One-glance verdict
Undervalued
$105.45 our estimate vs market $77.59
Wall Street consensus: $90.25 (-14.4% lower than our fair-value estimate)
26% below our estimate, below the bear case
Fundamentals snapshot
Korn Ferry
KFY · NYQ · Industrials · Staffing & Employment Services
Current price
$77.59
52-week range
$58.95 - $87.51
Market cap
$4.23B
Balance sheet
Healthy
18.74x Strong cushion
Net cash $218.52M. Interest coverage shows how many times profit covers the interest bill.
What stands out
3 Rewards
2 Risks
3 rewards · 2 risks
- Reward Revenue grew 1.7% last year.
- Reward Returns 14.5% on equity, ahead of 75% of its peers.
- Risk Stock trades 3.5% above its 5-year average P/E.
- Risk Insider ownership is only 1.1% (peer median: 2.8%).
What this company does
Korn Ferry
Korn Ferry helps companies manage their employees by offering expert advice on hiring, pay, and team structure. A key part of their business is selling software that lets companies handle these human resources tasks themselves, which provides a steady stream of recurring revenue (predictable income, like a monthly subscription). This is important because it makes them less dependent on consulting fees, which can drop when businesses cut spending during an economic slowdown.
How the company got here
Korn Ferry was started in 1969 by Lester Korn and Richard Ferry as a company focused on "executive search" (the business of finding and recruiting top-level managers for other companies). It grew quickly by expanding to other countries and buying smaller competitors. A major turning point was the 2015 purchase of Hay Group, which was known for helping companies with how they pay and organize their employees. This and other acquisitions transformed Korn Ferry from just a recruiting firm into a broader organizational consulting firm that helps companies with their overall structure and talent strategy.
What it actually does
Korn Ferry is a global consulting firm that helps other companies with their people and organization. Think of them as advisors that help businesses find the right leaders, design effective teams, and make sure employees are paid appropriately and have opportunities to grow. They use a massive amount of data on jobs and people to provide this advice, helping companies make big decisions like who to hire for CEO or how to structure their workforce for the future. Essentially, they get paid by other businesses to help solve problems related to their employees and overall organization.
Consulting
This is Korn Ferry's largest business, where they act as advisors to help clients with their overall 'people strategy'. Companies pay them to design things like their organizational structure, create fair and competitive pay systems, and develop plans to train and promote their employees. For example, a company might hire Korn Ferry to help figure out the best way to combine two teams after a merger. This segment provides expert advice and solutions for a fee and represents a significant portion of the company's business.
Digital
The Digital part of the business offers clients access to Korn Ferry's vast library of data and research through online tools and platforms. Instead of hiring a team of consultants, a company can subscribe to these services to, for instance, get real-time data on what they should be paying their employees (a service called Korn Ferry Pay). This segment makes money through subscriptions and licenses for its cloud-based HR platforms. It's a way for companies to use Korn Ferry's expertise in a more self-service way.
Executive Search
This is the original business of Korn Ferry, focused on finding and placing top-level executives, like CEOs and other senior leaders, for client companies. Companies pay Korn Ferry a significant fee, often a percentage of the executive's first-year salary, for finding the right person for a critical job. This involves a deep process of identifying potential candidates, assessing their skills, and helping the client negotiate the final offer. While the company has diversified, this high-end recruiting service remains a core part of its identity.
Professional Search & Interim
This segment helps companies find employees for roles that are below the top executive level, but still require specialized skills. It also provides 'interim' or temporary professionals for companies that need to fill a role for a specific project or a limited time. For example, a company might need a temporary finance manager for six months while they search for a permanent one. Korn Ferry finds these professionals and gets paid a fee for the successful placement, whether it's for a permanent or temporary position.
Recruitment Process Outsourcing (RPO)
In this business, a client company hands over its entire recruiting process, or a large part of it, to Korn Ferry. Instead of just finding one or two key people, Korn Ferry's team acts as the client's internal recruitment department, managing the whole process of finding and hiring many employees. The client pays Korn Ferry to handle everything from posting job ads to interviewing candidates. This is a fast-growing part of the business, making up a noticeable slice of the company's revenue.
What management is betting on now
Management is focused on being a single, integrated organizational consulting firm that can help clients with everything related to their people and structure. They are investing heavily in their digital tools and using their massive amounts of data and AI to give clients better insights. A key part of their strategy is to sell multiple services to the same client, for example, helping a company find a new CEO and then also helping that CEO restructure their team. They are also expanding their services for temporary professionals and have recently made a large acquisition to grow their recruitment outsourcing business.
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.
FY2025 Q2
$107.69M
FY2025 Q3
$196.35M
FY2025 Q4
$235.52M
FY2026 Q1
$-259.97M
FY2026 Q2
$100.66M
FY2026 Q3
$211.73M
FY2026 Q4
$271.87M
FY2027 Q1
$-265.55M
Revenue
$764.62M
Net income
$68.97M
Diluted EPS
1.32
Operating cash flow
$-247.63M
Free cash flow
$-265.55M
Fetching…
Sources
Revenue
$768.26M
Net income
$73.13M
Diluted EPS
1.37
Operating cash flow
$296.68M
Free cash flow
$271.87M
Fetching…
Sources
Revenue
$725.04M
Net income
$65.27M
Diluted EPS
1.23
Operating cash flow
$233.46M
Free cash flow
$211.73M
Fetching…
Sources
Revenue
$729.80M
Net income
$72.40M
Diluted EPS
1.36
Operating cash flow
$121.42M
Free cash flow
$100.66M
Fetching…
Sources
Revenue
$715.54M
Net income
$66.64M
Diluted EPS
1.26
Operating cash flow
$-237.37M
Free cash flow
$-259.97M
Fetching…
Sources
Revenue
$719.83M
Net income
$64.24M
Diluted EPS
1.19
Operating cash flow
$255.81M
Free cash flow
$235.52M
Fetching…
Sources
Revenue
$676.54M
Net income
$58.41M
Diluted EPS
1.10
Operating cash flow
$213.74M
Free cash flow
$196.35M
Fetching…
Sources
Revenue
$681.96M
Net income
$60.80M
Diluted EPS
1.14
Operating cash flow
$122.00M
Free cash flow
$107.69M
Fetching…
Sources
Is it cheap or expensive?
Fair value $105.45 vs current price $77.59
Wall Street consensus is the average analyst price target: $90.25 (-14.4% lower than our fair-value estimate).
Our most-likely fair value is $105.45 a share — about 35.9% above today's price of $77.59, so the stock currently looks cheap (undervalued).
Is it drowning in debt?
Healthy
Net cash $218.5M - more cash than debt. Interest coverage 18.7x.
Net debt
$-218.52M
Interest coverage
18.74x
Korn Ferry's profit covers its interest bill about 18.7 times over. which is stronger than every peer shown here.
Healthy
Worse cushion
Baseline
Better cushion
KFY
BASELINE
Korn Ferry
Total debt $597.77M Interest coverage 18.74x This is the baseline the peer rows are being compared against.
Total debt $240.81M Interest coverage 6.48x -65% vs KFY Carries about 2.9x less debt cushion than KFY.
Total debt $1.42B Interest coverage 2.50x -87% vs KFY Carries about 7.5x less debt cushion than KFY.
What you should know
The case for and against KFY
3 Rewards
2 Risks
Rewards
-
Revenue grew 1.7% last year.
-
Returns 14.5% on equity, ahead of 75% of its peers.
-
Free cash flow was positive in 10/10 years.
Risks
-
Stock trades 3.5% above its 5-year average P/E.
-
Insider ownership is only 1.1% (peer median: 2.8%).
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)
14.78x
Forward P/E
12.20x
P/B
1.98x
P/S
1.43x
EV/EBITDA
9.41x
PEG ratio
1.20x
Profitability
How much profit each dollar creates
Gross margin
25.0%
Operating margin
12.8%
Net margin
9.5%
ROE
14.5%
ROA
6.5%
Health
Liquidity and balance-sheet strength
Debt / equity
0.30x
Current ratio
2.37x
Quick ratio
2.17x
Total debt
$597.77M
Total cash
$816.29M
Growth
How the business has been compounding
Revenue TTM
$2.99B
Revenue 5Y CAGR
2.7%
EPS TTM
5.25
EPS 5Y CAGR
9.7%
Cash flow
How much cash the business throws off
Operating CF TTM
$403.93M
Free CF TTM
$324.29M
FCF margin
10.9%
Dividend
Shareholder payout
Yield
2.8%
Payout ratio
39.0%
Last ex-div date
2026-09-22