One-glance verdict
Undervalued
$75.88 our estimate vs market $51.69
Wall Street consensus: $56.11 (-26.1% lower than our fair-value estimate)
32% below our estimate, below the bear case
Fundamentals snapshot
IMAX Corporation
IMAX · NYQ · Communication Services · Entertainment
Current price
$51.69
52-week range
$30.74 - $55.57
Market cap
$2.83B
Balance sheet
Watch
12.73x Strong cushion
Net debt $122.72M. Interest coverage shows how many times profit covers the interest bill.
What stands out
3 Rewards
1 Risk
3 rewards · 1 risks
- Reward Revenue grew 1.4% last year.
- Reward Returns 11.0% on equity, ahead of 40% of its peers.
- Reward Free cash flow was positive in 9/10 years.
- Risk Stock trades 46.9% above its 5-year average P/E.
What this company does
IMAX Corporation
IMAX is an entertainment technology company that creates immersive movie experiences with its giant screens and powerful sound systems. It primarily makes money by selling or leasing its theater systems to cinemas and by taking a share of the box office revenue (money from ticket sales) for blockbuster movies specially formatted for its screens. This makes IMAX a go-to destination for movie fans wanting a premium experience you can't get at home, especially for major action and sci-fi films.
How the company got here
IMAX was started in 1967 by a group of Canadian filmmakers who wanted to create a more immersive movie experience with a single, powerful projector and a giant screen. Their first permanent theater opened in 1971, initially showing documentaries in places like museums and science centers. A key turning point came in the early 2000s when they developed a technology called DMR (Digital Media Remastering), which allowed them to convert regular Hollywood blockbuster movies into the giant IMAX format. This, along with partnerships with famous directors, helped IMAX move into mainstream movie theaters and become a well-known name for a premium movie-watching experience.
What it actually does
IMAX is an entertainment technology company, not a movie theater chain. It provides the specialized equipment and technology that creates the 'IMAX experience'—think giant screens, powerful sound systems, and incredibly clear, high-resolution images. The company doesn't sell popcorn or own the theaters; instead, it sells or leases its proprietary projection and sound systems to theater operators like AMC. It also works with movie studios to reformat their films specifically for these giant screens, ensuring the picture and sound are optimized for the unique theater design.
Technology Products and Services
This is the company's largest business segment, making up a little over half of its revenue. It's how IMAX gets its special equipment into theaters around the world. Movie theater owners pay IMAX to buy or lease its high-tech projection and sound systems. This segment also includes the money IMAX makes from maintaining and servicing that equipment to ensure everything runs perfectly. So, every time a new IMAX theater is built or an existing one is upgraded, this part of the company is making money.
Content Solutions
This part of the business is all about the movies themselves and is a smaller but significant slice of the company's revenue. When a big Hollywood movie is released in IMAX, the studio pays IMAX a fee to use its proprietary DMR (Digital Media Remastering) process to convert the film into the special IMAX format. In many cases, IMAX also gets a percentage of the box office revenue (the total money from ticket sales) from its screens for these remastered films. This means that the more successful a movie is in IMAX theaters, the more money this segment makes.
What management is betting on now
Management's current focus is on expanding its global network of theaters, as they see a lot of room for growth, particularly in international markets. They are also working to broaden the types of content shown in their theaters beyond just Hollywood blockbusters to include local-language films, live events, and even content from streaming services. The company is also investing in new technologies, like more advanced laser projection systems, to keep improving the premium experience that makes audiences willing to pay for a higher-priced ticket. By strengthening relationships with filmmakers and studios, they aim to make an IMAX release a crucial part of a major film's success.
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
$34.16M
FY2024 Q4
$6.87M
FY2025 Q1
$5.31M
FY2025 Q2
$20.87M
FY2025 Q3
$64.77M
FY2025 Q4
$27.96M
FY2026 Q1
$1.90M
FY2026 Q2
$31.96M
Revenue
$102.84M
Net income
$15.40M
Diluted EPS
0.27
Operating cash flow
$31.98M
Free cash flow
$31.96M
Fetching…
Sources
Revenue
$81.38M
Net income
$4.23M
Diluted EPS
0.07
Operating cash flow
$4.03M
Free cash flow
$1.90M
Fetching…
Sources
Revenue
$125.21M
Net income
$637.00K
Diluted EPS
0.02
Operating cash flow
$29.37M
Free cash flow
$27.96M
Fetching…
Sources
Revenue
$106.65M
Net income
$20.66M
Diluted EPS
0.37
Operating cash flow
$67.51M
Free cash flow
$64.77M
Fetching…
Sources
Revenue
$91.68M
Net income
$11.26M
Diluted EPS
0.20
Operating cash flow
$23.23M
Free cash flow
$20.87M
Fetching…
Sources
Revenue
$86.67M
Net income
$2.33M
Diluted EPS
0.04
Operating cash flow
$6.95M
Free cash flow
$5.31M
Fetching…
Sources
Revenue
$92.67M
Net income
$5.31M
Diluted EPS
0.09
Operating cash flow
$11.48M
Free cash flow
$6.87M
Fetching…
Sources
Revenue
$91.45M
Net income
$13.90M
Diluted EPS
0.26
Operating cash flow
$35.28M
Free cash flow
$34.16M
Fetching…
Sources
Is it cheap or expensive?
Fair value $75.88 vs current price $51.69
Wall Street consensus is the average analyst price target: $56.11 (-26.1% lower than our fair-value estimate).
Our most-likely fair value is $75.88 a share — about 46.8% above today's price of $51.69, so the stock currently looks cheap (undervalued).
Is it drowning in debt?
Watch
Net debt $122.7M. Interest coverage 12.7x.
Net debt
$122.72M
Interest coverage
12.73x
IMAX Corporation's profit covers its interest bill about 12.7 times over. which is stronger than most peers shown here and 2 peers sit below 1x, which is the danger zone where profit does not fully cover the interest bill.
Watch
Worse cushion
Baseline
Better cushion
IMAX
BASELINE
IMAX Corporation
Total debt $282.64M Interest coverage 12.73x This is the baseline the peer rows are being compared against.
Total debt $47.45M Interest coverage 710.57x +5,483% vs IMAX Carries about 55.8x more debt cushion than IMAX.
Total debt $913.31M Interest coverage -2.10x -100% vs IMAX This peer has almost no interest-payment cushion compared with IMAX.
Total debt $2.97B Interest coverage 2.09x -84% vs IMAX Carries about 6.1x less debt cushion than IMAX.
Total debt $1.18B Interest coverage 4.24x -67% vs IMAX Carries about 3.0x less debt cushion than IMAX.
Total debt $7.72B Interest coverage 0.08x -99% vs IMAX Carries about 166.6x less debt cushion than IMAX.
What you should know
The case for and against IMAX
3 Rewards
1 Risk
Rewards
-
Revenue grew 1.4% last year.
-
Returns 11.0% on equity, ahead of 40% of its peers.
-
Free cash flow was positive in 9/10 years.
Risks
-
Stock trades 46.9% above its 5-year average P/E.
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)
70.81x
Forward P/E
24.61x
P/B
7.97x
P/S
6.81x
EV/EBITDA
21.95x
PEG ratio
0.93x
Profitability
How much profit each dollar creates
Gross margin
59.7%
Operating margin
22.5%
Net margin
9.8%
ROE
11.0%
ROA
6.7%
Health
Liquidity and balance-sheet strength
Debt / equity
0.63x
Current ratio
4.26x
Quick ratio
3.80x
Total debt
$282.64M
Total cash
$159.92M
Growth
How the business has been compounding
Revenue TTM
$416.08M
Revenue 5Y CAGR
12.6%
EPS TTM
0.73
EPS 5Y CAGR
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Cash flow
How much cash the business throws off
Operating CF TTM
$132.90M
Free CF TTM
$118.90M
FCF margin
28.6%
Dividend
Shareholder payout
Yield
—
Payout ratio
0.0%
Last ex-div date
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