Mueller Industries

MLI on NYSE. Mueller sells copper, brass, and aluminum products and plumbing. Market value $13.9bn.

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.

We can't read total debt from the filing, so debt is left out.

Should I look at this?

Worth a closer look

Read what could go wrong

This is not advice. Check the numbers below.

Compare with another stock

Cash yield
past 12 months to June 2026
4.8%fair

For every $100 of what the whole company costs, it produced $4.78 of spare cash in the past 12 months. A savings account pays about $4.

Price to profit
past 12 months to June 2026
11.7×fair

You pay 11.7 years of operating profit for the business. The average large US company costs around 18.

Return on capital
five annual reports to December 2025
48.4%five-year median

Each dollar kept in the business earns 48 cents a year. Above 10 is good.

Quality score: 90 of 100. Price score: 93 of 100. Our list needs 70 on quality and 60 on price.

$62.97 a share, 30% above its 1-year low

Over the past year the price has ranged from $48.26 to $71.12.

Dividend: 0.8% a year

Paid every year for at least 5 years

Payouts have jumped around in recent years, so this may not repeat.

Prices from Monday’s close (5 October).

Five years of cash, in billions

0.3
0.7
0.6
0.6
0.7
0.7
2021202220232024202512 monthsto Jun '26
Revenue
$3.8bn$4.0bn$3.4bn$3.8bn$4.2bn
Operating margin
17.4%22.0%22.1%20.4%22.9%
Debt to equity
0.000.000.000.00n/a
Shares outstanding
0.06bn0.11bn0.11bn0.11bn0.22bn

Health checks

  • Free cash flow positive5 of 5 years
  • Accounting looks honest (Beneish)Not enough data
  • Financial strength (Piotroski)6 of 8 checks we could run
  • Profit backed by cash (accruals)Yes
  • DebtUnknown
  • Revenue growth, five yearsStrong, 11.7% a year
  • Buying back its own sharesNo, 289% more shares since 2021

The quarter to June 2026

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

  • Sales: $1.4 billion last quarter, up 25% on a year ago.
  • Profit: $250 million, up 2% on a year ago.
  • It keeps 23 cents of each $1 of sales as operating profit, up from 22 cents a year earlier.
  • Spare cash over the past 12 months: $666 million, up from $590 million.
  • About the same number of shares as a year ago.
  • It has $1.4 billion more cash than debt, up from $1 billion 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$998m
December 2024$924m
March 2025$1.0bn
June 2025$1.1bn
September 2025$1.1bn
December 2025$962m
March 2026$1.2bn
June 2026$1.4bn
Profit by quarter
Profit by quarter
Quarter toAmount
September 2024$169m
December 2024$138m
March 2025$157m
June 2025$246m
September 2025$208m
December 2025$154m
March 2026$239m
June 2026$250m

From the company's quarterly reports to the SEC.

Dates

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

Who owns it

7 long-term investors we follow own it, unchanged from 7 last quarter. 740 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

2 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 $82m.

  • GOLDMAN SCOTT JAY
    Director
    Sold
    Date
    27 August 2026
    Shares
    2,000
    Price
    $64.08
    Value
    $128,160
  • Martin Jeffrey Andrew
    EVP, CFO & Treasurer
    Sold
    Date
    13 August 2026
    Shares
    86,209
    Price
    $67.03
    Value
    $6m
  • Christopher Gregory L.
    Chairman of the Board & CEO, Director
    Sold
    Date
    11 August 2026
    Shares
    270,000
    Price
    $68.70
    Value
    $19m
  • Christopher Gregory L.
    Chairman of the Board & CEO, Director
    Sold
    Date
    10 August 2026
    Shares
    70,000
    Price
    $69.08
    Value
    $5m
  • HANSEN JOHN B
    Director
    Sold
    Date
    4 August 2026
    Shares
    3,444
    Price
    $67.84
    Value
    $233,640
  • GOLDMAN SCOTT JAY
    Director
    Sold
    Date
    29 May 2026
    Shares
    2,000
    Price
    $127.91
    Value
    $255,820
  • Christopher Gregory L.
    Chairman of the Board & CEO, Director
    Sold
    Date
    27 April 2026
    Shares
    103,266
    Price
    $137.29
    Value
    $14m
  • GOLDMAN SCOTT JAY
    Director
    Sold
    Date
    13 February 2026
    Shares
    4,430
    Price
    $118.97
    Value
    $527,037
  • HANSEN JOHN B
    Director
    Sold
    Date
    9 February 2026
    Shares
    1,000
    Price
    $116.71
    Value
    $116,710
  • GOLDMAN SCOTT JAY
    Director
    Sold
    Date
    25 November 2025
    Shares
    4,234
    Price
    $108.64
    Value
    $459,982

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 25 Feb 2026, plus the 10-Q filed 22 Jul 2026 and 7 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.

  • Enhanced U.S. tariffs, import/export restrictions or other trade barriers may have a negative effect on global economic conditions, financial markets and our business.

    Could happen
    There is currently significant uncertainty about the future relationship between the U.S. and various other countries with respect to trade policies, treaties, tariffs and taxes. Current or future tariffs imposed by the U.S. may negatively impact our customers’ businesses, thereby causing an indirect negative impact on our sales. For example, during 2025, the U.S. presidential administration threatened or imposed tariffs on imports from various countries, including China, Mexico, and Canada. In response, some of these countries threatened or announced tariffs on imports from the U.S. Further, on February 20, 2026, the United States Supreme Court issued a ruling striking down certain tariffs previously imposed under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA). Following the Supreme Court's decision, the U.S. presidential administration announced its intention to invoke other laws to collect tariffs and announced new tariffs on imports from all countries, in addition to any existing non-IEEPA tariffs. There remains substantial uncertainty regarding the duration of existing and newly announced tariffs, potential changes or pauses to such tariffs, tariff levels, and whether further additional tariffs or other retaliatory actions may be imposed, modified, or suspended, and the impacts of such actions on our business. The extent to which these threats will be enacted and the duration for which enacted tariffs will be in place remain uncertain and could lead to economic decline, which could negatively impact demand for our products and adversely affect our results of operations.
    Read more
  • Increases in costs and the availability of energy and raw materials used in our products could impact our cost of goods sold and our distribution expenses, which could have a material adverse impact on our operating margins.

    Already happened
    Both the costs of raw materials used in our manufactured products (copper, brass, zinc, and aluminum) and energy costs (electricity, natural gas and fuel) have been volatile during the last several years, which has resulted in changes in production and distribution costs. Fluctuations in commodities prices are caused by varied and complex factors beyond our control, including global supply and demand impacted by industry production and inventory levels; global economic and political conditions; national and international regulatory, trade and/or tax policies, including tariffs and other controls or restrictions on imports and exports; current inflation rates and expectations regarding future inflation rates; and the strength of the U.S. dollar compared to foreign currencies. For example, tariffs may impact the total cost of our products and the components and raw materials that go into manufacturing them and could adversely impact the gross margin the Company earns on its products. Fuel and utility costs also have been, and will continue to be, affected by factors outside our control, such as supply and demand for fuel and utility services in both local and regional markets, including increased demand resulting from data center development.
    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.