BrightView Holdings, Inc., operating through its various subsidiaries, stands as a prominent provider of commercial landscaping solutions across the United States. The ...
BrightView Holdings, Inc. is one of the largest commercial landscaping companies in the United States. The company operates primarily through two business segments: Maintenance Services and Development Services. Maintenance Services represents the recurring-services side of the business and includes mowing, gardening, mulching, pruning, irrigation maintenance, water management, tree care, snow ...BrightView Holdings, Inc. is one of the largest commercial landscaping companies in the United States. The company operates primarily through two business segments: Maintenance Services and Development Services. Maintenance Services represents the recurring-services side of the business and includes mowing, gardening, mulching, pruning, irrigation maintenance, water management, tree care, snow and ice removal, golf-course maintenance, and specialized sports-turf services. These offerings are generally delivered under recurring contracts, which can provide relatively predictable revenue and support long-term customer relationships. Customers include corporate campuses, office parks, residential communities and homeowner associations, public parks, hotels, resorts, hospitals, healthcare facilities, schools, universities, restaurants, retailers, golf courses, and other commercial properties. The supplied company description indicates that BrightView serves approximately 13,000 office parks and corporate campuses, 8,000 residential communities, and 450 educational institutions.
The Development Services segment focuses on larger, project-based work. Its capabilities include landscape architecture, design and project oversight, landscape construction, irrigation-system installation, tree relocation and planting, pools and water features, sports fields, and major property redesigns or new-facility development. This segment gives BrightView exposure to construction and real-estate development activity, although project timing and customer capital budgets can make results less recurring than those of the Maintenance Services segment. The company also acts as an official field consultant for professional baseball leagues, reflecting its specialized expertise in sports-field management.
BrightView’s operating model depends on a large field workforce, local and regional branches, equipment, vehicles, horticultural materials, fuel, snow-removal resources, irrigation components, plants, trees, turf products, and subcontracted or purchased construction inputs. Accordingly, labor, fleet expenses, fuel, insurance, equipment maintenance, weather conditions, and seasonal demand are important cost factors. The business is labor-intensive and typically requires substantial working capital because customers may pay after services are delivered while payroll and operating expenses are incurred earlier. The company’s cost structure and profitability can also be affected by wage inflation, labor availability, severe weather, drought, and changes in commercial property activity.
BrightView traces its roots to 1939 through predecessor businesses, including The Brickman Group. Brickman and ValleyCrest combined in 2014 to form BrightView, and BrightView Holdings completed its initial public offering in June 2018. Dale A. Asplund became President and Chief Executive Officer in October 2023. Based on the supplied data, BrightView has approximately 18,200 full-time employees, placing it in the 10,001-20,000 employee category, although other estimates place its broader workforce above 20,000.
Financially, the supplied trailing-twelve-month data shows approximately $1.07 billion in market capitalization and an enterprise value of about $2.02 billion. BrightView reports an EBITDA margin of approximately 11.3%, an EBIT margin of approximately 3.9%, and a net profit margin near 0.4%, indicating that operating and net profitability are relatively modest. Its enterprise-value-to-EBITDA multiple is approximately 6.5, while net debt to EBITDA is about 3.1, highlighting meaningful leverage. Trailing free cash flow is negative in the supplied data, partly reflecting capital expenditures and investment requirements. BrightView’s long-term opportunity is to benefit from outsourcing by commercial property owners, recurring maintenance demand, cross-selling between maintenance and development, and operational improvements. Key risks include debt servicing, low margins, labor shortages, weather volatility, project execution, customer concentration, and weakness in commercial real estate or construction spending.
YoYYoY means Year-over-Year. It compares the latest annual value with the previous annual value to show long-term trend strength.
QoQQoQ means Quarter-over-Quarter. It compares the latest quarter with the immediately previous quarter to show short-term momentum changes.
RevenueThe total money that came through the front door from selling things, before paying a single bill. Think of it as the grand total of every credit card swipe from customers. (YoY compares this year to last year's performance, while QoQ compares the current three months to the previous three).
$2.7B
-3.4%
+2.1%
Net IncomeThe absolute bottom line. If the company paid every single supplier, employee, banker, and tax collector, this is the actual money left in their pocket at the end of the day.
$56.0M
-15.7%
-264.7%
Gross MarginThe basic markup. If they sell a $100 pair of sneakers, this percentage tells you how much of that price tag is profit right after paying for the rubber and shoelaces, but before paying for things like store rent or TV commercials.
+23.3%
-0.3%
+12.4%
Operating MarginThe 'day job' efficiency score. Out of every dollar a customer spends, this shows how many cents the company keeps after making the product AND paying for all the everyday corporate overhead (like salaries, marketing, and keeping the lights on).
+5.0%
-11.2%
+45.1%
Net MarginThe final take-home percentage. When you strip away every conceivable cost, tax, and interest payment, this is the exact number of cents the company truly gets to keep from every dollar in sales.
+2.1%
-12.7%
-261.3%
Free Cash FlowThe holy grail of corporate cash. It's the spendable, physical money left over after the business pays for its daily operations AND buys the big, expensive upgrades (like new factories or servers) it needs to survive. This is the 'free' money they can use to pay dividends or buy back stock.
$37.6M
-70.4%
-53.2%
FCF MarginThe ultimate cash conversion rate. It shows how good the company is at turning regular sales directly into cold, hard, spendable cash. A high percentage means the business is an absolute cash-printing machine.
+1.4%
-69.4%
-50.0%
Debt / EquityThe financial risk gauge. It compares how much of the company's empire was built using borrowed money (loans) versus the owners' own money (shareholders). A high number means they are heavily leveraged and playing a riskier game; a low number means they are playing it safe.
50.7%
-2.5%
+7.1%
Current RatioThe 12-month survival check. It simply compares the cash they have right now (plus things they can quickly turn into cash) against the immediate bills they absolutely must pay this year. A score above 1 means they have enough in the wallet to cover the upcoming bills without panicking.
1.30x
-9.8%
+4.2%
Total AssetsThe absolute size of the company's empire. It bundles together absolutely everything of value they own—from the cash in the register and the inventory in the warehouse, to the software patents in the vault and the factories on the ground.
Operator: Good day, everyone, and welcome to today's BrightView Earnings call. [Operator Instructions] Please note this call may be recorded. [Operator Instructions] It is now my pleasure to turn the conference over to Mr. Chris Stoczko, Vice President of Finance and Investor Relations. Please go ahead, sir.
Chris Stoczko: Good morning, and thank you for joining BrightView's Third Quarter 2026 Earnings Call. Dale Asplund, BrightView's President and Chief Executive Officer; and Brett Urban, Chief Financial Officer, are on the call. I will now refer you to Slide 2 of our presentation, which contains our safe harbor disclaimer. Our presentation includes forward-looking statements subject to risks and uncertainties. In addition, during today's call, we will refer to certain non-GAAP financial measures. Please see our press release and 8-K issued yesterday for a reconciliation of these measures. With that, I'll now turn the call over to Dale.
Dale Asplund: Thank you, Chris, and good morning, everyone. Our third quarter results reflect the continued progress of our ongoing transformation. The investments we've made in our employees, customer service and operational excellence are translating into stronger operational performance and positioning BrightView for long-term success. The underlying fundamentals of our business continue to improve, and we are well positioned to deliver sustainable, profitable growth over the long term. Q3 marked our second consecutive quarter of organic Land Maintenance revenue growth, with revenue increasing 2.3% year-over-year. This performance was underpinned by another quarter of growth in our land contract book of business, which has now grown 4% from Q2 2025 and represents a 100 basis point improvement over the prior quarter. Growth in our contract book provides increased visibility into the trajectory of our highly resilient and predictable land maintenance business. During the quarter, we experienced 2 nonroutine expenses related items impacting our profitability. The first, as discussed on our last call, was heightened fuel costs. We are happy that we were able to offset a portion of that through mitigating efforts, which I will discuss in a few minutes. Secondly, as we continue to solidify the foundation of the business and position it for the long term, we have made the prudent decision to take a nonroutine self-insurance adjustment, which Brett will talk about in more detail shortly. The basis of this adjustment is heavily weighted towards the adverse development of claims prior to 2024, and by addressing these issues now, this allows us to close out lingering claims that mask some of the progress we have been making. Encouragingly, if you exclude the impact of the prior year self-insurance adjustment, our business was able to largely offset the noncomparable fuel headwinds while continuing to invest in our sales force. Before moving on, I'd like to take a moment to remind everyone that we continue to focus on …
