One-glance verdict
Overvalued
$-0.18 our estimate vs market $7.87
Wall Street consensus: $12.00 (-6,674.7% lower than our fair-value estimate)
4412% below our estimate, beyond the bull case
Fundamentals snapshot
Hillman Solutions Corp.
HLMN · NGM · Industrials · Tools & Accessories
Current price
$7.87
52-week range
$6.96 - $10.85
Market cap
$1.54B
Balance sheet
Stretched
2.02x Stretched
Net debt $784.59M. Interest coverage shows how many times profit covers the interest bill.
What stands out
2 Rewards
2 Risks
2 rewards · 2 risks
- Reward Revenue grew 0.7% last year.
- Reward Free cash flow was positive in 5/10 years.
- Risk Insider ownership is only 1.0% (peer median: 1.9%).
- Risk Operating margin compressed from 2.7% to 1.9% over 3 years.
What this company does
Hillman Solutions Corp.
Hillman Solutions provides the thousands of small but essential hardware items, like screws, keys, and picture hooks, that you find in major home improvement stores. The company makes its money selling these products to retailers and often manages the inventory and displays right in the store. This deep relationship with retailers for products that are always in demand for home repairs is central to its business.
How the company got here
Hillman started in 1964 as a family-run supplier of nuts and bolts to local hardware stores. [1, 16] Its big idea wasn't just selling screws, but also sending its own staff into stores to organize the thousands of tiny, hard-to-manage items, a service retailers loved. [1] Over the decades, the company grew by being bought and sold by various investment firms, which helped it expand into new areas. [16] A key turning point was its move into technology with the acquisition of companies that make self-service kiosks for copying keys and engraving pet tags. [1] In 2021, Hillman became a public company traded on the stock market through a merger with a SPAC (a special purpose acquisition company, a faster way to go public). [16]
What it actually does
Hillman is the company behind the scenes that keeps the hardware aisles of major retailers like Home Depot, Lowe's, and Walmart stocked and organized. [7] It provides the vast assortment of small but essential items like screws, nuts, bolts, picture hooks, house numbers, and work gloves. [3, 11] A core part of its business is its direct-to-store service, where its employees physically visit tens of thousands of stores to manage inventory (the products on shelves) and keep things tidy. [1] You have also likely seen their other business: the red MinuteKey kiosks that let you copy a key or the TagWorks machines that engrave a new tag for your pet. [1]
Hardware and Protective Solutions
This is Hillman's largest and oldest business, representing the majority of its revenue (the total money it brings in from sales). [1] It covers the huge range of traditional hardware you'd find in a store, including fasteners (like nuts, bolts, and screws), builder's hardware, and wall hangers. [4, 8] This segment also includes personal protective equipment, which is simply safety gear like Firm Grip brand work gloves and safety glasses. [8] Big retail chains pay Hillman for both the products and the valuable service of managing these complex categories for them. [11]
Robotics and Digital Solutions
This is Hillman's high-tech, high-growth division, and it's a smaller but very profitable piece of the company. [1] This business consists of the thousands of self-service kiosks, often found near a store's entrance, that provide services like automated key duplication and pet tag engraving. [4, 10] When a shopper uses a MinuteKey or TagWorks machine, they are paying Hillman directly. This segment is important to the company's strategy because it has significantly higher margins (the percentage of each dollar in sales that the company keeps as profit) than the traditional hardware business. [1]
Canada
Just as the name suggests, this part of the business handles all of Hillman's operations in Canada. [4, 5] It essentially does the same things as the other two segments—distributing fasteners, hardware, keys, and protective gear, as well as operating kiosks—but is tailored specifically for the Canadian retail market. [1, 4] Running this as a separate business allows the company to focus on the unique needs and partnerships with Canadian retailers. [1]
What management is betting on now
The company's leadership has a strategic plan focused on growing its core business while expanding into new areas. [13] A key priority is to increase sales to professional customers, like contractors and builders, not just do-it-yourself homeowners. [1, 12] They also aim to continue expanding their more profitable Robotics and Digital Solutions segment. [12] Management has set a public goal to grow the company significantly by 2030, aiming to reach $2.5 billion in annual sales through these efforts. [1, 13]
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 Q2
$42.48M
FY2024 Q3
$39.59M
FY2024 Q4
$22.13M
FY2025 Q1
$-21.31M
FY2025 Q2
$31.19M
FY2025 Q3
$9.06M
FY2025 Q4
$16.14M
FY2026 Q1
$-34.35M
Revenue
$370.07M
Net income
$-4.73M
Diluted EPS
-0.02
Operating cash flow
$-19.53M
Free cash flow
$-34.35M
Fetching…
Sources
Revenue
$365.14M
Net income
$1.60M
Diluted EPS
0.00
Operating cash flow
$30.90M
Free cash flow
$16.14M
Fetching…
Sources
Revenue
$424.94M
Net income
$23.19M
Diluted EPS
0.12
Operating cash flow
$26.24M
Free cash flow
$9.06M
Fetching…
Sources
Revenue
$402.80M
Net income
$15.83M
Diluted EPS
0.08
Operating cash flow
$48.71M
Free cash flow
$31.19M
Fetching…
Sources
Revenue
$359.34M
Net income
$-317.00K
Diluted EPS
0.00
Operating cash flow
$-655.00K
Free cash flow
$-21.31M
Fetching…
Sources
Revenue
$349.56M
Net income
$-1.22M
Diluted EPS
0.00
Operating cash flow
$43.15M
Free cash flow
$22.13M
Fetching…
Sources
Revenue
$393.30M
Net income
$7.43M
Diluted EPS
0.04
Operating cash flow
$63.71M
Free cash flow
$39.59M
Fetching…
Sources
Revenue
$379.43M
Net income
$12.54M
Diluted EPS
0.06
Operating cash flow
$64.80M
Free cash flow
$42.48M
Fetching…
Sources
Is it cheap or expensive?
Fair value $-0.18 vs current price $7.87
Wall Street consensus is the average analyst price target: $12.00 (-6,674.7% lower than our fair-value estimate).
Our most-likely fair value is $-0.18 a share — about 102.3% below today's price of $7.87, so the stock currently looks expensive (overvalued).
Is it drowning in debt?
Stretched
Net debt $784.6M. Interest coverage 2.0x.
Net debt
$784.59M
Interest coverage
2.02x
Hillman Solutions Corp.'s profit covers its interest bill about 2.0 times over. which is weaker than most peers shown here.
Stretched
Worse cushion
Baseline
Better cushion
HLMN
BASELINE
Hillman Solutions Corp.
Total debt $812.32M Interest coverage 2.02x This is the baseline the peer rows are being compared against.
Total debt $725.50M Interest coverage 4.98x +147% vs HLMN Carries about 2.5x more debt cushion than HLMN.
Total debt $551.96M Interest coverage 8.39x +316% vs HLMN Carries about 4.2x more debt cushion than HLMN.
Total debt $234.25M Interest coverage 33.62x +1,566% vs HLMN Carries about 16.7x more debt cushion than HLMN.
Total debt $481.74M Interest coverage 58.29x +2,788% vs HLMN Carries about 28.9x more debt cushion than HLMN.
Total debt $555.42M Interest coverage 12.99x +544% vs HLMN Carries about 6.4x more debt cushion than HLMN.
What you should know
The case for and against HLMN
2 Rewards
2 Risks
Rewards
-
Revenue grew 0.7% last year.
-
Free cash flow was positive in 5/10 years.
Risks
-
Insider ownership is only 1.0% (peer median: 1.9%).
-
Operating margin compressed from 2.7% to 1.9% over 3 years.
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)
43.72x
Forward P/E
11.22x
P/B
1.27x
P/S
0.99x
EV/EBITDA
9.26x
PEG ratio
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Profitability
How much profit each dollar creates
Gross margin
48.4%
Operating margin
1.9%
Net margin
2.3%
ROE
3.0%
ROA
2.9%
Health
Liquidity and balance-sheet strength
Debt / equity
0.67x
Current ratio
2.95x
Quick ratio
0.73x
Total debt
$812.32M
Total cash
$27.73M
Growth
How the business has been compounding
Revenue TTM
$1.56B
Revenue 5Y CAGR
2.1%
EPS TTM
0.18
EPS 5Y CAGR
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Cash flow
How much cash the business throws off
Operating CF TTM
$86.31M
Free CF TTM
$35.09M
FCF margin
2.2%
Dividend
Shareholder payout
Yield
—
Payout ratio
0.0%
Last ex-div date
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