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CWST, Casella Waste Systems Inc.

Waste Management capital-intensive CyclicalSerial acquirer

Casella Waste Systems, Inc. is a regional, vertically integrated solid waste services company.

We provide resource management expertise and services to residential, commercial, municipal, institutional and industrial customers, primarily in the areas of solid waste collection and disposal, transfer, recycling and organics services.

We provide integrated solid waste services with operating locations in eleven states: Vermont, New Hampshire, New York, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Maine, Pennsylvania, Delaware, New Jersey, Maryland and West Virginia, with our headquarters located in Rutland, Vermont.

Latest annual: FY2025 10-K

CWST · Casella Waste Systems Inc.

The business

What it sells, where the money comes from, the kind of company it is.

Revenue · FY2025

$1.8B

+18.0% YoY · 19% 5-yr CAGR

Vital signs · TTM, with 5-yr average

Revenue $1.9B 5-yr avg $1.3B

Gross margin 34% 5-yr avg 34%

Operating margin 3.5% 5-yr avg 6.4%

ROIC 1% 5-yr avg 4%

Owner-earnings margin 5% 5-yr avg 6%

Free cash flow margin 5% 5-yr avg 6%

The business in brief

read the 10-K →

What this business is and what moves its needle, from its own SEC filings.

What it is: Revenue is led by Western (36%) and Eastern (26%), with 2 more segments behind.
Situation: Cyclical. Margins collapse and recover repeatedly across the record; a single year, good or bad, misstates the through-cycle earning power. Serial acquirer. Goodwill and acquired intangibles are 43% of assets, with meaningful acquisition spending in 8 of the record's 10 years; much of what this business is was bought, at prices the record carries.
What moves the needle: Gross margin has run about 33% and operating margin about 6.4% through the cycle, a spread the cycle sets more than the company does. The margin is cyclical, swinging between −2.1% and 8.8% over the years, so the through-cycle figure carries more than any single year — and the balance sheet at the trough more than the peak. Capital spending runs about 12% of sales, so the return earned on what it sinks into that plant weighs as much as the margin. On its own account, the filing leans hardest on pricing power & competition, set against the numbers in what the filing emphasizes, below.
Is it a good business?: Return on capital has rarely cleared the cost of capital (median 4%, above 15% in 0 of 8 years). By owner earnings: roughly 6% of revenue reaches owners as cash, consistently. The cycle and the balance sheet decide this one; the worst year tells more than the median, and the rest is in the 10-K.

Every line is arithmetic on the company's filings, shown in full in the sections below.

Where the money comes from

read the 10-K →

Revenue spreads across 4 segments, the largest Western at 36%.

Revenue by reportable segment, FY2025

Western36%$663M
Eastern26%$473M
Resource Solutions20%$360M
Mid-Atlantic19%$341M

From the segment footnote of the company's own 10-K. Shares are of total revenue; the profit bar shows each segment's share of segment operating profit, before unallocated corporate costs.

The record

Ten years of arithmetic, read across the cycle.

The record, 2016–2025

realized figures from each filing · older years to the left

2016’16	2017’17	2018’18	2019’19	2020’20	2021’21	2022’22	2023’23	2024’24	2025’25	TTMTTMMar 2026
											Income statement
$565M	$599M	$661M	$743M	$775M	$889M	$1.1B	$1.3B	$1.6B	$1.8B	$1.9B	RevenueRevenue
32%	32%	31%	32%	33%	35%	33%	34%	34%	34%	34%	Gross marginGross mgn
13%	13%	13%	12%	13%	13%	12%	12%	12%	12%	12%	SG&A / revenueSG&A/rev
$45M	($13M)	$40M	$53M	$59M	$78M	$95M	$80M	$73M	$64M	$65M	Operating incomeOp. inc.
8.0%	−2.1%	6.0%	7.1%	7.7%	8.7%	8.8%	6.4%	4.7%	3.5%	3.5%	Operating marginOp. mgn
($7M)	($22M)	$6M	$32M	$91M	$41M	$53M	$25M	$14M	$8M	$7M	Net incomeNet inc.
—	—	-6%	-6%	—	29%	29%	31%	36%	40%	42%	Effective tax rateTax rate
											Cash flow & returns
$80M	$108M	$121M	$117M	$140M	$183M	$217M	$233M	$281M	$330M	$342M	Operating cash flowOp. cash
$62M	$62M	$71M	$80M	$91M	$104M	$126M	$171M	$235M	$307M	$313M	DepreciationDeprec.
$22M	$61M	$35M	($2M)	($50M)	$26M	$30M	$28M	$21M	$853K	$9M	Working capital & otherWC & other
$54M	$65M	$73M	$103M	$108M	$123M	$131M	$155M	$203M	$245M	$240M	CapexCapex
9.6%	10.8%	11.1%	13.9%	14.0%	13.9%	12.1%	12.3%	13.1%	13.3%	12.8%	Capex / revenueCapex/rev
$26M	$43M	$48M	$37M	$32M	$59M	$86M	$78M	$78M	$85M	$102M	Owner earningsOwner earn.
4.6%	7.1%	7.2%	5.0%	4.1%	6.7%	8.0%	6.2%	5.0%	4.6%	5.5%	Owner earnings marginOE mgn
$26M	$43M	$48M	$14M	$32M	$59M	$86M	$78M	$78M	$85M	$102M	Free cash flowFCF
4.6%	7.1%	7.2%	1.8%	4.1%	6.7%	8.0%	6.2%	5.0%	4.6%	5.5%	Free cash flow marginFCF mgn
$3M	$5M	$89M	$75M	$32M	$171M	$78M	$852M	$469M	$224M	$215M	AcquisitionsAcquis.
—	-2%	—	8%	8%	6%	7%	3%	2%	1%	1%	ROICROIC
—	—	—	26%	25%	10%	11%	2%	1%	1%	0%	Return on equityROE
—	—	—	26%	25%	10%	11%	2%	1%	1%	0%	Retained to equityRetained/eq
											Balance sheet
$3M	$2M	$4M	$3M	$154M	$34M	$71M	$221M	$358M	$124M	$127M	Cash & investmentsCash+inv
$61M	$66M	$75M	$80M	$74M	$87M	$101M	$157M	$166M	$178M	$175M	ReceivablesReceiv.
$45M	$47M	$57M	$64M	$49M	$63M	$74M	$117M	$111M	$102M	$90M	Accounts payablePayables
$16M	$19M	$18M	$16M	$25M	$24M	$27M	$41M	$55M	$76M	$89M	Operating working capitalOper. WC
$79M	$84M	$97M	$103M	$247M	$146M	$207M	$426M	$613M	$369M	$360M	Current assetsCur. assets
$82M	$89M	$111M	$131M	$131M	$152M	$178M	$279M	$307M	$294M	$260M	Current liabilitiesCur. liab.
1.0×	1.0×	0.9×	0.8×	1.9×	1.0×	1.2×	1.5×	2.0×	1.3×	1.4×	Current ratioCurr. ratio
$120M	$123M	$163M	$186M	$195M	$233M	$274M	$736M	$1.0B	$1.1B	$1.2B	GoodwillGoodwill
$632M	$615M	$732M	$932M	$1.2B	$1.3B	$1.4B	$2.5B	$3.2B	$3.3B	$3.3B	Total assetsAssets
$526M	$498M	$555M	$523M	$548M	$563M	$603M	$1.1B	$1.1B	$1.2B	$1.2B	Total debtDebt
$523M	$496M	$551M	$519M	$394M	$529M	$532M	$834M	$790M	$1.0B	$1.0B	Net debt / (cash)Net debt
1.2×	-0.5×	1.5×	2.1×	2.7×	3.7×	4.0×	1.7×	1.2×	1.0×	1.0×	Interest coverageInt. cov.
($25M)	($38M)	($16M)	$123M	$362M	$422M	$498M	$1.0B	$1.6B	$1.6B	$1.6B	Shareholders’ equityEquity
0.6%	1.1%	1.3%	1.0%	1.1%	1.3%	0.8%	0.7%	0.8%	0.8%	0.6%	Stock comp / revenueSBC/rev
											Per share
41.2M	41.8M	44.2M	48.0M	49.0M	51.5M	51.8M	55.3M	59.7M	63.6M	63.5M	Shares out (diluted)Shares
$13.70	$14.32	$14.96	$15.50	$15.79	$17.26	$20.96	$22.88	$26.09	$28.90	$29.54	Revenue / shareRev/sh
$-0.17	$-0.52	$0.15	$0.66	$1.86	$0.80	$1.03	$0.46	$0.23	$0.12	$0.11	EPS (diluted)EPS
$0.64	$1.02	$1.08	$0.77	$0.65	$1.15	$1.67	$1.41	$1.31	$1.33	$1.61	Owner earnings / shareOE/sh
$0.64	$1.02	$1.08	$0.28	$0.65	$1.15	$1.67	$1.41	$1.31	$1.33	$1.61	Free cash flow / shareFCF/sh
$1.32	$1.55	$1.66	$2.15	$2.20	$2.39	$2.53	$2.80	$3.41	$3.86	$3.77	Cap. spending / shareCapex/sh
$-0.59	$-0.90	$-0.36	$2.56	$7.38	$8.20	$9.62	$18.49	$25.99	$24.68	$24.68	Book value / shareBVPS

Per-share growththe realized rate an owner's share compounded

	9-yr	5-yr
Revenue / share	+8.6%/yr	+12.8%/yr
Owner earnings / share	+8.6%/yr	+15.5%/yr
EPS	—	−41.8%/yr
Capital spending / share	+12.7%/yr	+11.8%/yr
Book value / share	—	+27.3%/yr

The record, charted

FY2016–2025

Each measure over its full record; the current point and the worst year marked.

Share count

64Mpeak FY2025

ROIC

1%low FY2017

Gross margin

34%low FY2018

Net debt ÷ owner earnings

12.3×peak FY2016

Owner earnings vs. net income

Owner earningsNet income

The accountant's number, and the cash an owner can take; the gap is the tell.

$85Mowner earningsvs.$8Mnet incomelow FY2016

Where the cash went

ReinvestBuybacksDividendsAcquisitionsRetainedBeyond op. cash

Each year's outlays against its operating cash: the mix, and how it drifts. The hatched cap is spending beyond that year's operating cash — financed from the balance sheet or borrowing, not operations.

FY2016FY2025

Owner-earnings bridge

FY2021–FY2025cash-flow statement, SEC EDGAR →

Net income is the accountant's number; owner earnings is the cash an owner could take out. The walk between them, off the cash-flow statement, and whether the gap is widening or holding.

In fiscal 2025 the business turned $8M of profit into $85M of owner earnings: more cash than the profit line showed, after the non-cash charges and the capital it put back in.

Reported net income$8M

Owner earnings$85M · 5% of revenue

	FY2025	FY2024	FY2023	FY2022	FY2021
Reported net income	$8M	$14M	$25M	$53M	$41M
Depreciation & amortizationnon-cash charge added back	+$307M	+$235M	+$171M	+$126M	+$104M
Stock-based compensationreal costnon-cash, but a real cost	+$14M	+$12M	+$9M	+$8M	+$12M
Working capital & othertiming of cash in and out, other non-cash items	+$853K	+$21M	+$28M	+$30M	+$26M
Cash from operations	$330M	$281M	$233M	$217M	$183M
Capital expenditurecash put back in to keep running and to grow	−$245M	−$203M	−$155M	−$131M	−$123M
Owner earnings	$85M	$78M	$78M	$86M	$59M
Owner-earnings marginowner earnings ÷ revenue	5%	5%	6%	8%	7%

Owner earnings is the cash an owner could pull out without starving the business: operating cash less the capital it must spend to hold its position . The cash-flow statement also adds stock comp back as non-cash, but it is a real cost paid in shares; counted as the expense it is (less $14M), owner earnings is nearer $70M.

Maintenance capex is estimated as depreciation where a growing business invests above it; free cash flow is the figure the scorecard's free-cash margin reads.

III

Quality & stewardship

Returns, the balance sheet, capital allocation, and pay.

Owner’s Scorecard

FY2025 10-K · source on SEC EDGAR →

Will it survive?

Can it pay its interest? 1.0×

Thin

Operating income $64M ÷ interest expense $63M

What this means
Operating profit covers interest, but with little room. A bad year, a refinancing at higher rates, or a revenue wobble closes the gap fast.
How heavy is the debt, net of cash? $1.0B · 16.4× operating profit

Heavy net debt

Cash $124M − debt $1.2B

What this means
Netting $124M of cash and short-term investments against $1.2B of debt leaves $1.0B owed, about 16.4× a year's operating profit (18.4× on the gross debt, before the cash). Net debt is the leverage figure that matters: the cash is already set against the debt. Strategic or illiquid investments aren't counted here.
How long is cash tied up? 6d

Tight

DSO 35 + DIO 1 − DPO 31 days

What this means
Days cash is tied up between paying suppliers and collecting from customers. Lower is better; a long cycle means growth itself eats cash.

Is it a good business?

Return on invested capital 3%

Below average through the cycle

8-yr median, range -2%–8%; 1% latest = NOPAT $38M ÷ invested capital $2.6B

Industry peers: median 5%

What this means
The rate the business earns on the money tied up in it, Buffett's north star, because over time a stock tracks the ROIC beneath it. Above ~15% sustained hints at a moat; a return below the cost of capital (~8%) erodes value as a business grows rather than building it — the test Buffett weighs most. The headline is the median of the last 8 years (it ran 1% most recently), so one peak or trough year doesn't set the verdict. Asset-light businesses (R&D expensed, little capital) read artificially high, pair this with Owner Earnings.
Owner-earnings margin 5%

Solid through the cycle

10-yr median margin, range 4%–8%; latest $85M = operating cash $330M − maintenance capex $245M

Industry peers: median 14%

What this means
What an owner could take out without starving the business: operating cash less the maintenance capital it must spend to hold its position — Buffett's owner earnings. That's 5% of revenue this year, a 5% median across 10 years. Treating stock comp as the real expense it is (less $14M of SBC) leaves $70M.
Are earnings backed by cash? 41.90×

Cash-backed

Cash from ops $330M ÷ net income $8M

What this means
How much of reported profit showed up as operating cash. Above 1× is reassuring; well below suggests earnings lean on accruals. One year is noisy, growth and working-capital swings distort it, and this is operating cash, not free cash. Watch the multi-year trend.

How is the cash used?

Where do the earnings go? —

Not enough data

What this means
The filing data didn't include the inputs for this check.
Investing or harvesting? 0.80×

Harvesting

Capex $245M ÷ depreciation $307M

What this means
Descriptive, not a grade. Above ~1× means investing faster than assets wear out (growth, or, sustained for years, today's earnings carrying less depreciation than tomorrow's will). Below means spending less than it's wearing out (efficiency, or a melting asset base). The ratio won't tell you which; the filings will.

Graham’s defensive tests · 0 of 5 met

Graham’s numerical criteria for the defensive investor (The Intelligent Investor, ch. 14), run on the filings. A floor of safety, not a buy signal; many fine modern businesses fail his strictest liquidity rules by design.

Adequate size Near

Revenue ≥ $2B · $1.8B

What this means
Big enough to weather a storm. Graham's 1972 floor was ~$100M of sales (≈ $700M today); we use a $2B revenue line as a conservative modern stand-in.
Strong liquidity Miss

Current ratio ≥ 2× · 1.26×

What this means
Current assets at least twice current liabilities, near-term bills covered without touching the business. Strict by design: many cash-rich modern firms run leaner and miss it, holding their cushion in longer-dated securities.
Conservative debt Miss

Debt ≤ working capital · $1.2B vs $75M WC

What this means
Graham's rule that borrowings not exceed net current assets. Capital-heavy and buyback-heavy firms routinely fail it, read it next to interest coverage, not alone.
Earnings stability Miss

A profit every year (10-yr record) · 2 loss years

What this means
Graham wanted earnings in each of the past ten years, the stability a defensive owner leans on.
Dividend record Miss

Uninterrupted dividends · none paid

What this means
An unbroken dividend was Graham's mark of durability. He wanted twenty years; the filings show about ten, and a single suspension breaks the streak. Non-payers, many fine modern compounders, fall outside his defensive net by design.
Earnings growth —

Earnings +33% over the record · —

What this means
Earnings were negative early in the record, a growth rate isn't meaningful.
Moderate price —

P/E ≤ 15 and P/E × P/B ≤ 22.5 · decided by the price

What this means
Graham's valuation gate, the wall he kept between a sound business and a sound investment. Three-year average earnings are $0.25/share (latest year $0.12), the averaged base the calculator's gate runs on, and book value is $24.69/share. Enter a price in “What the price implies” just below for the P/E, P/B, and whether it clears. But this is the rule Buffett outgrew: there's no hard P/E law, and a wonderful business can deserve a far richer multiple if the thesis holds, treat it as the bargain-hunter's floor, not a verdict on the price.

Durability & moat, 2016–2025

Whether the record’s returns held, and what the capital reinvested earned.

Profitable years 8 of 10

What this means
Lost money in 2 year(s), look at what happened there before trusting the average.
Return on capital ≥ 15% 0 of 10 yrs

What this means
A moat shows up as a high return on invested capital that holds year after year, not one good vintage.
Operating margin 4% → 5% (3-yr avg ends)

What this means
Through the cycle the operating margin held roughly steady — about 4% early, 5% lately, median 6%.
Reinvestment, incremental ROIC 1%

What this means
Reinvested capital came back at only a modest incremental return — near the cost of capital, where extra growth adds little per dollar. The record shows whether it is a soft stretch or a thinning moat.
Owner earnings growth +10%/yr

What this means
Owner earnings grew about 10% a year over the record.
Worst year 2017 · −2.1% op. margin

What this means
Operations went underwater in 2017, understand why before trusting the good years.
Share count +4.9%/yr

What this means
The share count is rising, dilution works against you on a per-share basis.

Does AI threaten the moat?

Low contestability

The moat is physical, regulated or balance-sheet-funded, the kind AI cuts costs within but does not contest.

In its own filing A competitive risk, new this year

Its FY2025 10-K names artificial intelligence as a competitive threat, in language that was not in the prior year's filing.

“Inability to effectively adopt and manage artificial intelligence technologies could adversely affect our business, results of operations, and competitive position.”

AI is unlikely to contest a moat that is physical, regulated or balance-sheet-funded; here it reads more as a cost tool than a threat.

Read from the filing's own risk factors, paired with the industry's structure under its SIC code; the durability is read above, the price below.

All figures as filed; the source filing is linked above.

Current Position

as of the latest quarter, Mar 31, 2026

Can the business pay what it owes this year, off the freshest balance sheet: the quality of the assets, the debt actually coming due, and what a low ratio means here.

Current assets$360M

Cash & short-term investments$127M
Receivables$175M
Inventory$3M
Other current assets$54M

Current liabilities$260M

Accounts payable$90M
Other current liabilities$170M

Current ratio1.38×all current assets ÷ what's due · Graham looked for 2×

Quick ratio1.37×stricter: inventory excluded

Cash ratio0.49×strictest: cash alone against what's due

Working capital$100Mthe cushion left after near-term bills

Revenue, latest quarter vs. a year ago+9.6%the freshest read on whether the business is still growing

Current ratio, recent quarters1.6× → 1.4×

Deeper floors

Tangible book value$102Mequity stripped of goodwill & intangibles

Debt incl. operating leases$85M$85M of it operating leases

Deferred revenue$46Mcustomer cash collected before delivery; operating float

From the company's latest filing.

How the cash was used, 2016–2025

Over the record, the business generated $1.8B of operating cash; how management split it reads as a reinvestor, most operating cash is plowed back into the business.

Reinvested$1.3B · 70%
Retained (debt / cash)$549M · 30%

Source of fundingOperating cash
Operating cash covered reinvestment and returns; over the span debt rose $639M and cash and short-term investments rose $124M.
Net change in share count54.1%
The diluted count rose from 41M to 64M: issuance (stock pay, deals) outran any buybacks, so owners were diluted on net.
Dividend record—
No dividend line was reported in the filing data over the span; the record here neither confirms nor rules out a payout.
Return on what it retained17%
Of the earnings it kept rather than paid out ($242M over the span), annual owner earnings (first three years vs last three) grew $42M, so each retained $1 added about 0.17 of yearly owner earnings. Buffett's test, run on owner earnings instead of market value.

Buybacks are gross of stock issued to staff; the share-count line above is the net of that, the figure that decides whether owners gained. The average price paid blends a year of purchases (and any accelerated repurchase), so it is close, not exact. The record of where the cash went and on what terms.

Acquisitions & goodwill

from the balance sheet & the 10-year cash-flow record

Goodwill grows only when a company acquires and falls only when it concedes it overpaid. The size of that bet, the cash put into buying rather than building, and how much has already been written off.

Goodwill & intangibles$1.4B43% of all assets; the premium carried on the balance sheet for businesses acquired

Against book equity71%goodwill is this share of book equity; the rest is the company’s own retained and paid-in capital

Cash spent acquiring$2.0Bover 10 years buying other businesses, against $1.3B of capital spent building

None written down over the record; the goodwill is still carried at full cost. That is the deals holding their value on the books so far; whether they keep doing so is the test an owner watches, since the write-down, when it comes, is the admission the price was too high.

Goodwill, acquired intangibles and equity from the latest balance sheet; acquisition spend and write-downs summed across the 10-year record, from the company's own filings.

Management, ownership & pay

read the proxy →

From the proxy: how much of the business the people running it own, and how they are paid, beside what the business earned for its owners in the same years.

Fiscal year	Chief executive	Pay, as filed	“Actually paid”	Owner earnings
2021	John W. Casella	$4.2M	$11.3M	$59M
2022	John W. Casella	$4.1M	$2.8M	$86M
2023	John W. Casella	$3.5M	$3.8M	$78M
2024	John W. Casella	$4.2M	$6.2M	$78M
2025	John W. Casella	$4.4M	$5.4M	$85M

Both pay figures are the company’s own, from the pay-versus-performance table its proxy statement files. “As filed” is the Summary Compensation Table total: salary, bonus, and equity awards at their value on the day of grant. “Actually paid” is the SEC’s prescribed recalculation, which re-marks those equity awards to what they became as they vested; it can swing far above or below the filed figure in either direction, and negative years occur. Owner earnings are the whole business's, from the record above, for the same fiscal years.

Insider ownership2.2%
The stake all directors and executive officers hold together, per the 2026 proxy: skin in the game, the first thing Munger reads.
Stock-based compensation$14M
The slice of the business handed to employees in shares this year, 1% of revenue, equal to 22% of operating profit. Buffett's oldest accounting fight: this is compensation, compensation is an expense, real whether or not the headline earnings admit it. One trap: the cash-flow statement adds SBC back, so the operating cash, and the owner earnings drawn from it, are flattered by exactly this amount; counted as the cost it is, what an owner keeps is lower.

Inverting the record

Invert: instead of why Casella Waste Systems Inc. is a good business, the question is what would make owning it a mistake, and whether those marks are in the record. Disconfirming tests across 2016–2025.

2 of the 5 tests turned up something to look into; the other 3 came back clean.

Look hereIs it less profitable than it was?5.3% vs 6.3%
The owner-earnings margin averaged 6.3% early in the record and 5.3% across the last three years, and the latest year has not recovered. Ask the filing whether that is a structural drift or a cyclical trough — price, mix, cost, or a competitor — and whether it is permanent.
Look hereDid the share count rise anyway?54.1%
Diluted shares grew 54.1% over 2016–2025. Owners were diluted on net; each share owns less of the business than it did. Read the buyback line beside this one, not on its own.

And these came back clean

Did debt outgrow the business?
Did reported profit become cash?
Did receivables and inventory outpace sales?

Each test is read from the filings and is noisy alone; a flag can mark a cyclical trough or a year of heavy investment as easily as a problem. The filing says which.

What an owner would ask, FY2025

read the 10-K →

Which reported numbers are a judgment call?
Management names Credit & receivables, Acquisitions as critical estimates
each rests partly on management's judgment; the filing's note sets out the assumptionsverify →

The questions the record and the charts do not answer on their own; each carries the figure and the place to look.

Peers, Waste Management

The same industry, side by side on owner economics. Each figure is a through-cycle median, so a peak or trough year can’t distort it; the group median at the foot is the line to read each against.

Company	Revenue	Gross margin	Op. margin	ROIC	Owner earn. margin
WCNWaste Connections Inc.	$9.5B	41%	15.5%	6%	15%
NJRNew Jersey Resources	$2.0B	37%	12.5%	7%	1%
AVAAvista	$2.0B	—	16.7%	5%	11%
CWSTCasella Waste Systems Inc.	$1.8B	33%	6.8%	4%	6%
KNTKKinetik Holdings Inc.	$1.8B	30%	8.1%	3%	22%
ALEALLETE	$1.5B	90%	12.6%	4%	11%
CWENClearway Energy Inc.	$1.4B	67%	21.6%	2%	36%
EEExcelerate Energy Inc.	$1.2B	—	19.9%	7%	14%
Group median	—	39%	14.1%	5%	13%

The price

What a price has to assume.

What the price implies

reverse-DCF

Type today's close and see the owner-earnings growth you'd have to believe to justify it, beside what Casella Waste Systems Inc. has delivered.

Today’s price $

Through the cycle, Casella Waste Systems Inc. earns about $103M on its 5.6% median owner-earnings margin. This year’s 4.6% margin runs below that; the reported figure may understate a lean year. Normalize, below, values the price on that through-cycle figure rather than the latest year.

Base Normalize · through-cycle ($103M) Net of stock comp (−$12M)

—

The assumptions Required return 9% Years of high growth 10 Terminal growth 2.5%

9.0% = the 4.55% 10-year Treasury (Jul 15, 2026) + 4.45 points of equity premium. The rate you require is yours to set.

Enter a price above to run it.

Implied by the price—

Owner-earnings growth · ’21→’25+3%/yr

Owner-earnings growth · ’16→’25+10%/yr

Owner-earnings yield—

P/E (3-yr earnings ’23–’25)—

P/B—

Graham’s price gate—

Graham capped the multiple at 15×; Buffett and Munger let that rule go: a wonderful business can deserve 50× if the thesis holds. The gate marks the bargain-hunter's floor.

Against a high-grade bond: Graham’s yardstick bond yield%

Prefilled with the 10-year Treasury (4.55%, as of Jul 15, 2026). Edit it for today’s exact figure, or a AAA corporate yield.

Graham measured a stock against the bond you could own instead, the heart of his margin of safety. Enter a price above to weigh the owner-earnings yield against this bond.

Owner earnings $102M on 64M shares outstanding (a weighted basic average, the only count this filer tags); net debt $1.0B. The base is the latest year by default; Normalize values it on the through-cycle median owner-earnings margin (to avoid paying on a peak year). Net of stock comp treats option pay as the expense it is. The dials set the multiple a growth belief justifies; the price, and every dollar on this page, is yours.

Weigh CWST against another business →

The owners of CWST: the meeting and the votes →

Cite: Owner Scorecard, "Casella Waste Systems Inc. (CWST), the owner's record," https://ownerscorecard.com/c/CWST, data as of 2026-07-09.

Manual order: ← CWK its page in the Manual CWT →

Industry order: ← CLH the Waste Management chapter GFL →