Sonoco Products Company Common Stock (SON) fair value
Consumer Cyclical · Packaging & Containers · NYSE · United States
$50.12-0.30%
Market cap $5.0BNext earnings 2026-10-21Updated Oct 23, 2026
Our verdict
Trades 23% below our fair value
Price
$50.12
Model fair valueConfidence: good
$64.73
Model range
$17.61 to $106
Fair value $64.73
Price $50.12
5 models fit Sonoco Products Company Common Stock and they disagree: 1 of 5 land within 15% of the average.
Two or more of our models back this value.
Discount(i)Silver76
Valued as a mature, profitable company: Discounted cash flow, P/E comparison, EV/EBITDA comparison, Graham number, and Dividend discount.
ACCE opinionSonoco Products Company Common Stock (SON)
Fair value (5 models)
$64.73
ACCE price target
$54.00
Rating
Undervalued
Horizon
12 months
Fair value published on 23 Oct 2026, 12:04 CEST; previously $67.39 since 21 Oct 2026, 11:06 CEST.
ACCE price target published on 11 Oct 2026, 00:00 CEST.
Rating published on 21 Oct 2026, 11:06 CEST.
Price used: $50.12 at the close on 23 Oct 2026, 22:00 CEST.
Models: Discounted cash flow, P/E comparison, EV/EBITDA comparison, Graham number, and Dividend discount.
Fair value: the average of the applicable valuation models (discounted cash flow, multiples, residual income, dividend discount, shareholder yield), each run on the latest financial statements and the market price shown. Opinion columns (fair value, target, rating) are shown apart from the data. Full methodology: acceinvestments.com/data/how-we-value-stocks
Conflicts of interest: The author holds no personal position in this security. General statement
Produced by ACCE Investments (acceinvestments.com)
Data
Price vs fair value
22.6% below
+29.1% to fair value
ACCE score
56
out of 100
Analysts
45% buy
11 covering
P/E
7.9x
forward 7.9x
1-year return
+21.0%
Dividend yield
0.00%
Sonoco Products Company Common Stock in four questions
Plain answers, details below
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Overview
ACCE thesis
Sonoco makes rigid and flexible industrial packaging, including composite cans, paper tubes and cores, and thermoformed plastic containers, sold mainly into food and consumer staples end markets. Its moat is less about brand than about scale and plant density in a business where customers buy on delivery reliability and switching costs are real, which helps explain the 18.9% ROE on a 10.0% operating margin. The stock is not being bought for growth, since revenue fell 1.3% and the ROE comes more from a modest capital base than from pricing power, so the case rests on whether margins hold through the cycle. At 7.7 times trailing and 7.9 times forward earnings, the market is pricing in little improvement, and the company's score of 52 out of 100 with no index membership signals it is a value-screen candidate rather than a quality compounder. The deeper look should focus on whether the 20.8% gross margin is stabilising after recent input-cost swings, and on what a volume recovery in packaged food would do to operating leverage.
⚠ Investor warnings · 3 flagsAI-assisted·How I use AI
high
Earnings collapse
Earnings fell 78.8% year over year while revenue slipped 1.3%, so the profit drop is margin-driven rather than volume-driven. Net margin of 8.4% needs checking against the prior year before sizing a position.
high
Score down sharply
The ACCE score dropped from 69 to 52 over 90 days, a 17-point fall, with Momentum at 45 and Quality at 60 leading the decline.
moderate
Leverage and short interest
Debt to equity of 1.27 combined with 14.4% short interest means the balance sheet is not a cushion if earnings stay weak.
AI research notes
AI-assisted·How I use AIWritten Oct 17, 2026 · figures from 2026-10-16 · prices to Oct 23, 2026
Why it could do well
At $50.12 the stock trades at 7.7x trailing earnings, well below the sector median forward P/E of 17.9x.
Free cash flow of $346M over the last twelve months supports a 7.0% free cash flow yield and a 4.3% dividend yield.
Earnings per share beat expectations by 2.7%, reporting $1.51 against $1.47 expected.
Why it could disappoint
Revenue fell 1.3% year over year, a sharp reversal from its 7.5% five-year average annual growth.
Return on invested capital is only 4.0%, a thin return on the capital the business has tied up.
Debt equals 1.27 times equity, and the share count rose 0.3% last year, diluting existing holders.
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Walk me through this stock
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Valuation
INVESTOR
Where SON's valuation models land
Price
$50.12
Model fair value
$64.73
Model range
$17.61 to $106
Fair value $64.73
Price $50.12
The price sits inside the model range.
Model
Fair value
Upside
Discounted cash flow
Dividend discount
EV/EBITDA comparison
Graham number
P/E comparison
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Quality
INVESTOR
Quality and conviction INVESTOR FEATURE
The full quality picture: a reason under every score, how the scores moved, and the conviction breakdown.
+A plain reason under every score
+Conviction breakdown and growth / value / quality / momentum scores