Equifax Inc. (EFX)
Industrials · NYQ · US
Fundamentals
Valuation and ratings
Equifax Inc. trades at USD171.61, which is 23% below the USD211.37 our discounted cash flow model puts on the business. On that measure alone it screens as undervalued, though a DCF is an argument rather than a measurement, and the market is frequently right about why something is cheap.
Our moat model scores it 66 out of 100, which is a moat, but not a deep one. A moat is a structural reason competitors cannot take the profits away, and it matters more to a long holding period than any single quarter's numbers do.
It changes hands at 30.4 times earnings. Be careful reading that in isolation: for a cyclical business a low P/E arrives at the top of the cycle, when profits are peaking and about to fall, which is exactly when the shares look cheapest and are not.
About Equifax Inc.
Equifax Inc. operates as a data, analytics, and technology company. The company operates through three segments: Workforce Solutions, U.S. Information Solutions (USIS), and International. The Workforce Solutions segment offers services that enables customers to verify income, employment, educational history, criminal justice data, healthcare professional licensure, and sanctions of people in the United States; and employer customers with services that that assist them in complying with and automating certain payroll-related and human resource management processes throughout the entire cycle of the employment relationship. The U.S. Information Solutions segment provides consumer and commercial information services, such as credit information and credit scoring, credit modeling and portfolio analytics, locate, fraud detection and prevention, identity verification, and other consulting services; mortgage services; financial marketing services; identity management services; and credit monitoring products. The International segment offers information service products, which include consumer and commercial services comprising credit and financial information, and credit scoring and modeling; and credit and other marketing products and services, as well as information, technology, and services to support debt collections and recovery management. The company also provides information solutions for businesses, governments and consumers; and human resources business process automation and outsourcing services for employers. It operates in Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Honduras, India, Ireland, Mexico, New Zealand, Paraguay, Peru, Portugal, Spain, the United Kingdom, Uruguay, and the United States. The company was founded in 1899 and is headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia.
EFX passes 4 of our 30 screens today
Each screen prints the exact criteria it used, and the circumstances in which it is wrong.
Smart money ownership
5 of the funds we track reported a position in their latest SEC 13F filing. Largest first:
- Bill Nygren, HARRIS ASSOCIATES L P$2.71B · 1.9% of book
- William Von Mueffling, CANTILLON CAPITAL MANAGEMENT LLC$645.15M · 2.1% of book
- Al Gore, GENERATION INVESTMENT MANAGEMENT LLP$319.73M · 2.9% of book
- Cliff Asness, AQR CAPITAL MANAGEMENT LLC$314.96M · 0.1% of book
- Jensen Investment Management, JENSEN INVESTMENT MANAGEMENT INC$141.01M · 2.8% of book
A word of warning on reading these figures: a 13F reports the market value of a holding, so a fund that traded nothing at all still appears to have sold when the price fell. We found 102 companies where the standard reading gives the opposite answer. Only the share count is honest.
Common questions
Is Equifax Inc. (EFX) undervalued?
Against our discounted cash flow estimate of USD211.37, EFX at USD171.61 is 23% below fair value. That is one model's answer, not a recommendation, and most of a DCF's output sits in a terminal value nobody can forecast.
Which funds own EFX?
5 of the institutions we track reported a position in EFX in their most recent SEC 13F filing. A 13F is filed up to 45 days after quarter end, so it tells you what a fund held then, not what it holds now.
What is EFX's P/E ratio?
EFX trades at 30.4 times earnings. A low P/E is not automatically cheap: on a cyclical company it is usually a warning that earnings are at a peak.
The full research page for EFX, with financial statements, ownership detail, peer comparison and alerts, is free inside the app.
Data from company filings, exchange quotes and SEC EDGAR 13F disclosures. Quotes are delayed. Metrics we do not have are left out rather than estimated. Educational information, not financial advice.