One-glance verdict
Undervalued
$68.21 our estimate vs market $17.53
Wall Street consensus: $28.00 (-58.9% lower than our fair-value estimate)
74% below our estimate, below the bear case
Fundamentals snapshot
MGP Ingredients, Inc.
MGPI · NMS · Consumer Defensive · Beverages - Wineries & Distilleries
Current price
$17.53
52-week range
$15.72 - $30.60
Market cap
$375.39M
Balance sheet
Watch
11.86x Adequate
Net debt $360.18M. Interest coverage shows how many times profit covers the interest bill.
What stands out
2 Rewards
3 Risks
2 rewards · 3 risks
- Reward Free cash flow was positive in 10/10 years.
- Reward Dividend yield is 2.7% with 39-year payout history.
- Risk Return on equity was -33.8% last year — the company lost money on shareholders' equity.
- Risk Net debt grew 25.4% over 3 years.
What this company does
MGP Ingredients, Inc.
MGP Ingredients is a major "behind-the-scenes" producer of spirits, making whiskey, gin, and vodka that other companies bottle and sell under their own famous names. At the same time, MGPI sells its own liquor brands like Yellowstone Bourbon and Ezra Brooks, putting them in a unique position as both a key supplier and a competitor in the beverage industry. The company also makes and sells specialty food ingredients from wheat and peas, giving them another way to earn money.
How the company got here
MGP Ingredients started in 1941 in Kansas, originally making industrial alcohol for the effort in World War II. For decades, it operated quietly as a bulk supplier of spirits and food ingredients to other companies. A major turning point came in 2021 when MGP bought a company called Luxco. This purchase was a strategic (done as part of a long-term plan) move to transform MGP from just a behind-the-scenes supplier into a company with its own recognizable alcohol brands on the shelf.
What it actually does
MGP Ingredients has two main businesses that might seem unrelated at first: making alcoholic drinks and making food ingredients. On the one hand, they distill (the process of purifying a liquid by heating and cooling) spirits like bourbon, rye whiskey, vodka, and gin. On the other hand, they take wheat and turn it into specialty proteins and starches that other food companies buy to use in their products, like baked goods or plant-based meats.
Distillery Solutions
This is the company's original and largest business, making up about half of its sales. In this segment, MGP acts as a 'distiller for hire,' creating huge amounts of alcohol for other companies that don't have their own distilleries. Those companies then bottle the spirits under their own brand names, so you might be drinking MGP's whiskey without even knowing it. This part of the business provides a steady stream of cash that the company can then use to invest in other areas.
Branded Spirits
This is the part of the company that sells alcohol with its own name on the bottle, like Yellowstone Bourbon, Rebel Bourbon, and El Mayor Tequila. This segment was created through major acquisitions (when one company buys another), most notably of Luxco in 2021 and Penelope Bourbon in 2023. While it's a smaller part of the company's revenue (the total money earned from sales) than Distillery Solutions, it's much more profitable. This is because the company can earn a higher margin (the portion of a product's price that is profit) on its own brands.
Ingredient Solutions
This is the smallest of the three segments, focused entirely on food. MGP takes wheat and processes it to create specialized ingredients like proteins and starches. Food manufacturers buy these ingredients to improve the texture or nutritional value of their products, such as adding fiber to bread or creating plant-based proteins. Customers range from bakeries to makers of packaged foods.
What management is betting on now
The company's main strategy is to grow its own Branded Spirits business, especially its more expensive, 'premium' whiskeys and tequilas. This is a deliberate shift to focus on higher-margin products, which means they make more profit on each bottle sold compared to their bulk alcohol business. By acquiring and building its own brands, MGP aims to become known more as a beverage company in its own right, rather than just a supplier to others. They see this as the key to driving more profitable growth for the company in the long run.
Price history
How the share price has moved
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Loading price history…
Earnings history
Last 8 quarters — what happened
Click any quarter to read the call summary and what the numbers say.
FY2024 Q2
$-1.41M
FY2024 Q3
$24.48M
FY2024 Q4
$10.44M
FY2025 Q1
$24.76M
FY2025 Q2
$-557.00K
FY2025 Q3
$27.57M
FY2025 Q4
$24.27M
FY2026 Q1
$1.23M
Revenue
$106.43M
Net income
$-134.80M
Diluted EPS
-6.30
Operating cash flow
$6.96M
Free cash flow
$1.23M
Fetching…
Sources
Revenue
$138.32M
Net income
$-134.63M
Diluted EPS
-6.23
Operating cash flow
$29.08M
Free cash flow
$24.27M
Fetching…
Sources
Revenue
$130.91M
Net income
$15.42M
Diluted EPS
0.71
Operating cash flow
$36.09M
Free cash flow
$27.57M
Fetching…
Sources
Revenue
$145.49M
Net income
$14.43M
Diluted EPS
0.67
Operating cash flow
$11.67M
Free cash flow
$-557.00K
Fetching…
Sources
Revenue
$121.65M
Net income
$-3.02M
Diluted EPS
-0.14
Operating cash flow
$44.68M
Free cash flow
$24.76M
Fetching…
Sources
Revenue
$180.80M
Net income
$-41.96M
Diluted EPS
-1.86
Operating cash flow
$28.77M
Free cash flow
$10.44M
Fetching…
Sources
Revenue
$161.46M
Net income
$23.91M
Diluted EPS
1.07
Operating cash flow
$43.93M
Free cash flow
$24.48M
Fetching…
Sources
Revenue
$190.81M
Net income
$32.09M
Diluted EPS
1.43
Operating cash flow
$4.96M
Free cash flow
$-1.41M
Fetching…
Sources
Is it cheap or expensive?
Fair value $68.21 vs current price $17.53
Wall Street consensus is the average analyst price target: $28.00 (-58.9% lower than our fair-value estimate).
Our most-likely fair value is $68.21 a share — about 289.1% above today's price of $17.53, so the stock currently looks cheap (undervalued).
Is it drowning in debt?
Watch
Net debt $360.2M. Interest coverage 11.9x.
Net debt
$360.18M
Interest coverage
11.86x
MGP Ingredients, Inc.'s profit covers its interest bill about 11.9 times over. which is stronger than every peer shown here and 1 peers sit below 1x, which is the danger zone where profit does not fully cover the interest bill.
Watch
Worse cushion
Baseline
Better cushion
MGPI
BASELINE
MGP Ingredients, Inc.
Total debt $377.97M Interest coverage 11.86x This is the baseline the peer rows are being compared against.
Total debt $2.61B Interest coverage 11.18x -6% vs MGPI Has roughly the same debt cushion as MGPI.
Total debt $22.31B Interest coverage 3.93x -67% vs MGPI Carries about 3.0x less debt cushion than MGPI.
Total debt $10.53B Interest coverage 7.92x -33% vs MGPI Carries about 1.5x less debt cushion than MGPI.
Total debt $9.34B Interest coverage 2.33x -80% vs MGPI Carries about 5.1x less debt cushion than MGPI.
Total debt $548.63M Interest coverage -1.10x -100% vs MGPI This peer has almost no interest-payment cushion compared with MGPI.
What you should know
The case for and against MGPI
2 Rewards
3 Risks
Rewards
-
Free cash flow was positive in 10/10 years.
-
Dividend yield is 2.7% with 39-year payout history.
Risks
-
Return on equity was -33.8% last year — the company lost money on shareholders' equity.
-
Net debt grew 25.4% over 3 years.
-
Operating margin compressed from 19.0% to 14.8% 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)
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Forward P/E
8.80x
P/B
0.64x
P/S
0.75x
EV/EBITDA
8.08x
PEG ratio
1.14x
Profitability
How much profit each dollar creates
Gross margin
35.5%
Operating margin
14.8%
Net margin
-48.4%
ROE
-33.8%
ROA
3.4%
Health
Liquidity and balance-sheet strength
Debt / equity
0.64x
Current ratio
6.99x
Quick ratio
1.59x
Total debt
$377.97M
Total cash
$17.79M
Growth
How the business has been compounding
Revenue TTM
$521.15M
Revenue 5Y CAGR
-3.8%
EPS TTM
-11.26
EPS 5Y CAGR
—
Cash flow
How much cash the business throws off
Operating CF TTM
$83.80M
Free CF TTM
$76.04M
FCF margin
14.6%
Dividend
Shareholder payout
Yield
2.7%
Payout ratio
96.0%
Last ex-div date
2026-08-14