One-glance verdict
Undervalued
$475.30 our estimate vs market $130.58
Wall Street consensus: $145.50 (-69.4% lower than our fair-value estimate)
73% below our estimate, below the bear case
Fundamentals snapshot
Virtus Investment Partners, Inc.
VRTS · NYQ · Financial Services · Asset Management
Current price
$130.58
52-week range
$121.61 - $195.00
Market cap
$864.79M
Balance sheet
Stretched
1.03x Concerning
Net debt $226.89M. Interest coverage shows how many times profit covers the interest bill.
What stands out
3 Rewards
2 Risks
3 rewards · 2 risks
- Reward Free cash flow was positive in 4/10 years.
- Reward Trades at 7.4x P/E vs peer median 10.7x (30.7% cheaper).
- Risk Net debt grew 35.2% over 3 years.
- Risk Operating margin compressed from 23.8% to 11.8% over 3 years.
What this company does
Virtus Investment Partners, Inc.
Virtus Investment Partners is a company that manages money for individuals and large organizations. It earns revenue primarily by charging fees based on the total amount of money it oversees in products like mutual funds (a pre-packaged collection of stocks or bonds). Therefore, the company's success is directly linked to the performance of the financial markets and its ability to attract and keep client investments.
How the company got here
Virtus began its life in 1995 as Phoenix Investment Partners, part of an insurance company. A key turning point came in 2008 when it spun off to become the independent, publicly traded company it is today. From the start, its strategy was to grow by acquiring other specialized investment management firms, a practice it has continued over the years. This approach of buying successful investment teams has allowed Virtus to expand its offerings and build the diverse business it operates now.
What it actually does
Virtus is an asset management firm, which means it manages money for individuals and large organizations. Instead of having one giant, in-house investment team, Virtus operates a 'multi-boutique' model by partnering with a number of different, independent investment management firms called affiliates. Each of these affiliates has its own unique brand and strategy for picking investments. Virtus provides the central support these smaller firms need, like sales, marketing, and operations, so they can focus on managing money.
Open-End Funds
This is the company's largest business and includes the products most people are familiar with, like mutual funds and ETFs (exchange-traded funds, which are baskets of investments that trade like a single stock). Investors, often working with financial advisors, buy shares in these funds. Virtus and its affiliates earn a fee that is a small percentage of the total money managed in these funds. This segment represents the biggest slice of the company's revenue.
Retail Separate Accounts
This business focuses on wealthier individuals rather than the general public. Instead of buying into a fund with many other people, a client has their own separate portfolio of investments managed directly by one of Virtus's affiliated firms. These accounts are typically sold through financial intermediaries (like brokers and financial advisors). This is a significant part of Virtus's business, making up the second-largest share of its revenue.
Institutional Accounts
This segment involves managing large pools of money for big organizations, not individuals. Clients are typically corporations, pension funds (retirement plans for groups of employees), foundations, and endowments. Just like with its other businesses, Virtus's affiliated managers invest this money according to specific strategies and earn fees based on the total assets under management (the total amount of money they are managing). This is another major contributor to the company's overall business.
What management is betting on now
The company's core strategy continues to be acquiring new, specialized investment management firms to bring into its partnership model. Management is also focused on offering its affiliates' investment strategies in a variety of product types, like ETFs and other modern investment 'wrappers' (structures for holding investments), to meet changing investor preferences. A key priority is improving net flows (attracting more new investment money than is being withdrawn by clients). The company also has a strong track record of returning capital to its owners through dividends (a portion of profits paid out to shareholders) and share buybacks (when a company buys its own stock to reduce the number of shares available, which can increase the value of the remaining shares).
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
$68.73M
FY2024 Q4
$-104.73M
FY2025 Q1
$-6.77M
FY2025 Q2
$74.21M
FY2025 Q3
$106.86M
FY2025 Q4
$-248.39M
FY2026 Q1
$33.54M
FY2026 Q2
$56.09M
Revenue
$201.36M
Net income
—
Diluted EPS
6.68
Operating cash flow
$57.42M
Free cash flow
$56.09M
Fetching…
Sources
Revenue
$199.53M
Net income
—
Diluted EPS
1.05
Operating cash flow
$35.90M
Free cash flow
$33.54M
Fetching…
Sources
Revenue
$208.02M
Net income
—
Diluted EPS
5.15
Operating cash flow
$-247.44M
Free cash flow
$-248.39M
Fetching…
Sources
Revenue
$216.38M
Net income
—
Diluted EPS
4.65
Operating cash flow
$108.28M
Free cash flow
$106.86M
Fetching…
Sources
Revenue
$210.53M
Net income
—
Diluted EPS
6.12
Operating cash flow
$75.76M
Free cash flow
$74.21M
Fetching…
Sources
Revenue
$217.93M
Net income
—
Diluted EPS
4.05
Operating cash flow
$-3.79M
Free cash flow
$-6.77M
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Sources
Revenue
$233.49M
Net income
—
Diluted EPS
4.65
Operating cash flow
$-102.81M
Free cash flow
$-104.73M
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Sources
Revenue
$227.03M
Net income
—
Diluted EPS
5.71
Operating cash flow
$69.14M
Free cash flow
$68.73M
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Sources
Is it cheap or expensive?
Fair value $475.30 vs current price $130.58
Wall Street consensus is the average analyst price target: $145.50 (-69.4% lower than our fair-value estimate).
Our most-likely fair value is $475.30 a share — about 264.0% above today's price of $130.58, so the stock currently looks cheap (undervalued).
Is it drowning in debt?
Stretched
Net debt $226.9M. Interest coverage 1.0x.
Net debt
$226.89M
Interest coverage
1.03x
Virtus Investment Partners, Inc.'s profit covers its interest bill about 1.0 times over. which is weaker than most peers shown here.
Stretched
Worse cushion
Baseline
Better cushion
VRTS
BASELINE
Virtus Investment Partners, Inc.
Total debt $512.74M Interest coverage 1.03x This is the baseline the peer rows are being compared against.
Total debt $314.90M Interest coverage 46.74x +4,440% vs VRTS Carries about 45.4x more debt cushion than VRTS.
Total debt $1.01B Interest coverage 8.47x +722% vs VRTS Carries about 8.2x more debt cushion than VRTS.
Total debt $451.94M Interest coverage 41.44x +3,925% vs VRTS Carries about 40.3x more debt cushion than VRTS.
Total debt $134.39M Interest coverage 13.66x +1,227% vs VRTS Carries about 13.3x more debt cushion than VRTS.
What you should know
The case for and against VRTS
3 Rewards
2 Risks
Rewards
-
Free cash flow was positive in 4/10 years.
-
Trades at 7.4x P/E vs peer median 10.7x (30.7% cheaper).
-
Dividend yield is 7.5% with 13-year payout history.
Risks
-
Net debt grew 35.2% over 3 years.
-
Operating margin compressed from 23.8% to 11.8% 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)
7.44x
Forward P/E
5.41x
P/B
0.95x
P/S
1.05x
EV/EBITDA
6.40x
PEG ratio
0.56x
Profitability
How much profit each dollar creates
Gross margin
41.1%
Operating margin
11.8%
Net margin
14.5%
ROE
10.7%
ROA
2.0%
Health
Liquidity and balance-sheet strength
Debt / equity
0.45x
Current ratio
2.66x
Quick ratio
2.65x
Total debt
$512.74M
Total cash
$285.85M
Growth
How the business has been compounding
Revenue TTM
$825.30M
Revenue 5Y CAGR
-3.4%
EPS TTM
17.54
EPS 5Y CAGR
8.8%
Cash flow
How much cash the business throws off
Operating CF TTM
$-45.84M
Free CF TTM
$-74.09M
FCF margin
-9.0%
Dividend
Shareholder payout
Yield
7.5%
Payout ratio
53.9%
Last ex-div date
2026-10-30