One-glance verdict
Within fair range
$73.34 our estimate vs market $80.19
Wall Street consensus: $105.17 (43.4% higher than our fair-value estimate)
9% above our estimate
Fundamentals snapshot
Post Holdings, Inc.
POST · NYQ · Consumer Defensive · Packaged Foods
Current price
$80.19
52-week range
$75.40 - $117.28
Market cap
$3.63B
Balance sheet
Stretched
2.29x Stretched
Net debt $7.37B. 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 3.1% last year.
- Reward Returns 8.3% on equity, ahead of 80% of its peers.
- Reward Free cash flow was positive in 10/10 years.
- Risk Net debt grew 38.9% over 3 years.
What this company does
Post Holdings, Inc.
Post Holdings is a food company selling many familiar grocery store brands, from cereals like Honey Bunches of Oats and Pebbles to Bob Evans refrigerated meals and Rachael Ray Nutrish pet food. Because the company makes money across so many different product types, its business can remain stable even if sales in one specific area slow down. This diversification is important because it means the company isn't overly reliant on the success of a single brand or consumer trend.
How the company got here
Post's story begins way back in 1895 with C.W. Post and his first ready-to-eat cereals, like Grape-Nuts. For over a century, the Post cereal brands were part of larger food corporations, including Kraft Foods. The modern version of the company, Post Holdings, Inc., was formed in 2012 when it was spun off from a company called Ralcorp. Since becoming independent, Post has transformed itself by acquiring (buying) many other food companies, turning it from a simple cereal maker into a diversified holding company that owns a variety of food brands.
What it actually does
Post Holdings is a company that owns a collection of different food businesses. Think of it less as a single company and more as a portfolio of brands you'd find in various aisles of the grocery store. You'll see its products in the cereal aisle, the refrigerated section with eggs and side dishes, and even in the pet food aisle. Beyond the grocery store, Post also sells products like eggs and potatoes directly to restaurants and other large-scale food providers.
Post Consumer Brands
This is the original and largest part of the company, making up nearly half of its sales. It's the business you probably know best, manufacturing and selling breakfast cereals like Honey Bunches of Oats, Fruity Pebbles, and Malt-O-Meal. This segment also makes Peter Pan peanut butter and, more recently, has expanded into pet food with brands like Rachael Ray Nutrish and Kibbles 'n Bits. They sell these products to all sorts of retailers, from big supercenters to local grocery stores.
Foodservice
This is Post's second-largest business, representing about a third of its revenue. Instead of selling to shoppers in a grocery store, this division provides food products to other businesses that serve meals, like restaurants, schools, and hospitals. The main products are value-added eggs (like pre-cooked egg patties) and refrigerated potato products sold under brands like Papetti's and Abbotsford Farms. This part of the company is a major supplier behind the scenes for the food you eat away from home.
Refrigerated Retail
This segment sells branded, ready-to-heat-and-eat foods that you find in the refrigerated section of the grocery store. The most well-known brands here are Bob Evans Farms, which makes sausage and mashed potatoes, and Simply Potatoes. It also includes egg products like Egg Beaters and cheese from Crystal Farms. This business caters to consumers looking for convenient meal solutions at home.
Weetabix
This is a smaller, international part of Post's business, focused primarily on the United Kingdom. Weetabix is a very popular brand of breakfast cereal in the U.K., similar to how Cheerios or Frosted Flakes are household names in the U.S. Besides its main biscuit-style cereal, this segment also sells other breakfast foods like Alpen muesli and protein shakes. It gives Post a strong foothold in the British breakfast market.
What management is betting on now
Management's strategy is to operate as a holding company, which means it focuses on acquiring and managing a portfolio of different food businesses. They are constantly looking for opportunities to buy new companies (a practice known as mergers and acquisitions) to grow and diversify. The company prioritizes generating strong cash flow (the actual cash a business generates from its operations) rather than just showing high profits on paper. Their goal is to build a collection of food businesses that consistently bring in money and provide good long-term returns for their investors.
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
$96.20M
FY2025 Q1
$171.40M
FY2025 Q2
$70.20M
FY2025 Q3
$94.90M
FY2025 Q4
$151.60M
FY2026 Q1
$119.30M
FY2026 Q2
$151.00M
FY2026 Q3
$131.20M
Revenue
$1.95B
Net income
$63.40M
Diluted EPS
1.29
Operating cash flow
$213.30M
Free cash flow
$131.20M
Fetching…
Sources
Revenue
$2.04B
Net income
$81.90M
Diluted EPS
1.56
Operating cash flow
$242.30M
Free cash flow
$151.00M
Fetching…
Sources
Revenue
$2.17B
Net income
$96.80M
Diluted EPS
1.71
Operating cash flow
$235.70M
Free cash flow
$119.30M
Fetching…
Sources
Revenue
$2.25B
Net income
$51.00M
Diluted EPS
0.91
Operating cash flow
$301.30M
Free cash flow
$151.60M
Fetching…
Sources
Revenue
$1.98B
Net income
$108.80M
Diluted EPS
1.79
Operating cash flow
$225.90M
Free cash flow
$94.90M
Fetching…
Sources
Revenue
$1.95B
Net income
$62.60M
Diluted EPS
1.03
Operating cash flow
$160.70M
Free cash flow
$70.20M
Fetching…
Sources
Revenue
$1.97B
Net income
$113.30M
Diluted EPS
1.78
Operating cash flow
$310.40M
Free cash flow
$171.40M
Fetching…
Sources
Revenue
$2.01B
Net income
$81.60M
Diluted EPS
1.28
Operating cash flow
$235.40M
Free cash flow
$96.20M
Fetching…
Sources
Is it cheap or expensive?
Fair value $73.34 vs current price $80.19
Wall Street consensus is the average analyst price target: $105.17 (43.4% higher than our fair-value estimate).
Our most-likely fair value is $73.34 a share — about 8.5% away from today's price of $80.19, so the stock currently looks fairly priced.
Is it drowning in debt?
Stretched
Net debt $7.4B. Interest coverage 2.3x.
Net debt
$7.37B
Interest coverage
2.29x
Post Holdings, Inc.'s profit covers its interest bill about 2.3 times over. which is stronger than most peers shown here and 1 peers sit below 1x, which is the danger zone where profit does not fully cover the interest bill.
Stretched
Worse cushion
Baseline
Better cushion
POST
BASELINE
Post Holdings, Inc.
Total debt $7.63B Interest coverage 2.29x This is the baseline the peer rows are being compared against.
Total debt $7.48B Interest coverage 3.23x +41% vs POST Carries about 1.4x more debt cushion than POST.
Total debt $2.58B Interest coverage 1.23x -47% vs POST Carries about 1.9x less debt cushion than POST.
Total debt $1.47B Interest coverage 4.25x +85% vs POST Carries about 1.9x more debt cushion than POST.
Total debt $1.03B Interest coverage 0.25x -89% vs POST Carries about 9.3x less debt cushion than POST.
What you should know
The case for and against POST
3 Rewards
1 Risk
Rewards
-
Revenue grew 3.1% last year.
-
Returns 8.3% on equity, ahead of 80% of its peers.
-
Free cash flow was positive in 10/10 years.
Risks
-
Net debt grew 38.9% 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)
14.58x
Forward P/E
11.14x
P/B
1.15x
P/S
0.43x
EV/EBITDA
7.52x
PEG ratio
1.17x
Profitability
How much profit each dollar creates
Gross margin
28.8%
Operating margin
10.3%
Net margin
3.5%
ROE
8.3%
ROA
4.2%
Health
Liquidity and balance-sheet strength
Debt / equity
2.47x
Current ratio
1.85x
Quick ratio
0.90x
Total debt
$7.63B
Total cash
$266.50M
Growth
How the business has been compounding
Revenue TTM
$8.41B
Revenue 5Y CAGR
14.7%
EPS TTM
5.50
EPS 5Y CAGR
-23.0%
Cash flow
How much cash the business throws off
Operating CF TTM
$992.60M
Free CF TTM
$488.10M
FCF margin
5.8%
Dividend
Shareholder payout
Yield
—
Payout ratio
0.0%
Last ex-div date
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