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Knife River Corporation

KNF
26
Construction Materials · Basic Materials
Price
$81.71
-1.87 (-2.24%)
Market Cap
$4.64B
Winston Score
26
Winston is worried
Below-average fundamentals — multiple weak pillars.

Knife River Corporation mines and sells construction materials like crushed rock, sand, gravel, and asphalt. It also builds roads, parking lots, and other paved surfaces for customers like state and local governments, contractors, and private developers. The company operates mostly in the western and central United States and is one of the larger regional producers of aggregates in those areas.

Knife River makes money by selling raw materials by the ton and by completing construction contracts for paving and site work. It spun off from MDU Resources in 2024 and now operates as an independent public company with operations across roughly a dozen states. Its main competitive advantage is owning quarries and reserves close to job sites, since rock and gravel are heavy and expensive to ship long distances. The biggest risk the company faces is that demand for road construction depends heavily on government infrastructure budgets and overall economic activity, both of which can slow down quickly.

Winston Score History

Growth Profile

When traditional metrics don't capture the full picture, these are the signals growth stock investors use instead.

Revenue Growth

+16.0% YoY

YoY Growth Rate

Steady revenue growth

EPS Growth

-15.7% YoY

YoY Growth Rate

Earnings declining

R&D Spend

$0/ year

0.0% of revenue

Below sector average (3%)

Research and development spending

Insider Activity

0.5%ownership

Flat

Insiders holding steady — not selling despite ability to

Cash Runway

~2 months

$76M cash & investments

Quarterly Free Cash Flow

↓ Burn rate worsening

Short runway — potential dilution ahead through share issuance

Cash watch

Knife River Corporation has less than a year of cash at its current burn rate. Growth investors should watch for potential share dilution from future fundraising — that directly reduces your ownership.

The Winston Score above measures business quality today. Growth stocks often score lower because they invest in the future rather than maximising current profits. These metrics show what matters most for evaluating that future.

Share count broadly stable

+0.6% over 4y

The share count has stayed roughly flat over this period — little dilution or buyback activity.

Diluted shares outstanding: 56.6M (2021) → 56.9M (2025)

Score breakdown

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Quality

Gross Margin
-0.7%
Thin — -0.7% gross margin
Operating Margin
-20.5%
Losing money on operations — -20.5%
ROCE
-2.8%
Weak — -2.8% return on capital

Negative ROIC means the business is losing money on every dollar invested in it.

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Growth

Sales YoY
+9.6%
Steady sales growth (9.6% YoY)
EPS YoY
-19.4%
Earnings shrinking (-19.4% YoY)

Earnings per share down more than 10%. Either a bad year, or a real decline.

EPS Consistency
2/8 quarters
Earnings rarely grow — volatile business

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Cash Flow

Cash Conversion
236%
Turns 236% of profit into real cash
FCF Margin
-0.2%
Burning cash (-0.2%)

Free cash flow is negative. They are burning cash, not generating it.

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Stability

Debt / Equity
0.95
Moderate — manageable debt (0.95)
Interest Cover
3.25x
Tight — interest eats into profit (3.3x)

Interest coverage between 3 and 8. Profits cover interest several times over.

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Valuation

P/E Ratio (TTM)
31.7x
Pricey — P/E 31.7

P/E above the market average. People are paying up for expected growth.

P/E vs Forward
+10.6
GROWING
Earnings expected to grow meaningfully — cheaper on forward P/E (31.7 → 21.1)

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Dividends

Not applicable for this business.
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