Equifax EFX
Industrials · Consulting Services · Synthos Deep Dive · 2026-07-03
The Overview
Equifax is one of the three big credit bureaus (with TransUnion and Experian). When you apply for a loan, a mortgage, or a job, a lender or employer often pulls an Equifax report. Its crown jewel, Workforce Solutions, holds a giant database of who-works-where and how-much-they-earn that almost nobody else has — that is the real moat.
The catch: a big chunk of its business rides on the U.S. mortgage market. When mortgage rates jump (they just did, after the Iran conflict), fewer people refinance or buy homes, and Equifax's revenue can drop quickly. The stock has already fallen about a third from its high because of exactly this worry.
The stock is middling-priced — not a screaming bargain, not crazy expensive. Our verdict is Watch: it is a good business, but wait for a cheaper price or proof the mortgage slump is over before backing up the truck.
Here's what our three scores mean in everyday terms:
- Downside Risk 6/10 (a bit above average). It carries a fair amount of debt, its stock swings more than the market, and its sales bounce with the mortgage cycle.
- Growth Quality 6/10 (decent, not elite). Earnings should grow at a healthy mid-teens pace, but the underlying sales growth is only modest and its profit-on-capital is average.
- Exponential Potential 4/10 (low-to-moderate). There's a real new-product and AI angle, but this is a mature, already-large company — not a rocket.
The one big worry: if mortgage rates stay high, the revenue and earnings recovery the whole bull case assumes could stall.
Putting a number on it: our fair-value estimate is $205 against a current price of $194.35 — real upside if our numbers are right.
Our summary metrics
Moderate leverage (net-debt/EBITDA 2.7×), beta 1.31, −44% drawdown, and a mortgage-cyclical top line — offset by a genuine data moat.
~14% forward adj-EPS CAGR & recovering margins, but ~8% revenue CAGR and returns on capital (ROIC ~8%) are only average.
Real EFX.AI / Workforce optionality and re-accelerating EPS off the mortgage trough, but a mature $21B credit-bureau oligopolist, not a multibagger.
What does “fair value” mean?
Fair value is Synthos’s estimate of what one share is worth today, based on our model of the company’s future cash generation and the risks to it. It is not a price target or a prediction of where the stock trades next quarter — it’s the price where we think risk and reward are balanced. Above it, you’re paying for outcomes better than our base case; below it, the market is offering a margin of safety.
The model’s inputs and weightings are proprietary — they’re the product. What we publish is the output, plus an independent, public-math cross-check further down the page (“Check our number”) so you can judge it for yourself.
What do the 5 tiers mean? (Core · Tactical · Watch · Hold · Avoid)
Exponential Potential
Real EFX.AI / Workforce optionality and re-accelerating EPS off the mortgage trough, but a mature $21B credit-bureau oligopolist, not a multibagger.
What could take this further than the base case — and where the market may be underpricing it. Full forward-growth and acceleration math in Deeper analysis, §4 below.
Deeper analysis
Technicals, fundamentals, valuation, and the full expert-claim evidence panel — the detail behind the numbers above.
Reference table
| Street consensus | $222 (high $265 / low $173; 23 Buy · 11 Hold · 1 Sell) — context, not our anchor |
| Valuation | 30× trailing GAAP EPS · ~20× FY26E adj · ~17× FY27E adj · ~12× FY30E adj · EV/S 4.1× · EV/EBITDA 13.7× |
| Technicals | Downtrend — $172, −35% off the 52-wk high, below the 200-DMA, −44% max drawdown, −35% 12-mo (SPY +21%) |
| Conviction | Low — 0 expert voices in the KB; the call rests entirely on financials, estimates, and quant |
| Position sizing | Starter / watch-list only, ~1–2% if entered, with a plan to add lower |
What the experts actually said 5 traceable claims on EFX · showing the highest-conviction voices
“The work number (EWS) is the crown jewel and key driver going forward — more than half of incremental revenue and earnings over the next many years, faster-growing and higher-margin than the bureau.”
“The three-bureau oligopoly is durable — network effects (give-to-get) and regulation make a fourth entrant almost impossible; US bureau revenue tracks credit origination volumes, roughly a point or two above GDP through the cycle.”
Every claim reconciles to a real claim_id in the Synthos knowledge base — this is the evidence the verdict is built on, not vibes. Management (the company itself) is shown but half-weighted; one cautionary voice is included on purpose.
Price & moving averages 12 months · 50 & 200-day averages · 52-week range
Solid line = price · dashed line = 50-day average · dotted line = 200-day average · the two thin horizontal lines mark the 52-week high and low. Price above both averages is an uptrend.
Data summary: last close $194.35, 11% above the 50-day average ($175), 3% above the 200-day average ($188) — an uptrend. 26% below the 52-week high of $262, 28% above the 52-week low of $152.
Bollinger Bands 20-day average ± 2 standard deviations
The shaded band widens when the stock gets more volatile. Riding the upper edge = strong momentum (sometimes stretched); the lower edge = weak / potentially oversold.
Data summary: price $194.35 is currently inside the band (band $171–$198).
RSI (14) momentum gauge · 0–100
Above 70 (overbought zone, shaded) = overbought, below 30 (oversold zone, shaded) = oversold. Currently 63.
MACD 12 / 26 / 9 · trend & momentum
The MACD line crossing above the signal line (bars flip to the up color) = momentum turning up; crossing below (bars flip to the down color) = turning down. Bar height = the size of that gap.
Data summary: MACD is currently above its signal line by 0.48, positive momentum.
Relative performance vs S&P 500 & its sector (XLI (sector)), set to 100 a year ago
Solid = EFX · dashed = S&P 500 · dotted = XLI (sector). A rising line means it is beating that benchmark — the sector line shows whether it is a leader or laggard within its own group.
Forward revenue & earnings actual → estimate · "FY" = fiscal year, "E" = estimate
Darker bars = actual results, brighter = analyst estimates. Taller bars to the right = expected growth.
Key stats an RIA wants
1. What it is
Equifax (NYSE: EFX) is a ~125-year-old (founded 1899, Atlanta) global data, analytics and credit-information company. It is organized into three segments:
- Workforce Solutions — the crown jewel. The Work Number database verifies income and employment for lenders, employers and government. Highest-margin segment (Q1'26 adjusted EBITDA margin 52.3%). This is the hardest asset to replicate.
- U.S. Information Solutions (USIS) — the traditional U.S. credit bureau: credit data, scores, fraud/identity, and mortgage reporting. Most mortgage-cyclical segment.
- International — credit and analytics across Canada, Latin America, Europe and Asia-Pacific.
Fiscal year ends December 31. CEO Mark W. Begor.
Revenue mix (FY2025, from filings):
- By product segment: U.S. Consumer Information Solutions/USIS $4.16B, Workforce $2.58B, International $1.41B. (Note: FMP's segment tags mix labels across years; the FY25 USIS figure here bundles USIS-related lines — treat segment splits as directional. Q1'26 clean splits from the earnings release: Workforce $683M, USIS $606M, International $360M.)
- By geography: United States $4.66B (~77%), U.K. $326M, Australia $318M. The base is heavily U.S.-concentrated, which is a pricing-power strength but a U.S.-mortgage and U.S.-policy risk (§11).
The strategic pivot management keeps returning to is the completed ~$3B cloud migration ("EFX Cloud") now enabling EFX.AI products and a record 17% new-product Vitality Index in Q1'26 — the "New Equifax" growth-and-margin story.
2. The expert thesis — (no expert coverage)
There is no expert coverage for EFX in the Synthos knowledge base: total_claims = 0, 0 net-bullish voices, 0 traceable claims. Unlike names where we can cite an independent panel, this verdict is entirely fundamentals- and quant-driven — built from the financials, analyst estimates, management's own (self-interested, half-weighted) guidance, and the technical/valuation picture. We say this plainly rather than manufacture conviction: nothing in §3–§12 rests on an expert claim, because there are none to cite.
What the sell-side thinks (context, not Synthos conviction): the FMP grade panel is 23 Buy · 11 Hold · 1 Sell (consensus "Buy"), price-target consensus $222 (high $265 / low $173). The letter rating is B (overall score 3/5), dragged down by a debt-to-equity sub-score of 1/5 and P/E sub-score of 2/5.
3. Synthos scores & the Bull / Base / Bear cases
The one-glance judgment — three scores, 0–10, each anchored to real metrics (not probabilities we can't honestly calibrate):
| Score | 0–10 | The read |
|---|---|---|
| Downside Risk (lower = safer) | 6 · Moderate-High | Net-debt/EBITDA 2.7×, beta 1.31, a −44% max drawdown, current ratio 0.61, and a mortgage-cyclical top line. Offset by a genuine data moat and investment-grade balance sheet, but this is not a low-risk name. |
| Growth Quality | 6 · Decent | Forward adj-EPS CAGR ~14% (FY25 $7.62 → FY30E $14.71) and recovering margins, but revenue CAGR only ~8%, ROIC ~8% and ROE ~15% are average, and much of the EPS growth is a mortgage-cycle rebound plus margin expansion, not durable unit growth. |
| Exponential Potential | 4 · Low-Moderate | Real optionality in EFX.AI, Workforce/Government, and post-cloud operating leverage; EPS re-accelerating off the mortgage trough. But a mature, ~$21B credit-bureau oligopolist in a 3-player market is not a multibagger. |
The three cases (our own scenario model — assumptions shown; each target is a ~12–18-month fair value). We deliberately do not attach probabilities: the base case is the expected path, so a weighted blend would just restate it with false precision. The cases bound the range; the scores summarize them. (EPS below = adjusted, the basis analysts and management guide on; FY25 GAAP diluted EPS was $5.32.)
| Case | Key assumptions | Fair value |
|---|---|---|
| Bull | Mortgage activity recovers as rates ease; Workforce + EFX.AI drive double-digit organic growth; margins expand post-cloud. FY27E adj EPS beats to ~$11 (vs $10.27 cons); the Street pays a premium data-analytics ~25×. | ~$275 (+60%) |
| Base (our anchor) | Guidance roughly holds — FY26 adj EPS ~$8.5, FY27E adj EPS $10.27; a mid-teens EPS compounder with a real moat earns a ~20× multiple. | ~$205 (+19%) |
| Bear | Rates stay high, U.S. mortgage volume stays depressed, and organic growth slips to mid-single-digits; FY27E adj EPS misses to ~$8.5; multiple de-rates to ~18×. | ~$150 (−13%) |
Synthos fair value = the base case, ~$205 (+19%), with the full $150–$275 span as the honest range. This sits below the Street's $222 consensus — we haircut for mortgage-cycle risk and leverage. This is a tracked call — the Forecaster Scorecard grades it once it matures.
4. Exponential Potential
Synthos separates compounders (durable high returns on capital) from exponentials (accelerating multi-baggers-from-here). EFX is a moaty compounder, not an exponential:
- Forward growth: revenue CAGR FY25→FY30E ~7.8% ($6.05B → $8.82B est); adj-EPS CAGR ~14.1% ($7.62 → $14.71 est) as post-cloud margins expand.
- Acceleration (2nd derivative) — mixed and cycle-driven: reported revenue growth was +6.9% (FY25) and management guides +10–12% (FY26); adj-EPS estimates step up ~13% (FY26E) → ~19% (FY27E) → ~21% (FY28E). The apparent acceleration is largely a mortgage-cycle rebound off a trough plus cloud operating leverage — not secular unit acceleration. Honest read: treat the ramp as cyclical recovery, not a durable inflection.
- Room to run: the data/analytics TAM is large, but EFX is one of three entrenched bureaus in a mature category. At ~$21B it can compound, but a 3–5× from here is not a realistic base case.
- Reinvestment runway: the ~$3B cloud build is done, so capex/revenue should fall (FY25 capex/revenue ~7.9%) and free cash flow should inflect up — FCF was $1.13B FY25 vs $0.81B FY24. That FCF inflection is the most important tell that the "New Equifax" margin story is real — watch it.
Exponential Potential: Low-Moderate (4/10). Own EFX for a moat + a post-cloud margin/FCF inflection, not for a fast multibagger.
5. Financials (real numbers — FMP annual/quarterly)
- Revenue: FY25 $6.07B, +6.9% (FY24 $5.68B, +7.9% on FY23 $5.27B). Q1'26 $1.649B, +14% — the fastest growth in the sampled window, flattered by a 38% U.S. mortgage surge early in the quarter before rates rose.
- Quarterly trajectory: Q1'25 $1.442B → Q2 $1.537B → Q3 $1.545B → Q4 $1.551B → Q1'26 $1.649B (+14.4% YoY). Re-accelerating.
- Margins: gross 44.7% TTM, EBITDA 30.0% TTM, operating ~18.3%, net 11.1% TTM. Segment-level, Workforce runs a 52% adj-EBITDA margin — the mix-shift lever.
- Earnings: GAAP net income $660.3M FY25 (EPS diluted $5.32), up from $604.1M FY24. Q1'26 net income $171.5M (+29% YoY), GAAP diluted EPS $1.42 (+34%); adjusted EPS $1.86 (+22%).
- Cash flow: operating CF $1.62B FY25, capex −$481M, FCF $1.13B (up from $813M FY24) — the post-cloud FCF inflection is visible. FCF yield ~5.5%.
- Balance sheet: total debt $5.09B, net debt $4.91B, net-debt/EBITDA 2.72× — real leverage. Current ratio 0.61 (working capital negative), goodwill+intangibles $6.84B (58% of assets). Investment-grade but not a fortress; interest coverage ~5.3×.
6. Valuation — priced in or room?
EFX is middling on valuation, not cheap, not egregious. Trailing GAAP P/E is 30× (elevated because GAAP EPS is depressed vs adjusted), EV/EBITDA 13.7×, EV/sales 4.1×, P/FCF ~18×. The bull's case is that adjusted EPS grows into the multiple: on consensus, forward adj P/E is ~20× (FY26E $8.61) → ~17× (FY27E $10.27) → ~12× (FY30E $14.71) — the multiple compresses meaningfully even at a flat price if estimates hit. The PEG (forward) is ~1.6×. Street targets (context): consensus $222, high $265, low $173 — note the low end ($173) is essentially today's price, i.e. even the bears see limited further downside from here, but the wide band reflects mortgage-cycle uncertainty. Our $205 base FV is below consensus because we discount for leverage (2.7× net-debt/EBITDA) and cyclicality. Not a value buy; a moaty-compounder-at-a-fair-but-not-cheap-price, hostage to the mortgage cycle.
7. Technicals (from the tech block)
- Trend: down. $172.07 sits below the 200-DMA ($199) though just above the 50-DMA ($166). MACD −1.57 (negative). This is a downtrend trying to base, not an uptrend.
- Location: −35% off the 52-week high ($265.73), only +13% off the 52-week low ($151.93) — near the lower end of its range, with a brutal −44% max drawdown from peak.
- Momentum: RSI(14) 62 — recovering (the day's +6.1% pop helps) but not overbought.
- Relative strength (the tell — negative): EFX −34.8% 12-mo vs SPY +20.6% and QQQ +30.3%; −22% 6-mo vs SPY +8%. Persistent, severe underperformance of both the market and tech. Only the 3-month (−4.2% vs SPY +13.7%) is less bad, hinting at a possible base.
- Read: technicals do not confirm a bull thesis yet — this is a de-rated, underperforming name attempting to bottom near its 52-week low. That is precisely why the verdict is Watch: let the price/trend prove the mortgage headwind is turning before committing.
8. Moat & competitive position
EFX's moat is data no one can easily rebuild: (1) the Work Number payroll/income database in Workforce Solutions — a genuine near-monopoly data asset with 52% EBITDA margins; (2) an entrenched position in the 3-player U.S. credit-bureau oligopoly (Equifax, TransUnion, Experian) with high switching costs and regulatory embedding; (3) a completed ~$3B cloud + EFX.AI platform that management pitches as an "AI data moat." The vulnerabilities: heavy mortgage cyclicality, regulatory/consumer-data risk (Equifax's 2017 breach is a permanent reminder), and pricing scrutiny.
Peer set (FMP-tagged; note the tag mixes true comps with industrials): the genuine comparables are TransUnion (TRU) $15.1B — the closest pure-play credit-bureau peer, trading cheaper — and Verisk Analytics (VRSK) $24.7B, a data-analytics comp on a richer multiple. The rest of FMP's list (AerCap, Curtiss-Wright, Dover, Elbit, Hubbell, Howmet, Old Dominion, Veralto) are industrials, not real comps and should be ignored for valuation. Against TRU and VRSK, EFX sits mid-pack: higher-quality data assets than TRU, cheaper and more cyclical than VRSK.
9. Management, capital allocation & guidance
- Capital allocation: post-cloud, capital returns are resuming — Q1'26 returned $327M to shareholders ($260M buyback / 1.3M shares + $67M dividend). FY25 bought back $927M and paid $233M dividends. Dividend yield ~1.2%. Leverage (2.7× net-debt/EBITDA) caps how aggressive buybacks can be.
- Insider activity: the sampled Form 4s are routine director equity awards (grants at $175.62 on 2026-05-07; phantom units) — no discretionary open-market selling or buying cluster to read into.
- Management's own guidance (half-weighted — their own book): This is management speaking about its own stock and is weighted at half in our framework. Per the Q1'26 earnings release (SEC 8-K, filed 2026-04-21 — a real earnings release with full guidance):
- FY2026 guidance: reported revenue $6.685B–$6.805B (+10–12%), ~10% local-currency growth midpoint, and adjusted EPS $8.34–$8.74.
- Q2'26 guidance: reported revenue $1.680B–$1.710B (+9.3–11.3%), adjusted EPS $2.15–$2.25.
- Management held its full-year local-currency guidance despite a strong Q1, explicitly citing reduced U.S. mortgage activity from higher rates after the Iran conflict and macro/rate uncertainty — a candid, cautious tone that supports our mortgage-cyclicality flag. They raised reported revenue $25M and adj EPS $0.04 purely for FX. CEO Begor framed the "New Equifax" as targeting "higher growth, margins, and accelerating free cash flow."
10. Catalysts & what to watch
- Next earnings: 2026-07-21 (Q2'26; Street EPS $2.23, revenue ~$1.69B; management guide $2.15–$2.25 / $1.68–$1.71B). The key line: U.S. mortgage revenue trajectory after the post-Iran-conflict rate rise, and whether FY guidance holds.
- Mortgage / rate path: the single biggest swing factor for both revenue and the multiple.
- Vitality Index (new-product revenue): 17% in Q1'26 vs a 10% long-term goal — sustained high readings validate the EFX.AI growth story.
- FCF & margin inflection: continued post-cloud FCF growth and Workforce mix-shift = confirmation the "New Equifax" thesis is real.
- Capital returns: pace of buybacks against the 2.7× leverage constraint.
Thesis tripwires (what would change the call): two consecutive quarters of falling mortgage/USIS revenue with no offset; a cut to FY guidance; net-debt/EBITDA rising above ~3×; or the Vitality Index fading toward its 10% floor.
11. Key risks
- Mortgage cyclicality (structural): USIS mortgage revenue swings hard with rates; management itself flagged post-Iran-conflict rate rises as a headwind. The whole EPS-recovery case assumes mortgage activity doesn't deteriorate further.
- Leverage: 2.7× net-debt/EBITDA and a 0.61 current ratio leave less cushion than peers; the FMP letter rating docks debt-to-equity to 1/5.
- De-rating / momentum: −35% off the high and −44% max drawdown; a downtrend below the 200-DMA — the market is not yet convinced.
- Regulatory & data-security: consumer-credit regulation, data-privacy rules, and the permanent reputational shadow of the 2017 breach.
- No expert corroboration: with 0 KB claims, there is no independent panel to cross-check the fundamentals — conviction is necessarily lower than for covered names.
- Valuation not cheap: ~20× forward adj EPS on a cyclical means limited margin of safety if the recovery stalls.
12. Verdict, position sizing & monitoring
Watch. Equifax is a genuinely wide-moat, oligopoly data business with a crown-jewel Workforce/Work-Number asset, a completed cloud platform, a re-accelerating adjusted-EPS line, and an inflecting free-cash-flow profile. But it is mortgage-cyclical, carries real leverage (2.7×), trades at a fair-not-cheap ~20× forward adj EPS, sits in a downtrend 35% off its high, and — critically — has zero expert coverage in the Synthos KB, so conviction is low. The base-case fair value (~$205, +19%) is real upside, but below the Street and hostage to rates. This is a name to own the moat on weakness, not to chase here.
- Sizing: if entered at all, starter / watch-list, ~1–2%, with an explicit plan to add lower (toward the low-$150s bear case) or on evidence the mortgage headwind has turned. Not a core position at this conviction level.
- Monitoring: re-underwrite on the §10 tripwires; formal re-score at the 2026-07-21 print, with the mortgage line as the swing factor. This verdict is logged as a tracked Synthos call as of 2026-07-03 at $172.07.
- Single biggest risk: U.S. mortgage-volume cyclicality — the earnings-recovery thesis depends on it.
Provenance & disclosures
- Traceability: 0 KB claims, breadth 0 — EFX has no expert coverage in the Synthos knowledge base. This note is explicitly fundamentals- and quant-driven; no conviction is claimed beyond the data. Fabricated conviction is structurally impossible (there are no claim-IDs to cite, and we say so).
- Data as-of: fundamentals 2026-03-31 (Q1'26) · estimates & prices 2026-07-03 · management guidance from the SEC 8-K filed 2026-04-21. Forward figures are analyst consensus (FMP) or management guidance, labeled as estimates; analyst EPS estimates are on an adjusted basis (FY25 GAAP diluted EPS was $5.32).
- Management caveat: Equifax management's guidance is its own self-interested book, half-weighted by design.
- Segment-data caveat: FMP's product-segment tags are inconsistent across years; clean Q1'26 splits are taken from the earnings release.
- Not investment advice. Independent research, educational and informational only, never personalized. Hypothetical/forward figures are labeled; the only performance numbers Synthos will headline are the live, real-money Flagship's.
- Version: 2026-07-03. Prior versions available via the deep-dive version dropdown ("based on the info at the time").