 million last quarter, about the same as a year ago.
- A loss of $9 million, after a profit of $39 million a year ago.
- It loses 15 cents on each $1 of sales, after keeping 3 cents a year earlier.
- Spare cash over the past 12 months: $81 million, up from $42 million.
- About the same number of shares as a year ago.
- Debt is $755 million more than cash, down from $811 million a year ago.
- Sales grew on a year ago in 3 of the last 4 quarters.
| Quarter to | Amount |
|---|---|
| September 2024 | $671m |
| December 2024 | $647m |
| March 2025 | $668m |
| June 2025 | $700m |
| September 2025 | $677m |
| December 2025 | $688m |
| March 2026 | $673m |
| June 2026 | $698m |
| Quarter to | Amount |
|---|---|
| September 2024 | $14m |
| December 2024 | -$134m |
| March 2025 | $21m |
| June 2025 | $39m |
| September 2025 | $5m |
| December 2025 | -$177m |
| March 2026 | -$290m |
| June 2026 | -$9m |
From the company's quarterly reports to the SEC.
Dates
- Next results (estimated)
- n/a
- Last annual report (10-K)
- 13 March 2026
- Next quarterly (estimated, 10-Q)
- 12 November 2026
Who owns it
None of the long-term investors we follow own it. 106 funds in all.
Largest holders overall
- Partners Group Holding AG$346m
- American Century Companies$24mAdded
- Silver Point Capital L.P.$22mAdded
- BlackRock$9mAdded
- AQR Capital Management$8mAdded
- Millennium Management$8mAdded
- Vanguard Capital Management$6mCut
- D. E. Shaw$5mAdded
- Point72 Asset Management, L.P.$5mAdded
- Geode Capital Management$3mAdded
From 13F filings for the quarter ended 30 June 2026.
Big holders and activists
1 investor owns more than 5%.
- Partners Group Holding AGPassive investor69.0%Since 31 December 2024
| Holder | Stake | Since | |
|---|---|---|---|
Partners Group Holding AG Passive investor | 69.0% | 31 December 2024 |
From Schedule 13D and 13G filings: anyone owning more than 5% must file one.
What insiders did
In the last 12 months, 2 insiders bought $1m of shares on the open market.
- Nuzzo MichaelDirectorBought
- Date
- 19 March 2026
- Shares
- 25,000
- Price
- $2.22
- Value
- $55,500
- Wyatt John T.Chief Executive Officer, DirectorBought
- Date
- 18 March 2026
- Shares
- 275,000
- Price
- $2.07
- Value
- $569,250
- Wyatt John T.Chief Executive Officer, DirectorBought
- Date
- 17 March 2026
- Shares
- 219,118
- Price
- $1.96
- Value
- $429,471
| Date | Who | Did | Shares | Price | Value |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 19 March 2026 | Nuzzo Michael Director | Bought | 25,000 | $2.22 | $55,500 |
| 18 March 2026 | Wyatt John T. Chief Executive Officer, Director | Bought | 275,000 | $2.07 | $569,250 |
| 17 March 2026 | Wyatt John T. Chief Executive Officer, Director | Bought | 219,118 | $1.96 | $429,471 |
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.
1 serious warning sign in KinderCare Learning Companies’ filings.
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 13 Mar 2026, plus the 10-Q filed 13 Aug 2026 and 6 later 8-Ks.
Weak checks on its own accounts
SeriousThe company said its checks on its own accounts did not work at year end. Mistakes could slip into the numbers.
“Based upon that evaluation, our management, including our Chief Executive Officer and Chief Financial Officer, concluded that our disclosure controls and procedures were not effective as of January 3, 2026 due to the material weakness in internal control over financial reporting as described below.”
Show the full paragraph
As required by Rule 13a-15(b) under the Exchange Act, our management, under the supervision and with the participation of our Chief Executive Officer and Chief Financial Officer, has evaluated the effectiveness of our disclosure controls and procedures (as defined in Rules 13a-15(e) and 15d-15(f) under the Exchange Act) as of the end of the period covered by this Annual Report on Form 10-K. Based upon that evaluation, our management, including our Chief Executive Officer and Chief Financial Officer, concluded that our disclosure controls and procedures were not effective as of January 3, 2026 due to the material weakness in internal control over financial reporting as described below. However, after giving full consideration to the material weakness described below, the Company's management has concluded that its consolidated financial statements present fairly, in all material respects, its financial position, results of operations and cash flows for the periods disclosed in conformity with U.S. generally accepted accounting principles.
From the 10-K filed 13 March 2026, Item 9A. Controls and Procedures. 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
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.