One-glance verdict
Within fair range
$168.54 our estimate vs market $336.95
Wall Street consensus: $367.07 (117.8% higher than our fair-value estimate)
100% above our estimate
Fundamentals snapshot
Burlington Stores, Inc.
BURL · NYQ · Consumer Cyclical · Apparel Retail
Current price
$336.95
52-week range
$218.52 - $351.85
Market cap
$21.21B
Balance sheet
Distressed
11.89x Adequate
Net debt $5.12B. Interest coverage shows how many times profit covers the interest bill.
What stands out
3 Rewards
2 Risks
3 rewards · 2 risks
- Reward Revenue grew 3.0% last year.
- Reward Returns 39.1% on equity, ahead of 66% of its peers.
- Risk Net debt grew 24.6% over 3 years.
- Risk Insider ownership is only 0.6% (peer median: 1.7%).
What this company does
Burlington Stores, Inc.
Burlington is an off-price retailer that sells a wide variety of brand-name clothing, home goods, and toys at a discount. The company makes money by buying leftover products from other brands at a low cost and then selling them to customers for less than traditional department stores. This business model is important because it attracts bargain-hunting shoppers, which can be a strong advantage when people are trying to save money.
How the company got here
Burlington started in 1972 as a single store in New Jersey called Burlington Coat Factory, founded by the Milstein family. While it built its name on selling coats at a discount, the company quickly expanded to sell other types of clothing and home goods. After being purchased by a private company in 2006, it became a public company again in 2013, with its stock (a slice of ownership in the company) trading on the New York Stock Exchange. In recent years, the company has been transforming its stores and strategy in a plan it calls "Burlington 2.0" to better compete in the off-price retail world.
What it actually does
Burlington is an "off-price" retailer, which means it sells brand-name items for much less than traditional department stores. It does this by buying excess inventory (products that other stores couldn't sell) from over 5,000 different suppliers. This creates a "treasure hunt" shopping experience, where customers find a constantly changing selection of clothing, shoes, home goods, and more at a discount. The company has over 1,000 stores in the United States and Puerto Rico and, unlike many retailers, it does not sell its products online, focusing instead on the in-store experience.
Accessories & Shoes
This is Burlington's largest category, making up over a quarter of its sales. It includes items like handbags, jewelry, socks, and footwear for the whole family. Shoppers pay Burlington directly for these products, which the company finds through opportunistic buying (getting good deals on other companies' leftover products). This allows Burlington to offer recognizable brands at prices significantly lower than other retailers.
Ladies' Apparel
Making up about a fifth of the company's business, this category includes a wide range of clothing for women, such as dresses, tops, pants, and activewear. Just like with its other categories, Burlington makes money by buying this apparel at a low cost from manufacturers and other retailers and then selling it to customers for a discounted price. The goal is to sell these items quickly to make room for new deals.
Home
This segment, which accounts for another fifth of sales, includes a variety of items for the house like towels, bedding, kitchen gadgets, and decorative pieces. Burlington has been expanding its home goods selection to attract shoppers who are looking for deals on more than just clothing. Customers pay Burlington for these items, which helps the company compete with other home-focused discount stores.
Men's Apparel
This category represents a significant portion of sales and includes everything from suits and dress shirts to casual wear like t-shirts and jeans. The business model is the same: buy branded clothing for low prices and pass some of the savings on to the customer. By offering a wide selection, Burlington aims to be a one-stop shop for families.
Kids' Apparel & Baby
This is a smaller but important part of the business, featuring clothing, toys, and baby gear like strollers and high chairs in its "Baby Depot" section. Parents and gift-givers pay for these items, attracted by the low prices on products that children quickly outgrow. This category helps drive traffic (the number of people coming into the store) from family-focused shoppers.
Outerwear
Though the company started as Burlington Coat Factory, coats and jackets now make up the smallest slice of its sales. This is a strategic (done as part of a long-term plan) shift to being a broader, all-season retailer rather than just a destination for winter wear. While it's a smaller part of the business, it remains a category the company is known for, especially in the fall and winter months.
What management is betting on now
The company's main strategy is called "Burlington 2.0," which focuses on opening smaller stores that are more profitable and easier to stock. Management is aggressively expanding, aiming to open hundreds of new stores, often taking over locations from other retailers that have gone out of business. They are also investing in their supply chain (the network for getting products from the supplier to the store) to keep stores filled with fresh merchandise. By exiting online sales in 2020, the company is betting entirely on its physical stores, aiming to make the in-person "treasure hunt" the core of its business.
Price history
How the share price has moved
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Earnings history
Last 8 quarters — what happened
Click any quarter to read the call summary and what the numbers say.
FY2025 Q3
$-35.17M
FY2025 Q4
$-56.22M
FY2026 Q1
$189.84M
FY2026 Q2
$-438.61M
FY2026 Q3
$-101.00K
FY2026 Q4
$-109.62M
FY2027 Q2
$-227.26M
Revenue
$2.86B
Net income
$114.74M
Diluted EPS
1.79
Operating cash flow
$61.47M
Free cash flow
$-227.26M
Fetching…
Sources
Revenue
$2.71B
Net income
$104.75M
Diluted EPS
1.63
Operating cash flow
$143.33M
Free cash flow
$-109.62M
Fetching…
Sources
Revenue
$2.71B
Net income
$94.19M
Diluted EPS
1.47
Operating cash flow
$179.44M
Free cash flow
$-101.00K
Fetching…
Sources
Revenue
$2.50B
Net income
$100.83M
Diluted EPS
1.58
Operating cash flow
$-28.91M
Free cash flow
$-438.61M
Fetching…
Sources
Revenue
$3.28B
Net income
$260.77M
Diluted EPS
4.03
Operating cash flow
$543.16M
Free cash flow
$189.84M
Fetching…
Sources
Revenue
$2.53B
Net income
$90.60M
Diluted EPS
1.40
Operating cash flow
$110.41M
Free cash flow
$-56.22M
Fetching…
Sources
Revenue
$2.47B
Net income
$73.76M
Diluted EPS
1.15
Operating cash flow
$160.43M
Free cash flow
$-35.17M
Fetching…
Sources
Is it cheap or expensive?
Fair value $168.54 vs current price $336.95
Wall Street consensus is the average analyst price target: $367.07 (117.8% higher than our fair-value estimate).
Our most-likely fair value is $168.54 a share — about 50.0% away from today's price of $336.95, so the stock currently looks fairly priced.
Is it drowning in debt?
Distressed
Net debt $5.1B. Interest coverage 11.9x.
Net debt
$5.12B
Interest coverage
11.89x
Burlington Stores, Inc.'s profit covers its interest bill about 11.9 times over.
Distressed
Worse cushion
Baseline
Better cushion
BURL
BASELINE
Burlington Stores, Inc.
Total debt $5.87B Interest coverage 11.89x This is the baseline the peer rows are being compared against.
Total debt $14.18B Interest coverage 97.00x +716% vs BURL Carries about 8.2x more debt cushion than BURL.
Total debt $4.72B Interest coverage 71.36x +500% vs BURL Carries about 6.0x more debt cushion than BURL.
Total debt $710.30M Interest coverage 17.25x +45% vs BURL Carries about 1.5x more debt cushion than BURL.
Total debt $2.00B Interest coverage 34.71x +192% vs BURL Carries about 2.9x more debt cushion than BURL.
Total debt $609.02M Interest coverage 7.01x -41% vs BURL Carries about 1.7x less debt cushion than BURL.
What you should know
The case for and against BURL
3 Rewards
2 Risks
Rewards
-
Revenue grew 3.0% last year.
-
Returns 39.1% on equity, ahead of 66% of its peers.
-
Free cash flow was positive in 8/10 years.
Risks
-
Net debt grew 24.6% over 3 years.
-
Insider ownership is only 0.6% (peer median: 1.7%).
The numbers
All the key metrics, grouped by purpose
Tap any ? icon to learn what it means.
Valuation
How expensive the stock looks
P/E (TTM)
34.74x
Forward P/E
24.43x
P/B
11.41x
P/S
1.78x
EV/EBITDA
20.34x
PEG ratio
0.92x
Profitability
How much profit each dollar creates
Gross margin
43.9%
Operating margin
5.9%
Net margin
5.2%
ROE
39.1%
ROA
6.1%
Health
Liquidity and balance-sheet strength
Debt / equity
3.20x
Current ratio
1.16x
Quick ratio
0.40x
Total debt
$5.87B
Total cash
$747.36M
Growth
How the business has been compounding
Revenue TTM
$11.92B
Revenue 5Y CAGR
5.5%
EPS TTM
9.70
EPS 5Y CAGR
39.7%
Cash flow
How much cash the business throws off
Operating CF TTM
$1.32B
Free CF TTM
$171.59M
FCF margin
1.4%
Dividend
Shareholder payout
Yield
—
Payout ratio
0.0%
Last ex-div date
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