Worthington Steel, Inc.

WSdata completeness 100%4 fiscal years on file
The thesis, from the filings

Worthington Steel, Inc. earns about 12% on invested capital, comfortably above its ~9% cost of capital, but has diluted owners by 2% over 4 years — a real edge showing up in the numbers. The estimate methods put fair value between $25.37 and $27.23 a share.Whether it’s worth owning at today’s price is the last question — and yours to answer, below.

i. The business — what you’d actually own
FigureFY 2022FY 2023FY 2024FY 2025
Revenue$4.07B1$3.61B2$3.43B2$3.09B2
Net income$180.4M3$87.1M4$154.7M4$110.7M4
Operating cash flow$39.5M5$315M6$199.5M6$230.3M6
Capital expenditure$36.4M7$45.5M8$103.4M8$130.4M8
Free cash flow (derived)$3.1M5$269.5M6$96.1M6$99.9M6
Total debt$45.6M9$296M10$452.2M10
Cash & equivalents$20.1M11$32.7M11$40.2M11$38M11
Diluted shares49.3M49.3M49.8M50.5M

Superscripts are receipts. Each links to the SEC filing the number came from (full list at the bottom).

ii. Your slice — ownership made literal
If you owned
shares
Net assets behind them
$212.69
your share of equity
Profit it earned you last year
$21.92
Free cash flow it threw off
$19.78
Debt you’d be carrying
$89.54

10 shares is a claim on $212.69 of net worth that earned you $21.92 and generated $19.78 of cash last year, against $89.54 of debt.

iii. Is this a good business?
Moat signal · return on invested capital
12% avg · 4y
FY22 16%FY23 10%FY24 14%FY25 8%

It earned about 12% on invested capital against a ~9% cost of capital — comfortably above the cost of funding, a moderate advantage.

seeing a moat in the numbers →
Management signal · capital allocation
+2% shares · 4y

Share count is up 2% over 4 years — owners have been diluted. Worth asking what they got for it. Total debt has risen 892% over the same window.

reading capital allocation →

Signals, not verdicts — read from the filings above. Numbers don’t prove a moat; they show its footprint. You decide.

iv. What it’s worth — engine v0.1.0

The 3 estimate methods that apply put fair value between $25.37 and $27.23 a share. They rest on different assumptions, so where they diverge is the story; the Graham Number is a stricter floor, not a target.

DCF · Growth Exit 10Y
$26.98
assumptions (10)
  • riskFreeRate4.7%
  • equityRiskPremium5.0%
  • beta100.0%
  • equityWeight85.0%
  • costOfDebtSpread1.5%
  • taxRate21.0%
  • terminalGrowth2.5%
  • projectionYears10
  • fcfGrowth4.0%
  • fcfBase$99.9M
DCF · Growth Exit 5Y
$25.37
assumptions (10)
  • riskFreeRate4.7%
  • equityRiskPremium5.0%
  • beta100.0%
  • equityWeight85.0%
  • costOfDebtSpread1.5%
  • taxRate21.0%
  • terminalGrowth2.5%
  • projectionYears5
  • fcfGrowth4.0%
  • fcfBase$99.9M
Earnings Power Value
$27.23
assumptions (8)
  • riskFreeRate4.7%
  • equityRiskPremium5.0%
  • beta100.0%
  • equityWeight85.0%
  • costOfDebtSpread1.5%
  • taxRate21.0%
  • normalizedEarnings$132.7M
  • growthAssumed0.0%
Graham Number
$32.37
assumptions (1)
  • grahamMultiplier2250.0%

Different models answer different questions — which to trust when →

v. The price question — last, on purpose
Is today’s price fair?
See live price ↗
Type a price. The ledger answers.
Or set your own belief
FCF growth, next 5 years4.0%
Discount rate (WACC)8.93%
Terminal growth2.5%
At your growth, a share is worth $25.37
The three cases
Bear0.0%$20.06
Base4.0%$25.37
Bull9.0%$33.26

Bear/base/bull growth = 0% / filed history / history + 5pp. Type a price to see the return each case implies.

Default growth 4.0%= this company’s own filed history (median-to-median FCF CAGR, clamped 0–20%). Your adjustments are recorded anonymously. They become the “what do owners actually believe” dataset.

Sources — the receipts
  1. 10-K · period ending 2022-05-31 · accession 0000950170-24-090031 (RevenueFromContractWithCustomerExcludingAssessedTax)
  2. 10-K · period ending 2023-05-31 · accession 0000950170-25-099742 (RevenueFromContractWithCustomerExcludingAssessedTax)
  3. 10-K · period ending 2022-05-31 · accession 0000950170-24-090031 (NetIncomeLoss)
  4. 10-K · period ending 2023-05-31 · accession 0000950170-25-099742 (NetIncomeLoss)
  5. 10-K · period ending 2022-05-31 · accession 0000950170-24-090031 (NetCashProvidedByUsedInOperatingActivities)
  6. 10-K · period ending 2023-05-31 · accession 0000950170-25-099742 (NetCashProvidedByUsedInOperatingActivities)
  7. 10-K · period ending 2022-05-31 · accession 0000950170-24-090031 (PaymentsToAcquirePropertyPlantAndEquipment)
  8. 10-K · period ending 2023-05-31 · accession 0000950170-25-099742 (PaymentsToAcquirePropertyPlantAndEquipment)
  9. 10-K · period ending 2023-05-31 · accession 0000950170-24-090031 (LongTermDebtNoncurrent)
  10. 10-K · period ending 2024-05-31 · accession 0000950170-25-099742 (LongTermDebtNoncurrent)
  11. 10-K · period ending 2022-05-31 · accession 0000950170-25-099742 (CashAndCashEquivalentsAtCarryingValue)