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Makes specialty chemical ingredients for personal care, pharmaceutical, food and industrial/coatings applications.
Makes specialty chemical ingredients for personal care, pharmaceutical, food and industrial/coatings applications.
Sells ingredients that go into customers' products in small amounts, such as thickeners, film formers and tablet excipients, so volumes are modest but hard to replace once customers and regulators have approved them. Cellulose-based ingredients are at the core. It separated from Valvoline in 2017 to become a pure specialty-chemicals company.
Moat: narrow (IP / patents, process know-how, switching costs). Ingredients are formulated into customer products; requalifying a chemical supplier is costly and slow.
Headquarters: Wilmington, Delaware, US · Founded: 1918
Size Ashland (ASH) is a United States Consumer Staples company (Food: Specialty/Candy) with a market value of $3.51B, the 1431st largest of 3,117 United States companies the cockpit tracks. Shares closed at $76.62 on 6 Nov 2026.
Performance Over six months the shares gained 39.3%, against -6.2% for the median peer and -1.1% for the United States market (cap-weighted) — 5th highest of 21 in its peer set.
Growth Revenue grew 2.1% over the last twelve months (peer median +9.7%); the operating margin is 7.2% (peer median 10.0%).
Valuation It trades at 18.0× forward earnings against a peer median of 18.1× (9th cheapest of 20).
Price implies For today's price to make sense, revenue must grow about 12% a year for seven years (Req g). Recent delivered growth is -2%, so the hurdle is +15 pp: the price needs faster growth than the company has been delivering — of companies that just grew 25–50% a year, 93.8% slowed down over the next four years.
Capital Return on invested capital runs 2.5 points below its cost of capital (6.3% WACC).
Credit Ashland has 2 bonds outstanding ($838M), rated BB by the agencies and trading like BB+ at a weighted spread of 131 bp.
Short interest Short interest is 11.1% of the free float (15 Oct 2026).
Next results Next results expected around 2 Feb 2027 (exchange calendar; dates can move).
| TTM | FY2026 | FY2025 | FY2024 | FY2023 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Revenue | $1.86B | $1.86B | $1.82B | $2.11B | $2.19B |
| Revenue growth | — | +2% | -14% | -4% | — |
| Gross profit | $512M | $541M | $437M | $493M | $521M |
| EBITDA | $353M | $294M | $386M | $444M | $468M |
| Net income | $4.00M | $4.00M | -$845M | $169M | $178M |
| Free cash flow | $295M | $295M | $36.0M | $325M | $124M |
| Capital expenditure | $88.0M | $88.0M | $98.0M | $137M | $170M |
| Total debt | $1.47B | $1.47B | $1.49B | $1.47B | $1.46B |
The default views of Competitor Analysis ▸ Charts, drawn from the same data. Open them in the cockpit to change the axes, pin companies and read every value.
| Company | Market cap | 6M return | Revenue growth | Op. margin | Forward P/E | Req g |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ashland ASH | $3.51B | +39% | +2% | 7% | 18.0× | 12.3% |
| Croda International CRDA.L | $6.88B | +31% | +3% | 16% | 23.3× | 19.9% |
| International Flavors & Fragrances IFF | $20.7B | +2% | -17% | 11% | 23.4× | 17.9% |
| Basf BAS.DE | $52.6B | +2% | -4% | 7% | 16.8× | 5.7% |
Peer set: Industry: the same industry and sector in any market, nearest in size. This is the same default set the interactive Competitor Analysis opens with.
| Measure | ASH | Peer median | Rank in peer set |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1-month return | +8.4% | +3.2% | 10th highest of 21 |
| 6-month return | +39.3% | -6.2% | 5th highest of 21 |
| Distance from 52-week high | -3.6% | -19.2% | 3rd highest of 21 |
| Revenue growth (TTM) | +2.1% | +9.7% | 7th lowest of 21 |
| Operating margin | 7.2% | 10.0% | 6th lowest of 21 |
| Forward P/E | 18.0× | 18.1× | 9th cheapest of 20 |
| Growth the price implies (Req g, 7 yrs) | 12.3% | 4.5% | 4th most demanding of 17 |
| Growth delivered (Del g) | -2.5% | +9.9% | lowest of 17 |
| Hurdle (Req g minus delivered) | +14.7 pp | -8.3 pp | most demanding of 17 |
| ROIC minus cost of capital | -2.5 pp | +3.2 pp | 5th lowest of 21 |
| EV / EBITDA | 12.8× | 11.0× | 7th most expensive of 16 |
| Net debt / EBITDA | 2.8× | 0.7× | 4th most indebted of 16 |
| Bond spread | 131 bp | n/a | — |
| Company | Market | Market cap | 6M return | Revenue growth | Op. margin | Forward P/E | Req g | Delivered g |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ashland ASH | United States | $3.51B | +39% | +2% | 7% | 18.0× | 12.3% | -2.5% |
| Jinan Shengquan Group Share 605589.SS | China | $3.46B | -30% | +12% | 8% | 19.7× | n/a | n/a |
| Vita Coco COCO | United States | $3.56B | -13% | +26% | 20% | 30.2× | 8.4% | +14.4% |
| Orion 271560.KS | South Korea | $3.45B | -18% | +11% | 17% | 9.9× | -17.1% | +8.4% |
| Post POST | United States | $3.65B | -19% | +6% | 10% | 11.8× | -2.1% | +7.4% |
| Tate & Lyle TATE.L | United Kingdom | $3.34B | +53% | +16% | 9% | 15.2× | 10.8% | +10.6% |
| Greencore GNC.L | United Kingdom | $3.23B | +31% | +26% | 6% | 14.3× | 22.4% | +9.0% |
| Anjoy Foods 603345.SS | China | $3.82B | -20% | +19% | 12% | 17.3× | -4.3% | +18.4% |
| Greggs GRG.L | United Kingdom | $3.20B | +42% | +7% | 9% | 18.1× | 10.5% | +21.5% |
| Freshpet FRPT | United States | $3.09B | +21% | +12% | 9% | 34.9× | 28.5% | +28.2% |
| MeiHua 600873.SS | China | $2.99B | -27% | -3% | 4% | 14.5× | n/a | n/a |
| Tootsie Roll Industries TR | United States | $2.92B | -8% | +2% | 12% | n/a | 14.1% | +9.2% |
| Marzetti MZTI | United States | $2.86B | -8% | -1% | 11% | 15.6× | -2.4% | +5.6% |
| Kotobuki Spirits 2222.T | Japan | $2.81B | +41% | +10% | 25% | 29.3× | 5.2% | +27.7% |
| House Foods 2810.T | Japan | $2.58B | +49% | 0% | 6% | 27.2× | 5.0% | +4.9% |
| Suedzucker SZU.DE | Germany | $2.57B | -5% | -5% | -3% | 34.2× | 0.7% | +4.6% |
| Aak AAK.ST | Sweden | $4.88B | -30% | -1% | 10% | 13.6× | -6.0% | +10.5% |
| Angel Yeast 600298.SS | China | $4.97B | +2% | +15% | 11% | 19.1× | 4.1% | +13.4% |
| Sensient Technologies SXT | United States | $5.07B | +1% | +10% | 15% | 25.0× | n/a | n/a |
| Yamazaki Baking 2212.T | Japan | $5.08B | +21% | +5% | 5% | 18.0× | -3.3% | +5.3% |
| Lotus 600186.SS | China | $2.37B | -18% | +21% | 13% | 35.2× | n/a | n/a |
Ashland has 2 bonds outstanding with $838M face value. The agencies rate it BB; its bonds trade like BB+. Weighted yield 4.93%, a spread of 131 bp over government bonds.