VHIValhi, Inc.
Is it safe?
Nothing alarming, nothing pristine: comfortable debt (A) and big price swings.
Investment-grade balance sheet. A rule of thumb on leverage, not a credit rating.
Large price swings, high volatility. Worst drawdown -91% · now 19% below its 52-week high.
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 VHI take a bad year?
Valhi, Inc. carries $375M of net debt at 2.56× EBITDA: a load its earnings can carry.
Net debt · as at Q2 2026 · between two and four years of EBITDA, normal for a stable business
- Net debt / EBITDA
- 2.56×
Net debt / EBITDA · 1.60× a year ago · the load is going up
- Interest cover
- 1.32×
Interest cover · operating profit barely covers the interest bill
- Annualised volatility
- 53%
Annualised volatility · roughly twice as jumpy as the market
Details›
- Total debtQ2 2026
- $588M
- Cash and short-term investments
- $212M
- Net debt
- $375M
- EBITDA, trailing twelve months
- $147M
- Operating profit, trailing twelve months
- $78M
- Debt / equity
- 0.56×
- Total debt / EBITDA
- 4.00×
- Annualised volatilitytwo years of daily moves
- 53%
- Worst drawdown on file
- −91%
- Below its 52-week high
- 19%
Balance sheet from SEC filings; drawdown and volatility from end-of-day closes; Altman Z from the filed statements.