CluenexSonoco Products SON
Sonoco Products scores average on business quality (5.1 of 10). Here is why, in plain words, and what our sealed record shows.
Why it matters
- What Sonoco Products does
Sonoco Products manufactures consumer and industrial packaging products, selling directly to global brands and manufacturers who rely on its paper-based tubes, cores, and containers to ship goods.Revenue stands at $7.5 billion as the company integrates recent acquisitions and scales its core packaging segments globally.
- What it does best
Sonoco achieves a top decile revenue growth rank of 90 in its sector, driven by aggressive dealmaking that rapidly expands its top line to $7.5 billion compared to peers like Packaging Corporation of America at 7.2%.
- The main risk
With total debt at $4.3 billion and interest coverage at 3.7x, debt servicing consumes a substantial portion of earnings, leaving little margin for error if input costs spike.
Quality, check by check
Scored against its own industry, from company filings.
Operating margin rests at 9.9% with a net margin of 8.4%, generating an ROE of 17.9% that shows decent returns on equity despite thin underlying operating margins.
Sonoco holds a gross margin of 20.8%, ranking in the bottom quartile of its sector at 33, indicating that intense competition limits pricing power despite industrial lock-in.
Revenue growth surged to 41.7% over the latest period, jumping from $5.3 billion to $7.5 billion, representing a sharp acceleration from historical flat trends.
Debt-to-equity sits high at 1.2, paired with free cash flow of $355 million and modest interest coverage of 3.7x, leaving the balance sheet soft and pressured by obligations.
Insiders
Executives and directors, from SEC Form 4 filings we read ourselves. Open market trades only; grants, option exercises and pre-planned sales left out.
1 insider bought $249K on the open market. 1 sold $15K outside pre-planned sales.
Our sealed record on SON
Verdicts appear here 30 days after we publish them; members see today's. Each one is in the nightly ledger, fingerprinted the night it was made.
The first sealed verdicts appear here on Oct 11, 2026.
Questions
Sonoco Products scores average on the Cluenex quality check (5.1 of 10), measured against its own industry. Profitability is weak, moat fair, growth fast and financial health weak.
In the last 90 days of SEC Form 4 filings: 1 insider bought $249K on the open market. 1 sold $15K outside pre-planned sales.
Oct 21, 2026.
See SON today
- Today's verdict on SON, and why
- Fair value with cautious, base and optimistic cases
- The exact price that would change the verdict
- Which stocks each signal names, the night it fires
Cite this page: Cluenex, “Sonoco Products (SON)”, https://cluenex.com/stocks/son/, data as of Oct 10, 2026.