One-glance verdict
Undervalued
$31.09 our estimate vs market $8.75
Wall Street consensus: $9.75 (-68.6% lower than our fair-value estimate)
72% below our estimate, below the bear case
Fundamentals snapshot
TrueBlue, Inc.
TBI · NYQ · Industrials · Staffing & Employment Services
Current price
$8.75
52-week range
$3.18 - $11.03
Market cap
$266.39M
Balance sheet
Distressed
-27.98x Concerning
Net debt $115.19M. Interest coverage shows how many times profit covers the interest bill.
What stands out
1 Reward
3 Risks
1 rewards · 3 risks
- Reward Free cash flow was positive in 7/10 years.
- Risk Return on equity was -20.2% last year — the company lost money on shareholders' equity.
- Risk Operating margin compressed from 3.2% to 0.6% over 3 years.
- Risk Insider ownership is only 7.7% (peer median: 10.2%).
What this company does
TrueBlue, Inc.
TrueBlue is a staffing company that acts like a large temp agency, connecting people with jobs in fields like construction, warehousing, and transportation. The company makes money by charging other businesses for finding them these temporary or permanent workers and for managing their hiring processes. This means TrueBlue's success is closely tied to the overall job market, as its services are in high demand when the economy is strong and companies are hiring.
How the company got here
TrueBlue started in 1989 as a single office called Labor Ready in Washington state, focused on providing temporary workers. Over the years, it grew by adding more services and buying other companies to expand its offerings. In 2007, the company changed its name to TrueBlue to reflect its broader range of workforce solutions beyond just temporary labor. Key acquisitions allowed them to move into managing entire hiring processes for large companies and providing on-site workforces. Today, it's a large company that connects hundreds of thousands of people with jobs each year across various industries.
What it actually does
Think of TrueBlue as a company that helps other businesses find workers for all sorts of jobs. They provide everything from a single temporary worker for a day to managing a company's entire hiring process for permanent employees. Businesses in industries like construction, manufacturing, and transportation pay TrueBlue to handle the challenges of finding and managing their workforce. This allows those businesses to focus on their main operations while TrueBlue handles the complexities of staffing.
PeopleReady
This is TrueBlue's largest business, making up about half of its revenue, and it's focused on providing temporary, on-demand workers. Companies in construction, manufacturing, retail, and hospitality pay PeopleReady to quickly find people for short-term jobs or to handle seasonal rushes. They use a mobile app called JobStack that allows businesses to request workers 24/7, making it easy to fill a shift at a moment's notice. This part of the business provides both general laborers and workers with specific skills, like carpenters and electricians.
PeopleManagement
This division provides larger, more involved staffing solutions, often by placing a whole team of workers directly at a client's location. Big companies in manufacturing, warehousing, and distribution pay this segment to manage their on-site workforce, which can include recruiting, training, and supervision. PeopleManagement also includes a specialized service called Centerline, which focuses on recruiting and managing commercial truck drivers for the transportation industry. This segment is about providing a more integrated, long-term workforce solution rather than just filling a single job for a day.
PeopleScout
This part of TrueBlue acts like an outsourced human resources department for other companies, a service known as Recruitment Process Outsourcing (RPO). Instead of just providing temporary staff, PeopleScout manages the entire process of finding and hiring permanent employees for its clients. It also offers Managed Service Provider (MSP) solutions, where it manages a client's different staffing vendors to ensure efficiency and compliance (making sure all rules and regulations are followed). This is a smaller but important part of the business that works with large, often global, companies on their long-term hiring strategies.
What management is betting on now
The company is heavily focused on technology to make finding and managing workers easier and more efficient. A key part of this strategy is expanding the use of their digital platforms, like the JobStack app, to connect workers and jobs more quickly. Management is also concentrating on growing their more specialized, higher-skilled staffing businesses, which can be more profitable. At the same time, they are working on streamlining their own day-to-day business costs to become a more efficient and profitable organization.
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 Q3
$-12.72M
FY2024 Q4
$854.00K
FY2025 Q1
$-26.80M
FY2025 Q2
$-16.05M
FY2025 Q3
$-23.38M
FY2025 Q4
$-7.49M
FY2026 Q1
$-12.61M
FY2026 Q2
$-23.95M
Revenue
—
Net income
$-3.37M
Diluted EPS
-0.11
Operating cash flow
$-20.58M
Free cash flow
$-23.95M
Fetching…
Sources
Revenue
—
Net income
$-19.80M
Diluted EPS
-0.66
Operating cash flow
$-9.78M
Free cash flow
$-12.61M
Fetching…
Sources
Revenue
—
Net income
$-31.54M
Diluted EPS
-1.06
Operating cash flow
$-4.37M
Free cash flow
$-7.49M
Fetching…
Sources
Revenue
—
Net income
$-1.92M
Diluted EPS
-0.06
Operating cash flow
$-19.77M
Free cash flow
$-23.38M
Fetching…
Sources
Revenue
—
Net income
$-160.00K
Diluted EPS
-0.01
Operating cash flow
$-11.79M
Free cash flow
$-16.05M
Fetching…
Sources
Revenue
—
Net income
$-14.35M
Diluted EPS
-0.48
Operating cash flow
$-22.11M
Free cash flow
$-26.80M
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Sources
Revenue
—
Net income
$-11.71M
Diluted EPS
-0.41
Operating cash flow
$6.13M
Free cash flow
$854.00K
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Sources
Revenue
—
Net income
$-7.63M
Diluted EPS
-0.26
Operating cash flow
$-7.13M
Free cash flow
$-12.72M
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Sources
Is it cheap or expensive?
Fair value $31.09 vs current price $8.75
Wall Street consensus is the average analyst price target: $9.75 (-68.6% lower than our fair-value estimate).
Our most-likely fair value is $31.09 a share — about 255.3% above today's price of $8.75, so the stock currently looks cheap (undervalued).
Is it drowning in debt?
Distressed
Net debt $115.2M. Interest coverage -28.0x.
Net debt
$115.19M
Interest coverage
-27.98x
TrueBlue, Inc.'s profit covers its interest bill about 0.0 times over. which is weaker than most peers shown here and 2 peers sit below 1x, which is the danger zone where profit does not fully cover the interest bill.
Distressed
Worse cushion
Baseline
Better cushion
TBI
BASELINE
TrueBlue, Inc.
Total debt $138.44M Interest coverage -27.98x This is the baseline the peer rows are being compared against.
Total debt $0.00 Interest coverage 22.66x This peer still has a real interest-payment cushion, while TBI does not.
Total debt $128.70M Interest coverage 2.19x This peer still has a real interest-payment cushion, while TBI does not.
Total debt $24.50M Interest coverage 363.53x This peer still has a real interest-payment cushion, while TBI does not.
Total debt $608.00K Interest coverage -2.07x Neither company has much profit cushion over interest right now.
Total debt $3.50M Interest coverage -9.94x Neither company has much profit cushion over interest right now.
What you should know
The case for and against TBI
1 Reward
3 Risks
Rewards
-
Free cash flow was positive in 7/10 years.
Risks
-
Return on equity was -20.2% last year — the company lost money on shareholders' equity.
-
Operating margin compressed from 3.2% to 0.6% over 3 years.
-
Insider ownership is only 7.7% (peer median: 10.2%).
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)
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Forward P/E
10.71x
P/B
1.05x
P/S
0.16x
EV/EBITDA
553.01x
PEG ratio
0.71x
Profitability
How much profit each dollar creates
Gross margin
21.5%
Operating margin
0.6%
Net margin
-3.3%
ROE
-20.2%
ROA
-2.7%
Health
Liquidity and balance-sheet strength
Debt / equity
0.54x
Current ratio
2.28x
Quick ratio
2.10x
Total debt
$138.44M
Total cash
$23.25M
Growth
How the business has been compounding
Revenue TTM
$2.49B
Revenue 5Y CAGR
10.7%
EPS TTM
-1.88
EPS 5Y CAGR
—
Cash flow
How much cash the business throws off
Operating CF TTM
$-54.49M
Free CF TTM
$-73.72M
FCF margin
-3.0%
Dividend
Shareholder payout
Yield
—
Payout ratio
0.0%
Last ex-div date
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