CLWClearwater Paper Corporation
Is it safe?
Mostly sound, with a caveat: comfortable debt (AA), but big price swings.
Rock-solid balance sheet, low leverage. A rule of thumb on leverage, not a credit rating.
Large price swings, high volatility. Worst drawdown -82% · now 16% below its 52-week high.
Where this answer is blind. Altman sits structurally low for utilities and pipelines; Beneish runs high for fast growers, since sales growth alone lifts it; banks and REITs are excluded.
Can CLW take a bad year?
Clearwater Paper Corporation carries $325M of net debt at 7.17× EBITDA: a heavy load to carry through a bad year.
Net debt · as at Q1 2026 · over four years of earnings before interest, tax and depreciation, heavy
- Net debt / EBITDA
- 7.17×
Net debt / EBITDA · 7.71× a year ago · the load is coming down
- Cash runway
- 0.7 years
Cash runway · burning $13M a quarter at the current rate
- Annualised volatility
- 51%
Annualised volatility · roughly twice as jumpy as the market
Details›
- Total debtQ1 2026
- $361M
- Cash and short-term investments
- $37M
- Net debt
- $325M
- EBITDA, trailing twelve months
- $45M
- Operating profit, trailing twelve months
- −$49M
- Debt / equity
- 0.44×
- Total debt / EBITDA
- 7.97×
- Annualised volatilitytwo years of daily moves
- 51%
- Worst drawdown on file
- −82%
- Below its 52-week high
- 16%
Balance sheet from SEC filings; drawdown and volatility from end-of-day closes; Altman Z from the filed statements.
Basic Materials
Ranks #146 of 179 by RyuScore