Is the business good?
How good a business is UNF?
UniFirst Corporation earns 5.6% on the capital it employs against a 9.0% cost of capital, so growth costs more than it returns.
5.6%
Return on invested capital · cost of capital 9.0% · 3.4 points below what the capital costs: growth destroys value
- Operating margin
- 5.8%
Operating margin · Specialty Business Services median 10% · 12 months to Q3 2026
- Cash conversion
- 0.76×
Cash conversion · 0.99× a year ago · some of the reported profit has not turned into cash yet
- Share count, year on year
- −2.1%
Share count, year on year · bought back, each share owns more of the company
| Year | Operating margin |
|---|---|
| FY2020 | 9.6% |
| FY2021 | 11% |
| FY2022 | 6.7% |
| FY2023 | 6.0% |
| FY2024 | 7.6% |
| FY2025 | 7.6% |
Details›
- Gross margin12 months to Q3 2026
- 37%
- Operating margin12 months to Q3 2026
- 5.8%
- Net margin12 months to Q3 2026
- 4.7%
- Free cash flow margin
- 3.5%
- Revenue, trailing twelve months
- $2.49B
- Free cash flow, trailing twelve months
- $88M
- Net income, trailing twelve months
- $116M
- Return on invested capitaloperating profit after tax ÷ debt + equity − cash
- 5.6%
Margins, capital and share counts from the statements as filed with the SEC; cash conversion from the cash flow statement.
Specialty Business Services
Ranks #15 of 18 by Smart Score