Evergy EVRG
Utilities · Regulated Electric · Synthos Deep Dive · 2026-07-03
The Overview
Evergy is the electric company for about 1.7 million homes and businesses in Kansas and Missouri. It is a government-regulated monopoly: it owns the power plants and the wires, and a state commission decides how much it can charge. That makes its profits steady and predictable — but also capped, because regulators won't let it earn too much.
Is the stock cheap or expensive? It's priced about right — not a bargain, not wildly overpriced. You're paying a fair price for a steady dividend (about 3.1% a year) and slow, reliable growth. Right now the stock is sitting at its highest price of the past year, so you're not getting a discount.
Our verdict is Watch — a fine, boring income stock, but there's no obvious bargain here today, so no rush.
Here's what our three scores mean in everyday terms:
- Downside Risk 5/10 (middle of the road). The business barely moves with the market (very low volatility), which is safe — but the company carries a lot of debt to build power lines, and its profits depend on regulators approving rate increases.
- Growth Quality 5/10 (average). It grows slowly and steadily. Nothing exciting, nothing broken.
- Exponential Potential 3/10 (low). This will never double overnight. The one wildcard is that AI data centers need enormous amounts of electricity, and Evergy is signing up big new power customers — that could speed growth up modestly.
The one big worry: Evergy has to keep borrowing heavily to build infrastructure, and its earnings live and die by what state regulators allow it to charge. A bad rate ruling or higher-for-longer interest rates would hurt.
Putting a number on it: our fair-value estimate is $91 against a current price of $80.65 — real upside if our numbers are right.
Our summary metrics
Low beta (0.52) & regulated-monopoly stability, but 5.8× net-debt/EBITDA and a rate-cap-sensitive model; now at the 52-wk high, RSI 74.
~6% revenue / ~10% EPS forward CAGR, steady regulated ROE ~8.7%, but persistently negative FCF from heavy capex.
Data-center large-load demand is the one accelerant; a $20B regulated utility is structurally capped — no multibagger here.
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
Data-center large-load demand is the one accelerant; a $20B regulated utility is structurally capped — no multibagger here.
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 | $90.14 (high $99 / low $82; 7 Buy · 9 Hold · 2 Sell → Hold) — context, not our anchor |
| Valuation | 23× trailing EPS · 20.7× FY26E · 19.4× FY27E · 14.9× FY30E · EV/S 6.0× · EV/EBITDA 13.1× |
| Technicals | Uptrend but stretched — $88.13 at the 52-wk high, above 50/200-DMA, RSI 74 (overbought), +26.9% 12-mo (SPY +20.6%) |
| Conviction | Low / none — 0 expert voices, 0 KB claims; call rests entirely on fundamentals + quant |
| Position sizing | If owned, an income/defensive sleeve position (~1–3%), not a growth holding |
What the experts actually said
No independent expert claims in the Synthos knowledge base yet for EVRG — this dive is fundamentals- and technicals-driven, not panel-driven.
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 $80.65, 5% below the 50-day average ($84), 0% above the 200-day average ($81) — a mixed trend. 8% below the 52-week high of $88, 14% above the 52-week low of $71.
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 $80.65 is currently inside the band (band $81–$85).
RSI (14) momentum gauge · 0–100
Above 70 (overbought zone, shaded) = overbought, below 30 (oversold zone, shaded) = oversold. Currently 36.
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 below its signal line by 0.17, negative momentum.
Relative performance vs S&P 500 & its sector (XLU (sector)), set to 100 a year ago
Solid = EVRG · dashed = S&P 500 · dotted = XLU (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
Evergy, Inc. (NASDAQ: EVRG) is an integrated, regulated electric utility serving roughly 1.62–1.7 million customers across Kansas and Missouri. It generates power from a diversified mix — coal, nuclear (uranium), natural gas, hydro, landfill gas, and a growing wind/solar renewable portfolio — and owns the transmission and distribution network (~10,100 circuit miles of high-voltage transmission, ~39,800 miles of overhead distribution, ~13,000 miles of underground). It was formed in 2017 (the Westar Energy / Great Plains Energy merger), IPO/listed 2018, and is headquartered in Kansas City, Missouri. CEO: David A. Campbell. ~4,731 employees. Fiscal year ends December 31.
This is a classic rate-base-growth story: the utility invests capital in the grid and generation, the regulator sets an allowed return on that "rate base," and earnings grow roughly with the rate base. Evergy's own long-term framing is 6–8%+ adjusted-EPS annual growth through 2030 (see §9).
Revenue mix (from filings):
- By segment: FMP reports a single Electric Utility segment — this is a pure-play regulated electric business, no meaningful non-utility diversification. (Segment file dates are stale/pre-merger legacy rows; the current company is one electric segment.)
- By geography: 100% United States (Kansas + Missouri). FMP's geographic-segmentation array is empty because the entire footprint is domestic — this is a single-country, two-state operator with zero international exposure (a stability positive, a growth-ceiling negative).
The strategic swing factor management keeps returning to is "large-load" customers — data centers — signing electric service agreements (ESAs) under a new large-load power-service (LLPS) tariff, which is the one credible accelerant to the otherwise-modest growth rate.
2. The expert thesis — why the panel is bullish (traceable)
There is no expert coverage of EVRG in the Synthos knowledge base. total_claims = 0, net_bullish_voices = 0, and there are no cautionary voices either. No podcast, letter, or interview in our distilled panel discusses Evergy.
That is itself an honest signal: Evergy is a small, slow, regulated Midwest utility — exactly the kind of name that high-conviction, exponential-hunting investors do not talk about. This verdict is therefore fundamentals- and quant-driven, built from FMP financials, analyst estimates, the technical block, and management's own SEC-filed guidance (half-weighted, §9). There is no conviction premium and no conviction discount applied here — just the numbers. Any reader looking for "smart-money" corroboration should note there is none in the KB, in either direction.
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) | 5 · Moderate | Beta 0.52 and a regulated-monopoly revenue base make the equity low-volatility, but net-debt/EBITDA 5.8× (typical-but-high for utilities), a 0.45 current ratio, persistently negative FCF, and rate-case dependence offset the stability. Trading at the 52-wk high with RSI 74 removes any valuation cushion. |
| Growth Quality | 5 · Average | ~6% forward revenue CAGR and ~10% forward EPS CAGR (FY25→FY30E), steady regulated ROE ~8.7%, ROIC ~4.5%. Durable but unspectacular; the negative FCF (capex > operating cash flow) is the quality blemish. |
| Exponential Potential | 3 · Low | One real accelerant — data-center large-load demand pushing EPS growth from ~6% toward 8%+ by 2028 (management's own framing). But a $20B regulated utility with a two-state footprint and a regulator-capped return is structurally incapable of 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 by definition the expected path, so a weighted blend would just restate it with false precision. Instead the cases bound the range, and the scores above summarize them.
| Case | Key assumptions | Fair value |
|---|---|---|
| Bull | Data-center ESAs ramp faster; EPS growth sustains at the top of the 8%+ band; rate cases go cleanly; rates ease. Apply ~22× to FY27E EPS ~$4.65. | ~$106 (+20%) |
| Base (our anchor) | Estimates roughly hit — FY27E EPS $4.55; a steady ~6–8% regulated compounder earns a ~20× multiple in line with peers. | ~$91 (+3%) |
| Bear | A hostile rate case, higher-for-longer rates pressuring a levered balance sheet, or data-center demand disappoints; multiple de-rates to ~17× on FY27E EPS ~$4.25. | ~$72 (−18%) |
Synthos fair value = the base case, ~$91 (+3%), with the full $72–$106 span as the honest range. This anchor sits essentially on top of the Street's $90.14 consensus — a rare case where our independent model and the sell-side converge, precisely because a regulated utility's earnings and multiple are highly bounded. 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). EVRG is neither an exponential nor a high-return compounder — it is a regulated rate-base grower:
- Forward growth: revenue CAGR FY25→FY30E ~6.2% ($5.92B → $8.01B est); EPS CAGR ~9.8% ($3.71 → $5.93 est) as rate base and large-load revenue grow.
- Acceleration (the 2nd derivative): modestly positive and the one interesting thing here. Management guides EPS growth to exceed 8% beginning in 2028 vs ~6% near-term, driven by data-center large-load additions (five ESAs signed as of Q1'26). Estimate path: EPS +7.9% (FY26E) → +7.0% (FY27E) → +8.9% (FY28E) → +10.2% (FY29E) → +8.7% (FY30E) — a gentle upward tilt, not an inflection.
- Room to run: effectively capped. A regulated monopoly earns a commission-set return on rate base; it cannot "win share" or price freely. The addressable market is the load in Kansas and Missouri (plus new large-load hookups). At $20.3B, a 5× would imply a ~$100B two-state electric utility — not plausible.
- Reinvestment runway: large and productive within the regulated model — capex ~$2.8B/yr (2.5× depreciation) grows the rate base, which is how utilities compound. But it is funded by debt and equity, not free cash flow (FCF is negative, §5).
Exponential Potential: Low. Own EVRG (if at all) for a dependable dividend and mid-to-high-single-digit total return, not for growth. The data-center demand story is real and is the only reason this scores 3 rather than 2 — but it bends the growth rate, it doesn't transform the business.
5. Financials (real numbers — FMP annual/quarterly)
- Revenue: FY25 $5.92B, +1.7% (FY24 $5.82B; FY23 $5.49B). Low-single-digit top-line — normal for a weather- and rate-driven utility. Q1'26 revenue $1.44B (+5.5% YoY).
- Margins: gross 41.5% TTM, EBITDA margin ~46%, operating ~25.4%, net 14.7% TTM. Stable and regulator-shaped.
- Earnings: net income $855.6M FY25 (vs $873.5M FY24 — down slightly), EPS $3.71 (diluted $3.66). Q1'26 GAAP EPS $0.64 / adjusted $0.69 (beat the $0.61 estimate).
- Quarterly seasonality (not acceleration): utility earnings are seasonal — Q3 (summer cooling) is the big quarter (Q3'25 EPS $2.06) while Q1/Q4 are small. Don't read the quarter-to-quarter swings as a trend.
- Cash flow — the blemish: operating CF $2.05B FY25, capex −$2.80B, so FCF is negative (−$752M) — and has been negative every year shown (FY22 −$365M, FY23 −$354M, FY24 −$353M, FY25 −$752M). This is structural for a utility in a heavy build cycle: it out-invests its cash flow and funds the gap with debt and equity. It is not a distress signal, but it does mean the dividend is effectively debt-funded at the margin and leaves no buffer.
- Balance sheet: total debt $15.4B, net debt $15.4B, net-debt/EBITDA ~5.8× — high in absolute terms but ordinary for a regulated utility (rate base supports it). Current ratio 0.45 (utilities run low). Interest coverage ~2.4× — adequate, not comfortable, and interest expense is rising ($616M FY25 vs $563M FY24). FMP letter rating B- (DCF score 1/5, reflecting the negative FCF).
6. Valuation — priced in or room?
Evergy trades at ~23× trailing EPS, 6.0× sales, 13.1× EV/EBITDA, with a 3.1% dividend yield (payout ~70%). On forward estimates the P/E compresses to 20.7× (FY26E) → 19.4× (FY27E) → 14.9× (FY30E) — reasonable for a mid-single-digit grower, roughly in line with the regulated-electric peer group. Price-to-book is 2.0×; the FMP Graham number is ~$61.5 (below the current price, i.e. not "cheap" on a strict value screen). The DCF sub-score is a 1/5 — unsurprising, because standard DCFs penalize the persistently negative free cash flow.
Street targets (context): consensus $90.14, high $99, low $82; grades split 7 Buy / 9 Hold / 2 Sell → Hold. Our $91 base-case fair value converges with consensus — there is no meaningful gap between our independent model and the sell-side here, which is exactly what you'd expect for a bounded regulated utility. Net: fairly valued, not a bargain. At the 52-week high the risk/reward skews to "wait for a pullback."
7. Technicals (from the FMP tech block)
- Trend: up. $88.13 sits above the 50-DMA ($83.06) and 200-DMA ($78.94), and the 50 is above the 200 (golden-cross posture). MACD +1.25 (positive).
- Location — stretched: the stock is exactly at its 52-week high ($88.13), +30.1% off the 52-week low ($67.73), with zero drawdown from peak. Buying at the high offers no cushion.
- Momentum — overbought: RSI(14) 73.9 (>70) — a stretched-entry warning. This is the clearest technical caution: momentum is strong but extended.
- Relative strength: EVRG +26.9% 12-mo vs SPY +20.6% (outperforming the market) but vs QQQ +30.3% (lagging the Nasdaq) — a defensive name that has quietly led the broad market over the past year, likely a rates/rotation beneficiary. +7.1% 3-mo vs SPY +13.7% (recently lagging).
- Read: technicals confirm the uptrend but flag an overbought, at-the-high entry. No urgency to buy here; a pullback toward the rising 50-DMA (~$83) would be a lower-risk entry and improve the modest base-case upside.
8. Moat & competitive position
Evergy's "moat" is the strongest kind in one sense and the weakest in another: it is a legal, regulated monopoly. No competitor can string wires to its customers, so its franchise is effectively unassailable — but in exchange, a state utility commission caps its allowed return. There is no pricing power beyond what regulators grant, no share to win, and no product differentiation. The competitive risk is not a rival utility; it is regulatory (rate-case outcomes, allowed ROE) and macro (interest rates on a levered, capital-hungry balance sheet). The genuine growth optionality is large-load/data-center demand, where Evergy's Kansas–Missouri footprint and new LLPS tariff let it add premium-rate customers.
Peer set (FMP-supplied, market cap): CMS Energy $24.0B, Edison International $29.1B, Alliant Energy (LNT) $20.2B, NiSource (NI) $22.9B, Emera $16.4B, Algonquin Power (AQNB) $18.7B, Korea Electric Power (KEP) $16.0B, SABESP (SBS) $19.7B, plus two loosely-related "power" names (Oklo/OKLO $9.1B and Fermi/FRMI — nuclear/SMR developers, not true regulated-utility comps). Against the regulated-electric peers (LNT, CMS, NI, EIX), Evergy is a mid-cap, average-growth, average-multiple operator — neither the cheapest nor the fastest-growing in the group.
9. Management, capital allocation & guidance
- Capital allocation: the textbook regulated-utility playbook — heavy capex (~$2.8B/yr, 2.5× depreciation) to grow rate base, a steadily rising dividend ($2.75/yr, ~70% payout, ~3.1% yield), and no buybacks (appropriate — utilities issue equity, they don't retire it, to fund growth). The trade-off is negative FCF and rising leverage/interest expense.
- Insider activity: a mix of routine director share-unit awards (WILDER C JOHN, Rolph) and modest open-market sales by an officer (Caisley, ~10,787 sh at ~$83.46, 2026-06-16) and a director (Lawrence, several small sales at ~$81–83). These are small, near-the-highs, and look like ordinary diversification — no alarming insider cluster, but no conviction buying either.
- Management's own guidance (the earnings-release track — half-weighted, self-interested): from the SEC 8-K (Item 2.02) earnings release dated 2026-05-07, management reaffirmed 2026 adjusted (non-GAAP) EPS guidance of $4.14–$4.34 (midpoint $4.24) and reaffirmed a long-term adjusted-EPS annual growth target of 6–8%+ through 2030 off the 2026 midpoint, with the expectation that annual EPS growth exceeds 8% beginning in 2028 through 2030. CEO David Campbell tied the acceleration to the large-customer / large-load strategy (a fifth large-customer ESA signed in Q1'26, taking service from 2027 under the premium LLPS tariff). Treat this as management's own book — self-interested and non-GAAP (it excludes convertible-note repurchase losses and clean-energy-investment mark-to-market) — but it is concrete, dated, and directionally consistent with the analyst estimate path.
10. Catalysts & what to watch
- Next earnings: 2026-08-06 (Q2'26; Street EPS $0.87, revenue ~$1.37B). Watch weather-normalized demand, large-load ESA progress, and any guidance update.
- Rate cases: Kansas and Missouri regulatory outcomes (allowed ROE, rate-base recovery) — the single biggest earnings determinant.
- Data-center / large-load ESAs: the pace of new signings and their in-service timing — the only real accelerant to the growth rate; management targets >8% EPS growth from 2028 on the back of this.
- Interest rates: as a levered (5.8× net-debt/EBITDA), capex-heavy utility, EVRG is a rate-sensitive bond proxy — falling rates help both earnings and the multiple; higher-for-longer hurts.
- Dividend trajectory: continued ~5–7% dividend growth would support the total-return case.
Thesis tripwires (what would change the call): an adverse rate-case ruling; EPS guidance cut below the 6% low end; large-load ESAs stalling; interest coverage slipping below ~2×; or the stock pulling back to the low-$70s (which would flip this from Watch toward Buy — Tactical on valuation).
11. Key risks
- Regulatory (structural): allowed ROE and rate-base recovery are set by Kansas/Missouri commissions; an unfavorable order directly caps earnings. This is the core risk of the model.
- Leverage & rates: net-debt/EBITDA ~5.8×, current ratio 0.45, negative FCF, rising interest expense ($616M FY25). Higher-for-longer rates pressure both the P&L and the valuation.
- Capital-intensity / dividend funding: capex exceeds operating cash flow, so growth and the dividend are partly debt/equity funded — dilution and leverage creep are ongoing.
- Demand concentration risk (the flip side of the accelerant): if the data-center large-load buildout disappoints, the path to >8% EPS growth from 2028 weakens materially.
- Valuation at the high: at the 52-wk high with RSI 74 and only ~3% base-case upside, there is little margin of safety; a growth or rate-case disappointment de-rates the multiple.
- No expert corroboration: zero KB coverage means no independent smart-money confirmation of the thesis in either direction.
12. Verdict, position sizing & monitoring
Watch. Evergy is a well-run, dependable regulated utility with a clear ~6–8% EPS growth framework, a covered-if-tight 3.1% dividend, and a genuine (if modest) data-center demand accelerant into 2028+. But there is no mispricing to exploit today: the stock trades at the 52-week high, RSI 74, on a full ~20× forward multiple, with our independent fair value ($91) landing right on the Street's ($90.14) — a ~3% base-case upside that does not compensate for the downside in a bad rate case or a rates back-up. There is no expert conviction (0 KB claims) pulling us off the quant read.
- Sizing: if owned, this belongs in an income/defensive sleeve at ~1–3%, valued for yield-plus-stability, not growth. It is not a flagship growth position and not a satellite moonshot.
- What flips it to Buy — Tactical: a pullback into the low-$70s (bear-case zone), which would restore a real margin of safety on the same fundamentals; or a step-up in large-load ESA momentum that raises the durable growth rate.
- Monitoring: re-underwrite on rate-case outcomes and each earnings print; formal re-score after Q2'26 (2026-08-06). This verdict is logged as a tracked Synthos call as of 2026-07-03 at $88.13.
- Single biggest risk: regulatory / rate-case outcomes on a highly levered, capex-heavy balance sheet.
Provenance & disclosures
- Traceability: 0 KB claims, breadth 0 — there is no expert coverage of EVRG in the Synthos knowledge base. This note is fundamentals- and quant-driven; no
claim_ids are cited because none exist. Fabricated conviction is structurally impossible (we cite only real claim-IDs, and here there are none). - Data as-of: fundamentals 2026-03-31 (Q1'26) · estimates & prices 2026-07-03 · management guidance from the SEC 8-K earnings release dated 2026-05-07. Forward figures are analyst consensus (FMP) or management guidance, labeled as estimates.
- Management caveat: the 2026 adjusted-EPS guidance ($4.14–$4.34) and 6–8%+ long-term growth target are management's own non-GAAP figures — self-interested and half-weighted by design.
- 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").