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MSA Safety

MSA on NYSE. MSA Safety sells safety equipment and technology to workers in fire, energy, construction, and industry. Market value $7.1bn.

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?

Worth a closer look

Why it could be worth it

What to watch out for

Nothing stood out in the numbers we check.

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
5.0%fair

For every $100 of what the whole company costs, it produced $5.03 of spare cash in the past 12 months. A savings account pays about $4.

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

You pay 18.0 years of operating profit for the business. The average large US company costs around 18.

Return on capital
five annual reports to December 2025
14.2%five-year median

Each dollar kept in the business earns 14 cents a year. Above 10 is good.

Quality score: 98 of 100. Price score: 74 of 100. Our list needs 70 on quality and 60 on price.

$182.45 a share, 21% above its 1-year low

Over the past year the price has ranged from $151.11 to $208.92.

Dividend: 1.2% a year

Paid every year for at least 5 years

Prices from Tuesday’s close (6 October).

Five years of cash, in billions

0.2
0.1
0.1
0.2
0.3
0.4
2021202220232024202512 monthsto Jun '26
Revenue
$1.4bn$1.5bn$1.8bn$1.8bn$1.9bn
Operating margin
1.6%15.7%12.9%21.5%19.8%
Debt to equity
0.720.620.620.440.42
Shares outstanding
0.04bn0.04bn0.04bn0.04bn0.04bn

Health checks

  • Free cash flow positive5 of 5 years
  • Accounting looks honest (Beneish)Nothing unusual
  • Financial strength (Piotroski)6 of 9
  • Profit backed by cash (accruals)Yes
  • Debt0.42× equity
  • Revenue growth, five yearsSlow, 6.8% 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: $503 million last quarter, up 6% on a year ago.
  • Profit: $86 million, up 37% on a year ago.
  • It keeps 21 cents of each $1 of sales as operating profit, up from 20 cents a year earlier.
  • Spare cash over the past 12 months: $354 million, up from $253 million.
  • 2% fewer shares than a year ago. Each share owns a bit more of the company.
  • Debt is $400 million more than cash, down from $532 million 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$433m
December 2024$500m
March 2025$421m
June 2025$474m
September 2025$468m
December 2025$511m
March 2026$464m
June 2026$503m
Profit by quarter
Profit by quarter
Quarter toAmount
September 2024$67m
December 2024$88m
March 2025$60m
June 2025$63m
September 2025$70m
December 2025$87m
March 2026$71m
June 2026$86m

From the company's quarterly reports to the SEC.

Dates

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

Who owns it

10 long-term investors we follow own it, unchanged from 10 last quarter. 456 funds in all.

Jun '25
Dec '25
Jun '26

Sold out this quarter

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

In the last 12 months, 1 insider bought $71,093 of shares on the open market. 2 sold $4m.

  • Vartanian Nishan J.
    Director
    Sold
    Date
    7 August 2026
    Shares
    20,000
    Price
    $193.99
    Value
    $4m
  • Buck Jonathan D.
    Chief Accounting Officer
    Sold
    Date
    4 August 2026
    Shares
    469
    Price
    $191.00
    Value
    $89,579
  • BECK JULIE A
    Chief Financial Officer
    Bought
    Date
    11 June 2026
    Shares
    448
    Price
    $158.69
    Value
    $71,093
  • Buck Jonathan D.
    Chief Accounting Officer
    Sold
    Date
    17 February 2026
    Shares
    1,100
    Price
    $203.48
    Value
    $223,828
  • Buck Jonathan D.
    Chief Accounting Officer
    Sold
    Date
    25 November 2025
    Shares
    333
    Price
    $161.00
    Value
    $53,613

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 12 Feb 2026, plus the 10-Q filed 31 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.

  • We have significant international operations, are subject to the risks of doing business in foreign countries and global supply chains, and may be impacted by external factors including those we may be unable to control.

    Could happen
    • risks associated with restricted or delayed access to capital markets on acceptable terms necessary to execute our business strategy, fund operations, refinance existing indebtedness, and pursue strategic opportunities;

  • We have significant international operations, are subject to the risks of doing business in foreign countries and global supply chains, and may be impacted by external factors including those we may be unable to control.

    Could happen
    • costs and difficulties in managing culturally and geographically diverse international operations; and • risks associated with disruptive political events and related legal and economic uncertainty.

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.