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Buy Day today: Neutral (53) Mixed market breadth · no major macro event

Willis Lease Finance Corporation (WLFC)

Industrials Rental & Leasing Services
71.30 $
-1.6% vs. previous close
Closing price · As of: 31. Jul 2026
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Trading Day

Previous Close
72.50$
Open
73.60$
Day High
73.70$
Day Low
70.50$
Volume
148,147shares

Key levels of the most recently completed trading day — not a live quote.

52-Week Range

52-Week Low 52-Week High
65.40 $ 239.90 $
07/21/2026 07/06/2026

Current price 71.30 $ — 3% 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

Market Cap
1.7$B
Shares Outstanding
24Mio.
Float
36.3%
Beta
0.7

Performance

Perf. 1M
23.20%
Perf. 3M
33.80%
Perf. 6M
65.60%
YTD Performance (%)
55.80%
52-Week-High Distance
-7.1%
Perf. 1Y
52.44%
Perf. 3Y
437.97%
Perf. 5Y
446.90%
Perf. 10Y
742.63%
Perf. Since Inception
2,537.75%

Technical Indicators

MA 38 Days
175.70$
MA 50 Days
176.60$
MA 200 Days
168.20$
RSI (14)
17.4
Volatility 30 Days
49.3%
Volatility 250 Days
47.1%

Calculated from the price history · as of 08/03/2026

Valuation

P/E
Forward P/E
6.9
PEG
0.9
P/B
P/S
2.2
EV/EBITDA
9.3
Price/FCF

Profitability

Gross Margin
83.7%
EBIT Margin
Net Margin
16.2%
Return on Equity
17.6%
Return on Assets
5.1%

Balance Sheet & Safety

Equity Ratio
Debt/Equity
Altman Z″
5.20
Piotroski
6 out of 9

Growth

Sales Growth Last Quarter
24.60%
EPS Growth Last Quarter
47.50%
Sales Growth (Year)
18.73%
Forward Sales Growth
3.96%
Forward EPS Growth

Dividend

Dividend Yield
0.75%
Dividend Per Share (TTM)
0.48$
Payout Ratio
12.6%
Years Without a Cut
0Years
Increase Streak
0Years

Quality & Screener

Stage
2
RS Rating
80
EPS Rating
77
Piotroski
6 out of 9
Fundamental Rating
B (63 out of 100)
Altman Z″
5.20

AI Rating

Neutral

Geprüft am 10.07.2026 gegen den Geschäftsbericht (10-K) 2025 (eingereicht 10.03.2026) und die vier jüngsten Quartalsberichte (10-Q). In den ausgewerteten SEC-Filings von Willis Lease Finance findet sich kein wesentlicher KI-Bezug. Das Geschäft ist das Leasing und der Verkauf von Ersatz-Flugzeugtriebwerken sowie der Handel mit Ersatzteilen (Segmente „Leasing and Related Operations“ und „Spare Parts Sales“) — kein KI-Produkt, keine KI-Umsatzquelle. Die einzige Erwähnung von „Artificial Intelligence“ steht im 10-K 2025 als generischer Listeneintrag in einer Aufzählung von Branchenrisiken (neben „airport access and air traffic control infrastructure constraints“) und ist eine Boilerplate-Risikofloskel ohne konkreten Bezug zum eigenen Geschäftsmodell — nach dem Kriterienkatalog kein „bedroht“-Beleg. Ebenso wenig belegen die Berichte einen operativen KI-Einsatz (kein „nutzt“). Damit bleibt es beim dokumentierten Negativ-Befund: neutral.

View the full file — quotes, sources, reviewed filings

What the Earnings Calls Reveal

Unremarkable Record includes one-off

Willis Lease Finance delivers reliably at the operating level: across all seven calls from 2024-Q3 to 2026-Q1 revenue, utilisation and the portfolio grow, net leverage falls from 3.25x to 2.68x, and from 2025-Q3 the dividend is raised from 0.25 to 0.40 US dollars per share. Checking the claims against the transcripts clears management on most counts: announced deals were closed, leverage came down, and the one-time effects of 2025 were named, quantified and stripped out of the company's own adjusted metric by the company itself. Two items remain worth tracking: the 2025 pre-tax result presented as a record contains a 43 million US dollar gain from selling a subsidiary to the company's own joint venture, and it is in that very call that adjusted EBITDA is introduced as a new metric.

7 calls reviewed, 2024-Q3 through 2026-Q1 · As of August 3, 2026

Record year 2025 rests on a one-time gain

In 2025-Q2 Willis sells its consulting subsidiary Bridgend Asset Management for 45 million US dollars to Willis Mitsui, its own 50 percent joint venture, and books a 43 million US dollar gain on it; at the same time the company injects an additional 22.5 million US dollars of equity into that very joint venture. This gain turns the quarterly pre-tax result of 74.3 million US dollars into a record. In the 2025-Q4 call the full-year pre-tax result of 160.6 million US dollars is then presented as a record, against 152.6 million a year earlier. Excluding the one-time gain, roughly 118 million would remain, clearly less than in 2024. Consistent with that, earnings per share in 2025 come to 15.39 US dollars after 15.34 US dollars in 2024, essentially unchanged, while revenue grows 28 percent. For balance: the revenue record of 730.2 million US dollars is unaffected, as the gain does not sit in revenue, and management quantified the sale in detail in the same call. In the 2025-Q3 call it calls 2025 an unusual year with several one-time events of its own accord and names the sale of the consulting business as one of them.

New metric in the year earnings stalled

In the 2025-Q4 call the CFO introduces adjusted EBITDA as an explicitly new metric and puts it at 459.1 million US dollars for 2025, up 16.6 percent. The adjustments strip out, among other things, equipment write-downs, which rose to 32.9 million US dollars in 2025 from 11.2 million in 2024, share-based compensation and the one-time gain from the sale of the consulting subsidiary. The metric arrives in precisely the call in which earnings per share stall. Two points speak for the introduction, though: the metric removes the one-time gain rather than riding on it, and it arrives in the same call in which Willis launches an asset management business with the Blackstone and Liberty Mutual funds, where EBITDA and assets under management are industry-standard measures. The prior-year figure of 393.7 million US dollars is provided alongside. In the following quarter, 2026-Q1, the CEO quotes adjusted EBITDA of 124 million US dollars first, but in the same sentence also gives accounting earnings per share of 3.26 US dollars against 2.21 a year earlier, a rise of 47.5 percent. What remains is that assets under management of 4.1 billion US dollars are pushed to the front, a figure that counts third-party assets, while the owned portfolio amounts to 2.86 billion US dollars.

Sustainability project praised, then stopped

In the 2025-Q1 call Willis attributes 11.4 million US dollars of additional consultant fees to its sustainable aviation fuel project. In 2025-Q2 the company collects 6.3 million US dollars of UK government grant money, reports a further awarded grant of a little over 4 million US dollars and calls it a testament to confidence in its ability to execute. In the 2025-Q3 call the Wilton site is leased and the CEO describes the intention to invest both own and third-party equity. Two quarters later, in 2025-Q4, the line is: 'We elected to no longer pursue our sustainable aviation fuel project'. Against the impression of an abrupt reversal stands the fact that in 2025-Q3 the CEO had already spoken explicitly of stage gates leading up to a final investment decision that was still outstanding, so the project was visibly conditional. A reason was given as well: the company's right to win in the space was not strong enough for the scale of investment required, and it hoped another party would carry it forward. In 2026-Q1 this removes 11.7 million US dollars of project expense. The only loose end is the second grant already awarded: it is not mentioned again in the 2025-Q3, 2025-Q4 or 2026-Q1 calls.

Buybacks: answers stay non-committal

In the 2024-Q3 call an analyst asks about buybacks with reference to the valuation gap against the largest peer; the answer is that management will not comment on capital markets transactions and that the higher share price provides optionality. That is the only clear non-answer in the whole period. In the 2025-Q3 call an analyst works through the arithmetic of equity plus hidden reserves exceeding 1.2 billion US dollars against a market value of roughly 850 million; the CFO answers directly: the company has bought back before and would consider doing so again, and he explicitly agrees that the portfolio is worth more than the share price implies. In the 2025-Q4 call the same analyst points to a filing showing buybacks actually executed in the fourth quarter; the CEO replies about capital deployment and the growth strategy, but not about the buybacks themselves. So the question was asked, answered and acted upon; what is missing is a quantified buyback programme. The roughly 700 million US dollars the company presents every year is the portfolio value above book, not the gap to the market capitalisation.

Numbers only after the call

In the 2025-Q3 call an analyst complains that the numbers have looked extremely high for several quarters and that the release contains too little information, and asks for the quarterly report to be published before the call in future. The CFO offers to walk through the line items afterwards, but gives no commitment to publish earlier; the report continues to appear later the same day. In parallel the question and answer section shrinks from seven questioners in 2024-Q3 to a single one in 2026-Q1, which the CEO closes by noting that the questions were probably already answered in the lengthy prepared remarks. Neither amounts to misinformation, but both make it harder to check the figures on the day they are released.

Management promises

  • 2024-Q3 open

    The administrative cost ratio would keep improving as the business grows, so operating leverage would turn positive.

    The statement was an expectation without a date and was qualified in the same breath by pointing to share-based compensation as a distorting item. In 2024 the ratio improved from 27.7 to 25.8 percent; in 2025 it rose to 26.7 percent. The increase is explained by two items named in the call: 15.3 million US dollars more share-based compensation, driven by the company's own share price rise and non-cash, plus 12.6 million US dollars of consultant fees for the fuel project since discontinued. Excluding those consultant fees the ratio would be about 24.9 percent, better than 2024. In 2026-Q1 11.7 million US dollars of project expense already falls away. The commitment can therefore only be judged conclusively on full-year 2026.

  • 2024-Q4 open

    There was no delivery schedule yet for the 30 additional LEAP engines ordered; it would be worked out in the coming months.

    No delivery schedule is given in any call from 2025-Q1 through 2026-Q1. The order book only reappears as a general reference.

  • 2025-Q1 kept

    The spend on the fuel project incurred in the first quarter of 2025 would represent the lion's share of the net spend expected for the full year.

    The full-year increase in consultant fees was 12.6 million US dollars in 2025 against 11.4 million in the first quarter alone. The 3.5 million US dollar increase mentioned in the 2025-Q3 call was a comparison with the year-earlier quarter, not additional full-year spend beyond what had been announced.

  • 2025-Q1 kept

    The ConstantThrust agreement with Air India Express for CFM56-7B engines announced in March would close in the second quarter of 2025.

    The 2025-Q2 call confirms the deal for 26 engines, and the 2025-Q3 call reports the purchase of 12 engines from Air India Express.

  • 2025-Q2 open

    A second UK grant of a little over 4 million US dollars had been awarded and would be recognised in the profit and loss account upon receipt.

    The grant is not mentioned again in the 2025-Q3, 2025-Q4 or 2026-Q1 calls, even though the underlying project was discontinued in 2025-Q4.

  • 2026-Q1 open

    Around 200 million US dollars of engines from the own balance sheet were to move into the Blackstone fund, with fees from it becoming visible from the following quarter.

    Selling reportedly began in April 2026. No later call is available yet to verify this.

Based on public earnings call transcripts. Reviewed: 7 transcripts 2024-Q3 through 2026-Q1.

Growth Score

5 of 10 Solid growth

Ten checks against the annual reports — each one passed counts a point.

  • Revenue grows by more than 15% a year over three years 29.4% passed
  • More than 10% revenue growth is expected for the coming year 4.0% failed
  • Share count grows by less than 3% a year 115.6% failed
  • Revenue growth plus cash-flow margin add up to at least 40 ("Rule of 40") -17.0% failed
  • Gross margin at 40% or higher and without meaningful erosion 65.7% failed
  • Goodwill from acquisitions does not grow faster than revenue 0.0% passed
  • Net debt below twice EBITDA 6.6 x EBITDA failed
  • Operating cash flow covers the profits of the last three years 531 m passed
  • Return on capital at 15% or higher, or up versus two years ago 5.7% passed
  • Insiders hold at least 10% or are net buyers 55.2% passed

A criterion without figures counts neither as passed nor as failed; a score is only produced from 7 judgeable criteria upwards. Source: fundamental data. All ten criteria in detail

Analysts & Price Target

Current Price 71.30 $
Price Target (average) 75.33 $

The price target sits 5.7% above the current price.

Consensus
Strong Sell
Analyst Ratings
1
Distribution of Recommendations
Strong Buy 1
Buy 0
Hold 0
Sell 0
Strong Sell 0

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

Estimates by Fiscal Year
Fiscal Year EPS Estimate ($) EPS Range ($) Revenue Estimate ($M) Expected Growth Analysts
12/31/2026 4.73 4.73 – 4.73 732 29.1% 1
12/31/2027 5.99 5.99 – 5.99 761 26.7% 1

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

4. Aug 2026 · before the open · Q2 2026
Expected Earnings per Share
0.90 $

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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The figures could not be loaded right now.

Sales Per Quarter ($M)
2024: Q4 · 152.8 $M Q4 2025: Q1 · 157.7 $M Q1 2025: Q2 · 195.5 $M Q2 2025: Q3 · 180.0 $M Q3 2025: Q4 · 193.6 $M Q4 2026: Q1 · 194.3 $M Q1

Source: fundamental data

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Quarterly Figures

Quarterly Figures
Quarter EPS (Earnings Per Share) EPS YoY (%) Sales ($M) Sales YoY (%) Net Margin (%) OCF ($M) FCF ($M)
2024: Q4 3.02 80.60 153 33.70 13.80 68 -287
2025: Q1 2.41 -23.10 158 32.50 10.70 41 4
2025: Q2 8.64 36.20 196 29.40 30.90 104 -31
2025: Q3 3.46 -1.50 180 23.10 13.50 64 -98
2025: Q4 1.73 -42.70 194 26.70 6.30 74 -148
2026: Q1 3.46 43.50 194 23.20 12.90 57 -4
What Do These Terms Mean?
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

Annual Figures
Fiscal Year Revenue ($M) EBIT ($M) Net Income ($M) EPS ($) Operating Cash Flow ($M) Equity ($M) Total Assets ($M)
2016 207 22 14 0.23 101 196 1,338
2017 275 29 62 9.99 135 259 1,603
2018 348 52 43 7.15 189 287 1,935
2019 409 80 67 11.05 230 350 1,941
2020 289 15 10 0.18 93 414 2,450
2021 274 8 3 0.53 91 376 2,463
2022 312 10 5 0.86 144 405 2,575
2023 419 64 44 0.75 230 439 2,652
2024 569 144 109 1.77 284 549 3,297
2025 676 218 114 1.80 283 726 4,032

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.

About the Company

Willis Lease Finance Corporation ist zusammen mit seinen Tochtergesellschaften weltweit ein Verleaser und Servicedienstleister für Verkehrsflugzeuge und Flugzeugtriebwerke. Es ist in zwei Segmenten tätig: Leasing and Related Operations und Spare Parts Sales.

CEO Insider Trades (12 Mo.)selling own stock
Employees467
HeadquartersCoconut Creek, FL
Address4700 Lyons Technology Parkway, 33073 Coconut Creek, United States
Phone561 349 9989
Websitewlfc.global
IPO Date18. Sep 1996
ISINUS9706461053
Stock Split3:1 on 07/21/2026

Management

Management
Name Title Birth Year
Charles F. Willis IV Founder & Executive Chairman 1949
Austin Chandler Willis CEO & Director 1981
Brian Richard Hole Global Head of Managed Funds & Credit and President 1978
Scott Brian Flaherty Executive VP & CFO 1966
Hagen Disch Senior Vice President of Operations
Marc Pierpoint Senior VP and Head of Trading & Investments
Garry A. Failler Senior VP & Chief Technical Officer
Zechariah Clifton Dameron Senior VP, General Counsel & Corporate Secretary 1972
Amy Ruddock Senior Vice President of Sustainable Aviation & Corporate Development
Lynn A. McMillan Senior VP & Head of Global Human Resources

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.

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