One-glance verdict
Overvalued
$7.97 our estimate vs market $44.05
Wall Street consensus: $70.00 (778.7% higher than our fair-value estimate)
453% above our estimate, beyond the bull case
Fundamentals snapshot
Century Aluminum Company
CENX · NMS · Basic Materials · Aluminum
Current price
$44.05
52-week range
$24.58 - $70.43
Market cap
$4.36B
Balance sheet
Stretched
3.31x Stretched
Net debt $136.60M. Interest coverage shows how many times profit covers the interest bill.
What stands out
3 Rewards
0 Risks
3 rewards · 0 risks
- Reward Revenue grew 5.5% last year.
- Reward Returns 51.7% on equity, ahead of 66% of its peers.
- Reward Free cash flow was positive in 5/10 years.
What this company does
Century Aluminum Company
Century Aluminum Company produces primary aluminum (new metal made from raw materials) that ends up in everything from cars to soda cans. Because the company controls its entire supply chain (the whole process from mining raw materials to selling the final product), its profitability is closely tied to the global price of aluminum.
How the company got here
Century Aluminum was founded in 1995 and became a publicly traded company on the NASDAQ stock exchange in 1996. Over the years, it has grown by acquiring and expanding its operations, focusing on producing primary aluminum (aluminum made from its original raw material, bauxite ore, rather than from recycled scrap). The company now operates aluminum smelters (facilities that produce aluminum from its ore) in the United States and Iceland. This has made it the largest producer of primary aluminum in the United States.
What it actually does
Century Aluminum makes primary aluminum, which is a foundational raw material used in many industries you see every day, like automotive, aerospace, and construction. They create standard products like large blocks called ingots and sow, as well as more specialized, value-added products like billets (long, cylindrical pieces of aluminum) and foundry alloys (mixtures of aluminum with other elements for specific properties). The company is involved in several stages of the aluminum-making process, from mining the raw material to producing the finished metal.
Primary Aluminum Production
This is the company's main business, where it makes aluminum from raw materials at its smelters (large production plants) in the U.S. and Iceland. Industrial customers in sectors like automotive and aerospace buy this aluminum in various shapes and forms. The company's operations are organized around these large smelter assets, which represent the core of its money-making activities.
Upstream Operations (Raw Materials)
To support its main business, Century is also involved in the earlier steps of aluminum production. It has a majority ownership in a bauxite mining and alumina refining operation in Jamaica. Bauxite is the ore that aluminum is made from, and alumina is the intermediate product created by refining bauxite, which is then smelted into aluminum. This 'upstream' (earlier in the production chain) involvement gives the company more control over its supply of essential raw materials.
Carbon Anode Production
The company owns and operates a facility in the Netherlands that produces carbon anodes. Anodes are large carbon blocks that are essential for the smelting process; a powerful electric current passes through them to transform alumina into aluminum. This facility supplies the anodes needed for its smelter in Iceland, helping to ensure a stable supply for its production.
What management is betting on now
Management is focused on growing its primary aluminum business by investing in its current facilities and building new production capacity. A major new project is a partnership to build the first new U.S. aluminum smelter in nearly 50 years, located in Oklahoma, which is expected to significantly increase the country's production capacity. The company is also restarting and expanding capacity at its existing U.S. plants. These moves are designed to strengthen the domestic supply chain (the network of companies involved in producing and distributing a product) and position Century as a key supplier for critical industries like defense and aerospace.
Price history
How the share price has moved
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Loading price history…
Earnings history
Last 8 quarters — what happened
Click any quarter to read the call summary and what the numbers say.
FY2024 Q3
$-2.40M
FY2024 Q4
$-54.60M
FY2025 Q1
$51.10M
FY2025 Q2
$-15.90M
FY2025 Q3
$-18.10M
FY2025 Q4
$67.70M
FY2026 Q1
$-6.40M
FY2026 Q2
$108.00M
Revenue
$752.10M
Net income
$249.30M
Diluted EPS
2.39
Operating cash flow
$167.60M
Free cash flow
$108.00M
Fetching…
Sources
Revenue
$649.20M
Net income
$337.50M
Diluted EPS
3.23
Operating cash flow
$68.40M
Free cash flow
$-6.40M
Fetching…
Sources
Revenue
$633.70M
Net income
$1.80M
Diluted EPS
0.03
Operating cash flow
$102.80M
Free cash flow
$67.70M
Fetching…
Sources
Revenue
$632.20M
Net income
$14.90M
Diluted EPS
0.15
Operating cash flow
$2.00M
Free cash flow
$-18.10M
Fetching…
Sources
Revenue
$628.10M
Net income
$-4.60M
Diluted EPS
-0.05
Operating cash flow
$7.90M
Free cash flow
$-15.90M
Fetching…
Sources
Revenue
$633.90M
Net income
$29.70M
Diluted EPS
0.29
Operating cash flow
$72.30M
Free cash flow
$51.10M
Fetching…
Sources
Revenue
$630.90M
Net income
$45.20M
Diluted EPS
0.58
Operating cash flow
$-41.40M
Free cash flow
$-54.60M
Fetching…
Sources
Revenue
$539.10M
Net income
$47.30M
Diluted EPS
0.46
Operating cash flow
$20.10M
Free cash flow
$-2.40M
Fetching…
Sources
Is it cheap or expensive?
Fair value $7.97 vs current price $44.05
Wall Street consensus is the average analyst price target: $70.00 (778.7% higher than our fair-value estimate).
Our most-likely fair value is $7.97 a share — about 81.9% below today's price of $44.05, so the stock currently looks expensive (overvalued).
Is it drowning in debt?
Stretched
Net debt $136.6M. Interest coverage 3.3x.
Net debt
$136.60M
Interest coverage
3.31x
Century Aluminum Company's profit covers its interest bill about 3.3 times over. which is weaker than most peers shown here.
Stretched
Worse cushion
Baseline
Better cushion
CENX
BASELINE
Century Aluminum Company
Total debt $480.00M Interest coverage 3.31x This is the baseline the peer rows are being compared against.
Total debt $2.22B Interest coverage 4.80x +45% vs CENX Carries about 1.4x more debt cushion than CENX.
Total debt $1.92B Interest coverage 4.47x +35% vs CENX Carries about 1.3x more debt cushion than CENX.
Total debt $1.07B Interest coverage 3.81x +15% vs CENX Has roughly the same debt cushion as CENX.
Total debt $511.60M Interest coverage 3.69x +11% vs CENX Has roughly the same debt cushion as CENX.
Total debt $356.27M Interest coverage 13.33x +302% vs CENX Carries about 4.0x more debt cushion than CENX.
What you should know
The case for and against CENX
3 Rewards
0 Risks
Rewards
-
Revenue grew 5.5% last year.
-
Returns 51.7% on equity, ahead of 66% of its peers.
-
Free cash flow was positive in 5/10 years.
Risks
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)
7.61x
Forward P/E
3.65x
P/B
3.11x
P/S
1.63x
EV/EBITDA
9.66x
PEG ratio
0.06x
Profitability
How much profit each dollar creates
Gross margin
18.9%
Operating margin
28.1%
Net margin
22.6%
ROE
51.7%
ROA
10.2%
Health
Liquidity and balance-sheet strength
Debt / equity
0.31x
Current ratio
2.75x
Quick ratio
1.44x
Total debt
$480.00M
Total cash
$343.40M
Growth
How the business has been compounding
Revenue TTM
$2.67B
Revenue 5Y CAGR
3.4%
EPS TTM
5.79
EPS 5Y CAGR
—
Cash flow
How much cash the business throws off
Operating CF TTM
$340.80M
Free CF TTM
$84.80M
FCF margin
3.2%
Dividend
Shareholder payout
Yield
—
Payout ratio
0.0%
Last ex-div date
2002-09-18