One-glance verdict
Undervalued
$42.67 our estimate vs market $19.80
Wall Street consensus: $26.00 (-39.1% lower than our fair-value estimate)
54% below our estimate, below the bear case
Fundamentals snapshot
Quanex Building Products Corporation
NX · NYQ · Industrials · Building Products & Equipment
Current price
$19.80
52-week range
$11.04 - $23.33
Market cap
$907.36M
Balance sheet
Stretched
2.12x Stretched
Net debt $780.38M. Interest coverage shows how many times profit covers the interest bill.
What stands out
3 Rewards
3 Risks
3 rewards · 3 risks
- Reward Revenue grew 74.7% last year.
- Reward Returns 6.2% on equity, ahead of 16% of its peers.
- Risk Net debt grew 2286.1% over 3 years.
- Risk Stock trades 20.5% above its 5-year average P/E.
What this company does
Quanex Building Products Corporation
Quanex Building Products Corporation makes parts for windows and doors, like special glass spacers that help with energy efficiency and vinyl pieces that form the frames. Most of their sales come from these building product components sold to companies that make the final windows and doors. This matters because their success is tied to the health of the construction industry and how much new building or home improvement is happening.
How the company got here
Quanex Building Products has a long history, tracing its roots back to 1927 when it was founded as Michigan Seamless Tube Company. For many years, the company had a more diverse range of industrial businesses. However, through a significant strategic shift in the late 2000s and 2010s, Quanex divested its older industrial operations and focused more on specialized building products. This transformation has shaped Quanex into the company it is today, a key supplier of engineered components for the building industry. A major recent development is the announced acquisition of Tyman plc, which is expected to significantly expand Quanex's product offerings and international reach.
What it actually does
Quanex Building Products manufactures and supplies essential components that go into finished building products like windows, doors, and cabinets. Instead of selling the final products you'd buy at a store, Quanex sells the specialized parts that manufacturers use to build those items. These components are designed to improve the performance, energy efficiency, durability, and appearance of the final building products. The company's customers are primarily other businesses, known as original equipment manufacturers (OEMs), who rely on Quanex for consistent, high-quality parts for their production lines.
Extruded Solutions
This segment focuses on creating high-performance vinyl profiles and other materials that are crucial for manufacturing windows, doors, and other architectural products. Think of these as the shaped plastic or vinyl pieces that form the frames of windows and doors, or other structural elements in buildings. These components are vital for ensuring the energy efficiency, weather resistance, and overall durability of the final products. This is a significant part of Quanex's business, providing foundational materials for many building applications.
Hardware Solutions
Quanex's Hardware Solutions segment provides a wide array of components that are essential for the functionality, security, and ease of use of windows and doors. This includes items like hinges, locks, handles, and screens. These are the parts that allow windows and doors to open, close, lock securely, and operate smoothly. This segment plays a key role in the performance and safety of the finished building products, serving both residential and commercial projects globally.
Cabinet Components
This part of Quanex's business supplies specialized components used in the manufacturing of kitchen and bathroom cabinets. These are not the finished cabinets themselves, but rather the parts that cabinet makers use to assemble them, such as specific wood or vinyl pieces, and potentially hardware. This segment caters to the needs of cabinet manufacturers, providing them with the custom or standard components required to produce their product lines efficiently and to high standards.
What management is betting on now
Quanex's main strategic focus is on growth, both organically and through acquisitions. A key part of this strategy is the recently announced acquisition of Tyman plc, which is expected to significantly broaden the company's product portfolio, especially in hardware and international markets. Management is also focused on leveraging its expertise in material science and process engineering to develop innovative solutions that improve product performance and sustainability. The company aims to be a forward-thinking manufacturer that consistently exceeds customer expectations by investing in technology and empowering its employees.
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 Q4
$-8.17M
FY2025 Q1
$-24.13M
FY2025 Q2
$13.58M
FY2025 Q3
$46.20M
FY2025 Q4
$66.61M
FY2026 Q1
$-31.50M
FY2026 Q2
$7.89M
FY2026 Q3
$47.81M
Revenue
$501.85M
Net income
$26.50M
Diluted EPS
0.58
Operating cash flow
$58.55M
Free cash flow
$47.81M
Fetching…
Sources
Revenue
$462.37M
Net income
$3.35M
Diluted EPS
0.07
Operating cash flow
$18.92M
Free cash flow
$7.89M
Fetching…
Sources
Revenue
$409.09M
Net income
$-4.07M
Diluted EPS
-0.09
Operating cash flow
$-20.21M
Free cash flow
$-31.50M
Fetching…
Sources
Revenue
$1.84B
Net income
$19.57M
Diluted EPS
0.49
Operating cash flow
$88.25M
Free cash flow
$66.61M
Fetching…
Sources
Revenue
$495.27M
Net income
$-276.01M
Diluted EPS
-6.04
Operating cash flow
$60.66M
Free cash flow
$46.20M
Fetching…
Sources
Revenue
$452.48M
Net income
$20.52M
Diluted EPS
0.44
Operating cash flow
$28.50M
Free cash flow
$13.58M
Fetching…
Sources
Revenue
$400.04M
Net income
$-14.88M
Diluted EPS
-0.32
Operating cash flow
$-12.51M
Free cash flow
$-24.13M
Fetching…
Sources
Revenue
$492.16M
Net income
$-13.92M
Diluted EPS
-0.52
Operating cash flow
$5.48M
Free cash flow
$-8.17M
Fetching…
Sources
Is it cheap or expensive?
Fair value $42.67 vs current price $19.80
Wall Street consensus is the average analyst price target: $26.00 (-39.1% lower than our fair-value estimate).
Our most-likely fair value is $42.67 a share — about 115.5% above today's price of $19.80, so the stock currently looks cheap (undervalued).
Is it drowning in debt?
Stretched
Net debt $780.4M. Interest coverage 2.1x.
Net debt
$780.38M
Interest coverage
2.12x
Quanex Building Products Corporation's profit covers its interest bill about 2.1 times over. which is weaker than most peers shown here.
Stretched
Worse cushion
Baseline
Better cushion
NX
BASELINE
Quanex Building Products Corporation
Total debt $842.48M Interest coverage 2.12x This is the baseline the peer rows are being compared against.
Total debt $383.22M Interest coverage 6.04x +185% vs NX Carries about 2.8x more debt cushion than NX.
Total debt $622.40M Interest coverage 3.05x +44% vs NX Carries about 1.4x more debt cushion than NX.
Total debt $0.00 Interest coverage 1,046.85x +49,196% vs NX Carries about 493.0x more debt cushion than NX.
Total debt $1.37B Interest coverage 40.89x +1,825% vs NX Carries about 19.3x more debt cushion than NX.
Total debt $1.65B Interest coverage 3.70x +74% vs NX Carries about 1.7x more debt cushion than NX.
What you should know
The case for and against NX
3 Rewards
3 Risks
Rewards
-
Revenue grew 74.7% last year.
-
Returns 6.2% on equity, ahead of 16% of its peers.
-
Free cash flow was positive in 10/10 years.
Risks
-
Net debt grew 2286.1% over 3 years.
-
Stock trades 20.5% above its 5-year average P/E.
-
Insider ownership is only 1.3% (peer median: 4.1%).
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)
20.62x
Forward P/E
10.04x
P/B
1.21x
P/S
0.49x
EV/EBITDA
8.01x
PEG ratio
0.70x
Profitability
How much profit each dollar creates
Gross margin
26.6%
Operating margin
9.3%
Net margin
2.4%
ROE
6.2%
ROA
3.5%
Health
Liquidity and balance-sheet strength
Debt / equity
1.13x
Current ratio
2.23x
Quick ratio
1.05x
Total debt
$842.48M
Total cash
$62.09M
Growth
How the business has been compounding
Revenue TTM
$3.21B
Revenue 5Y CAGR
14.4%
EPS TTM
0.96
EPS 5Y CAGR
—
Cash flow
How much cash the business throws off
Operating CF TTM
$145.52M
Free CF TTM
$102.25M
FCF margin
3.2%
Dividend
Shareholder payout
Yield
1.6%
Payout ratio
33.0%
Last ex-div date
2026-09-15