STEPAN COMPANY
SCL · Materials · $1.3B mkt cap · FY2025 filings · · not refreshed in 36 days · No moat ·
Doesn't clear the bar
The five investor questions
2021–2025 (latest 5 aligned FYs; v3 window cap 5): revenue $2.3B to $2.3B, decreasing; diluted EPS 5.92 to 2.05, decreasing.
Median gross margin 16.9% over 10y, stable.
Median ROIC 11.9%, above the 12% hurdle in 50% of years.
Net debt/EBITDA 2.4x, interest coverage 3x.
Owner earnings changed -5.8%/yr over up to the ten most recent annual observations.
Price vs. value if growth stopped today
A cautious baseline, not a price target: what the shares may support if normalized owner earnings simply hold steady.
- $50.4M
- $24.75
- $24.75
- $57.57
- 133% above value if growth stopped today
What today’s price assumes: owner earnings growing ~18%/yr over 5 years. The zero-growth estimate assumes owner earnings stay flat (0% growth).
How to read this
We solve for the constant annual change in owner earnings that would make the five-year zero-growth estimate equal today’s price. This keeps the existing model inputs and calculation unchanged; it is an expectations lens, not a forecast.
This zero-growth estimate assumes trailing owner earnings persist — unreliable for declining businesses. The recent FY revenue series does not trigger the three-consecutive-declines flag.
Among the current top-score group, the median current price is 239% above the zero-growth estimate across 48 of the current top 50 companies by Moat Score with both values.
Score records captured Jul 26, 2026.
Exactly which 50 companies?
FTNT, META, MEDP, IBEX, MSFT, GOOGL, LULU, ANF, IDXX, TXRH, FHI, QLYS, FFIV, ADBE, LLY, MANH, VEEV, GRMN, SSD, MNST, DOCS, MCO, CPRT, NTAP, LRCX, NVDA, CORT, SFM, MPTI, ULTA, SN, RMD, ROL, PAYC, IRMD, INTU, DECK, MORN, LGCY, DAL, GWW, ISRG, MPWR, CTAS, LOPE, MRK, CMG, FAST, BKNG, ORLY
Missing a usable price or zero-growth estimate: ANF, BKNG.
Model details under moat-index@3.0.0: zero-growth multiple 11.1×, capped-growth comparison at no more than 18×; 9% discount rate; high-end growth 0% (capped at 4%) using min(5y revenue CAGR, 5y diluted-EPS CAGR), clamped to 0%–4%; maintenance capex uses min(capex, D&A); abstain when D&A is unavailable. This is a disclosed model range, not intrinsic value as fact.
18 years of fundamentals
The business, in plain English
STEPAN COMPANY booked $2.3B of revenue in FY2025 in the Materials sector and kept 11.6% of it as gross profit — a thin-margin business by that measure. After every other cost, 2.0% of each revenue dollar reached the bottom line.
Across the filed record, revenue grew from $1.3B (FY2009) to $2.3B (FY2025) — about 3.8% a year compounded over 16 years.
It earned 3.5% on invested capital in the latest filed year, FY2025. Across the full 17-year measurable filed record, median ROIC was 13.1%. Over the v3 recent window (10 measurable filed years), median ROIC was 11.9%. The Returns on Capital filter above scores it 47/100.
The balance sheet carried $627M of total debt in FY2025 against $50.4M of owner earnings — roughly 12.4 years of owner earnings to retire it all. Balance-Sheet Safety scores it 23/100.
Put together: Returns on Capital is the strongest of the five filters (47/100) and Pricing Power the weakest (15/100), which is how SCL lands at 27/100 — a None moat.
This breakdown is generated from the filed numbers and sub-scores above — no outside narrative, no estimates. Where a filing doesn’t disclose an input, the sentence that would need it is omitted instead of guessed.
Gaps in a line mean that item isn’t in SCL’s filings for that year. The series is never interpolated or estimated. The Table view lists every filed value, including operating and net margins, total debt, and share count.
Visual explainers
The filing-backed explainer service is temporarily unavailable, so no partial or guessed chart is shown.
Moat Score history
Breaks in the line mark methodology or normalizer upgrades — readings across versions aren’t compared, so a level shift there isn’t a change in the business.
Tier changesSame-methodology and same-normalizer crossings of the Wide / Narrow / Shallow bars
- Normalizer upgraded unstamped (version unknown)tomoat-xbrl-normalizer@1.1.0 — readings across versions aren’t comparedJul 26, 2026
- Methodology upgraded moat-index@2.0.0tomoat-index@3.0.0 — readings across versions aren’t comparedJul 23, 2026
- Methodology upgraded moat-index@1.2.0tomoat-index@2.0.0 — readings across versions aren’t comparedJul 20, 2026
Scores are logged append-only and never overwritten — this record cannot be reconstructed retroactively, which is exactly why it’s worth keeping.
Insider activity
Form 4 reports mix P/S market or private transactions with compensation-plan mechanics. Activity casually described as “insider selling” can include compensation mechanics; awards, tax withholding, and option exercises are shown by their exact filed class here, never collapsed into “Bought” or “Sold.”
These are disclosed filing facts and arithmetic aggregates, not a signal or verdict.
This machine-readable surface covers SEC ownership filings from 2003; it does not represent earlier paper-era records.
Records still being gathered — partial as of retrieval Sep 1, 2026.
1 filing was skipped because the SEC primary document returned 404; the omission is disclosed and aggregates are withheld.
Among the rows shown, A/F/M acquisition, payment or withholding, and exercise or conversion rows outnumber S sale rows (6 versus 0). The filing codes alone do not establish that every such row arose from a compensation plan.
Trailing-12-month totals and the 90-day cluster result are withheld because this issuer walk is incomplete.
| Insider | Shares owned after | Date | Filing detail | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Lisle Shawn GVP GC & Secretary | Exercise or conversion of derivative security (M)Table I · Acquired · Common Stock · 1 paired event | 1,154 | $62.345 | $71,946 | 1,179.544 | Aug 26, 2026 | 1 filed lot
|
| Lisle Shawn GVP GC & Secretary | Payment of exercise price or tax liability (F)Table I · Disposed · Common Stock | 339 | $62.345 | $21,135 | 840.544 | Aug 26, 2026 | 1 filed lot
|
| Lisle Shawn GVP GC & Secretary | Exercise or conversion of derivative security (M)Table II · Disposed · Restricted Stock Units · 1 paired event | 1,154 | —Exercise or conversion of derivative security (M) | — | 2,308 | Aug 26, 2026 | 1 filed lot
|
| Velasquez Ruben DarioSVP & Chief Financial Officer | Exercise or conversion of derivative security (M)Table I · Acquired · Common Stock · 1 paired event | 1,358 | $64.675 | $87,829 | 1,393.601 | Aug 10, 2026 | 1 filed lot
|
| Velasquez Ruben DarioSVP & Chief Financial Officer | Payment of exercise price or tax liability (F)Table I · Disposed · Common Stock | 398 | $64.675 | $25,741 | 995.601 | Aug 10, 2026 | 1 filed lot
|
| Velasquez Ruben DarioSVP & Chief Financial Officer | Exercise or conversion of derivative security (M)Table II · Disposed · Restricted Stock Units · 1 paired event | 1,358 | —Exercise or conversion of derivative security (M) | — | 2,716 | Aug 10, 2026 | 1 filed lot
|
Source-event as of . Retrieved .
Materials context
#254 of 309 scored Materials companies, ranked by Moat Score.
Nearest peers by Moat Score
- #252LQMT LIQUIDMETAL TECHNOLOGIES INC27.2 out of 100, No moatNo moat
- #253XMAX XMAX INC.26.9 out of 100, No moatNo moat
- #255ACNT Ascent Industries Co.26.5 out of 100, No moatNo moat
- #256HOFT HOOKER FURNISHINGS CORPORATION26.3 out of 100, No moatNo moat
Compare SCL with its nearest peers →All Materials companies on the Index →
Common questions about SCL
- Does STEPAN COMPANY have an economic moat?
- Based on its FY2025 SEC filings, the Moat Index scores STEPAN COMPANY (SCL) 26.6 out of 100 — below the Shallow-moat bar, so no moat. The five questions behind that score begin at 20% each; if exactly one genuinely lacks data, the other four weights are renormalized and disclosed. revenue and EPS trend 30, pricing power 15, returns on capital 47, balance-sheet safety 23, capital allocation 18.
- Is SCL trading below the conservative owner-earnings estimate?
- The value if growth stopped today — a zero-growth baseline — is $24.75 per share. It capitalizes normalized owner earnings at a 9% rate and assumes 0% growth. Versus a recent price of $57.57, that is 133% above value if growth stopped today. The model also publishes a capped-growth comparison, but the zero-growth estimate is the cautious baseline. It assumes trailing owner earnings persist and is unreliable for declining businesses. This is an educational estimate from primary SEC filings, not intrinsic value as a fact or investment advice.
- How has SCL's Moat Score changed over time?
- The record logs 16 readings since Jul 17, 2026; the latest reads 26.6 out of 100 (no moat). No tier changes on record yet. (Methodology or normalizer upgrades on Jul 20, 2026, Jul 23, 2026, Jul 26, 2026 re-based the score; readings across versions aren't compared.) The history is append-only — readings are only ever added, never rewritten.