SCLStepan Company
Is the business good?
The checks split: earnings fully cash-backed (9.9×), but margins compressing.
Mixed fundamental signals. Nine pass/fail tests of year-over-year health from the filings.
Operating profit is fully backed by cash. Conversion is improving vs a year ago.
Operating profit is falling even as sales grow, costs are outrunning the top line.
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. The F-score rewards improvement, so an already-elite company can score mid-pack.
How good a business is SCL?
Stepan Company earns 0.90% on the capital it employs against a 9.0% cost of capital, so growth costs more than it returns.
Return on invested capital · cost of capital 9.0% · 8.1 points below what the capital costs: growth destroys value
- Operating margin
- 0.82%
Operating margin · Specialty Chemicals median 7.4% · 12 months to Q2 2026
- Cash conversion
- 9.87×
Cash conversion · 1.50× a year ago · operating cash flow covers the operating profit after tax
- Share count, year on year
- +0.20%
Share count, year on year · flat: no meaningful dilution
| Year | Operating margin |
|---|---|
| FY2020 | 9.2% |
| FY2021 | 7.3% |
| FY2022 | 7.5% |
| FY2023 | 2.5% |
| FY2024 | 3.2% |
| FY2025 | 3.4% |
Details›
- Gross margin12 months to Q2 2026
- 12%
- Operating margin12 months to Q2 2026
- 0.82%
- Net margin12 months to Q2 2026
- −0.11%
- Free cash flow margin
- 1.5%
- Revenue, trailing twelve months
- $2.43B
- Free cash flow, trailing twelve months
- $37M
- Net income, trailing twelve months
- −$2.7M
- Return on invested capitaloperating profit after tax ÷ debt + equity − cash
- 0.90%
Margins, capital and share counts from the statements as filed with the SEC; cash conversion is operating cash flow over operating profit after tax.
Specialty Chemicals
Ranks #27 of 33 by RyuScore