Is the business good?
How good a business is CRL?
Charles River Laboratories earns 1.4% on the capital it employs against a 9.0% cost of capital, so growth costs more than it returns.
1.4%
Return on invested capital · cost of capital 9.0% · 7.6 points below what the capital costs: growth destroys value
- Operating margin
- 2.3%
Operating margin · Diagnostics & Research median 7.1% · 12 months to Q2 2026
- Share count, year on year
- −2.6%
Share count, year on year · bought back, each share owns more of the company
| Year | Operating margin |
|---|---|
| FY2020 | 15% |
| FY2021 | 17% |
| FY2022 | 16% |
| FY2023 | 15% |
| FY2024 | 5.6% |
| FY2025 | 0.63% |
Details›
- Operating margin12 months to Q2 2026
- 2.3%
- Net margin12 months to Q2 2026
- −6.0%
- Free cash flow margin
- 9.3%
- Revenue, trailing twelve months
- $4.00B
- Free cash flow, trailing twelve months
- $371M
- Net income, trailing twelve months
- −$238M
- Return on invested capitaloperating profit after tax ÷ debt + equity − cash
- 1.4%
Margins, capital and share counts from the statements as filed with the SEC; cash conversion from the cash flow statement.
Diagnostics & Research
Ranks #17 of 29 by Smart Score