One-glance verdict
Overvalued
$115.16 our estimate vs market $159.74
Wall Street consensus: $200.60 (74.2% higher than our fair-value estimate)
39% above our estimate, beyond the bull case
Fundamentals snapshot
Waste Connections, Inc.
WCN · NYQ · Industrials · Waste Management
Current price
$159.74
52-week range
$146.89 - $179.74
Market cap
$40.19B
Balance sheet
Stretched
5.44x Adequate
Net debt $9.54B. 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 3.1% last year.
- Reward Returns 13.0% on equity, ahead of 33% of its peers.
- Risk Net debt grew 29.4% over 3 years.
- Risk Insider ownership is only 0.3% (peer median: 0.6%).
What this company does
Waste Connections, Inc.
Waste Connections is a trash and recycling company that picks up garbage from homes and businesses across the U.S. and Canada. Most of its money comes from a steady stream of payments for garbage collection, which provides reliable recurring revenue (predictable sales that come in month after month from the same customers). By owning both the garbage trucks and the landfills where the trash is dumped, the company controls the entire process, which helps it manage costs and stay profitable.
How the company got here
Waste Connections was founded in 1997 by a small group of experienced professionals in Washington and Idaho. Their strategy was to focus on less competitive suburban and rural areas, rather than big cities where larger rivals operated. The company grew very quickly by acquiring dozens of smaller, local waste companies each year. A major turning point was its 2012 purchase of R360 Environmental Solutions, which expanded its services into the specialized area of oil and gas field waste. In 2016, it merged with a Canadian company, Progressive Waste Services, which led to its headquarters moving to Canada for tax purposes.
What it actually does
Waste Connections is the third-largest waste management company in North America. It provides essential trash and recycling services that millions of people rely on every day. Think of them as the company that picks up the garbage bins from homes, businesses, and construction sites. They also operate the facilities where that waste goes, such as transfer stations (places where garbage is consolidated before being moved), landfills (large, regulated areas for burying trash), and recycling centers.
Solid Waste Collection
This is the company's largest and most visible business, making up the vast majority of its revenue. It involves picking up trash and recyclables from residential homes, commercial businesses like restaurants and offices, and industrial sites. Customers, either directly or through their city, pay a regular fee for this service, which provides a steady and predictable stream of income for the company. Waste Connections often secures long-term contracts with municipalities, sometimes giving them the exclusive right to provide service in that area.
Solid Waste Disposal
After the trash is collected, it has to go somewhere, and this segment handles that process. The company owns and operates a large network of solid waste landfills, which are carefully managed sites for burying non-hazardous garbage. It also runs transfer stations, which act as sorting and consolidation points to make the transportation of waste to distant landfills more efficient. Revenue (the total money a company brings in from sales) in this segment comes from disposal fees, often called 'tipping fees,' which are charged by weight to anyone needing to dump waste at their sites.
Exploration & Production (E&P) Waste Services
This is a specialized business that serves the oil and gas industry. When companies drill for oil and natural gas, they create unique types of waste, such as drilling fluids, contaminated soils, and produced water. Through its subsidiary R360 Environmental Solutions, Waste Connections provides services to treat, recover, and safely dispose of this non-hazardous E&P waste. This part of the business is smaller than solid waste but is important because it serves a different set of industrial customers with very specific needs.
Recycling and Resource Recovery
This segment focuses on giving waste a new life. The company collects recyclable materials like paper, cardboard, plastics, and metals from homes and businesses. These materials are then taken to a Materials Recovery Facility (MRF), where they are sorted, cleaned, and baled for sale to manufacturers who use them to create new products. While a smaller portion of the company's overall business, recycling is an important service for communities focused on sustainability (meeting our own needs without compromising the ability of future generations to meet theirs).
What management is betting on now
The company's main strategy continues to be acquiring smaller waste companies in markets where it can be the main service provider. They are also investing heavily in technology, such as using artificial intelligence and robotics to improve the efficiency of recycling and other operations. Management is focused on generating strong free cash flow (the cash left over after paying for operating expenses and capital expenditures, which are investments in physical assets like trucks and facilities). This financial discipline allows them to continue buying other companies and consistently return money to shareholders through dividends (a portion of a company's profits paid out to its 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 Q3
$286.18M
FY2024 Q4
$172.24M
FY2025 Q1
$329.08M
FY2025 Q2
$352.89M
FY2025 Q3
$380.28M
FY2025 Q4
$172.59M
FY2026 Q1
$249.00M
FY2026 Q2
$430.94M
Revenue
$2.56B
Net income
—
Diluted EPS
1.17
Operating cash flow
$733.29M
Free cash flow
$430.94M
Fetching…
Sources
Revenue
$2.37B
Net income
—
Diluted EPS
0.86
Operating cash flow
$545.60M
Free cash flow
$249.00M
Fetching…
Sources
Revenue
$2.37B
Net income
$258.50M
Diluted EPS
1.01
Operating cash flow
$556.88M
Free cash flow
$172.59M
Fetching…
Sources
Revenue
$2.46B
Net income
$286.27M
Diluted EPS
1.11
Operating cash flow
$677.45M
Free cash flow
$380.28M
Fetching…
Sources
Revenue
$2.41B
Net income
$290.28M
Diluted EPS
1.12
Operating cash flow
$638.20M
Free cash flow
$352.89M
Fetching…
Sources
Revenue
$2.23B
Net income
$241.51M
Diluted EPS
0.93
Operating cash flow
$541.54M
Free cash flow
$329.08M
Fetching…
Sources
Revenue
$2.26B
Net income
$-196.00M
Diluted EPS
-0.76
Operating cash flow
$568.93M
Free cash flow
$172.24M
Fetching…
Sources
Revenue
$2.34B
Net income
$308.05M
Diluted EPS
1.19
Operating cash flow
$558.31M
Free cash flow
$286.18M
Fetching…
Sources
Is it cheap or expensive?
Fair value $115.16 vs current price $159.74
Wall Street consensus is the average analyst price target: $200.60 (74.2% higher than our fair-value estimate).
Our most-likely fair value is $115.16 a share — about 27.9% below today's price of $159.74, so the stock currently looks expensive (overvalued).
Is it drowning in debt?
Stretched
Net debt $9.5B. Interest coverage 5.4x.
Net debt
$9.54B
Interest coverage
5.44x
Waste Connections, Inc.'s profit covers its interest bill about 5.4 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
WCN
BASELINE
Waste Connections, Inc.
Total debt $9.64B Interest coverage 5.44x This is the baseline the peer rows are being compared against.
Total debt $23.36B Interest coverage 5.05x -7% vs WCN Has roughly the same debt cushion as WCN.
Total debt $14.30B Interest coverage 5.79x +6% vs WCN Has roughly the same debt cushion as WCN.
Total debt $7.30B Interest coverage 0.76x -86% vs WCN Carries about 7.2x less debt cushion than WCN.
Total debt $3.25B Interest coverage 3.99x -27% vs WCN Carries about 1.4x less debt cushion than WCN.
Total debt $1.45B Interest coverage 1.50x -72% vs WCN Carries about 3.6x less debt cushion than WCN.
What you should know
The case for and against WCN
3 Rewards
2 Risks
Rewards
-
Revenue grew 3.1% last year.
-
Returns 13.0% on equity, ahead of 33% of its peers.
-
Free cash flow was positive in 10/10 years.
Risks
-
Net debt grew 29.4% over 3 years.
-
Insider ownership is only 0.3% (peer median: 0.6%).
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)
38.58x
Forward P/E
25.73x
P/B
5.08x
P/S
4.12x
EV/EBITDA
15.94x
PEG ratio
1.51x
Profitability
How much profit each dollar creates
Gross margin
42.5%
Operating margin
19.7%
Net margin
10.9%
ROE
13.0%
ROA
5.5%
Health
Liquidity and balance-sheet strength
Debt / equity
1.22x
Current ratio
0.66x
Quick ratio
0.55x
Total debt
$9.64B
Total cash
$100.52M
Growth
How the business has been compounding
Revenue TTM
$9.76B
Revenue 5Y CAGR
11.4%
EPS TTM
4.14
EPS 5Y CAGR
8.8%
Cash flow
How much cash the business throws off
Operating CF TTM
$2.51B
Free CF TTM
$1.23B
FCF margin
12.6%
Dividend
Shareholder payout
Yield
0.9%
Payout ratio
33.0%
Last ex-div date
2026-08-06