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What this page is: Delvantic's full research page for AAON, Inc. (AAON) — AI-driven forensic equity research: mechanical valuation models (DCF, EPV, anchored-PE, scenario) plus three independent AI lenses (Quality / Value / Sentiment). Everything below is rendered server-side; you are not missing content that requires JavaScript. All scores are predictions and research opinions, not financial advice.
Our current read (analysis of 2026-10-08): Designation Low · Gem Score -54 (−100…+100 Quality+Value blend) · Quality -23 · Value -74 · Sentiment 25 (timing only, not weighted)
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AAON, Inc.
AAON NASDAQAAON, Inc. is a commercial and industrial HVAC manufacturer that designs, engineers, manufactures, markets, and sells air conditioning and heating equipment. Its product line includes rooftop units, air handling units, coils, geothermal heat units, packaged outdoor mechanical rooms, controls, and specialized cooling systems used in data centers and cleanroom environments. The company serves building owners and operators across sectors such as commercial real estate, healthcare, education, manufacturing, and mission-critical facilities. AAON operates through three main segments: AAON Oklahoma, AAON Coil Products, and BASX, which support its mix of standard, semi-custom, and custom HVAC solutions. Based in Tulsa, Oklahoma, AAON focuses on highly configurable equipment for indoor climate control, energy efficiency, and performance in demanding applications.
Price Overview
Price History (1 Year)
Revenue & Net Income Trend
| Period | Revenue | Net Income | Net Margin | YoY/QoQ |
|---|
Key Metrics
EPS (Diluted): 1.29
Total Equity: $894.99M
Shares: 83,105,538
Total Debt: $0.00
Cash: $13,000
EBITDA: $225.44M
Total Debt: $0.00
Cash: $13,000
Revenue: $1.44B
Revenue: $1.44B
Revenue: $1.44B
Total Equity: $894.99M
Tax Rate: 16.4%
Equity: $894.99M
Total Debt: $0.00
Cash: $13,000
Current Liabilities: $330.86M
Long-Term Debt: $0.00
Total Debt: $0.00
Total Equity: $894.99M
Shares: 83,105,538
Shares: 83,105,538
CapEx: $0.00
Shares: 83,105,538
Stock Price: $77.58
Net Income: $107.59M
Industry Benchmarks
Income Statement (Annual)
Last updated: Sep 3, 2026 2:26pm (34d ago)| Metric | 2021 | 2022 | 2023 | 2024 | 2025 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Revenue | $534.5M | $888.8M | $1.2B | $1.2B | $1.4B |
| Cost of Revenue | $396.7M | $651.2M | $769.5M | $803.5M | $1.1B |
| Gross Profit | $137.8M | $237.6M | $399.0M | $397.1M | $385.7M |
| Operating Expenses | $68.6M | $110.8M | $171.5M | $188.0M | $239.5M |
| Operating Income | $69.3M | $126.8M | $227.5M | $209.1M | $146.2M |
| Net Income | $58.8M | $100.4M | $177.6M | $168.6M | $107.6M |
| EBITDA | $99.6M | $161.9M | $274.0M | $271.9M | $225.4M |
| EPS | $0.71 | $1.22 | $2.19 | $2.07 | $1.32 |
| EPS (Diluted) | $0.70 | $1.19 | $2.13 | $2.02 | $1.29 |
Balance Sheet (Annual)
Last updated: Sep 3, 2026 2:09pm (34d ago)| Metric | 2022 | 2023 | 2023 | 2024 | 2025 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cash & Equivalents | $5.5M | — | $287,000 | $14,000 | $13,000 |
| Total Current Assets | $349.1M | — | $409.0M | $488.2M | $869.2M |
| Total Assets | $813.9M | — | $941.4M | $1.2B | $1.7B |
| Current Liabilities | $145.6M | — | $126.7M | $174.9M | $330.9M |
| Long-Term Debt | — | — | — | — | — |
| Total Liabilities | $253.2M | — | $206.2M | $350.7M | $791.5M |
| Total Equity | $560.7M | — | $735.2M | $824.6M | $895.0M |
| Retained Earnings | $461.8M | $100,000 | $612.8M | $755.3M | $830.3M |
Cash Flow (Annual)
Last updated: Sep 3, 2026 2:41pm (34d ago)| Metric | 2021 | 2022 | 2023 | 2024 | 2025 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Operating Cash Flow | $61.2M | $61.3M | $158.9M | $192.5M | $534,000 |
| Capital Expenditure | -$55.4M | -$54.0M | — | — | — |
| Free Cash Flow | $5.8M | $7.3M | — | — | — |
| Acquisitions (net) | -$103.4M | $-249,000 | $0 | $0 | — |
| Net Debt Issued / (Repaid) | — | — | — | — | — |
| Dividends Paid | -$19.9M | -$22.9M | -$26.4M | -$26.1M | -$32.6M |
| Stock Buybacks | — | — | — | — | — |
| Net Change in Cash | — | — | — | — | — |
Growth Trends (YoY %)
Last updated: Sep 3, 2026 2:26pm (34d ago)| Metric | 2022 | 2023 | 2024 | 2025 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Revenue Growth | +66.3% | +31.5% | +2.7% | +20.1% |
| Gross Profit Growth | +72.4% | +68.0% | -0.5% | -2.9% |
| Operating Income Growth | +83.0% | +79.5% | -8.1% | -30.1% |
| Net Income Growth | +70.8% | +77.0% | -5.1% | -36.2% |
| EBITDA Growth | +62.5% | +69.3% | -0.8% | -17.1% |
Dividend History (Last 20)
Last updated: Sep 3, 2026 2:17pm (34d ago)| Date | Dividend | Declaration | Record | Payment |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2026-09-04 | $0.10 | — | — | — |
| 2026-06-05 | $0.10 | — | — | — |
| 2026-03-18 | $0.10 | — | — | — |
| 2025-11-26 | $0.10 | — | — | — |
| 2025-09-05 | $0.10 | — | — | — |
| 2025-06-06 | $0.10 | — | — | — |
| 2025-03-18 | $0.10 | — | — | — |
| 2024-11-29 | $0.08 | — | — | — |
| 2024-09-06 | $0.08 | — | — | — |
| 2024-06-07 | $0.08 | — | — | — |
| 2024-03-15 | $0.08 | — | — | — |
| 2023-11-28 | $0.08 | — | — | — |
| 2023-09-07 | $0.08 | — | — | — |
| 2023-06-08 | $0.08 | — | — | — |
| 2023-03-10 | $0.08 | — | — | — |
| 2022-11-25 | $0.16 | — | — | — |
| 2022-06-02 | $0.13 | — | — | — |
| 2021-11-24 | $0.13 | — | — | — |
| 2021-06-02 | $0.13 | — | — | — |
| 2020-11-25 | $0.13 | — | — | — |
Deep Analysis
Risk : Reward — upside vs downside from this company's own quarters
Not computed yetNarrative Economics
market-narrative step).
Growth Outlook
Analyzed 2026-09-03 15:00The question every valuation on this page silently assumes: is this company likely to grow? Judged forward — the business, its category, the world — against what's already printed.
Claude Reading
The raw quarterly tape tells a more interesting story than the annual aggregates suggest. Revenue has ripped from $297.7M in Q4'24 to $627.0M in Q2'26 — that's a 110% two-year sequential acceleration, and the last three quarters ($384M → $497M → $627M) are unambiguously inflecting upward, almost certainly reflecting the BASX data center cooling ramp and the CAPS acquisition contribution. But net income tells the opposite story: Q3'24 delivered $52.6M on $327M of revenue (16.1% margin), while Q2'26 delivered only $56.7M on nearly 2x the revenue (9.0%). So the business is roughly doubling top-line while absolute earnings are flat. That's the whole debate in one comparison. Gross margin has collapsed from ~34% in 2023-2024 to ~27% in 2025, and operating margin from 19.4% to 10.1% — this isn't a rounding issue, it's structural mix shift toward lower-margin data center work plus the dilutive CAPS integration.
The synthesis verdict of $49-52 fair value versus $77.58 spot feels directionally right but the composite is probably too punitive on the earnings CAGR of -22%, which is anchored to a peak 2023-2024 margin structure that may never return. Reverse-engineering: at $6.15B market cap and a run-rate ~$2.2B revenue (annualizing recent quarters), that's 2.8x sales — reasonable for a growing industrial with pricing power, expensive for a margin-compressed integrator. On earnings, if you annualize the last four quarters ($159M NI), you get a trailing P/E around 39x, not the stated 60x — the canonical metric is stale to 2025 annual. That materially changes the picture: this isn't a 60x stock, it's closer to 39x forward on a business growing 20%+ with recovering margins. Still not cheap, but the "priced for perfection" framing overstates it.
Where I break with the prior models: the "Market Headwinds / Below Sector Benchmarks / Unusual Insider Selling" trio is being read too bearishly. The insider activity is a mix of option exercises with same-day sales (tax-motivated, mechanical) and gifts (estate planning, not directional) — 189K shares of gifts on 5/29 is not a bearish signal, it's charitable/family transfer. Only ~50K shares of genuine open-market discretionary selling in the log. Second, revenue confidence is called "high, accelerating" and I agree — the sequential trajectory is real, not noise. Third, the balance sheet is pristine: zero debt, $895M equity, 2.6x current ratio. A debt-free industrial mid-cap growing 20% with a temporarily depressed margin structure and a genuine secular tailwind is not a short. The zero-OCF and $13K cash on the 2025 annual is almost certainly a data anomaly (impossible for a profitable business) and I'd discount any analysis leaning on those.
Contrarian read: if margins normalize even halfway back — say from 10% operating to 14% by 2027 — on a $2.6-2.8B revenue base (very achievable given order backlog commentary in this space), you get $360-390M operating income, ~$280M net, roughly $3.50 EPS. At 25x that's $87, at 30x it's $105. That's the bull path and it's not fantasy. The bear path is that data center cooling is competitive (Vertiv, Trane, Johnson Controls all pushing hard), 27% gross margin becomes the new normal, and multiple compresses to 22x on $2.20 normalized EPS — that's $48, which is essentially where the DCF composite lands. So the fair value range is genuinely $50-95 depending on margin recovery, and $77.58 sits squarely in the middle. I partially dissent from the synthesis: it's not overvalued at 33% premium — it's fairly valued with fat tails, and the market is correctly pricing uncertainty about margin normalization. The 50% drawdown from the 52-week high already did the de-rating work. I wouldn't chase it here but I wouldn't call it a short either. Wait for either a Q3'26 print showing margin recovery (gross >30%) or a dip toward $60 which offers real asymmetry.
GPT Reading
What jumps out is not a stable “mature earner,” but a business that just went through a sharp profitability reset and is now trying to grow its way back into an expensive valuation. The annual numbers are stark: revenue rose from $1.20B in 2024 to $1.44B in 2025, up 20%, yet operating income fell from $209.1M to $146.2M and net income dropped from $168.6M to $107.6M. Gross profit actually declined from $397.1M to $385.7M despite the higher sales base, which means the gross margin collapsed from roughly 33.2% to 26.8%. That is not noise. It says 2025 growth came at much lower incremental profitability. The quarterly path does show improvement: net margin troughed at 5.0% in 2025-06, then recovered to 8.0%, 7.6%, 8.0%, 8.0%, and 9.0% by 2026-06, while revenue accelerated to $627.0M in the latest quarter from $311.6M a year earlier. But even if I annualize the last two quarters to be generous, the business is only now climbing back toward earnings power the market seems to have been pricing in all along.
The valuation still looks too rich for that setup. At $6.15B market cap on 2025 net income of $107.6M, the trailing P/E of about 60x is not a rounding error; it requires either a step-change in margins or a prolonged period of very high growth. Price-to-sales of 4.5x and EV/EBITDA of 28x are premium software-like multiples being applied to a capital-intensive HVAC manufacturer that posted 2025 operating margin of 10.1% and ROE of 12.0%. Yes, the latest quarter was better: $56.7M of net income on $627.0M revenue implies the run-rate is improving materially. But even if AAON were to earn, say, $180M-$200M annually from here, the stock would still trade around 31x-34x earnings. That may be defensible for a clean, debt-free industrial with a unique niche and secular tailwinds, but it leaves very little room for any stumble after a year that already proved margins are not invulnerable.
The balance sheet is simultaneously a strength and a yellow flag. No debt removes financial risk and gives management room to keep investing, but cash of just $13K alongside only $534K of operating cash flow in 2025 is bizarre relative to $107.6M of net income. I agree this likely reflects reporting or working-capital distortions rather than genuine cash starvation, because those figures are too inconsistent with the income statement to take literally. Still, that inconsistency matters: when a stock carries a premium multiple, I need clean evidence of cash conversion, not just an assumption that the cash flow statement is temporarily messy. The recent insider tape does not help. Some transactions are option exercises and gifts, but there are also outright sales including 19,000 shares and other sale-linked exercises clustered in May and June 2026. That is not a thesis-killer by itself, but it is not the pattern I want to see when the bull case depends on a major earnings ramp.
The best argument against my skepticism is the one the market is clearly making: the 2025 margin collapse may have been transitory while demand is proving structurally stronger than the annual figures capture. On that view, the quarterly sequence is the real story. Revenue has gone from $297.7M in 2024-12 to $322.1M, $311.6M, $384.2M, $424.2M, $496.9M, and now $627.0M, with earnings following from $24.7M to $29.3M, $15.5M, $30.8M, $32.0M, $39.8M, and $56.7M. If that inflection is being driven by higher-value cooling applications rather than one-off catch-up shipments, then trailing annual metrics badly understate the earnings power. A debt-free manufacturer with this kind of top-line acceleration could plausibly deserve a premium to traditional HVAC peers, especially if 2024’s 14%-18% operating margin era is recoverable. I weigh that argument less heavily because the evidence for a durable margin rebound is incomplete: the latest 9% net margin is better than the 5%-8% range of the prior year, but still far below the 16.1% posted in 2024-09 and below what a 60x multiple implies.
What would change my mind is straightforward. If the next two quarters sustain revenue above $550M while net margin moves decisively into the 11%-13% range, then AAON would be demonstrating that 2025 was a temporary digestion period and that current revenue is not low-quality volume. I would also want annual operating cash flow to normalize well above net income noise—something on the order of $150M+ rather than near-zero—so the premium rests on real cash earnings. Conversely, if revenue remains strong but margins stall around 8%-9%, or if cash conversion remains weak, then the stock is still over-earning on narrative and deserves to de-rate toward a high-20s to low-30s earnings multiple, which points materially below today’s price.
Grok Reading
The numbers that matter most are the ones the valuation models are still lagging. AAON’s trailing annual picture looks like a classic margin-collapse industrial: revenue climbed from $1.17B in 2023 to $1.44B in 2025 while net income fell from $177.6M to $107.6M, operating margin compressed from roughly 19% to 10%, and gross margin slid from the mid-30s into the high-20s. That is real deterioration, not noise. Yet the quarterly sequence tells a different story. Revenue has re-accelerated hard—$311.6M, $384.2M, $424.2M, $496.9M, then $627.0M—so the first half of 2026 alone already delivered $1.12B, a run-rate that implies something closer to $2.2–2.5B if momentum holds. Net income followed, from a $15.5M trough in mid-2025 to $39.8M and then $56.7M. On a last-four-quarters basis the company is already earning roughly $159M, which puts the $6.15B market cap nearer 39x than the stated 60x annual multiple. The cash-flow line (operating CF of $534K, cash of $13K) is either a reporting artifact or a working-capital disaster; given zero debt and a clean equity base of $895M I treat it as incomplete data rather than the sole truth, but it still prevents any clean free-cash-flow underwriting.
What stands out is therefore a genuine top-line inflection colliding with still-subdued profitability and a valuation that never fully reset. At $77.58 the stock trades at 4.5x sales and 28x EV/EBITDA while ROIC sits at only 13.7% and net margin at 7–9%. That is not a mature-earner multiple; it is a growth multiple being paid while earnings power has not yet reclaimed the 2023 peak on a full-year basis. Insider activity reinforces caution—multiple open-market sales and large gifts in May–June 2026 with no offsetting buys. The data-center cooling narrative explains why the market was willing to stretch, and the 50% drawdown from the prior high shows that stretch has already been partially unwound, but $77 still embeds a recovery to mid-teens operating margins and sustained double-digit growth that the income statement has not delivered for two full years.
The strongest opposing case is straightforward and quantitative. If the $627M quarter is not a one-off and net margins stabilize even at 9%, annualized earnings approach $200M+ and the forward multiple compresses into the low-30s while revenue CAGR remains double-digit; add any mix shift back toward the 16% net margins seen as recently as Q3 2024 and earnings power clears $250–300M, making today’s price look closer to fair on a two-year view. Debt-free balance sheet, high current ratio, and accelerating quarterly revenue (20%+ recent y/y) give management room to invest through the cycle, and the secular AI/data-center cooling bid is real share-gain territory rather than pure multiple expansion. A bull can fairly argue the composite fair-value print near $52 anchors too heavily to the depressed 2025 year and under-weights the run-rate already visible in 2026.
I still weigh the compression as more permanent than temporary until proven otherwise: gross profit dollars were essentially flat from 2023 to 2025 despite a $270M revenue increase, which is structural cost or mix damage, not a one-quarter blip. Combined with unanimous insider selling and an industrial that still cannot print clean FCF in the dataset, the burden of proof sits with the bulls. I would flip to neutral or constructive on two consecutive quarters of net margins at or above 12% with operating cash flow converting at least 80% of net income, or on a full-year 2026 print that clears $2.0B revenue and $180M+ net income while capex and working-capital claims normalize. Absent that evidence the stock remains a show-me name priced for a recovery it has only begun to sketch.
Big-3 Panel — where each AI stands
Advanced Analysis Forensic deep-dive · separate lenses
AAON scaled revenue from $534M in 2021 to $1.44B in 2025, with gross margin peaking at 34.1% in 2023 and operating margin at 19.5%. That trajectory looked elite through 2023-2024. In 2025, however, revenue growth of ~20% coincided with gross margin compressing to 26.7% and operating margin collapsing to 10.1%, while net income fell from $168.6M to $107.6M. Most striking, free cash flow cratered from $192.5M in 2024 to just $534K in 2025 despite higher revenue - a working-capital or inventory build likely absorbed the cash, and OCF/NI of 0.74x plus accruals at 1.5% of assets confirm earnings ran ahead of cash. Balance sheet remains conservative: Altman Z of 6.88 is squarely safe, and the company is self-funding without material debt reliance implied. Share count actually shrank slightly (-0.4% CAGR) with SBC at only 1.3% of revenue - genuine per-share discipline, unusual and creditable. However, the Beneish M-score of -1.47 (flagged) plus the margin/FCF divergence in 2025 warrants scrutiny of revenue recognition, inventory, and receivables. Insider tape is one-sided: zero buys, $10.8M of sales across multiple officers in a compressed window, including large gifts by the founder. Not proof of anything, but not the pattern of insiders who see the 2025 setback as transient.
Verify before trusting this (5)
- 10-K breakdown of 2025 COGS and inventory - was the margin hit driven by input costs, mix (BASX/data-center), or pricing?
- Working-capital detail (receivables days, inventory days) to explain the $192M-to-$534K FCF drop
- Backlog disclosure and customer concentration, particularly data-center exposure
- Whether any revenue was pulled forward or recognized on percentage-of-completion terms that inflate accruals
- 10b5-1 plan status behind the concentrated May 2026 insider sales
Composite FV sits at $49.31 and signal-adjusted FV at $52.31 versus a $78.14 price - roughly 33% downside on the blended read. The EPV floor of $15.36 looks like a runaway low-end method and should be discounted, but the anchored-PE of $83.25 only holds if you extrapolate the pre-2025 margin trajectory, which just broke. Splitting the difference around the mid-$50s as deserved value still leaves the stock ~40% rich.
Verify before trusting this (4)
- Is the 2025 margin compression cost-driven (raw materials, mix) or structural (pricing power loss)?
- Data-center/backlog disclosures in the next 10-Q - order growth vs conversion to cash
- Management commentary on FCF recovery timing and working-capital normalization
- Whether insider selling continues after the print
The tape is mildly constructive (regime +19, VIX 15) and AAON is a high-beta (1.44) industrial that benefits when risk appetite holds, but the real force here is narrative-specific: AAON has been pulled into the AI/data-center cooling story, and the May Q1 print (sales +54% YoY, EPS beat 53%, guide raise) hard-validated that framing. That is the dominant non-fundamental pressure right now - a credible story with recent proof, which is why momentum has re-accelerated (20% recent vs 11% long-term). Against that, the archetype is only 'steady-compounder' with moderate intensity and low cult - this is not a mania name, so the tailwind is real but not violent. Headwinds are the macro backdrop (10y 4.79%, market PE 25.8) which weighs on a name already carrying a ~49% premium to DCF; any risk-off flare-up hits a 1.44-beta industrial harder than the tape average. Analyst tone is not flagged as diverging, and news flow is quiet/positive. Net: moderate tailwind, driven by the data-center cooling narrative riding on top of a recently confirmed earnings beat, partially offset by rate/valuation macro pressure on a premium-multiple, high-beta name.
Verify before trusting this (4)
- Any softening in hyperscaler capex commentary that would crack the data-center cooling narrative
- Next quarter's data-center segment order/backlog cadence - the story needs continued proof
- 10y yield breakout above 5% which would pressure premium-multiple industrials
- Analyst target revisions after the Q1 beat - are they still catching up or already ahead
The world is bifurcating construction capex. Rate-sensitive commercial real estate, education and general non-residential building are being squeezed by a 4.79% 10-year and macro headwinds — that is the contraction the sector reads. Simultaneously, datacenter shell construction is the single largest privately funded capex program running, and cooling is the binding physical constraint on rack density. AAON sits on both sides: its legacy rooftop line is exposed to the weak half, its BASX/packaged-mechanical-room line to the strong half. The refrigerant transition (R-454B) that disrupted 2025 ordering is a one-time regulatory reset that also raises replacement-unit content value going forward. Industry-wide margin expansion of +2.2pp operating suggests HVAC OEMs currently hold pricing power, which is unusual for a commodity-adjacent build and unlikely to persist indefinitely once capacity across the industry catches up.
Prediction unavailable. valuation-synthesis has no result for AAON — the prediction needs its fair-value anchors.