WM

WM

Waste Management

Hybrid Industrial

★ Quality 42/100
Discounted

Price today

$233.72

what the market pays

Worth

$249.19

calculated cycle value

Worth $249.19price today $233.72

Price is 6% below its value

charlieapp.co

🏆

A monopoly position

This company has a competitive advantage so strong that its rivals find it practically impossible to replicate.

Price vs Intrinsic Value

VI$144$184$224$264$304'21'22'23'24'25'26WMVI $249 · MdS +7%
UndervaluedDiscountedFair priceIV = current model value

The line is the price month by month; the green band marks when it's undervalued (−20% off value). When the price drops in there, the discount is real, not opinion.

Where does the value come from?

🏭

Manufacturing + technology

$303.61

per share

How it's calculated

💰

Free cash flow per share

normalized free cash flow

$13.80
×
📐

Multiplier

years of discounted cash flows

22.0x
=
🏢

Business value

without cash

$303.61

Waste Management — high assistant path (2026-06-07). Review note.

🏦

Net cash in the bank

cash minus financial debt, per share

$54.42

Total calculated value

business + cash

$249.19

How many times the cash flow

Hybrid Industrial · vs 28 peers

You pay today
20.9x
Sector median
35.5x
Charlie: worth
22x

You pay 20.9x times this business's cash flow; its sector median is 35.5x.

5% below what Charlie thinks it's worth (22x) — that gap is your safety margin.

Why Discounted?

Its free cash flow is $13.80/share × 22.0x multiplier minus $54.42 in negative net cash = $249.19 in intrinsic value. Today's price of $233.72 is 7% below value — a moderate discount, a good spot to enter gradually.

🟡

The price is 6% off the calculated value. Close, but without the ideal discount.

It's fine to buy in pieces. Monthly DCA works well here.

💡

For a bigger safety margin, wait for $199.35 or less.

At what price would buying make sense?

Entry zones

🟢 Undervalued

$199.35

-20% off Value

🟡 Discounted

$236.73

-5% off Value

🟡 Today

$233.72

+7% Valor

🟡

Discounted

The price is close to value. There's no big discount, but it's reasonable to invest in pieces.

The market is a device for transferring money from the impatient to the patient.

— Warren Buffett

Model updated · July 2026

The business

Owner of the land where no one else can bury trash.

Waste Management collects, hauls, and buries North America's garbage. It charges recurring contracts to households, businesses, and municipalities — $25.2B in revenue in 2025. The real business is in the landfills: scarce land, permits impossible to obtain, and a toll on every ton that comes in.

Landfills can't be replicated: no one approves a new one near their house. WM controls the largest network of sanitary landfills on the continent, and its vertical integration —collection, transport, and its own disposal— gives it costs a rival can't match. Route density plus irreplaceable assets equals prices that climb every year.

Revenue history

$17.9B
2021
$19.7B
2022
$20.4B
2023
$22.1B
2024
$25.2B
2025
CAGR 5 años: +9%

From $17.9B to $25.2B in 4 years. The business grows steadily.

Where each $100 of sales goes

Revenue $25.2B · FY2025

Cost of sales$15.0B · 60%
Operations$5.9B · 23%
Taxes and other$1.6B · 6%
Net profit$2.7B · 11%

Of every $100 in sales, $89 goes to costs and operations; $11 is left as net profit (11% margin).

Catalysts and risks

Stericycle integration (closed Nov-2024) adds medical waste and ~$250M in annual synergies by 2027.

18 renewable natural gas plants underway — capacity aimed at 2.5x RNG revenue by 2027.

Sustained above-inflation price hikes: the collection business grew double digits in 2025.

⚠️

$22.2B in debt against $0.2B in cash — a leveraged balance sheet that suffers if rates rise.

⚠️

Environmental regulation on landfills and methane emissions could make operations more expensive.

⚠️

Volume tied to the industrial and construction cycle: in a recession, less trash is generated.

Charlie's note

Paying 22x for a toll on trash with irreplicable landfills and 40% gross margin is no steal, though 9% growth asks the price to do its part. Excellent business; time to wait for the multiple to breathe.

Analysis · June 2026

So when would be a good price for Waste Management?

Today it trades below what we calculate. If you want us to tell you when that changes —or when the value itself moves because the company reported— we will email you.

🔔 Email me

Free · no card

Charlie informs, it doesn't advise. No information should be taken as a recommendation to buy or sell.