Blue Bird Corp (BLBD)
🔔 Watch stock
symbol.quality_heading
The business works in principle, but one material question is open. As long as it stays open, our findings do not carry a quality verdict.
Whoever buys today bets that the record margins are the new normal, that the backlog keeps climbing toward its old highs, and that Washington extends the electric-bus funding — at 19 times trailing earnings and less than 1 percent below the all-time high. Whoever waits checks three lines in every quarterly report (10-Q): the backlog in units (most recently 3,560), the status of the fourth CSBP round, and unit volume in the bus segment — and keeps in mind that the third quarter of fiscal 2026 carries a one-time charge of roughly $28.1 million from the pension plan termination. The decision is yours.
symbol.quality_note
Blue Bird builds America’s yellow school buses — and lights up our in-house stock scanner with 17 hits across momentum and quality filters at once (scanner run of July 17, 2026). We read the annual reports (10-K) for fiscal years 2024 and 2025, the latest quarterly reports (10-Q) and the acquisition filings (8-K): a record year with $1.48 billion in revenue and $127.7 million in profit, a backlog that collapsed 36 percent in the tariff year, an electric story on the EPA’s drip — and a selling family that is now shareholder, board member, biggest dealer and landlord all at once. Not investment advice — just a look at the switches on the track that no chart plots.
Read the analysis
Stock Watch
This analysis is as of July 17, 2026. Stock Watch will tell you what's changed at BLBD since then.
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Appears in These Scanners
This stock currently matches 17 of our scanner strategies — each hit links to the scanner.
Only genuine hits from verified scanners count; pure ranking metrics (P/E, P/S, and similar, which just sort the whole universe) don't count as a hit. View all scanners
Trading Day
Key levels of the most recently completed trading day — not a live quote.
52-Week Range
Current price 74.40 $ — 81% of the range above the low.
Lowest and highest closing price over the last 52 weeks. The marker shows where the current price sits within that range: close to the high speaks for strength, close to the low for weakness.
Basics
Performance
Technical Indicators
Calculated from the price history · as of 08/03/2026
Valuation
Profitability
Balance Sheet & Safety
Growth
Dividend
This stock currently pays no dividend.
Quality & Screener
AI Rating
NeutralGeprüft am 17.07.2026 gegen die Geschäftsberichte (10-K) für die Geschäftsjahre 2025 (eingereicht 24.11.2025) und 2024 (25.11.2024) sowie die vier jüngsten Quartalsberichte (10-Q, zuletzt zum 28.03.2026): In den ausgewerteten SEC-Filings von Blue Bird findet sich kein einziger Treffer zu „artificial intelligence“, „machine learning“, „generative“ oder verwandten KI-Begriffen — weder als Umsatzquelle noch als operativer Einsatz noch als konkretes Geschäftsrisiko. Blue Bird ist ein Schulbus-Hersteller (Typ C/D, Propan-/Benzin-/Elektroantriebe); die Berichte behandeln Zölle, Förderprogramme (EPA Clean School Bus Program, DOE-Zuschuss), die Micro-Bird-Übernahme und Lieferketten, aber keinerlei KI-Bezug. Dokumentierter Negativ-Befund nach Kriterienkatalog → „neutral“.
View the full file — quotes, sources, reviewed filings
Filings Reviewed: 10-Q 2026-05-06 · 10-Q 2026-02-04 · 10-Q 2025-08-06 · 10-Q 2025-05-07 · 10-K 2025-11-24 · 10-K 2024-11-25
Rated on July 17, 2026 · How the Rating Is Built
Highlighted are things our editorial team noticed: green = stands out as strong, red = deserves a closer look. No single metric is a verdict on its own — always read it in context.
Analysts & Price Target
The price target sits 13.6% above the current price.
- Consensus
- Sell
- Analyst Ratings
- 7
Combined picture of the price targets and recommendations of every analyst covering the stock. Price targets are expectations for the next 12 months, not promises — and they often follow the price rather than predict it.
Estimates by Fiscal Year
| Fiscal Year | EPS Estimate ($) | EPS Range ($) | Revenue Estimate ($M) | Expected Growth | Analysts |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 09/30/2026 | 4.91 | 4.58 – 5.21 | 1,748 | 12.2% | 6 |
| 09/30/2027 | 5.52 | 4.95 – 5.79 | 2,001 | 12.4% | 6 |
Average of the analyst estimates for the coming fiscal years. The range shows how far the most optimistic and the most cautious estimate sit apart — the wider it is, the less certain the expectation.
Next Reporting Date
- Expected Earnings per Share
- 1.15 $
Expected date of the next quarterly or annual figures. Dates do shift occasionally — only the invitation issued by the company is binding.
Revenue & Profit
Cash Flow
Balance Sheet
Margins
Per Share
Click the chart or tab into it, then use ← and → to step through the periods.
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· Total · per year
These companies report in different currencies — switch on “Indexed” or pick a margin for a fair comparison.
The figures could not be loaded right now.
Source: fundamental data
Quarterly Figures
| Quarter | EPS (Earnings Per Share) | EPS YoY (%) | Sales ($M) | Sales YoY (%) | Net Margin (%) | OCF ($M) | FCF ($M) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2024: Q4 | 0.86 | 6.80 | 314 | -1.20 | 9.20 | 26 | 22 |
| 2025: Q1 | 0.79 | 0.70 | 359 | 3.70 | 7.30 | 28 | 19 |
| 2025: Q2 | 1.12 | 31.10 | 398 | 19.40 | 9.20 | 57 | 52 |
| 2025: Q3 | 1.11 | 52.00 | 409 | 16.90 | 8.90 | 65 | 61 |
| 2025: Q4 | 0.94 | 9.50 | 333 | 6.10 | 9.20 | 37 | 31 |
| 2026: Q1 | 0.90 | 13.60 | 353 | -1.70 | 8.30 | 48 | 40 |
- EPS (Earnings Per Share):
- Quarterly profit divided by the total share count — how much of the profit works out to a single share.
- YoY (Year over Year):
- Change versus the same quarter a year ago — this is how you compare without seasonal distortion (e.g. the holiday shopping season).
- Sales:
- All revenue for the quarter, before any costs are deducted — the top line of the income statement.
- Net Margin:
- What percentage of sales is left over as profit in the end. Negative means the company is posting a loss.
- OCF (Operating Cash Flow):
- The cash that actually flows into the till from the core business during the quarter — harder to dress up than book profit.
- FCF (Free Cash Flow):
- Operating cash flow minus capital expenditures — the money that's genuinely free to use, say for paying down debt, buybacks, or dividends.
Annual Figures
| Fiscal Year | Revenue ($M) | EBIT ($M) | Net Income ($M) | EPS ($) | Operating Cash Flow ($M) | Equity ($M) | Total Assets ($M) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2016 | 932 | 27 | 7 | 0.32 | 25 | -87 | 278 |
| 2017 | 991 | 60 | 29 | 1.16 | 48 | -59 | 296 |
| 2018 | 1,025 | 35 | 31 | 1.08 | 48 | -28 | 307 |
| 2019 | 1,019 | 44 | 24 | 0.90 | 56 | -68 | 365 |
| 2020 | 879 | 22 | 12 | 0.45 | 3 | -53 | 317 |
| 2021 | 684 | 7 | 0 | -0.01 | -54 | -33 | 356 |
| 2022 | 801 | -41 | -46 | -1.48 | -24 | 1 | 366 |
| 2023 | 1,133 | 52 | 24 | 0.74 | 120 | 40 | 418 |
| 2024 | 1,347 | 139 | 106 | 3.16 | 111 | 160 | 525 |
| 2025 | 1,480 | 167 | 128 | 3.88 | 176 | 255 | 625 |
Fiscal years from the audited annual reports, oldest first. EBIT is the operating profit before interest and taxes; total assets are everything the company owns.
Assessment: Opportunities & Risks
Record fiscal 2025: $1,480.1 million in revenue (+9.9 percent), $127.7 million in net income, adjusted EBITDA margin of 15.0 percent after 7.8 percent in FY 2023; the only independent U.S. school bus maker, with an exclusive dealer network and roughly 64 percent market share in alternative powertrains (10-K FY 2025).
$275.9 million in cash against roughly $88 million in bank debt (03/28/2026, before the $63 million cash portion of the Micro Bird deal), a $150 million credit line untouched, Altman-Z around 8.5; buyback program topped up by $100 million in August 2025, $59.4 million of repurchases since October 2024 (10-K FY 2025, 10-Q as of 03/28/2026).
Backlog down from roughly 4,800 to 3,070 units in the tariff year (minus 36 percent) because customers, per the quarterly report, deferred purchases on incalculable tariff charges; partial recovery to 3,560 units (03/28/2026), but units sold fell 6.4 percent in the second quarter of fiscal 2026 — higher prices are masking shrinking volume.
Whether the fourth round of the $5 billion EPA program ($965 million) will ever be awarded is "currently not known" per the 10-K; the $80 million DOE grant sits in the new administration’s review, and the electric-bus subscription joint venture Clean Bus Solutions was buried after a $7.4 million impairment — against which stands a $42.8 million customer advance for a large electric-bus order (10-Q as of 03/28/2026).
After the Micro Bird buyout ($201.8 million, 70 percent in stock), the Girardin family combines four roles: 7.88 percent shareholder, board seat, biggest dealer (roughly a fifth of first-half fiscal 2026 revenue via Superbird) and landlord — disclosed and approved, but never neutral again; add a single plant complex and single-source powertrains from Cummins/Accelera (8-K/A of 05/04/2026, 10-K FY 2025).
17 scanner hits from momentum and quality, less than 1 percent below the all-time high, up 612 percent in four years — at a P/E around 19 (trailing) resp. 16 (current year) and a Piotroski of 7 of 9 (metrics data as of July 8, 2026); no bubble level, but the market is paying for the record margins to continue, and insiders recently sold fourteen times against one purchase.
Blue Bird is a real turnaround with a real moat: record revenue, record profit, a 15 percent EBITDA margin, net cash and a dealer network that has held for decades. But the three biggest levers of the story from here do not sit in Blue Bird’s books: an EPA funding round with "no further communication" for over a year, a tariff calendar that knocked the backlog down 36 percent, and a selling family that is now major shareholder, board member, biggest dealer and landlord at once. Whoever buys just below the all-time high buys a very good company at a price that budgets little disappointment. Not investment advice.
- BLBD landed on the research list via the momentum/stage-2 run of our in-house stock scanner (scanner run of July 17, 2026) — 17 hits, unusually drawn from momentum and quality filters at once; there was no Reddit hype.
- Scanner metrics (P/E, P/S, Piotroski, Altman-Z, performance) use trailing twelve-month figures as of the July 8, 2026 data cut-off; the one-time pension settlement loss (Q3 FY 2026, roughly $28.1 million, non-cash) and the Micro Bird consolidation from Q3 FY 2026 are not yet reflected in them.
- Price and valuation figures dated July 8, 2026 (about $79, roughly $2.5 billion market value excluding exchangeable shares); analyses are evergreen, daily prices are not a buy argument. Blue Bird’s fiscal year ends in late September/early October — all quarterly references carry the fiscal-year offset.
About the Company
Blue Bird Corporation entwirft, konstruiert, fertigt und verkauft gemeinsam mit ihren Tochtergesellschaften Schulbusse in den USA, Kanada und international. Das Unternehmen ist in zwei Segmenten tätig: Bus und Parts.
| Employees | 2,008 |
|---|---|
| Headquarters | Macon, GA |
| Address | 3920 Arkwright Road, 31210 Macon, United States |
| Phone | 478 822 2801 |
| Website | blue-bird.com |
| IPO Date | 20. Mar 2014 |
| ISIN | US0953061068 |
Management
| Name | Title | Birth Year |
|---|---|---|
| John Wyskiel | President, CEO & Director | 1965 |
| Razvan Radulescu | Chief Financial Officer | 1975 |
| Ted M. Scartz J.D. | Senior VP, General Counsel & Corporate Secretary | 1971 |
| Jeff Sanfrey | Chief Operating Officer | 1973 |
| Tim Gordon | Senior Vice President of Sales & Marketing | – |
| David M. Pasternak | Senior VP & Chief Human Resources Officer | – |
| Eric Boule | Senior Vice President of Micro Bird | – |
| Lyndon Lie | Senior Vice President of Engineering | – |
| Craig West | Vice President ? Corporate Controller & Treasurer | – |
Executives per the latest required filings; titles kept in their original language. Source: fundamental data.
Chart
Interactive price chart (TradingView).
Data as of: July 31, 2026 · Source: fundamental data & SEC filings (annual and quarterly reports, 10-K/10-Q)
Note: pure fact-based analysis, not investment advice and not a solicitation to buy or sell. All figures without guarantee.