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Like most households, we eat turkey on Thanksgiving. Years in the past, although, my spouse and I began a small custom of our personal.
We roast a duck for the three of us – my spouse, our daughter, and me. It began as a one-off experiment, however the taste received folks over quick. This yr, my mom even requested for her personal.
The large household gathering nonetheless runs on turkey. Custom tends to stay. However anybody who’s tried my spouse’s duck is aware of it’s the higher chook.
Even then, the meal isn’t actually the principle level. The desk is. Thanksgiving is about getting everybody in a single place, telling the identical previous tales, and being reminded why these folks matter. The turkey is simply the excuse.
However that behavior – and the predictability of it – is what makes turkey such a strong enterprise. Hundreds of thousands of households purchase the identical chook yearly, and that annual surge flows straight by way of the nation’s largest producer.
Seaboard (NYSE: SEB) is a very unusual chook. It ships cargo throughout oceans, trades grain, runs energy belongings, raises hogs… and owns half of Butterball – the biggest U.S. producer of turkey.
Odd combine? Certain. Nevertheless it works inside Seaboard’s broader protein and commodity enterprise.
By way of the primary 9 months of 2025, income rose to $7.3 billion from $6.6 billion a yr earlier. Internet earnings swung from a loss to $243 million. Working earnings climbed to $174 million. Money from operations reached $380 million.
Butterball’s share flows by way of Seaboard’s affiliate earnings, which has delivered $81 million up to now this yr – helped by stronger turkey pricing and steadier manufacturing.
Even with these enhancements, The Worth Meter seems previous the floor and asks a less complicated query: Is the inventory low cost, costly, or pretty priced?
Its enterprise worth is just 0.97 instances its web asset worth, far under the peer common of three.70. That makes the corporate look low cost. However its free money circulation effectivity tells a quieter story. Seaboard produces quarterly free money circulation equal to 0.61% of its web belongings, whereas friends common 1.18%.
Its 12-quarter file is nearly equivalent to the market: constructive free money circulation in about half of these durations. Nothing alarming. Nothing dazzling. Strong, regular, and common.
The inventory illustrated that mix for some time. Early within the yr, shares drifted sideways. Then the climb started.
On the chart, the summer time rise types a clear upward slope, adopted by a fast dip and a fair sharper surge into November. At this time, the inventory trades close to $4,560 – its strongest degree of the yr.
Like Thanksgiving itself, Seaboard is a mixture of many issues – easy at first look, complicated when you look nearer. It owns the turkey model that may present up on thousands and thousands of tables this week, but the enterprise beneath is industrial, international, and constructed for gradual, asset-heavy returns.
The numbers say the inventory is pretty priced. You’re not getting a discount, however you’re not overpaying. For affected person buyers preferring sturdy companies over thrilling ones, Seaboard is strictly what it seems like.
The Worth Meter charges Seaboard as “Appropriately Valued.”
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