Equifax EFX
The owner of the payroll database America uses to check income, inside a credit bureau tied to the mortgage cycle. The open question is whether government and hiring checks keep growing while mortgages shrink again. Seven questions that follow the money through the business, the price and the tape. Every number comes from SEC filings and market data, and every score from a rule printed next to it.
What this File stands on. Annual figures: FY2025 10-K (year to 2025-12-31, filed 2026-02-19). "Last 12 months" figures add the quarters through 2026-09-30 (10-Q, filed 2026-10-20). Prices to 2026-10-21. The numbers rebuild every Monday, so each new 10-Q or 10-K appears within a week of filing. The written parts (business, defences, risks, the read) are from the FY2025 10-K, and the terminal read is dated 2026-10-20.
43 cents of every revenue dollar come from Workforce Solutions, up 6% on the year.
What it does
One of the three US credit bureaus, and owner of The Work Number, a payroll database that lenders, employers and states use to check what someone earns and where they work.
How it charges
It charges per check. Income and job verifications from The Work Number are the biggest line, then US credit reports and scores, then credit data in 24 other countries.
Who buys, and why
Mortgage, card and auto lenders, employers, and federal and state agencies running SNAP and Medicaid. The largest client is about 3% of revenue. They come because no one else has payroll data on 110 million people.
Of every $100 of sales, $15 is left for owners once staff stock pay is counted as a cost.
Owner earnings = operating cash flow minus capital spending minus stock-based pay. Stock pay is a real cost: it is paid in shares instead of cash.
What it is building Harvesting
It spends little on growth. The business is being run for cash, not built.
R&D is treated as an investment written off over 5 years. Capital spending up to depreciation keeps the business standing; anything above it is growth spending. A company that puts more than 10% of sales into R&D and growth capex is building; it is paying off when after-tax profit has grown by at least 12 cents for every extra dollar of capital it put in.
Dilution is held to 0.2% a year, so the company's growth mostly reaches each share.
CEO Mark Begor, in the seat since 2018.
The strongest defence is network effects.
Verification is wired into mortgage underwriting and state benefit systems, but the 10-K says many client contracts can be ended for convenience on short notice.
More than 4 million employers send payroll data for free, which makes every check more likely to hit, which draws more verifiers and more contributors. Active records grew 12% this year.
One cloud data platform across 25 countries spreads fixed cost, but Experian and TransUnion run at similar scale in credit.
Decades of credit files and a regulated bureau position are hard to copy, though the 2017 breach still sits in the risk factors.
Sources are rated from the annual report (notes file). The two evidence checks are computed: margins that hold and high returns on capital are what a real defence looks like in the numbers.
A reverse discounted cash flow: the growth today's price requires, set against what the business has actually delivered, and how that changes if you demand a different return.
The IVT terminal read on the weekly and daily charts: bias, money flow, strength, whether the entry window is open, and the sharp captures.
The worst fall of the last five years, the balance sheet, the pressure points and the specific conditions that would break the case.
Where the business sits on quality against price, the quality score line by line, and the conclusion.
The rest of the EFX File
Chapters 5 to 8: the growth today\'s price assumes, the full IVT terminal read with sharp captures, what would break the case, and the final read.
Where every number comes from 13 figures, each linked to its SEC filing
| Figure | Value | Period | Filing |
|---|---|---|---|
| Revenue | $6.1B | FY25 | 10-K, filed 2026-02-19RevenueFromContractWithCustomerExcludingAssessedTax |
| Operating income | $1.1B | FY25 | 10-K, filed 2026-02-19OperatingIncomeLoss |
| Net income | $660M | FY25 | 10-K, filed 2026-02-19NetIncomeLoss |
| Operating cash flow | $1.6B | FY25 | 10-K, filed 2026-02-19NetCashProvidedByUsedInOperatingActivities |
| Capital spending | $481M | FY25 | 10-K, filed 2026-02-19PaymentsToAcquireProductiveAssets |
| Stock-based pay | $78M | FY25 | 10-K, filed 2026-02-19ShareBasedCompensation |
| Buybacks | $928M | FY25 | 10-K, filed 2026-02-19PaymentsForRepurchaseOfCommonStock |
| Dividends | $233M | FY25 | 10-K, filed 2026-02-19PaymentsOfDividendsCommonStock |
| Diluted shares | 124M | FY25 | 10-K, filed 2026-02-19WeightedAverageNumberOfDilutedSharesOutstanding |
| Cash and investments | $193M | 2026-09-30 | 10-Q, filed 2026-10-20CashAndCashEquivalentsAtCarryingValue |
| Debt due within a year | $158M | 2026-09-30 | 10-Q, filed 2026-10-20DebtCurrent |
| Long-term debt | $5.0B | 2026-09-30 | 10-Q, filed 2026-10-20LongTermDebtNoncurrent |
| Shareholders' equity | $4.5B | 2026-09-30 | 10-Q, filed 2026-10-20StockholdersEquity |
Educational research, not investment advice and not a recommendation to buy or sell any security. Scores are mechanical and reproducible from public filings; the notes are the author's judgment. Author position in EFX: none. Sources: SEC EDGAR XBRL company facts (filings to 2026-09-30), daily prices to 2026-10-21. Past performance does not predict future returns.