Is the business good?
How good a business is SW?
Smurfit Westrock earns 3.5% on the capital it employs against a 9.0% cost of capital, so growth costs more than it returns.
3.5%
Return on invested capital · cost of capital 9.0% · 5.5 points below what the capital costs: growth destroys value
- Operating margin
- 4.5%
Operating margin · Packaging & Containers median 4.6% · 12 months to Q1 2026
- Cash conversion
- 2.69×
Cash conversion · −0.12× a year ago · every dollar of reported profit arrived as cash, and more
- Share count, year on year
- 0.00%
Share count, year on year · flat: no meaningful dilution
| Year | Operating margin |
|---|---|
| FY2022 | 12% |
| FY2023 | 11% |
| FY2024 | 4.8% |
| FY2025 | 5.5% |
Details›
- Gross margin12 months to Q1 2026
- 18%
- Operating margin12 months to Q1 2026
- 4.5%
- Net margin12 months to Q1 2026
- 1.2%
- Free cash flow margin
- 3.3%
- Revenue, trailing twelve months
- $31.2B
- Free cash flow, trailing twelve months
- $1.02B
- Net income, trailing twelve months
- $380M
- Return on invested capitaloperating profit after tax ÷ debt + equity − cash
- 3.5%
Margins, capital and share counts from the statements as filed with the SEC; cash conversion from the cash flow statement.
Packaging & Containers
Ranks #11 of 15 by Smart Score