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Specialty materials company making engineered polymers and acetyl chain chemicals (acetic acid) used across many industrial applications.
Specialty materials company making engineered polymers and acetyl chain chemicals (acetic acid) used across many industrial applications.
Splits into engineered plastics, sold to car and industrial makers and qualified into customers' products, and acetyl chain chemicals built from acetic acid, which are cyclical and traded in large volumes. The 2022 purchase of DuPont's mobility and materials business made the engineered side much larger and left heavy debt it has been working to cut.
Moat: narrow (scale, process know-how, IP / patents). Large-scale, low-cost acetyl chain production and specialty polymer formulation expertise support margins.
Headquarters: Irving, Texas, US · Founded: 1918 · Employees: 11,434
Size Celanese (CE) is a United States Materials company (Chemicals: Specialty) with a market value of $5.10B, the 1169th largest of 3,117 United States companies the cockpit tracks. Shares closed at $46.49 on 6 Nov 2026.
Performance Over six months the shares fell 18.7%, against -9.3% for the median peer and -1.1% for the United States market (cap-weighted) — 6th lowest of 21 in its peer set.
Growth Revenue grew 1.4% over the last twelve months (peer median +10.6%); the operating margin is 8.8% (peer median 12.9%).
Valuation It trades at 7.6× forward earnings against a peer median of 15.8× (5th cheapest of 21).
Price implies For today's price to make sense, revenue must grow about 5% a year for seven years (Req g). Recent delivered growth is +11%, so the hurdle is -6 pp: the price already allows for a slowdown.
Capital Return on invested capital runs 1.9 points below its cost of capital (6.3% WACC).
Backlog Backlog (remaining performance obligations) was $317M at 30 Sep 2026, down 48% on a year earlier — 0.0 years of trailing revenue. Backlog detail →
Credit Celanese has 14 bonds outstanding ($10.8B), rated BB by the agencies and trading like BB at a weighted spread of 182 bp.
Short interest Short interest is 5.3% of the free float (15 Oct 2026).
Next results Next results expected around 23 Feb 2027 (exchange calendar; dates can move).
| TTM | FY2025 | FY2024 | FY2023 | FY2022 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Revenue | $9.85B | $9.54B | $10.3B | $10.9B | $9.67B |
| Revenue growth | — | -7% | -6% | +13% | — |
| Gross profit | $1.93B | $1.80B | $2.25B | $2.45B | $2.28B |
| EBITDA | $1.73B | $1.55B | $1.87B | $1.94B | $1.80B |
| Net income | $262M | -$1.17B | -$1.54B | $1.96B | $1.89B |
| Free cash flow | $794M | $803M | $531M | $1.33B | $1.28B |
| Capital expenditure | $281M | $343M | $435M | $568M | $543M |
| Total debt | $11.9B | $12.9B | $13.0B | $14.1B | $15.1B |
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Celanese CE | $5.10B | -19% | +1% | 9% | 7.6× | 5.3% |
| Eastman Chemical EMN | $7.37B | -13% | 0% | 10% | 10.2× | 5.1% |
| Basf BAS.DE | $52.6B | +2% | -4% | 7% | 16.8× | 5.7% |
| DuPont DD | $19.4B | -1% | -43% | 14% | 18.3× | 14.7% |
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 | CE | Peer median | Rank in peer set |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1-month return | +3.8% | -3.0% | 8th highest of 21 |
| 6-month return | -18.7% | -9.3% | 6th lowest of 21 |
| Distance from 52-week high | -34.2% | -30.2% | 9th lowest of 21 |
| Revenue growth (TTM) | +1.4% | +10.6% | 7th lowest of 21 |
| Operating margin | 8.8% | 12.9% | 7th lowest of 21 |
| Forward P/E | 7.6× | 15.8× | 5th cheapest of 21 |
| Growth the price implies (Req g, 7 yrs) | 5.3% | 5.0% | 7th most demanding of 16 |
| Growth delivered (Del g) | +11.0% | +11.3% | 8th lowest of 16 |
| Hurdle (Req g minus delivered) | -5.7 pp | -3.6 pp | 8th least demanding of 16 |
| ROIC minus cost of capital | -1.9 pp | +0.8 pp | 6th lowest of 21 |
| EV / EBITDA | 9.3× | 9.3× | 6th cheapest of 12 |
| Net debt / EBITDA | 6.1× | 1.3× | most indebted of 12 |
| Bond spread | 182 bp | n/a | — |
| Company | Market | Market cap | 6M return | Revenue growth | Op. margin | Forward P/E | Req g | Delivered g |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Celanese CE | United States | $5.10B | -19% | +1% | 9% | 7.6× | 5.3% | +11.0% |
| Methanex MX.TO | Canada | $5.18B | +12% | +31% | 23% | 6.9× | -9.4% | +7.1% |
| Sumitomo Chemical 4005.T | Japan | $4.93B | -7% | -2% | 5% | 6.9× | 1.1% | +0.4% |
| Navin Fluorine International NAVINFLUOR.NS | India | $4.89B | +27% | +46% | 30% | 45.6× | 34.0% | +22.7% |
| Hoshine Silicon Industry 603260.SS | China | $5.32B | -33% | -7% | -6% | 41.7× | 22.5% | +18.5% |
| Gujarat Fluorochemicals FLUOROCHEM.NS | India | $5.42B | +23% | +20% | 17% | 53.0× | n/a | n/a |
| Dottikon ES DESN.SW | Switzerland | $4.72B | -24% | +11% | 27% | 37.6× | 12.6% | +14.4% |
| Red Avenue New Materials 603650.SS | China | $4.70B | -12% | +24% | 9% | 40.7× | n/a | n/a |
| Tosoh 4042.T | Japan | $4.69B | -4% | -1% | 11% | 11.4× | -1.5% | +6.8% |
| LB Group Co., Ltd. Class A 002601.SZ | China | $5.58B | -8% | +7% | 7% | 22.4× | 5.0% | +12.9% |
| Zhejiang Sanmei Chemical Industry 603379.SS | China | $4.64B | -22% | +24% | 41% | 13.5× | 5.4% | +16.5% |
| Canmax Technologies 300390.SZ | China | $5.62B | -64% | +98% | 27% | 7.3× | n/a | n/a |
| Coromandel International COROMANDEL.NS | India | $5.69B | -7% | +24% | 8% | 27.3× | n/a | n/a |
| Zhejiang Longsheng 600352.SS | China | $5.70B | -11% | -1% | 19% | 13.7× | -5.2% | -3.1% |
| Nissan Chemical 4021.T | Japan | $5.72B | 0% | +10% | 23% | 15.9× | 9.3% | +6.0% |
| Kingboard 0148.HK | Hong Kong | $5.78B | -17% | +19% | 15% | 5.0× | n/a | n/a |
| Far Eastern New Century 1402.TW | Taiwan | $4.49B | +8% | 0% | 6% | 11.8× | 5.3% | +4.2% |
| GEM 002340.SZ | China | $4.43B | -36% | +2% | 7% | 15.7× | 4.2% | +24.4% |
| Inner Mongolia Junzheng Energy & Chemical 601216.SS | China | $5.92B | -16% | +3% | 11% | 12.0× | -3.4% | +11.3% |
| Guangxi Huaxi Nonferrous Metal 600301.SS | China | $4.33B | -15% | +24% | 32% | 22.9× | 9.2% | +44.9% |
| Clariant CLN.SW | Switzerland | $4.32B | +46% | -7% | 10% | 16.0× | -3.4% | +0.3% |
Celanese has 14 bonds outstanding with $10.8B face value. The agencies rate it BB; its bonds trade like BB. Weighted yield 6.07%, a spread of 182 bp over government bonds.
Celanese reported $317M of remaining performance obligations at 30 Sep 2026, down 48% from a year earlier and down 9% from the previous quarter. That is 0.0 years of trailing revenue already under contract. Book-to-bill last quarter: 0.99.