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TIC, TIC Solutions Inc.
We are a leading provider of tech-enabled Testing, Inspection, Certification and Compliance, engineering, and geospatial services.
We provide mission-critical services that are essential to the safety, reliability, and efficiency of industrial assets, buildings, and public infrastructure.
Our private-sector clients span industrial, infrastructure, construction, and commercial real estate end markets.
The business
What it sells, where the money comes from, the kind of company it is.
The business in brief
read the 10-K →What this business is and what moves its needle, from its own SEC filings.
- Situation
- Unprofitable. No sustained operating profit across the record; an earnings multiple has nothing to rest on. What the record does show is revenue, the gross-margin trajectory, and the burn against the cash on hand.
- What moves the needle
- Where the revenue and the profit actually come from, and whether the returns are earned by a real advantage or bought with capital. The segment detail in the 10-K is where this one is settled. On its own account, the filing leans hardest on pricing power & competition, set against the numbers in what the filing emphasizes, below.
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 year, in the company's words
the filing →Verbatim from the 10-K's management discussion. Each sentence is shown only because its subject, direction, and stated figures check out against the filed numbers on this page. The words are the company's; the arithmetic is the record's.
- Revenue+45.7%
“Revenues Revenues were $1.5 billion for the year ended December 31, 2025 (Successor), an increase of $432.9 million, or 39.4%, compared to $633.9 million during the period from January 1, 2024 to July 29, 2024 (Predecessor) and $463.5 million during the period from July 30, 2024 to December 31, 2024 (Successor). The increase in revenues was primarily driven by incremental revenues of $431.4 million resulting from the NV5 Acquisition.”
✓ figure matches the filed record
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 a $87M loss into $61M of owner earnings: more cash than the profit line showed, after the non-cash charges and the capital it put back in.
| FY2025 | |
|---|---|
| Reported net income | ($87M) |
| Depreciation & amortizationnon-cash charge added back | +$178M |
| Stock-based compensationreal costnon-cash, but a real cost | +$17M |
| Working capital & othertiming of cash in and out, other non-cash items | −$13M |
| Cash from operations | $95M |
| Capital expenditurecash put back in to keep running and to grow | −$34M |
| Owner earnings | $61M |
| Owner-earnings marginowner earnings ÷ revenue | 4% |
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 $17M), owner earnings is nearer $44M.
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.
Quality & stewardship
Returns, the balance sheet, capital allocation, and pay.
Owner’s Scorecard
“We identified material weaknesses in our internal control over financial reporting.”
The figures below are only as sound as the controls that produced them. read the note →
Will it survive?
- Interest expense not tagged in the data
What this means
No usable interest-expense line was tagged in the filing data, but the balance sheet carries real net debt — so the interest burden here is unknown, not absent. Read the debt on the net-debt check below.
- Net debt against an operating lossCash $440M − debt $1.6B
What this means
Netting $440M of cash and short-term investments against $1.6B of debt leaves $1.2B owed, with no operating profit this year to measure it against — understand that combination before anything else about the company. Net debt is the leverage figure that matters: the cash is already set against the debt. Strategic or illiquid investments aren't counted here.
- Long (60+ days)DSO 87 + DIO 0 − DPO 20 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. (Little or no inventory, a services / asset-light model, so the inventory leg is ~0.)
Is it a good business?
- Below averageNOPAT ($14M) ÷ invested capital $3.4B (debt + equity − cash)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. Asset-light businesses (R&D expensed, little capital) read artificially high, pair this with Owner Earnings.
- ThinOwner earnings $61M = operating cash $95M − maintenance capex $34MIndustry peers: median 9%
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 4% of revenue this year. Treating stock comp as the real expense it is (less $17M of SBC) leaves $44M.
- Loss, but cash-generativeNet income ($87M) · cash from operations $95M
In the filing’s words The filing discloses a material weakness in its financial controls — the reported numbers here, and the record built on them, are only as reliable as the controls that produced them.
What this means
The company reported a net loss, so a conversion ratio isn't meaningful. What matters then is whether operations still threw off cash, here, they did.
How is the cash used?
- Reinvests most of itDividends + buybacks $0 ÷ Owner Earnings $61M
What this means
Of $61M Owner Earnings, $0 (0%) went back to shareholders, $0 dividends, $0 buybacks. Returning most of it is the mark of a mature business with little left to reinvest at a high return; reinvesting most could mean a long runway, or empire-building. The split doesn't say which; the return earned on it (see ROIC) does.
- Investing or harvesting? 0.19×HarvestingCapex $34M ÷ depreciation $178M
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 · 1 of 3 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 NearRevenue ≥ $2B · $1.5B
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 PassCurrent ratio ≥ 2× · 3.20×
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 MissDebt ≤ working capital · $1.6B vs $702M 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.
- 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. Earnings are $-0.39/share, and book value is $9.86/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.
Does AI threaten the moat?
Elevated contestabilityThe product is software or information, the very thing capable AI now produces more cheaply, so the moat is more contestable than the record alone implies.
Its FY2025 10-K names artificial intelligence as a competitive threat.
“These deficiencies could undermine the decisions, predictions or analysis AI applications produce, subjecting us to competitive harm, legal liability and brand or reputational harm.”
The product is the kind capable AI most directly contests: when a substitute can be built cheaply, the incumbent's pricing power is the first thing at risk. The record cannot say whether the moat outlasts that; past durability is a starting point, not a promise.
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, 2026Can 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.
- Cash & short-term investments$427M
- Receivables$344M
- Other current assets$250M
- Debt due within a year$23M
- Accounts payable$58M
- Other current liabilities$252M
From the company's latest filing.
Acquisitions & goodwill
from the balance sheet & the 2-year cash-flow recordGoodwill 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.
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 2-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.
- Insider ownership11.4%
The stake all directors and executive officers hold together, per the 2026 proxy: skin in the game, the first thing Munger reads.
- CEO pay ratio52:1
What the chief earns for every dollar the median employee makes, per the 2026 proxy. A high ratio alone settles nothing; some businesses are genuinely top-heavy in scarce skill. A runaway figure is where Buffett starts asking whether the board is doing its job.
- Stock-based compensation$17M
The slice of the business handed to employees in shares this year, 1% of revenue. 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.
What an owner would ask, FY2025
read the 10-K →- Which reported numbers are a judgment call?Management names Revenue recognition, Income taxes, 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, Commercial Services & Supplies
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| CBZCBIZ | $2.8B | 14% | 8.5% | 5% | 9% |
| ALITAlight Inc. | $2.3B | — | -3.6% | -1% | 9% |
| WEXWEX Inc. | $1.8B | 45% | 29.9% | 7% | 25% |
| RELYRemitly Global Inc. | $1.6B | — | -11.4% | -27% | 5% |
| TICTIC Solutions Inc. | $1.5B | 29% | -1.1% | -0% | 4% |
| WNSWNS Holdings | $1.3B | 35% | 12.8% | 15% | 11% |
| PAYPaymentus Holdings Inc. | $1.2B | 30% | 5.1% | 13% | 7% |
| MAXMediaAlpha Inc. | $1.1B | 16% | 2.7% | -12% | 6% |
| Group median | — | 30% | 3.9% | 3% | 8% |
The price
What a price has to assume.
What the price implies
reverse-DCFType today's close and see the owner-earnings growth you'd have to believe to justify it, beside what TIC Solutions Inc. has delivered.
—
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.
A dated snapshot of the price you typed, the assumptions you set, and what the page showed for them. A snapshot is never edited after it is saved. Your notebook is yours alone — the commitment states what is stored and what we will never do.
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 $37M on 221M shares outstanding, per the 10-Q cover, as of 2026-05-01; net debt $1.2B. 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.
Manual order: ← THRM its page in the Manual TILE →
Industry order: ← TCOM the Commercial Services & Supplies chapter TNET →