BrightView released its results for the quarter ended ended Dec. 31, 2025, and hosted a call with investment analysts recently. Highlights include the company’s stock position, customer retention and staffing up.
BrightView is currently valued at an enterprise value of approximately 7.5 times EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization). Notably, this valuation multiple is lower than the average multiples paid for many private-sector landscape companies. BrightView’s landscape maintenance revenue fell 2.7 percent year-over-year for the period ending December 31, 2025.
BrightView’s year-over-year customer retention rose slightly to 83.5 percent while its long-stated goal is 90+ percent. Annual employee turnover has fallen 30 points from approximately 95 percent at Sept. 30, 2023, to approximately 65 percent at December 31, 2025.
Since Sept. 30, 2024, BrightView has added a net of 135 salespeople and 45 customer-facing support people. (During that period, revenue has declined by 2.9 percent or $79 million.) The company has a goal of adding 320 net additional people by 2030.
BrightView is forecasting 1-2 percent growth for its landscape maintenance business and 0-2 percent growth for its construction business for the 12 months ended Sept. 30, 2026, as compared with the 12 months ended Sept. 30, 2025.
Despite having a robust pipeline, BrightView has not made any acquisitions in the past 11 quarters. Management is prioritizing stock repurchases, saying that buying back shares at 7.5 times EBITDA offers better value than acquiring landscape companies at eight to nine times EBITDA.
Income statement summary
In its public reports, BrightView “adjusts” its earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization and net income for certain expenses. I have used some of these adjustments for operating income in the tables below. The idea is that these expenses are not part of ordinary operations. Historically, the adjustments included expenses associated with business transformation and integration, becoming a public company and defending shareholder lawsuits, paying some employees partially through equity-based compensation, and some other unusual expenses.
For the accounting experts: Note that I have excluded from operating income the expense related to the amortization of intangible assets that were recorded as BrightView acquired other businesses and the gain on divestiture. Since most landscape companies do not have these items, I have excluded them so that management teams can compare their numbers to BrightView’s numbers.
The sale of U.S. Lawns and the discontinuation of BES make it more difficult to compare BrightView’s more recent financial results for landscape maintenance and snow removal with periods prior to Dec. 31, 2023.
To see short-term trends, the following table shows operating results for each of the past five quarters:
To see long-term trends, the following table shows operating results for each of the past 4 years:
| Year Ended | Year Ended | Year Ended | Year Ended | |
| Dec-22 | Dec-23 | Dec-24 | Dec-25 | |
| Snow removal services | 282.1 | 186.9 | 213.5 | 246.8 |
| Landscape maintenance | 1,844.9 | 1,838.7 | 1,717.5 | 1,671.6 |
| Landscape development | 718.5 | 769.0 | 815.2 | 776.5 |
| Eliminations | (6.8) | (7.8) | (6.6) | (6.6) |
| Net service revenues | 2,838.7 | 2,786.8 | 2,739.6 | 2,688.3 |
| Year over year growth rate | -1.8% | -1.7% | -1.9% | |
| Cost of services | 2,156.2 | 2,121.7 | 2,101.0 | 2,079.1 |
| Gross profit | 682.5 | 665.1 | 638.6 | 609.2 |
| Gross profit margin | 24.0% | 23.9% | 23.3% | 22.7% |
| Selling, general and admin (SG&A) expenses | 537.6 | 525.7 | 485.9 | 453.7 |
| Adjustments | (40.3) | (51.6) | (62.6) | (43.1) |
| Ongoing SG&A expenses | 497.3 | 474.1 | 423.3 | 410.6 |
| SG&A as a % of revenue | 17.5% | 17.0% | 15.5% | 15.3% |
| Adjusted operating income | $ 185.2 | $ 191.0 | $ 215.3 | $ 198.6 |
| Operating profit margin | 6.5% | 6.9% | 7.9% | 7.4% |
