CRLCharles River Laboratories
Is it safe?
Forensics clean, with a caveat: a safe balance sheet, but big price swings.
Financially healthy, low distress risk Altman Z-score, a bankruptcy-risk model from five balance-sheet ratios.
Insiders were net sellers (-$26.0M, 90 days to Oct 8, 2026), selling is often routine.
Investment-grade balance sheet. A rule of thumb on leverage, not a credit rating.
Large price swings, high volatility. Worst drawdown -78% · now 3% below its 52-week high.
Unless marked, from SEC EDGAR, as of Dec 27, 2025.
Against the whole market›
Percentile against every name Ryufin tracks. Higher is better; the tick marks the middle of the market. Context, not one of the checks above.
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 CRL take a bad year?
Charles River Laboratories carries $2.43B of net debt at 6.27× EBITDA: a heavy load to carry through a bad year.
Net debt · as at Q2 2026 · over four years of earnings before interest, tax and depreciation, heavy
- Net debt / EBITDA
- 6.27×
Net debt / EBITDA · 3.88× a year ago · the load is going up
- Altman Z-score
- 2.40
Altman Z-score · grey zone, between 1.8 and 3
- Interest cover
- 0.85×
Interest cover · operating profit does not cover the interest bill
Details›
- Total debtQ2 2026
- $2.63B
- Cash and short-term investments
- $192M
- Net debt
- $2.43B
- EBITDA, trailing twelve months
- $388M
- Operating profit, trailing twelve months
- $90M
- Debt / equity
- 0.93×
- Total debt / EBITDA
- 6.77×
- Annualised volatilitytwo years of daily moves
- 51%
- Worst drawdown on file
- −78%
- Below its 52-week high
- 2.9%
Balance sheet from SEC filings; drawdown and volatility from end-of-day closes; Altman Z from the filed statements.
Diagnostics & Research
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