One-glance verdict
Overvalued
$5.17 our estimate vs market $41.37
Wall Street consensus: $50.62 (878.9% higher than our fair-value estimate)
700% above our estimate, beyond the bull case
Fundamentals snapshot
GFL Environmental Inc.
GFL · NYQ · Industrials · Waste Management
Current price
$41.37
52-week range
$33.33 - $51.51
Market cap
$14.93B
Balance sheet
Distressed
0.76x Concerning
Net debt $6.03B. 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 7.8% last year.
- Reward Returns 3.0% on equity, ahead of 16% of its peers.
- Reward Free cash flow was positive in 3/10 years.
What this company does
GFL Environmental Inc.
GFL Environmental is one of North America's largest trash and recycling companies, handling waste for homes, businesses, and cities. The company makes most of its money from long-term contracts for these essential services, which creates predictable recurring revenue (income that comes in regularly, like a subscription). This consistency matters because it makes GFL's business less sensitive to the economy's ups and downs, as people and companies always need to dispose of their waste.
How the company got here
GFL Environmental, which stands for 'Green For Life', was started in 2007 by Patrick Dovigi in Canada. He saw that the waste management industry was made up of many small, local companies and a few very large ones, and he thought there was an opportunity to build a new major player. The company grew very quickly by buying up smaller waste collection businesses, first across Canada and then moving into the United States. A major step was its entry into the U.S. market in 2018, which set the stage for much of its later growth. In 2020, GFL became a public company, selling shares on the stock market to raise money to continue its expansion.
What it actually does
You can recognize GFL by its bright green garbage trucks that pick up trash and recycling from homes and businesses. The company provides a wide range of environmental services, from curbside collection for towns and cities to renting large dumpsters for construction sites and businesses. They handle all steps of the waste process, including picking it up, taking it to transfer stations (places that sort and consolidate waste), and finally to landfills for disposal or to recycling centers. GFL also deals with liquid waste, like used oils or contaminated water, and helps clean up polluted soil.
Solid Waste
This is GFL's largest and most important business, making up the vast majority of its revenue. It involves collecting, transporting, and disposing of non-hazardous solid waste for millions of residential, commercial, and industrial customers across Canada and the United States. This segment includes everything from the weekly trash pickup at your curb to managing large landfills where the garbage is ultimately buried. Revenue (the money the company makes from sales) in this area comes from fees paid by households, businesses, and municipalities for collection services and from fees charged to dump waste at their landfills.
Environmental Services
This part of the company handles more specialized and often more complex waste, like used motor oil, industrial wastewater, and contaminated soil. For example, they might be hired to clean up a former industrial site so that new buildings can be constructed there safely. While this is a smaller part of GFL's business compared to solid waste, it provides important, specialized services. Recently, GFL sold a majority stake in this segment to outside investors to focus more on its core solid waste business.
What management is betting on now
GFL's main focus is to continue growing by acquiring smaller waste companies, a strategy that has worked well for them in the past. They are particularly focused on what they call 'densifying' their footprint, which means buying companies in areas where they already operate to make their routes more efficient. The company is also investing in sustainability (practices that are good for the environment), such as converting landfill gas into energy and using more trucks powered by natural gas. After years of rapid growth funded by borrowing, management is also working to reduce the company's debt to make its financial situation stronger.
Price history
How the share price has moved
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Is it cheap or expensive?
Fair value $5.17 vs current price $41.37
Wall Street consensus is the average analyst price target: $50.62 (878.9% higher than our fair-value estimate).
Our most-likely fair value is $5.17 a share — about 87.5% below today's price of $41.37, so the stock currently looks expensive (overvalued).
Is it drowning in debt?
Distressed
Net debt $6.0B. Interest coverage 0.8x.
Net debt
$6.03B
Interest coverage
0.76x
GFL Environmental Inc.'s profit covers its interest bill about 0.8 times over. which is weaker than most peers shown here.
Distressed
Worse cushion
Baseline
Better cushion
GFL
BASELINE
GFL Environmental Inc.
Total debt $7.06B Interest coverage 0.76x This is the baseline the peer rows are being compared against.
Total debt $23.36B Interest coverage 5.05x +566% vs GFL Carries about 6.7x more debt cushion than GFL.
Total debt $14.09B Interest coverage 5.79x +663% vs GFL Carries about 7.6x more debt cushion than GFL.
Total debt $9.64B Interest coverage 5.44x +617% vs GFL Carries about 7.2x more debt cushion than GFL.
Total debt $3.03B Interest coverage 3.99x +426% vs GFL Carries about 5.3x more debt cushion than GFL.
Total debt $1.24B Interest coverage 1.50x +98% vs GFL Carries about 2.0x more debt cushion than GFL.
What you should know
The case for and against GFL
3 Rewards
0 Risks
Rewards
-
Revenue grew 7.8% last year.
-
Returns 3.0% on equity, ahead of 16% of its peers.
-
Free cash flow was positive in 3/10 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)
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Forward P/E
40.73x
P/B
2.88x
P/S
2.23x
EV/EBITDA
13.91x
PEG ratio
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Profitability
How much profit each dollar creates
Gross margin
20.7%
Operating margin
3.2%
Net margin
3.1%
ROE
3.0%
ROA
1.3%
Health
Liquidity and balance-sheet strength
Debt / equity
1.33x
Current ratio
1.51x
Quick ratio
1.42x
Total debt
$7.06B
Total cash
$1.02B
Growth
How the business has been compounding
Revenue TTM
$4.78B
Revenue 5Y CAGR
-0.7%
EPS TTM
-0.42
EPS 5Y CAGR
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Cash flow
How much cash the business throws off
Operating CF TTM
$938.83M
Free CF TTM
$124.56M
FCF margin
2.6%
Dividend
Shareholder payout
Yield
0.2%
Payout ratio
16.7%
Last ex-div date
2026-07-13