Scotts Miracle-Gro Co
SMG · Materials · $4.1B mkt cap · FY2025 filings · No moat ·
Doesn't clear the bar
The four filters
Median gross margin 31.5% over 10y, variable.
Median ROIC 13.4%, above the 9% hurdle in 70% of years.
Net debt/EBITDA 5.8x, interest coverage 3x.
Owner earnings -19.0%/yr, share count shrinking (buybacks).
Margin of safety
- Owner earnings (normalized)
- —
- Est. intrinsic value / share
- —
- Recent price
- $70.98
- Discount to value
- No price data
Conservative model: 9% discount rate, 0% assumed growth (capped at 4%), maintenance capex ≈ min(capex, D&A).
19 years of fundamentals
The business, in plain English
Scotts Miracle-Gro Co booked $3.4B of revenue in FY2025 in the Materials sector and kept 30.6% of it as gross profit — a moderate-margin business by that measure. After every other cost, 4.3% of each revenue dollar reached the bottom line.
Across the filed record, revenue grew from $2.8B (FY2008) to $3.4B (FY2025) — about 1.1% a year compounded over 17 years.
It earned 13.7% on invested capital in FY2025, with a median of 14.1% across 18 filed years. The Returns on Capital filter above scores it 61/100.
The balance sheet carried $2.1B of total debt in FY2025 against $47.8M of owner earnings — roughly 44.1 years of owner earnings to retire it all. Balance-Sheet Safety scores it 2/100.
The share count fell 12.7% between FY2009 and FY2025 — management has been retiring shares, which concentrates each remaining owner's claim. Capital Discipline scores it 28/100.
Put together: Returns on Capital is the strongest of the four filters (61/100) and Balance-Sheet Safety the weakest (2/100), which is how SMG lands at 35/100 — 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 SMG’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.
Moat Score history
Score history begins Jul 17, 2026 — the record builds from here and can’t be backfilled.
Tier changesSame-methodology crossings of the Wide / Narrow / Shallow bars
None yet — SMG has read No moat for every logged capture since Jul 17, 2026.
Scores are logged append-only and never overwritten — this record can’t be backfilled, which is exactly why it’s worth keeping.
Materials context
#124 of 214 scored Materials companies, ranked by Moat Score.
Nearest peers by Moat Score
- #122COPR IDAHO COPPER CORPORATION36.0 out of 100, No moatNo moat
- #123LXFR LUXFER HOLDINGS PLC35.9 out of 100, No moatNo moat
- #125BDCO BLUE DOLPHIN ENERGY CO35.1 out of 100, No moatNo moat
- #126CLF CLEVELAND-CLIFFS INC.34.8 out of 100, No moatNo moat
Compare SMG with its nearest peers →All Materials companies on the Index →
Common questions about SMG
- Does Scotts Miracle-Gro Co have an economic moat?
- Based on its FY2025 SEC filings, the Moat Index scores Scotts Miracle-Gro Co (SMG) 35.2 out of 100 — below the Shallow-moat bar, so no moat. The four filters behind that score (each 0–100): pricing power 36, returns on capital 61, balance-sheet safety 2, capital discipline 28.
- How has SMG's Moat Score changed over time?
- The record logs 3 readings since Jul 17, 2026; the latest reads 35.2 out of 100 (no moat). No tier changes on record yet. The history is append-only — readings are only ever added, never rewritten.