Is KWR a high-quality business?

AlphaMadera's AlphaQuality grade scores Quaker Houghton on six pillars — profitability, capital efficiency, balance-sheet strength, growth durability, cash generation, and shareholder yield. The composite letter grade reflects how KWR compares to a Buffett-style quality bar.

What is Quaker Houghton's AlphaQuality grade?

AlphaQuality assigns a letter grade (A through F) to KWR based on a six-pillar quantitative model. The live page shows the composite grade plus each pillar's individual score with the underlying metrics.

What makes KWR a quality stock?

AlphaQuality looks at return on capital, free-cash-flow margins, debt-to-equity, revenue stability, dividend and buyback policy, and operating-margin trend. Stocks scoring well across all six pillars earn higher grades — the methodology favors compounders over cyclicals.

KWR - Quaker Houghton

Price: -- -- | CONSENSUS: Buy DETAILS | PRICE TARGET: $187.00 DETAILS

AlphaQuality

Quantitative six-pillar business-quality grade

Platform & Compounding FCF

AlphaQuality — archetype-weighted quantitative grade

F 30.0 / 100 pillar composite

Composite Grade

Composite of six pillars weighted for platform & compounding fcf businesses. Purely quantitative — the six pillars score only reported financials, no analyst input.

⚠ 2 of the last 5 fiscal years showed negative net income — AlphaQuality will not grade above F for persistent unprofitability in a platform & compounding fcf business.

Grade overrides the 30.0 pillar composite because hard gates always win. Use the pillar breakdown below to see where the underlying numbers sit.

Profitability

Weight: 25%

C- 44.7

5yr Avg ROIC 3.6% 28/100
Operating Margin Trend +0.95 pp/yr 84/100

Capital Efficiency

Weight: 15%

C- 46.6

5yr Avg ROE 4.8% 34/100
5yr Share-Count CAGR -0.3% 70/100

Growth Quality

Weight: 25%

B 69.3

5yr Revenue CAGR 5.9% 65/100
Revenue-Growth Years (5) 4/5 80/100

Cash Generation

Weight: 20%

B 71.7

5yr FCF Margin 6.1% 54/100
5yr FCF/NI Conversion 1.40x 93/100

Balance Sheet

Weight: 10%

F 24.6

Net Debt / EBITDA 5.18x 14/100
Interest Coverage (EBIT/Int) 1.16x 15/100
Altman Z-Score 2.46 55/100

Stability

Weight: 5%

C- 48.6

EPS Volatility (σ/μ) 0.47 34/100
Negative-Revenue Years (5) 1/5 80/100
Piotroski F-Score 4 44/100

1 of 2 gurus held; 1 new buy.

Holders: 1 -1
Avg Δ position: —
New buys: 1
Full exits: 0

Greenblatt new

How this is calculated

AlphaQuality grades six pillars from 0-100 and weights each by archetype:

Profitability (25%) — 5yr Avg ROIC, Operating Margin Trend
Capital Efficiency (15%) — 5yr Avg ROE, 5yr Share-Count CAGR
Growth Quality (25%) — 5yr Revenue CAGR, Revenue-Growth Years (5)
Cash Generation (20%) — 5yr FCF Margin, 5yr FCF/NI Conversion
Balance Sheet (10%) — Net Debt / EBITDA, Interest Coverage (EBIT/Int), Altman Z-Score
Stability (5%) — EPS Volatility (σ/μ), Negative-Revenue Years (5), Piotroski F-Score

The six pillars read only reported financial-statement fields — no analyst targets or consensus ratings. The archetype that picks which pillar formulas apply is not fully price-free, though: it can route a company to the distressed/ungradable archetype based on price vs. its 52-week high, and beta affects one classification check. A minimum of 5 fiscal years of audited statements is required. Insurers and banks are graded on their own methodology — insurers on loss ratio, its trend and stability, and premiums-to-surplus; banks on the efficiency ratio, its trend and stability, and equity-to-assets — rather than on industrial margin/ROIC signals. Distressed, highly leveraged infrastructure, asset-manager, and other financial businesses are declared ungradable rather than forced into a numeric score.