One-glance verdict
Overvalued
$30.28 our estimate vs market $128.60
Wall Street consensus: $142.80 (371.6% higher than our fair-value estimate)
325% above our estimate, beyond the bull case
Fundamentals snapshot
Sensient Technologies Corporation
SXT · NYQ · Basic Materials · Specialty Chemicals
Current price
$128.60
52-week range
$82.60 - $138.82
Market cap
$5.47B
Balance sheet
Watch
7.00x Adequate
Net debt $732.88M. 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 5.7% last year.
- Reward Returns 13.1% on equity, ahead of 66% of its peers.
- Risk Stock trades 31.6% above its 5-year average P/E.
- Risk Net debt grew 6.9% over 3 years.
What this company does
Sensient Technologies Corporation
Sensient Technologies makes the specialty colors and flavors found in many everyday items, from your food and drinks to cosmetics and pills. The company earns its money by selling these essential ingredients to other large businesses, making it a key part of the supply chain (the network of companies that bring a product from creation to the consumer). Because these ingredients are needed for so many basic consumer goods, Sensient's business can be quite stable, as people continue to buy these items even in different economic conditions.
How the company got here
Sensient Technologies started in 1882 as a distillery in Milwaukee called Meadow Springs Distillery. When Prohibition began in 1919, the company cleverly shifted its focus to selling yeast, a byproduct of the distilling process, and renamed itself Red Star Yeast & Products Company. Over the next several decades, it expanded into a variety of food businesses and became known as Universal Foods Corporation. Starting in the 1980s, the company began to focus on the more specialized and profitable areas of food colors and flavors through acquisitions. In 2000, it changed its name to Sensient Technologies to reflect this new focus on ingredients that appeal to the senses and sold off its remaining commodity businesses like yeast.
What it actually does
Sensient creates and sells specialty ingredients that add color, flavor, and other characteristics to a wide range of products you likely use every day. Think of the red color in your favorite candy, the savory flavor in a soup, or the specific shade of a lipstick; there's a good chance Sensient made a key ingredient. They provide these specialized ingredients to other companies—from major international brands to smaller businesses—to use in their final products. Their work touches everything from food and drinks to pharmaceuticals, cosmetics, and personal care items.
Flavors & Extracts
This is Sensient's largest business segment, which creates and supplies flavor systems to companies in the food, beverage, and personal care industries. This includes everything from the taste of your soda to the savory notes in a packaged meal and even dehydrated vegetables like garlic and onion powder used by food processors. They develop natural and synthetic flavors, extracts from plants, and essential oils to create specific taste profiles for their customers' products. This part of the company is a major contributor to Sensient's overall sales.
Color
This segment develops and produces a wide variety of natural and synthetic colors for many different industries. Food and beverage companies use these colors to make their products visually appealing, like giving a yogurt its fruity hue. This division also creates colors and other ingredients for cosmetics, personal care products like soap, and even coatings for pills in the pharmaceutical industry. They also produce technical colors used for industrial purposes.
Asia Pacific
This part of the company is organized by geography rather than by product type and is responsible for selling Sensient's various products in the Pacific Rim and India. It markets the full range of products from both the Flavors & Extracts and Color segments to customers in this region. This segment also has its own research teams to develop products specifically tailored to local tastes and preferences. While smaller than the other two segments, it represents a key area for growth for the company.
What management is betting on now
Sensient's leadership is heavily focused on providing natural and specialized ingredients, moving away from basic, commodity-type products. They are investing in technologies that create unique solutions for their customers, such as helping food companies reduce sugar and salt in their products without sacrificing taste. A major part of their strategy involves a 'seed-to-shelf' approach, where they are involved in the entire supply chain (the journey of a product from raw material to the consumer), starting with developing the seeds for the plants that produce their natural colors. This focus on sustainability and a secure source of raw materials is a key priority for their future growth.
Price history
How the share price has moved
—
Loading price history…
Earnings history
Last 8 quarters — what happened
Click any quarter to read the call summary and what the numbers say.
FY2024 Q3
$63.58M
FY2024 Q4
$-1.73M
FY2025 Q1
$-25.83M
FY2025 Q2
$27.10M
FY2025 Q3
$24.21M
FY2025 Q4
$12.94M
FY2026 Q1
$-42.35M
FY2026 Q2
$9.69M
Revenue
$462.08M
Net income
$51.36M
Diluted EPS
1.20
Operating cash flow
$48.46M
Free cash flow
$9.69M
Fetching…
Sources
Revenue
$435.83M
Net income
$44.17M
Diluted EPS
1.04
Operating cash flow
$-13.62M
Free cash flow
$-42.35M
Fetching…
Sources
Revenue
$393.45M
Net income
$25.48M
Diluted EPS
0.60
Operating cash flow
$44.56M
Free cash flow
$12.94M
Fetching…
Sources
Revenue
$412.11M
Net income
$36.96M
Diluted EPS
0.87
Operating cash flow
$43.96M
Free cash flow
$24.21M
Fetching…
Sources
Revenue
$414.23M
Net income
$37.59M
Diluted EPS
0.88
Operating cash flow
$48.28M
Free cash flow
$27.10M
Fetching…
Sources
Revenue
$392.32M
Net income
$34.46M
Diluted EPS
0.81
Operating cash flow
$-8.98M
Free cash flow
$-25.83M
Fetching…
Sources
Revenue
$376.42M
Net income
$30.10M
Diluted EPS
0.71
Operating cash flow
$21.39M
Free cash flow
$-1.73M
Fetching…
Sources
Revenue
$392.61M
Net income
$32.69M
Diluted EPS
0.77
Operating cash flow
$76.81M
Free cash flow
$63.58M
Fetching…
Sources
Is it cheap or expensive?
Fair value $30.28 vs current price $128.60
Wall Street consensus is the average analyst price target: $142.80 (371.6% higher than our fair-value estimate).
Our most-likely fair value is $30.28 a share — about 76.5% below today's price of $128.60, so the stock currently looks expensive (overvalued).
Is it drowning in debt?
Watch
Net debt $732.9M. Interest coverage 7.0x.
Net debt
$732.88M
Interest coverage
7.00x
Sensient Technologies Corporation's profit covers its interest bill about 7.0 times over. which is stronger than most peers shown here.
Watch
Worse cushion
Baseline
Better cushion
SXT
BASELINE
Sensient Technologies Corporation
Total debt $763.90M Interest coverage 7.00x This is the baseline the peer rows are being compared against.
Total debt $6.28B Interest coverage 3.68x -47% vs SXT Carries about 1.9x less debt cushion than SXT.
Total debt $166.72M Interest coverage 20.48x +193% vs SXT Carries about 2.9x more debt cushion than SXT.
Total debt $1.78B Interest coverage 28.03x +300% vs SXT Carries about 4.0x more debt cushion than SXT.
Total debt $1.48B Interest coverage 1.44x -79% vs SXT Carries about 4.9x less debt cushion than SXT.
Total debt $3.27B Interest coverage 10.19x +46% vs SXT Carries about 1.5x more debt cushion than SXT.
What you should know
The case for and against SXT
3 Rewards
2 Risks
Rewards
-
Revenue grew 5.7% last year.
-
Returns 13.1% on equity, ahead of 66% of its peers.
-
Free cash flow was positive in 8/10 years.
Risks
-
Stock trades 31.6% above its 5-year average P/E.
-
Net debt grew 6.9% 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)
34.76x
Forward P/E
25.93x
P/B
4.32x
P/S
3.21x
EV/EBITDA
19.98x
PEG ratio
1.74x
Profitability
How much profit each dollar creates
Gross margin
34.9%
Operating margin
16.6%
Net margin
9.3%
ROE
13.1%
ROA
6.8%
Health
Liquidity and balance-sheet strength
Debt / equity
0.61x
Current ratio
4.39x
Quick ratio
1.51x
Total debt
$763.90M
Total cash
$31.02M
Growth
How the business has been compounding
Revenue TTM
$1.70B
Revenue 5Y CAGR
4.0%
EPS TTM
3.70
EPS 5Y CAGR
-1.8%
Cash flow
How much cash the business throws off
Operating CF TTM
$123.37M
Free CF TTM
$38.42M
FCF margin
2.3%
Dividend
Shareholder payout
Yield
1.3%
Payout ratio
44.2%
Last ex-div date
2026-08-03