One-glance verdict
Undervalued
$141.67 our estimate vs market $21.12
Wall Street consensus: $21.50 (-84.8% lower than our fair-value estimate)
85% below our estimate, below the bear case
Fundamentals snapshot
Clearwater Paper Corporation
CLW · NYQ · Basic Materials · Paper & Paper Products
Current price
$21.12
52-week range
$11.73 - $23.59
Market cap
$340.62M
Balance sheet
Distressed
0.74x Concerning
Net debt $277.70M. Interest coverage shows how many times profit covers the interest bill.
What stands out
1 Reward
2 Risks
1 rewards · 2 risks
- Reward Free cash flow was positive in 6/10 years.
- Risk Operating margin compressed from 8.4% to -10.4% over 3 years.
- Risk Return on equity was -10.4% last year — the company lost money on shareholders' equity.
What this company does
Clearwater Paper Corporation
Clearwater Paper makes the sturdy, white paperboard that other companies use to create everyday packaging like milk cartons, food containers, and medicine boxes. It sells this paperboard in large sheets and rolls to manufacturers, which is how it earns its money. Because its products are a key part of the supply chain (the entire process of creating and distributing a product) for many essential consumer goods, the company's success is closely tied to the demand for those everyday items.
How the company got here
Clearwater Paper's roots trace back to the early 1900s with the founding of the Clearwater Timber Company. It became a separate public company in 2008 when it was spun off from Potlatch Corporation. For many years, the company operated two distinct businesses: paperboard and consumer tissues like toilet paper and paper towels. A major turning point came in 2024 when management decided to focus solely on paperboard, selling its tissue business and acquiring a large paperboard mill in Augusta, Georgia. This move reshaped the company into a more specialized supplier for the packaging industry.
What it actually does
Clearwater Paper makes a special type of thick paper called paperboard, which is the sturdy material you see in things like cereal boxes, shoe boxes, and coffee cups. The company doesn't make the final boxes or cups you buy in the store. Instead, it sells large rolls and sheets of this paperboard to other companies, known as converters, who then cut, print, and fold it into the final packaging for various consumer goods and food service products. They operate large mills in Idaho, Arkansas, and Georgia to produce this material.
Pulp and Paperboard
This is now the company's only business segment (a specific area of a company's activity). It produces a high-quality paperboard called solid bleached sulfate (SBS), which is valued for its brightness, stiffness, and smooth surface that is good for printing graphics. Companies that make packaging for food, cosmetics, and pharmaceuticals buy this paperboard to create attractive and protective folding cartons. Other customers use it to make disposable items like paper cups and plates. This single segment is responsible for all of the company's revenue (the total money earned from sales).
What management is betting on now
The company's main strategy is to be a leading, focused supplier of paperboard in North America. A key priority is successfully integrating the large Augusta mill they recently purchased to increase their production scale and efficiency. Management is also focused on paying down debt taken on for this acquisition and investing back into its paperboard operations. They are also developing more sustainable products, such as lightweight and recyclable paperboard options, to meet growing customer demand for environmentally friendly packaging.
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 Q2
$3.00M
FY2024 Q3
$-27.80M
FY2024 Q4
$-71.10M
FY2025 Q1
$-31.20M
FY2025 Q2
$-51.10M
FY2025 Q3
$15.70M
FY2025 Q4
$-9.90M
FY2026 Q1
$-8.60M
Revenue
$360.30M
Net income
$-12.80M
Diluted EPS
-0.80
Operating cash flow
$500.00K
Free cash flow
$-8.60M
Fetching…
Sources
Revenue
$386.40M
Net income
$38.30M
Diluted EPS
2.36
Operating cash flow
$5.00M
Free cash flow
$-9.90M
Fetching…
Sources
Revenue
$399.00M
Net income
$-53.30M
Diluted EPS
-3.30
Operating cash flow
$34.00M
Free cash flow
$15.70M
Fetching…
Sources
Revenue
$391.80M
Net income
$2.70M
Diluted EPS
0.17
Operating cash flow
$-28.20M
Free cash flow
$-51.10M
Fetching…
Sources
Revenue
$378.20M
Net income
$-6.30M
Diluted EPS
-0.38
Operating cash flow
$1.50M
Free cash flow
$-31.20M
Fetching…
Sources
Revenue
$387.10M
Net income
$199.10M
Diluted EPS
11.91
Operating cash flow
$-56.20M
Free cash flow
$-71.10M
Fetching…
Sources
Revenue
$393.30M
Net income
$5.80M
Diluted EPS
0.35
Operating cash flow
$37.30M
Free cash flow
$-27.80M
Fetching…
Sources
Revenue
$586.40M
Net income
$-25.80M
Diluted EPS
-1.55
Operating cash flow
$21.10M
Free cash flow
$3.00M
Fetching…
Sources
Is it cheap or expensive?
Fair value $141.67 vs current price $21.12
Wall Street consensus is the average analyst price target: $21.50 (-84.8% lower than our fair-value estimate).
Our most-likely fair value is $141.67 a share — about 570.8% above today's price of $21.12, so the stock currently looks cheap (undervalued).
Is it drowning in debt?
Distressed
Net debt $277.7M. Interest coverage 0.7x.
Net debt
$277.70M
Interest coverage
0.74x
Clearwater Paper Corporation's profit covers its interest bill about 0.7 times over. which is stronger than most peers shown here and 1 peers sit below 1x, which is the danger zone where profit does not fully cover the interest bill.
Distressed
Worse cushion
Baseline
Better cushion
CLW
BASELINE
Clearwater Paper Corporation
Total debt $373.10M Interest coverage 0.74x This is the baseline the peer rows are being compared against.
Total debt $428.20M Interest coverage -0.71x -100% vs CLW This peer has almost no interest-payment cushion compared with CLW.
Total debt $5.70B Interest coverage 3.84x +419% vs CLW Carries about 5.2x more debt cushion than CLW.
Total debt $1.03B Interest coverage 5.53x +648% vs CLW Carries about 7.5x more debt cushion than CLW.
What you should know
The case for and against CLW
1 Reward
2 Risks
Rewards
-
Free cash flow was positive in 6/10 years.
Risks
-
Operating margin compressed from 8.4% to -10.4% over 3 years.
-
Return on equity was -10.4% last year — the company lost money on shareholders' equity.
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)
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Forward P/E
-24.09x
P/B
0.43x
P/S
0.22x
EV/EBITDA
24.38x
PEG ratio
3.21x
Profitability
How much profit each dollar creates
Gross margin
1.0%
Operating margin
-10.4%
Net margin
-3.2%
ROE
-10.4%
ROA
-2.7%
Health
Liquidity and balance-sheet strength
Debt / equity
0.47x
Current ratio
2.29x
Quick ratio
1.11x
Total debt
$373.10M
Total cash
$95.40M
Growth
How the business has been compounding
Revenue TTM
$1.54B
Revenue 5Y CAGR
-3.2%
EPS TTM
-5.27
EPS 5Y CAGR
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Cash flow
How much cash the business throws off
Operating CF TTM
$11.30M
Free CF TTM
$-76.50M
FCF margin
-5.0%
Dividend
Shareholder payout
Yield
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Payout ratio
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Last ex-div date
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