One-glance verdict
Undervalued
$132.98 our estimate vs market $53.15
Wall Street consensus: $33.40 (-74.9% lower than our fair-value estimate)
60% below our estimate, below the bear case
Fundamentals snapshot
CVR Energy, Inc.
CVI · NYQ · Energy · Oil & Gas Refining & Marketing
Current price
$53.15
52-week range
$19.62 - $55.19
Market cap
$5.34B
Balance sheet
Stretched
1.69x Concerning
Net debt $1.06B. Interest coverage shows how many times profit covers the interest bill.
What stands out
3 Rewards
3 Risks
3 rewards · 3 risks
- Reward Revenue grew 18.3% last year.
- Reward Returns 24.3% on equity, ahead of 40% of its peers.
- Risk Net debt grew 15.9% over 3 years.
- Risk Operating margin compressed from 8.9% to 2.8% over 3 years.
What this company does
CVR Energy, Inc.
CVR Energy operates in both traditional energy and agriculture. The company makes most of its money from its refining margin (the difference between the cost of crude oil and the price of the gasoline and diesel it sells), and it also produces nitrogen fertilizers for farms. This mix means its business is tied to the demand for both transportation fuels and crop production.
How the company got here
CVR Energy has a long history, founded way back in 1906, but its current form took shape more recently. The modern public company was established in 2006 and its main business is centered in the American Mid-Continent. A key turning point was in 2012 when Icahn Enterprises, a company run by a well-known investor Carl Icahn, gained a controlling stake, which influences the company's decisions. Over the years, it has grown by acquiring other facilities, like the purchase of Rentech Nitrogen Partners in 2016 to expand its fertilizer business. The company is structured as a holding company, which is a parent company that owns other companies, in this case, its petroleum, renewables, and fertilizer operations.
What it actually does
Think of CVR Energy as a company that takes raw materials like crude oil and plant-based oils and turns them into products you use every day. Their main job is refining, which is like a giant, complex kitchen where they cook crude oil to separate it into different things. The most important products are transportation fuels like the gasoline for your car, diesel for trucks and trains, and jet fuel for airplanes. They also make products for farming, specifically nitrogen fertilizers that help crops grow.
Petroleum
This is CVR Energy's largest and original business. It owns and operates two oil refineries, one in Kansas and one in Oklahoma, which are strategically located in the middle of the country. Here, they process crude oil into gasoline, diesel, and jet fuel. Their customers are not individual drivers, but rather retailers (like gas stations), railroad companies, and farm cooperatives who buy the fuel in large quantities. This segment's profitability is heavily influenced by 'crack spreads' (the price difference between a barrel of crude oil and the petroleum products refined from it).
Nitrogen Fertilizer
Through its investment in a separate public company called CVR Partners, CVR Energy is also a major player in the fertilizer business. It has two facilities, in Kansas and Illinois, that produce nitrogen-based fertilizers. The main products are ammonia and a liquid fertilizer called urea ammonium nitrate (UAN), which are sold to agricultural customers to help grow crops like corn. This business provides a different stream of income that is tied to the farming cycle rather than just the price of oil.
Renewables
This is a smaller and more recent part of the company that focuses on producing fuels from renewable sources. This segment takes feedstocks (raw materials) like soybean oil and corn oil and refines them into renewable diesel. This is different from traditional diesel because it's not made from fossil fuels. However, the company has recently decided to convert its renewable diesel unit back to processing crude oil due to unfavorable economics. This highlights the challenges and changing landscape of the renewable fuels market.
What management is betting on now
The company's leadership is currently focused on running its existing refineries and fertilizer plants as safely and reliably as possible to maximize their output. They are also looking for ways to improve their 'margin capture' (the portion of the potential profit they actually earn from refining a barrel of oil). Another key priority is a more proactive approach to finding and buying new assets to expand their business footprint. Management is also committed to disciplined 'capital allocation' (deciding how to best spend the company's money on projects and investments) to ensure long-term value for its owners.
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.
FY2024 Q3
$14.00M
FY2024 Q4
$43.00M
FY2025 Q1
$-246.00M
FY2025 Q2
$135.00M
FY2025 Q3
$125.00M
FY2025 Q4
$-55.00M
FY2026 Q1
$17.00M
FY2026 Q2
$264.00M
Revenue
$2.74B
Net income
$-3.00M
Diluted EPS
-0.03
Operating cash flow
$307.00M
Free cash flow
$264.00M
Fetching…
Sources
Revenue
$1.98B
Net income
$-192.00M
Diluted EPS
-1.91
Operating cash flow
$64.00M
Free cash flow
$17.00M
Fetching…
Sources
Revenue
$1.81B
Net income
$-110.00M
Diluted EPS
-1.09
Operating cash flow
$0.00
Free cash flow
$-55.00M
Fetching…
Sources
Revenue
$1.94B
Net income
$374.00M
Diluted EPS
3.72
Operating cash flow
$163.00M
Free cash flow
$125.00M
Fetching…
Sources
Revenue
$1.76B
Net income
$-114.00M
Diluted EPS
-1.14
Operating cash flow
$176.00M
Free cash flow
$135.00M
Fetching…
Sources
Revenue
$1.65B
Net income
$-123.00M
Diluted EPS
-1.22
Operating cash flow
$-195.00M
Free cash flow
$-246.00M
Fetching…
Sources
Revenue
$1.95B
Net income
$28.00M
Diluted EPS
0.28
Operating cash flow
$98.00M
Free cash flow
$43.00M
Fetching…
Sources
Revenue
$1.83B
Net income
$-124.00M
Diluted EPS
-1.24
Operating cash flow
$48.00M
Free cash flow
$14.00M
Fetching…
Sources
Is it cheap or expensive?
Fair value $132.98 vs current price $53.15
Wall Street consensus is the average analyst price target: $33.40 (-74.9% lower than our fair-value estimate).
Our most-likely fair value is $132.98 a share — about 150.2% above today's price of $53.15, so the stock currently looks cheap (undervalued).
Is it drowning in debt?
Stretched
Net debt $1.1B. Interest coverage 1.7x.
Net debt
$1.06B
Interest coverage
1.69x
CVR Energy, Inc.'s profit covers its interest bill about 1.7 times over. which is stronger than most peers shown here and 3 peers sit below 1x, which is the danger zone where profit does not fully cover the interest bill.
Stretched
Worse cushion
Baseline
Better cushion
CVI
BASELINE
CVR Energy, Inc.
Total debt $1.80B Interest coverage 1.69x This is the baseline the peer rows are being compared against.
Total debt $3.43B Interest coverage 0.92x -45% vs CVI Carries about 1.8x less debt cushion than CVI.
Total debt $2.52B Interest coverage -4.46x -100% vs CVI This peer has almost no interest-payment cushion compared with CVI.
Total debt $1.13B Interest coverage 6.19x +267% vs CVI Carries about 3.7x more debt cushion than CVI.
Total debt $2.37B Interest coverage 0.25x -85% vs CVI Carries about 6.7x less debt cushion than CVI.
Total debt $3.34B Interest coverage 4.27x +153% vs CVI Carries about 2.5x more debt cushion than CVI.
What you should know
The case for and against CVI
3 Rewards
3 Risks
Rewards
-
Revenue grew 18.3% last year.
-
Returns 24.3% on equity, ahead of 40% of its peers.
-
Free cash flow was positive in 8/10 years.
Risks
-
Net debt grew 15.9% over 3 years.
-
Operating margin compressed from 8.9% to 2.8% over 3 years.
-
Insider ownership is only 0.0% (peer median: 5.5%).
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)
77.03x
Forward P/E
17.54x
P/B
10.18x
P/S
0.63x
EV/EBITDA
8.59x
PEG ratio
0.71x
Profitability
How much profit each dollar creates
Gross margin
10.9%
Operating margin
2.8%
Net margin
0.8%
ROE
24.3%
ROA
5.5%
Health
Liquidity and balance-sheet strength
Debt / equity
2.42x
Current ratio
1.42x
Quick ratio
0.88x
Total debt
$1.80B
Total cash
$737.00M
Growth
How the business has been compounding
Revenue TTM
$8.47B
Revenue 5Y CAGR
-0.3%
EPS TTM
0.69
EPS 5Y CAGR
-61.1%
Cash flow
How much cash the business throws off
Operating CF TTM
$534.00M
Free CF TTM
$-41.00M
FCF margin
-0.5%
Dividend
Shareholder payout
Yield
0.8%
Payout ratio
14.5%
Last ex-div date
2026-08-10