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HI, Hillenbrand

Industrial Machinery capital-intensive CyclicalSerial acquirer

A capital-intensive business, run on heavy physical assets that must be kept working and earn a return above what they cost to maintain.

Latest annual: FY2025 10-K

HI · Hillenbrand

The business

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

Revenue · FY2025

$2.7B

−16.0% YoY · 1% 5-yr CAGR

Vital signs · TTM, with 5-yr average

Revenue $2.5B 5-yr avg $2.6B

Gross margin 34% 5-yr avg 33%

Operating margin 6.9% 5-yr avg 48.6%

Owner-earnings margin 0% 5-yr avg 8%

Free cash flow margin 0% 5-yr avg 8%

The business in brief

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

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 61% of assets, with meaningful acquisition spending in 4 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 36% and operating margin about 13% through the cycle, a spread the cycle sets more than the company does. The margin is cyclical, swinging between −0.8% and 81% 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. Inventory runs near 13% of sales, so how fast it turns back into cash — and the risk of writing it down when demand softens — sits alongside the margin.
Is it a good business?: Return on capital has sat near the cost of capital (median 10%). By owner earnings: roughly 10% 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.

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	TTMTTMDec 2025
											Income statement
$1.5B	$1.6B	$1.8B	$1.8B	$2.5B	$2.2B	$2.3B	$2.8B	$3.2B	$2.7B	$2.5B	RevenueRevenue
37%	37%	36%	—	—	—	—	—	33%	34%	34%	Gross marginGross mgn
1%	1%	1%	1%	1%	1%	1%	1%	1%	1%	1%	R&D / revenueR&D/rev
$185M	$211M	$165M	$1.4B	$2.0B	$1.8B	$1.9B	$2.3B	($25M)	$83M	$175M	Operating incomeOp. inc.
12.1%	13.3%	9.3%	79.0%	78.6%	79.9%	80.9%	79.7%	−0.8%	3.1%	6.9%	Operating marginOp. mgn
$113M	$126M	$77M	$121M	($60M)	$250M	$209M	$570M	($211M)	$43M	$35M	Net incomeNet inc.
30%	32%	46%	29%	—	24%	29%	15%	—	—	—	Effective tax rateTax rate
											Cash flow & returns
$238M	$246M	$248M	$179M	$355M	$528M	$191M	$207M	$191M	$56M	$40M	Operating cash flowOp. cash
$60M	$57M	$57M	$59M	$131M	$105M	$99M	$126M	$158M	$139M	$134M	DepreciationDeprec.
$57M	$53M	$103M	($13M)	$270M	$157M	($135M)	($507M)	$224M	($143M)	($146M)	Working capital & otherWC & other
$21M	$22M	$27M	$26M	$36M	$28M	$38M	$69M	$54M	$38M	$32M	CapexCapex
1.4%	1.4%	1.5%	1.4%	1.4%	1.3%	1.7%	2.5%	1.7%	1.4%	1.3%	Capex / revenueCapex/rev
$217M	$224M	$221M	$153M	$319M	$500M	$153M	$138M	$137M	$18M	$8M	Owner earningsOwner earn.
14.1%	14.1%	12.5%	8.5%	12.7%	22.3%	6.6%	4.9%	4.3%	0.7%	0.3%	Owner earnings marginOE mgn
$217M	$224M	$221M	$153M	$319M	$500M	$153M	$138M	$137M	$18M	$8M	Free cash flowFCF
14.1%	14.1%	12.5%	8.5%	12.7%	22.3%	6.6%	4.9%	4.3%	0.7%	0.3%	Free cash flow marginFCF mgn
$235M	$0	$0	$26M	$1.5B	$0	$91M	$1.4B	$900K	$0	$0	AcquisitionsAcquis.
$51M	$52M	$52M	$53M	$63M	$64M	$62M	$61M	$63M	$63M	$64M	Dividends paidDiv. paid
$21M	$28M	$61M	$0	$0	$121M	$204M	$0	$0	—	—	BuybacksBuybacks
11%	12%	9%	—	—	—	—	—	-1%	—	—	ROICROIC
18%	17%	10%	16%	-6%	21%	19%	35%	-15%	3%	2%	Return on equityROE
10%	10%	3%	9%	−12%	15%	14%	31%	−19%	−1%	−2%	Retained to equityRetained/eq
											Balance sheet
$52M	$66M	$56M	$399M	$302M	$446M	$232M	$243M	$199M	$165M	$173M	Cash & investmentsCash+inv
$153M	$152M	$171M	$158M	$385M	$412M	$486M	$593M	$525M	$344M	$349M	InventoryInvent.
$136M	$158M	$197M	$229M	$272M	$361M	$371M	$452M	$445M	$364M	$343M	Accounts payablePayables
$17M	($6M)	($26M)	($71M)	$114M	$50M	$115M	$141M	$80M	($20M)	$7M	Operating working capitalOper. WC
$600M	$594M	$611M	$1.0B	$1.4B	$1.4B	$1.4B	$1.6B	$1.5B	$1.2B	$1.2B	Current assetsCur. assets
$434M	$512M	$532M	$589M	$852M	$1.0B	$1.1B	$1.3B	$1.2B	$1.0B	$1.0B	Current liabilitiesCur. liab.
1.4×	1.2×	1.1×	1.7×	1.6×	1.4×	1.3×	1.2×	1.3×	1.2×	1.2×	Current ratioCurr. ratio
$634M	$648M	$473M	$471M	$1.1B	$1.2B	$1.2B	$2.0B	$1.8B	$1.6B	$1.6B	GoodwillGoodwill
$2.0B	$2.0B	$1.9B	$2.2B	$4.0B	$4.0B	$3.9B	$5.5B	$5.2B	$4.5B	$4.5B	Total assetsAssets
$609M	$466M	$345M	$620M	$1.6B	$1.2B	$1.2B	$2.0B	$1.9B	$1.5B	$1.6B	Total debtDebt
$557M	$400M	$289M	$221M	$1.3B	$767M	$990M	$1.8B	$1.7B	$1.4B	$1.4B	Net debt / (cash)Net debt
7.3×	8.4×	7.1×	52.1×	25.6×	24.1×	29.1×	29.0×	-0.2×	0.9×	1.9×	Interest coverageInt. cov.
$632M	$751M	$731M	$754M	$1.1B	$1.2B	$1.1B	$1.6B	$1.4B	$1.4B	$1.4B	Shareholders’ equityEquity
0.6%	0.7%	0.7%	0.7%	0.6%	0.8%	0.8%	0.7%	0.6%	0.7%	0.7%	Stock comp / revenueSBC/rev
—	—	$59M	—	$145M	$11M	—	—	$238M	$82M	$82M	Goodwill written downGW imp.
											Per share
63.8M	64.0M	63.8M	63.3M	73.4M	75.4M	72.2M	70.1M	70.4M	70.8M	70.9M	Shares out (diluted)Shares
$24.11	$24.85	$27.74	$28.55	$34.29	$29.73	$32.07	$40.31	$45.21	$37.77	$35.50	Revenue / shareRev/sh
$1.77	$1.97	$1.20	$1.92	$-0.82	$3.31	$2.89	$8.13	$-3.00	$0.61	$0.49	EPS (diluted)EPS
$3.40	$3.50	$3.47	$2.42	$4.34	$6.63	$2.12	$1.96	$1.95	$0.25	$0.11	Owner earnings / shareOE/sh
$3.40	$3.50	$3.47	$2.42	$4.34	$6.63	$2.12	$1.96	$1.95	$0.25	$0.11	Free cash flow / shareFCF/sh
$0.80	$0.81	$0.82	$0.83	$0.86	$0.85	$0.86	$0.87	$0.89	$0.90	$0.90	Dividends / shareDiv/sh
$0.33	$0.34	$0.42	$0.40	$0.49	$0.37	$0.53	$0.99	$0.77	$0.54	$0.46	Cap. spending / shareCapex/sh
$9.91	$11.74	$11.46	$11.91	$14.43	$16.04	$15.00	$23.26	$20.21	$19.59	$20.03	Book value / shareBVPS

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

	9-yr	5-yr
Revenue / share	+5.1%/yr	+1.9%/yr
Owner earnings / share	−25.1%/yr	−43.4%/yr
EPS	−11.2%/yr	—
Dividends / share	+1.2%/yr	+0.7%/yr
Capital spending / share	+5.6%/yr	+2.0%/yr
Book value / share	+7.9%/yr	+6.3%/yr

The record, charted

FY2016–2025

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

Share count

71Mpeak FY2021

ROIC

−1%low FY2024

Gross margin

34%low FY2024

Net debt ÷ owner earnings

76.0×peak FY2025

Owner earnings vs. net income

Owner earningsNet income

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

$18Mowner earningsvs.$43Mnet incomelow FY2025

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 reported $43M of profit but $18M of owner earnings: $25M less than the profit line, taken out by capital spending and the timing of cash.

Reported net income$43M

Owner earnings$18M · 1% of revenue

	FY2025	FY2024	FY2023	FY2022	FY2021
Reported net income	$43M	($211M)	$570M	$209M	$250M
Depreciation & amortizationnon-cash charge added back	+$139M	+$158M	+$126M	+$99M	+$105M
Stock-based compensationreal costnon-cash, but a real cost	+$18M	+$20M	+$19M	+$19M	+$17M
Working capital & othertiming of cash in and out, other non-cash items	−$143M	+$224M	−$507M	−$135M	+$157M
Cash from operations	$56M	$191M	$207M	$191M	$528M
Capital expenditurecash put back in to keep running and to grow	−$38M	−$54M	−$69M	−$38M	−$28M
Owner earnings	$18M	$137M	$138M	$153M	$500M
Owner-earnings marginowner earnings ÷ revenue	1%	4%	5%	7%	22%

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 $18M), owner earnings is nearer $0.

Much of fiscal 2025's profit didn't arrive as operating cash; it sits in “working capital & other” above. That can be a real inventory or timing swing, or profit that doesn't run through operating cash at all: a heavy tax year, equity-method earnings, or investment income booked through investing. For a year like this, owner earnings understates the cash earned; the full cash-flow statement carries the rest.

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? 1.8×

Thin

Operating income $175M ÷ interest expense $95M

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? $1.4B · 7.8× operating profit

Heavy net debt

Cash $165M − debt $1.5B

What this means
Netting $165M of cash and short-term investments against $1.5B of debt leaves $1.4B owed, about 7.8× a year's operating profit (8.7× 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? —

Not enough data

What this means
The filing data didn't include the inputs for this check.

Is it a good business?

Return on invested capital 9%

Solid through the cycle

4-yr median, range -1%–12%; the latest year is left out — large non-operating charges put its operating line well above pretax profit

Industry peers: median 10%

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 4 years, 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 8%

Solid through the cycle

10-yr median margin, range 1%–22%; latest $18M = operating cash $56M − maintenance capex $38M

Industry peers: median 6%

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 1% of revenue this year, a 8% median across 10 years. Treating stock comp as the real expense it is (less $18M of SBC) leaves $0.
Are earnings backed by cash? 1.30×

Cash-backed

Cash from ops $56M ÷ net income $43M

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? 354%

Returned more than it generated

Dividends + buybacks $63M ÷ Owner Earnings $18M

What this means
The company returned more than it generated: against $18M of Owner Earnings, $63M (354%) went back to shareholders, $63M dividends, $0 buybacks — the excess came from the balance sheet or borrowing, not the year's operations. Sustained, that pattern draws down cash or adds debt; the net-debt line above shows where it stands.
Investing or harvesting? 0.28×

Harvesting

Capex $38M ÷ depreciation $139M

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 · 2 of 6 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 Pass

Revenue ≥ $2B · $2.7B

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× · 1.22×

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 · $1.5B vs $221M 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 Pass

Uninterrupted dividends · paid every year (10)

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 Near

Earnings +33% over the record · +27%

What this means
At least a third more earnings than a decade ago, averaging three years at each end. Net income (not per-share), so stock splits don't distort it, buybacks and dilution show up in the share-count line instead.
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 $1.90/share (latest year $0.61), the averaged base the calculator's gate runs on, and book value is $19.63/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% 5 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 12% → 27% (3-yr avg ends)

What this means
Through the cycle the operating margin widened — about 12% early to 27% lately, median 13% — pricing power intact or improving.
Reinvestment, incremental ROIC 27%

What this means
Every extra dollar the business reinvested came back at a high incremental return — the lens GBM read for a moat that reinvests rather than merely harvests. The record and the 10-K are where you check whether the rate holds.
Owner earnings growth −11%/yr

What this means
Owner earnings shrank about 11% a year over the record.
Worst year 2024 · −0.8% op. margin

What this means
Operations went underwater in 2024, understand why before trusting the good years.
Share count +1.2%/yr

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

What this means
Paid and raised the dividend across the record, the continuity Graham prized.

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.

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 fiscal year-end, Sep 30, 2025

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$1.2B

Cash & short-term investments$173M
Inventory$349M
Other current assets$719M

Current liabilities$1.0B

Debt due within a year$23M
Accounts payable$343M
Other current liabilities$655M

Current ratio1.22×all current assets ÷ what's due · Graham looked for 2×

Quick ratio0.87×stricter: inventory excluded

Cash ratio0.17×strictest: cash alone against what's due

Working capital$221Mthe cushion left after near-term bills

Debt due this year vs. cash$23M due · $173M cash covered by cash on hand, no refinancing forced · both figures from the Sep 30, 2025 balance sheet

Revenue, latest quarter vs. a year ago−22.2%the freshest read on whether the business is still growing

Current ratio, recent quarters1.3× → 1.2×

Deeper floors

Tangible book value($1.3B)equity stripped of goodwill & intangibles

Net current asset value($1.8B)Graham's net-net: current assets less all liabilities

Debt incl. operating leases$1.7B$100M of it operating leases

Deferred revenue$242Mcustomer 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 $2.4B of operating cash; how management split it reads as a balanced allocator, splitting cash between the business, owners, and the balance sheet.

Reinvested$360M · 15%
Dividends$584M · 24%
Buybacks$435M · 18%
Retained (debt / cash)$1.1B · 43%

Returned to owners$1.0B
49% of the owner earnings the business produced over the span, $584M as dividends and $435M as buybacks.
Source of fundingOperating cash
Operating cash covered reinvestment and returns; over the span debt rose $970M and cash and short-term investments rose $121M.
Average price paid for buybacks$7.69
Across the years where the filing reports a share count, 6M shares were bought for $49M, about $7.69 each.
Net change in share count11.1%
The diluted count rose from 64M to 71M: issuance (stock pay, deals) outran any buybacks, so owners were diluted on net.
Dividend record$0.90/sh
Paid in 10 of the years on record, the per-share dividend growing about 1% a year. It was never cut over the span.
Return on what it retained−57%
Of the earnings it kept rather than paid out ($218M over the span), annual owner earnings (first three years vs last three) fell $123M, so each retained $1 gave back about 0.57 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$2.7B61% of all assets; the premium carried on the balance sheet for businesses acquired

Against book equityexceeds itgoodwill alone is larger than the company’s entire book equity; stripped of the acquisition premium, there is no net book worth

Cash spent acquiring$3.2Bover 10 years buying other businesses, against $360M of capital spent building

$535M written down across 5 years (2018, 2020, 2021, 2024, 2025): goodwill the company has already conceded it overpaid for, charged against earnings. That is roughly 17% of the cash it put into acquisitions over the span. A write-down costs no cash (the cash went out when the deal was signed), but it is management marking its own past judgment to market.

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	Pay, as filed	“Actually paid”	Owner earnings
2021	$7.1M	$12.9M	$500M
2022	$838k	−$3.9M	$153M
2022	$5.2M	$4.5M	$153M
2023	$6.6M	$6.1M	$138M
2024	$6.7M	−$21k	$137M

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.

Stock-based compensation$18M
The slice of the business handed to employees in shares this year, 1% of revenue, equal to 10% 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 Hillenbrand 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.

5 of the 6 tests turned up something to look into; the other 1 came back clean.

Look hereIs it less profitable than it was?3.3% vs 13.6%
The owner-earnings margin averaged 13.6% early in the record and 3.3% 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?11.1%
Diluted shares grew 11.1% over 2016–2025, even as the company spent $435M on buybacks. The repurchases were a treadmill: stock issued to staff outran them, so owners' slice still shrank. Read the buyback line beside this one, not on its own.
Look hereDid debt outgrow the business?$609M → $1.6B
Debt rose from $609M to $1.6B while owner earnings went from about $221M to $98M — about 2.8 years of owner earnings in debt then, about 16 now: measured against what the business earns, the balance sheet carries more debt than it did. Debt raised for buybacks or deals rather than growth is the kind that bites in a downturn.
Look hereDid receivables and inventory outpace sales?10% → 14% of sales
Receivables and inventory grew from $153M to $349M while revenue grew 64%: working capital is climbing faster than sales (10% of revenue then, 14% now). That can mean customers paying slower, stock building up, or revenue pulled forward. The filing's cash-flow and receivables notes say which.
Look hereAre "one-time" charges a yearly habit?5 of 10 years
Management took an impairment or write-down in 5 of the last 10 years, $535M in all. Taken across the majority of the record, the "one-time" label is wearing thin — ask whether these are past deals coming due rather than genuinely isolated events. Read it beside the goodwill the company still carries.

And these came back clean

Did reported profit become cash?

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.

Peers, Industrial Machinery

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
AMCRAmcor	$15.0B	20%	8.9%	10%	6%
HIHillenbrand	$2.7B	36%	46.0%	10%	10%
DAKTDaktronics Inc.	$839M	24%	2.7%	5%	3%
ODCOil-Dri Corporation Of America	$486M	25%	7.4%	13%	6%
Group median	—	24%	8.1%	10%	6%

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 Hillenbrand has delivered.

Today’s price $

Through the cycle, Hillenbrand earns about $281M on its 10.5% median owner-earnings margin. This year’s 0.7% 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 ($281M) Net of stock comp (−$18M)

—

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→’25−30%/yr

Owner-earnings growth · ’16→’25−11%/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 $8M on 71M shares outstanding, per the 10-Q cover, as of 2026-02-04; net debt $1.4B. 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 HI against another business →

Cite: Owner Scorecard, "Hillenbrand (HI), the owner's record," https://ownerscorecard.com/c/HI, data as of 2026-07-09.

Manual order: ← HHH its page in the Manual HIG →

Industry order: ← HAYW the Industrial Machinery chapter HLIO →