One-glance verdict
Overvalued
$110.81 our estimate vs market $179.76
Wall Street consensus: $206.48 (86.3% higher than our fair-value estimate)
62% above our estimate, beyond the bull case
Fundamentals snapshot
Waste Connections, Inc.
WCN · NYQ · Industrials · Waste Management
Current price
$179.76
52-week range
$146.89 - $187.36
Market cap
$44.98B
Balance sheet
Stretched
5.44x Adequate
Net debt $9.67B. 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 5.0% last year.
- Reward Returns 14.2% 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 acts like a local garbage company on a huge scale, providing trash and recycling collection for homes and businesses across the US and Canada. The company primarily makes money from charging regular fees for these essential services and from operating its own landfills where the waste is disposed. This business model is powerful because people always need trash collection, which provides the company with very steady and predictable income.
How the company got here
Founded in 1997 by Ronald J. Mittelstaedt, Waste Connections started with a specific strategy: instead of competing with giant garbage companies in big cities, it would focus on smaller, rural, and less competitive markets. This approach allowed them to become the main service provider in those areas, giving them more stable business. The company grew quickly by buying up many smaller, local waste companies, a strategy it continues to use today. A major turning point was in 2016 when it merged with Progressive Waste Solutions, a Canadian company, which roughly doubled its size and expanded its operations significantly into Canada.
What it actually does
Waste Connections is a large company in North America that manages non-hazardous trash for homes, businesses, and industrial sites. Think of them as the company that handles almost every step of the garbage process: they pick up your trash and recycling, take it to a transfer station (a place where waste is combined for easier shipping), and then transport it to a landfill for final disposal. They are the third-largest company of their kind in North America, operating across the United States and Canada.
Solid Waste Collection
This is the largest part of Waste Connections' business, making up the majority of its revenue. It involves picking up trash from residential homes (curbside bins), commercial businesses (like restaurants and offices), and industrial facilities. The company often secures long-term contracts with cities or towns to be the exclusive garbage collector, which provides a steady and predictable source of income. Customers pay a regular fee for this ongoing service.
Solid Waste Disposal
After the trash is collected, it needs a permanent home, and this is where the disposal business comes in. Waste Connections owns and operates a network of landfills, which are large, regulated sites for burying garbage. The company makes money by charging fees, often called 'tip fees,' based on the weight and volume of the waste that other collection companies—or even their own trucks—dump at their landfills. This is a significant and profitable part of their operations.
Recycling Services
This segment involves processing recyclable materials like cardboard, paper, plastic, and metals that are collected from homes and businesses. Waste Connections runs facilities where these materials are sorted and bundled for sale to manufacturers who will reuse them. Revenue (money earned) comes from charging fees for processing the materials and from the sale of the recycled commodities themselves. This part of the business can be affected by fluctuating prices for recycled goods.
E&P (Exploration & Production) Waste Services
This is a specialized and distinct business that serves the oil and natural gas industry. When companies drill for oil and gas, they create non-hazardous waste like drilling fluids, contaminated soil, and production water. Waste Connections operates special facilities designed to treat, recover, and dispose of this specific type of industrial waste. While a smaller part of the overall company, it's a key service for energy sector clients.
What management is betting on now
Waste Connections continues to focus heavily on buying smaller, local waste companies to expand its footprint, a strategy that has proven very successful for them. They are also investing in technology, such as using artificial intelligence (AI) to optimize truck routes for better efficiency and to help sort recyclables. Additionally, the company is working on projects to capture gas produced by its landfills and convert it into renewable natural gas, turning a waste byproduct into a clean energy source. Management's goal is to keep growing in a disciplined way while improving profitability and returning money to shareholders through dividends (a portion of profits paid out to investors).
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 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
FY2026 Q3
$397.14M
Revenue
$2.64B
Net income
—
Diluted EPS
1.43
Operating cash flow
$691.92M
Free cash flow
$397.14M
Fetching…
Sources
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
Is it cheap or expensive?
Fair value $110.81 vs current price $179.76
Wall Street consensus is the average analyst price target: $206.48 (86.3% higher than our fair-value estimate).
Our most-likely fair value is $110.81 a share — about 38.4% below today's price of $179.76, so the stock currently looks expensive (overvalued).
Is it drowning in debt?
Stretched
Net debt $9.7B. Interest coverage 5.4x.
Net debt
$9.67B
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 $9.77B 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 $7.25B 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 5.0% last year.
-
Returns 14.2% 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)
40.30x
Forward P/E
29.15x
P/B
5.71x
P/S
4.52x
EV/EBITDA
16.97x
PEG ratio
2.39x
Profitability
How much profit each dollar creates
Gross margin
42.6%
Operating margin
20.8%
Net margin
11.4%
ROE
14.2%
ROA
5.7%
Health
Liquidity and balance-sheet strength
Debt / equity
1.24x
Current ratio
0.67x
Quick ratio
0.56x
Total debt
$9.77B
Total cash
$98.14M
Growth
How the business has been compounding
Revenue TTM
$9.94B
Revenue 5Y CAGR
11.4%
EPS TTM
4.46
EPS 5Y CAGR
8.8%
Cash flow
How much cash the business throws off
Operating CF TTM
$2.53B
Free CF TTM
$1.23B
FCF margin
12.4%
Dividend
Shareholder payout
Yield
0.9%
Payout ratio
31.4%
Last ex-div date
2026-11-05