VSE

VSEC on Nasdaq. VSE sells aftermarket aircraft parts and repair services to commercial and government aviation operators. Market value $4.7bn.

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?

Not a fit for our list right now

See Industrials stocks that passed both tests

This is not advice. Check the numbers below.

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Cash yield
past 12 months to June 2026
-0.0%low

For every $100 of what the whole company costs, it produced $-0.02 of spare cash in the past 12 months. A savings account pays about $4.

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

You pay 45.1 years of operating profit for the business. The average large US company costs around 18.

Return on capital
five annual reports to December 2025
3.8%five-year median

Each dollar kept in the business earns 4 cents a year. Above 10 is good.

Quality score: 59 of 100. Price score: 8 of 100. Our list needs 70 on quality and 60 on price.

$168.48 a share, 9% above its 1-year low

Over the past year the price has ranged from $154.67 to $247.85.

Dividend: 0.2% a year

Paid every year for at least 5 years

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

Prices from Tuesday’s close (6 October).

Five years of cash, in billions

-0.0
-0.0
-0.0
-0.1
0.0
-0.0
2021202220232024202512 monthsto Jun '26

Spare cash swings from quarter to quarter here: a shortfall of $1 million in the past 12 months, $6 million in the year to December 2025.

Revenue
$481m$669m$544m$786m$1.1bn
Operating margin
-0.6%8.0%9.2%7.5%8.1%
Debt to equity
0.680.640.700.440.20
Shares outstanding
0.01bn0.02bn0.02bn0.02bn0.03bn

Health checks

  • Free cash flow positive1 of 5 years
  • Accounting looks honest (Beneish)Not enough data
  • Financial strength (Piotroski)7 of 8 checks we could run
  • Profit backed by cash (accruals)Yes
  • Debt0.20× equity
  • Revenue growth, five yearsStrong, 10.9% a year
  • Buying back its own sharesNo, 119% more shares since 2021

The quarter to June 2026

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

  • Sales: $449 million last quarter, up 65% on a year ago.
  • Profit: $29 million, up 792% on a year ago.
  • It keeps 9 cents of each $1 of sales as operating profit, about the same as a year earlier.
  • Over the past 12 months it spent $1 million more cash than it brought in. A year earlier it had $13 million spare.
  • 51% more shares than a year ago. Each share owns a bit less of the company.
  • Debt is $872 million more than cash, up from $362 million a year ago.
Sales by quarter
Sales by quarter
Quarter toAmount
September 2024$204m
December 2024Not reported
March 2025$256m
June 2025$272m
September 2025$283m
December 2025$301m
March 2026$325m
June 2026$449m
Profit by quarter
Profit by quarter
Quarter toAmount
September 2024$12m
December 2024$13m
March 2025-$9m
June 2025$3m
September 2025$4m
December 2025$14m
March 2026$29m
June 2026$29m

From the company's quarterly reports to the SEC.

Dates

Next results (estimated)
n/a
Last annual report (10-K)
27 February 2026
Next quarterly (estimated, 10-Q)
5 November 2026

Who owns it

4 long-term investors we follow own it, up from 3 last quarter. 381 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. 2 sold $6m, $5m of it under preset trading plans.

  • CUOMO JOHN A
    CEO and President, Director
    Sold
    under a preset trading plan
    Date
    14 September 2026
    Shares
    1,566
    Price
    $187.49
    Value
    $293,614
  • CUOMO JOHN A
    CEO and President, Director
    Sold
    under a preset trading plan
    Date
    17 August 2026
    Shares
    17,500
    Price
    $242.49
    Value
    $4m
  • Thomas Benjamin E.
    Chief Operating Officer
    Sold
    Date
    12 June 2026
    Shares
    6,500
    Price
    $196.82
    Value
    $1m

From Form 4 filings: insiders must report trades in their own company's shares within two days.

What could go wrong

  • It isn't cheap on profits: 45.1× 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.