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WSC, WillScot

Trading Companies & Distributors diversified UnprofitableDistress / turnaroundCyclical

Our diverse product offering includes modular office complexes, mobile offices, classrooms, blast-resistant modules, clearspan structures, sanitation solutions, portable storage containers, and climate-controlled containers and trailers.

Headquartered in Scottsdale, Arizona, we are a leading business services provider specializing in innovative and flexible turnkey temporary space solutions.

With roots dating back more than 80 years, we service diverse end markets across all sectors of the economy from a network of approximately 260 branch locations and additional drop lots throughout the United States ("US"), Canada, and Mexico.

Latest annual: FY2025 10-K

WSC · WillScot

The business

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

Revenue · FY2025

$2.3B

−4.8% YoY · 12% 5-yr CAGR

Vital signs · TTM, with 5-yr average

Revenue $2.3B 5-yr avg $2.2B

Operating margin 7.0% 5-yr avg 17.9%

Owner-earnings margin 32% 5-yr avg 30%

Free cash flow margin 32% 5-yr avg 30%

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. Distress / turnaround. Thin interest coverage, or operating cash burned against real debt, across the record. The balance sheet carries this situation; the debt schedule sets the clock. Cyclical. Margins collapse and recover repeatedly across the record; a single year, good or bad, misstates the through-cycle earning power.
What moves the needle: Operating margin has run about 11% through the cycle, a solid margin the cost base and competition set as much as the price does. The operating margin has swung widely — from −13% to 28% over the years — so the through-cycle figure carries more than any single year, and the worst year more than the best. On its own account, the filing leans hardest on customer concentration, 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 7 years). By owner earnings: roughly 23% 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	TTMTTMMar 2026
											Income statement
$427M	$446M	$751M	$1.1B	$1.3B	$1.7B	$2.1B	$2.4B	$2.4B	$2.3B	$2.3B	RevenueRevenue
33%	36%	31%	25%	27%	29%	26%	25%	26%	25%	26%	SG&A / revenueSG&A/rev
($3M)	($58M)	$6M	$118M	$162M	$300M	$511M	$673M	$264M	$181M	$159M	Operating incomeOp. inc.
−0.7%	−13.1%	0.8%	11.0%	12.7%	18.0%	23.9%	28.5%	11.0%	8.0%	7.0%	Operating marginOp. mgn
($31M)	($148M)	($25M)	($11M)	$74M	$160M	$340M	$476M	$28M	($53M)	($68M)	Net incomeNet inc.
—	—	—	—	—	19%	21%	21%	23%	—	—	Effective tax rateTax rate
											Cash flow & returns
$59M	($1M)	$37M	$173M	$305M	$540M	$745M	$761M	$562M	$762M	$746M	Operating cash flowOp. cash
$78M	$81M	$135M	$187M	$244M	$316M	$62M	$73M	$83M	$96M	$97M	DepreciationDeprec.
$12M	$62M	($76M)	($10M)	($23M)	$38M	$313M	$177M	$415M	$680M	$681M	Working capital & otherWC & other
$2M	$4M	$5M	$8M	$16M	$30M	$44M	$22M	$18M	$24M	$23M	CapexCapex
0.6%	1.0%	0.6%	0.8%	1.3%	1.8%	2.0%	0.9%	0.8%	1.1%	1.0%	Capex / revenueCapex/rev
$56M	($6M)	$33M	$164M	$288M	$509M	$701M	$739M	$543M	$738M	$723M	Owner earningsOwner earn.
13.2%	−1.3%	4.3%	15.4%	22.7%	30.4%	32.7%	31.3%	22.7%	32.3%	31.8%	Owner earnings marginOE mgn
$56M	($6M)	$33M	$164M	$288M	$509M	$701M	$739M	$543M	$738M	$723M	Free cash flowFCF
13.2%	−1.3%	4.3%	15.4%	22.7%	30.4%	32.7%	31.3%	22.7%	32.3%	31.8%	Free cash flow marginFCF mgn
$0	$237M	$1.1B	$0	$0	$147M	$221M	$562M	$121M	$145M	$142M	AcquisitionsAcquis.
—	—	—	—	—	—	—	$0	$0	$51M	$51M	Dividends paidDiv. paid
-0%	-4%	—	—	—	5%	9%	11%	4%	3%	—	ROICROIC
-134%	-34%	-4%	-2%	4%	8%	22%	38%	3%	-6%	-8%	Return on equityROE
—	—	—	—	—	—	—	38%	3%	−12%	−14%	Retained to equityRetained/eq
											Balance sheet
$6M	$9M	$9M	$3M	$25M	$6M	$7M	$11M	$9M	$15M	$16M	Cash & investmentsCash+inv
$71M	$95M	$207M	$248M	$331M	$351M	$410M	$451M	$430M	$395M	$397M	ReceivablesReceiv.
$9M	$10M	$16M	$15M	$24M	$30M	$41M	$47M	$47M	$46M	$46M	InventoryInvent.
$33M	$57M	$90M	$110M	$107M	$103M	$109M	$86M	$97M	$110M	$142M	Accounts payablePayables
$47M	$48M	$132M	$153M	$248M	$279M	$341M	$412M	$381M	$330M	$301M	Operating working capitalOper. WC
$138M	$128M	$256M	$293M	$422M	$483M	$521M	$569M	$558M	$525M	$530M	Current assetsCur. assets
$173M	$156M	$269M	$320M	$449M	$518M	$562M	$562M	$585M	$611M	$670M	Current liabilitiesCur. liab.
0.8×	0.8×	1.0×	0.9×	0.9×	0.9×	0.9×	1.0×	1.0×	0.9×	0.8×	Current ratioCurr. ratio
$57M	$29M	$247M	$235M	$962M	$1.0B	$1.0B	$1.2B	$1.2B	$1.3B	$1.3B	GoodwillGoodwill
$1.7B	$1.4B	$2.8B	$2.9B	$5.6B	$5.8B	$5.8B	$6.1B	$6.0B	$5.8B	$5.8B	Total assetsAssets
$658M	$627M	$1.7B	$1.6B	$2.5B	$2.7B	$3.1B	$3.6B	$3.7B	$3.6B	$3.5B	Total debtDebt
$651M	$618M	$1.7B	$1.6B	$2.4B	$2.7B	$3.1B	$3.5B	$3.7B	$3.6B	$3.5B	Net debt / (cash)Net debt
-0.0×	-0.5×	0.1×	1.0×	1.4×	2.6×	3.5×	3.3×	—	—	0.7×	Interest coverageInt. cov.
$23M	$436M	$638M	$491M	$2.1B	$2.0B	$1.6B	$1.3B	$1.0B	$856M	$871M	Shareholders’ equityEquity
0.0%	0.7%	0.5%	0.6%	0.8%	1.6%	1.4%	1.5%	1.5%	1.7%	1.6%	Stock comp / revenueSBC/rev
											Per share
20.8M	19.8M	89.0M	109M	177M	233M	221M	202M	190M	182M	181M	Shares out (diluted)Shares
$20.48	$22.57	$8.45	$9.79	$7.18	$7.19	$9.68	$11.72	$12.59	$12.51	$12.51	Revenue / shareRev/sh
$-1.48	$-7.47	$-0.28	$-0.10	$0.42	$0.69	$1.53	$2.36	$0.15	$-0.29	$-0.37	EPS (diluted)EPS
$2.71	$-0.29	$0.37	$1.51	$1.63	$2.19	$3.17	$3.66	$2.85	$4.04	$3.98	Owner earnings / shareOE/sh
$2.71	$-0.29	$0.37	$1.51	$1.63	$2.19	$3.17	$3.66	$2.85	$4.04	$3.98	Free cash flow / shareFCF/sh
—	—	—	—	—	—	—	$0.00	$0.00	$0.28	$0.28	Dividends / shareDiv/sh
$0.11	$0.22	$0.05	$0.08	$0.09	$0.13	$0.20	$0.11	$0.10	$0.13	$0.13	Cap. spending / shareCapex/sh
$1.11	$22.05	$7.17	$4.51	$11.64	$8.58	$7.07	$6.25	$5.35	$4.69	$4.80	Book value / shareBVPS

Share counts before 2017 are restated ×1/3 for a stock split, so per-share figures sit on one basis.

The diluted share count moved ×4.5 into 2018 — shares issued, not a split the totals corroborate — and the per-share figures carry the counts as filed.

The diluted share count moved ×1.63 into 2020 — shares issued, not a split the totals corroborate — and the per-share figures carry the counts as filed.

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

	9-yr	5-yr
Revenue / share	−5.3%/yr	+11.7%/yr
Owner earnings / share	+4.6%/yr	+20.0%/yr
Capital spending / share	+1.8%/yr	+7.5%/yr
Book value / share	+17.4%/yr	−16.6%/yr

The record, charted

FY2016–2025

Each measure over its full record; the current point and the worst year marked. Share counts on the current split basis.

Share count

182Mpeak FY2021

ROIC

3%low FY2017

Net debt ÷ owner earnings

4.8×peak FY2018

Owner earnings vs. net income

Owner earningsNet income

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

$738Mowner earningsvs.($53M)net incomelow FY2017

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 a $53M loss into $738M of owner earnings: more cash than the profit line showed, after the non-cash charges and the capital it put back in.

	FY2025	FY2024	FY2023	FY2022	FY2021
Reported net income	($53M)	$28M	$476M	$340M	$160M
Depreciation & amortizationnon-cash charge added back	+$96M	+$83M	+$73M	+$62M	+$316M
Stock-based compensationreal costnon-cash, but a real cost	+$38M	+$36M	+$34M	+$30M	+$26M
Working capital & othertiming of cash in and out, other non-cash items	+$680M	+$415M	+$177M	+$313M	+$38M
Cash from operations	$762M	$562M	$761M	$745M	$540M
Capital expenditurecash put back in to keep running and to grow	−$24M	−$18M	−$22M	−$44M	−$30M
Owner earnings	$738M	$543M	$739M	$701M	$509M
Owner-earnings marginowner earnings ÷ revenue	32%	23%	31%	33%	30%

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 $38M), owner earnings is nearer $699M.

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? 0.9×

Does not cover its interest

Operating income $181M ÷ interest expense $205M

What this means
A full year of operating profit didn't cover the interest bill. This is the zombie zone: the business depends on refinancing, asset sales, or forbearance to service its debt.
How heavy is the debt, net of cash? $3.6B · 19.7× operating profit

Heavy net debt

Cash $15M − debt $3.6B

What this means
Netting $15M of cash and short-term investments against $3.6B of debt leaves $3.6B owed, about 19.7× a year's operating profit (19.8× 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 4%

Below average through the cycle

7-yr median, range -4%–11%; the latest year is left out — large non-operating charges put its operating line well above pretax profit

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 7 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 23%

High through the cycle

10-yr median margin, range -1%–33%; latest $738M = operating cash $762M − maintenance capex $24M

Industry 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 32% of revenue this year, a 23% median across 10 years. Treating stock comp as the real expense it is (less $38M of SBC) leaves $699M.
Are earnings backed by cash? $762M

Loss, but cash-generative

Net income ($53M) · cash from operations $762M

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?

Where do the earnings go? 7%

Reinvests most of it

Dividends + buybacks $51M ÷ Owner Earnings $738M

What this means
Of $738M Owner Earnings, $51M (7%) went back to shareholders, $51M 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? 0.25×

Harvesting

Capex $24M ÷ depreciation $96M

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 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 Pass

Revenue ≥ $2B · $2.3B

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× · 0.86×

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 · $3.6B vs ($86M) 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) · 5 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 · 1 of 10 yrs

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 $0.83/share (latest year $-0.29), the averaged base the calculator's gate runs on, and book value is $4.73/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 5 of 10

What this means
Lost money in 5 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% → 16% (3-yr avg ends)

In the filing’s words The margin widened even though the filing names price competition — the gain came from volume or cost, not pricing power. Read where.

What this means
Through the cycle the operating margin widened — about −4% early to 16% lately, median 11% — pricing power intact or improving.
Reinvestment, incremental ROIC 9%

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 +43%/yr

What this means
Owner earnings grew about 43% a year over the record.
Worst year 2017 · −13.1% op. margin

What this means
Operations went underwater in 2017, understand why before trusting the good years.
Dividend record paid

What this means
Paid a dividend in 1 of the years on record.
How management talks about it Promotional

What this means
The record is compounding, but the filing leans on a promoter’s vocabulary rather than the per-share, return-on-capital terms an owner uses. The results back the talk here; the register is still worth noting.

Does AI threaten the moat?

Moderate contestability

AI is likely to reshape costs and some products here without clearly contesting or sparing the core moat; how the company itself frames it is the tell.

The question is whether a moat the record shows as durable outlasts a technology that lowers the cost of part of what the firm sells. The durability is read in the record above, the filing's own framing of AI beside it; the industry label decides nothing on its own.

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$530M

Cash & short-term investments$16M
Receivables$397M
Inventory$46M
Other current assets$71M

Current liabilities$670M

Debt due within a year$265M
Accounts payable$142M
Other current liabilities$262M

Current ratio0.79×all current assets ÷ what's due · Graham looked for 2×

Quick ratio0.72×stricter: inventory excluded

Cash ratio0.02×strictest: cash alone against what's due

Working capital($140M)the cushion left after near-term bills

Debt due this year vs. cash$265M due · $16M cash cash alone won't cover the maturities; it leans on refinancing or operating cash · both figures from the Mar 31, 2026 balance sheet

Revenue, latest quarter vs. a year ago−2.0%the freshest read on whether the business is still growing

Current ratio, recent quarters0.9× → 0.8×

Deeper floors

Tangible book value($600M)equity stripped of goodwill & intangibles

Net current asset value($4.4B)Graham's net-net: current assets less all liabilities

Debt incl. operating leases$2.5B$301M of it operating leases; with finance leases, “total fixed claims” below reaches $4.1B (annual-report basis)

Deferred revenue$257Mcustomer cash collected before delivery; operating float

From the company's latest filing.

Lease obligations

the lease note, SEC EDGAR →

Debt by another name. What the business owes on the property, aircraft, stores and equipment it rents rather than owns is a fixed claim due on a schedule; added back to the debt, it is the true leverage. That ladder, operating and finance leases together, and what it adds to the debt on the page above.

Operating leasesFinance leases

'26$118M

'27$108M

'28$98M

'29$70M

'30$55M

later$118M

Lease payments by year, scaled to the largest; “later” is everything beyond year five, shown apart. These are the contractual cash payments, before the interest the filing imputes back out to the balance-sheet liability.

Due in the next 12 months$118Ma fixed cash payment, owed whether or not the business has a good year

Total lease payments$567Mevery year plus the tail, undiscounted: the full cash the leases will take

On the balance sheet$480Mthe present value of those payments, the recognised lease liability

True leverage: debt plus leases

On-balance-sheet debt$3.6B

Lease obligations (present value)$480M

Total fixed claims on the business$4.1B

Counting the leases the way Buffett does, the fixed claims on this business come to $4.1B, of which the leases are 12%. The lease wall above and the debt schedule together are the calendar of what must be paid, and when.

Lease ladder read from the ASC 842 tags in the company’s Dec 31, 2025 annual report and reconciled: the yearly buckets sum to the undiscounted total, which less the imputed interest equals the balance-sheet liability; a ladder that doesn’t tie out is withheld.

How the cash was used, 2016–2025

Over the record, the business generated $3.9B of operating cash; how management split it reads as a balanced allocator, splitting cash between the business, owners, and the balance sheet.

Reinvested$175M · 4%
Dividends$51M · 1%
Retained (debt / cash)$3.7B · 94%

Returned to owners$51M
1% of the owner earnings the business produced over the span, $51M as dividends and $0 as buybacks.
Source of fundingOperating cash
Operating cash covered reinvestment and returns; over the span debt rose $2.9B and cash and short-term investments rose $9M.
Net change in share count771.0%
The diluted count rose from 21M to 181M: issuance (stock pay, deals) outran any buybacks, so owners were diluted on net.
Dividend record$0.28/sh
Paid in 1 of the years on record. It was never cut over the span.
Return on what it retained85%
Of the earnings it kept rather than paid out ($759M over the span), annual owner earnings (first three years vs last three) grew $646M, so each retained $1 added about 0.85 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$1.5B25% 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$2.5Bover 10 years buying other businesses, against $175M of capital spent building

$66M written down across 2 years (2016, 2017): goodwill the company has already conceded it overpaid for, charged against earnings. 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	Chief executive	Pay, as filed	“Actually paid”	Owner earnings
2021	Mr. Soultz.	$17.7M	$47.1M	$509M
2022	Mr. Soultz.	$8.6M	$20.8M	$701M
2023	Mr. Soultz.	$8.4M	$4.7M	$739M
2024	Mr. Soultz.	$7.2M	−$14.1M	$543M
2025	Mr. Soultz.	$7.3M	−$6.1M	$738M

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 ownership3%
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$38M
The slice of the business handed to employees in shares this year, 2% of revenue, equal to 21% 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 WillScot 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 6 tests turned up something to look into; the other 4 came back clean.

Look hereDid the share count rise anyway?771.0%
Diluted shares grew 771.0% 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.
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, $270M 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

Is it less profitable than it was?
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 →

How much of the revenue rides on one buyer?
≈$341M · 15% of revenue on the largest customers (TTM)
“For the year ended December 31, 2025, our top 10 customers accounted for approximately 6% of revenues, and our top 50 customers accounted for approximately 15% of revenues, reflecting low customer concentration and significant project diversification within our portfolio.”verify →

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

Peers, Trading Companies & Distributors

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
UPBDUpbound Group Inc.	$4.7B	55%	4.4%	7%	7%
ALAir Lease	$3.0B	—	55.1%	5%	54%
STGWStagwell Inc.	$2.9B	35%	5.1%	4%	5%
CBZCBIZ	$2.8B	14%	8.5%	5%	9%
AMNAMN Healthcare Services	$2.7B	33%	9.2%	13%	8%
PRGPROG Holdings Inc.	$2.4B	—	8.3%	15%	10%
WSCWillScot	$2.3B	—	11.0%	4%	23%
ALITAlight Inc.	$2.3B	—	-3.6%	-1%	9%
Group median	—	—	8.4%	5%	9%

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 WillScot has delivered.

WillScot’s latest year runs above its own through-cycle margin — the reported figure may flatter a peak. So the tool opens on the through-cycle base, Graham’s averaging cutting both ways; clear the toggle below to read the latest year exactly as reported.

Today’s price $

Through the cycle, WillScot earns about $517M on its 22.7% median owner-earnings margin. This year’s 32.3% margin runs above that; the reported figure may flatter a peak you'd be paying on. Normalize, below, values the price on that through-cycle figure rather than the latest year. It comes pre-checked here for that reason, the same rule that already normalizes a trough; clear it to price the year as filed.

Base Normalize · through-cycle ($517M) Net of stock comp (−$37M)

—

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+1%/yr

Owner-earnings growth · ’16→’25+43%/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 $723M on 181M shares outstanding, per the 10-Q cover, as of 2026-04-30; net debt $3.5B. The base opens on the through-cycle figure (the latest year sits above the record’s own median, and Graham’s averaging cuts both ways); clear Normalize to use the year as filed. 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 WSC against another business →

The owners of WSC: the meeting and the votes →

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

Manual order: ← WSBF its page in the Manual WSFS →

Industry order: ← WLFC the Trading Companies & Distributors chapter WSO →