One-glance verdict
Within fair range
$131.91 our estimate vs market $160.58
Wall Street consensus: $170.85 (29.5% higher than our fair-value estimate)
22% above our estimate
Fundamentals snapshot
3M Company
MMM · NYQ · Industrials · Conglomerates
Current price
$160.58
52-week range
$139.34 - $177.41
Market cap
$83.75B
Balance sheet
Stretched
5.06x Adequate
Net debt $7.31B. 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 0.3% last year.
- Reward Returns 71.5% on equity, ahead of 66% of its peers.
- Risk Stock trades 73.1% above its 5-year average P/E.
- Risk Insider ownership is only 0.1% (peer median: 0.2%).
What this company does
3M Company
3M is a giant manufacturing company that makes thousands of products, from familiar items like Post-it Notes and Scotch Tape to critical components for cars, smartphones, and healthcare equipment. The company makes most of its money by selling these essential products to other businesses, making it a key part of the global supply chain (the network of companies that move a product from raw material to the final customer). Because its sales are spread across so many different industries, its overall business isn't overly dependent on the success of any single one.
How the company got here
3M began in 1902 as a small mining venture in Minnesota that failed when the mineral it planned to sell turned out to be low-grade. [1, 11] Instead of giving up, the founders pivoted to making sandpaper, and by the 1920s, had invented revolutionary products like waterproof sandpaper and Scotch masking tape. [3, 11] This set the stage for a culture of innovation, famously allowing employees to spend 15% of their time on passion projects, which led to iconic inventions like the Post-it Note. [11, 17] Over the next century, the company grew into a massive global conglomerate (a large company composed of many smaller, unrelated businesses) by applying its core technologies, like adhesives and films, to tens of thousands of different products. [3, 12] Recently, it spun off its large healthcare division to focus more on its industrial, transportation, and consumer product businesses. [2, 5]
What it actually does
At its heart, 3M is a materials science company that invents and manufactures a vast range of products used in homes, offices, factories, hospitals, and on the road. [2, 3] While it operates in many technical fields, most people know 3M through its famous consumer brands. [3] These include everyday items like Post-it Notes for reminders, Scotch tape for wrapping gifts, Command hooks for damage-free hanging, Scotch-Brite sponges for cleaning dishes, and Filtrete air filters for home furnaces. [2, 13] The company's core strategy is to develop a new material or technology, like a special kind of adhesive, and then find hundreds of different ways to use it across all its businesses. [2]
Safety and Industrial
This is 3M's largest business segment, making up nearly half of the company's sales. [4] It sells products directly to other businesses for use in their daily operations and to keep workers safe. [7] This includes things like high-strength abrasives for metalworking, specialty tapes and adhesives for manufacturing, and personal protective equipment like N95 respirators, hearing protection, and fall-arrest gear. [2, 7] The customers for this segment are typically in construction, manufacturing, and other industrial fields. [7]
Transportation and Electronics
This segment, which accounts for about a third of the company's business, creates solutions for the automotive, aerospace, and electronics industries. [4] You can see its products in the real world as reflective sheeting on highway signs or the colorful graphic films used to wrap vehicles and advertise on fleet trucks. [2] Inside your electronics, 3M makes specialized films to manage light in displays and materials used in the manufacturing of semiconductors (the tiny chips that power computers and phones). [2] This part of the company sells its technology to other large manufacturers.
Consumer
This is the most familiar part of 3M's business, representing about a fifth of its revenue. [4] This segment makes the well-known brands you'd find in a retail store, including home and office supplies. [13] It sells products like Scotch tape, Post-it Notes, Command hooks, and Scotchgard fabric protectors directly to everyday shoppers through wholesalers and retailers. [2, 3] It also includes home improvement products like sandpaper and painter's tape, as well as consumer health items like Nexcare bandages and ACE braces. [3, 13]
What management is betting on now
The company's leadership is focused on improving its operational performance, which means making its factories run better and streamlining its supply chain (the entire process of making and delivering a product to a customer). [2] They are also pushing to accelerate innovation, with a goal of launching hundreds of new products that solve customer problems. [6] A major strategic shift is the plan to completely stop manufacturing PFAS (a class of chemicals that have come under regulatory scrutiny) by the end of 2025, which requires reformulating some products. [2] Management is also directing investment toward what it sees as high-growth markets, including electric vehicles, data centers, and home improvement. [6]
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
$752.00M
FY2024 Q3
$-2.03B
FY2024 Q4
$1.53B
FY2025 Q1
$-315.00M
FY2025 Q2
$-1.16B
FY2025 Q3
$1.54B
FY2025 Q4
$1.33B
FY2026 Q1
$349.00M
Revenue
$6.03B
Net income
$653.00M
Diluted EPS
1.23
Operating cash flow
$574.00M
Free cash flow
$349.00M
Fetching…
Sources
Revenue
$6.13B
Net income
$577.00M
Diluted EPS
1.07
Operating cash flow
$1.58B
Free cash flow
$1.33B
Fetching…
Sources
Revenue
$6.52B
Net income
$834.00M
Diluted EPS
1.55
Operating cash flow
$1.76B
Free cash flow
$1.54B
Fetching…
Sources
Revenue
$6.34B
Net income
$723.00M
Diluted EPS
1.34
Operating cash flow
$-954.00M
Free cash flow
$-1.16B
Fetching…
Sources
Revenue
$5.95B
Net income
$1.12B
Diluted EPS
2.04
Operating cash flow
$-79.00M
Free cash flow
$-315.00M
Fetching…
Sources
Revenue
$6.01B
Net income
$728.00M
Diluted EPS
1.33
Operating cash flow
$1.82B
Free cash flow
$1.53B
Fetching…
Sources
Revenue
$6.29B
Net income
$1.37B
Diluted EPS
2.48
Operating cash flow
$-1.79B
Free cash flow
$-2.03B
Fetching…
Sources
Revenue
$6.25B
Net income
$1.15B
Diluted EPS
2.07
Operating cash flow
$1.02B
Free cash flow
$752.00M
Fetching…
Sources
Is it cheap or expensive?
Fair value $131.91 vs current price $160.58
Wall Street consensus is the average analyst price target: $170.85 (29.5% higher than our fair-value estimate).
Our most-likely fair value is $131.91 a share — about 17.9% away from today's price of $160.58, so the stock currently looks fairly priced.
Is it drowning in debt?
Stretched
Net debt $7.3B. Interest coverage 5.1x.
Net debt
$7.31B
Interest coverage
5.06x
3M Company's profit covers its interest bill about 5.1 times over. which is stronger than most peers shown here.
Stretched
Worse cushion
Baseline
Better cushion
MMM
BASELINE
3M Company
Total debt $13.13B Interest coverage 5.06x This is the baseline the peer rows are being compared against.
Total debt $37.75B Interest coverage 4.89x -4% vs MMM Has roughly the same debt cushion as MMM.
Total debt $9.15B Interest coverage 14.44x +185% vs MMM Carries about 2.9x more debt cushion than MMM.
Total debt $21.83B Interest coverage 21.61x +327% vs MMM Carries about 4.3x more debt cushion than MMM.
Total debt $3.22B Interest coverage 2.75x -46% vs MMM Carries about 1.8x less debt cushion than MMM.
Total debt $14.06B Interest coverage 9.13x +80% vs MMM Carries about 1.8x more debt cushion than MMM.
What you should know
The case for and against MMM
3 Rewards
2 Risks
Rewards
-
Revenue grew 0.3% last year.
-
Returns 71.5% on equity, ahead of 66% of its peers.
-
Free cash flow was positive in 10/10 years.
Risks
-
Stock trades 73.1% above its 5-year average P/E.
-
Insider ownership is only 0.1% (peer median: 0.2%).
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)
30.94x
Forward P/E
16.92x
P/B
25.67x
P/S
3.35x
EV/EBITDA
14.70x
PEG ratio
1.70x
Profitability
How much profit each dollar creates
Gross margin
39.7%
Operating margin
23.3%
Net margin
11.1%
ROE
71.5%
ROA
8.1%
Health
Liquidity and balance-sheet strength
Debt / equity
3.96x
Current ratio
1.59x
Quick ratio
1.06x
Total debt
$13.13B
Total cash
$5.82B
Growth
How the business has been compounding
Revenue TTM
$25.02B
Revenue 5Y CAGR
-8.3%
EPS TTM
5.19
EPS 5Y CAGR
-16.2%
Cash flow
How much cash the business throws off
Operating CF TTM
$2.96B
Free CF TTM
$1.40B
FCF margin
5.6%
Dividend
Shareholder payout
Yield
1.9%
Payout ratio
57.2%
Last ex-div date
2026-05-22