BrightView released its results for the quarter ended December 31, 2025, and hosted a call with investment analysts recently. There were several disclosures that BrightView’s competitors will find interesting.
- BrightView’s enterprise value is approximately 7.5 times EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization), less than the multiple paid for many private landscape companies.
- BrightView’s landscape maintenance revenue declined 2.7% in the 12 months ended December 31, 2025, as compared with the year earlier.
- BrightView’s customer retention rose slightly to 83.5% in the 12 months ended December 31, 2025. BrightView’s long stated goal is 90%+.
- BrightView’s annual employee turnover has fallen 30 points from approximately 95% at September 30, 2023, to approximately 65% at December 31, 2025.
- Since September 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% or $79 million.) The company has a goal of adding 320 net additional people by 2030.
- BrightView is forecasting 1-2% growth for its landscape maintenance business and 0-2% growth for its construction business for the 12 months ended September 30, 2026, as compared with the 12 months ended September 30, 2025.
- BrightView had no acquisitions in the past 11 quarters. Management says the company has a robust acquisition pipeline, but they believe it is a better use of cash to repurchase the company’s stock at 7.5 times EBITDA than pay 8-9 times EBITDA to acquire landscape companies.
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 US 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 December 31, 2023.
To see short-term trends, the following table shows operating results for each of the past five quarters:
| Qtr Ended | Qtr Ended | Qtr Ended | Qtr Ended | Qtr Ended | |
| Dec-24 | Mar-25 | Jun-25 | Sep-25 | Dec-25 | |
| Snow removal services | 32.4 | 172.5 | 5.9 | – | 68.4 |
| Landscape maintenance | 376.9 | 320.3 | 502.9 | 480.4 | 368.0 |
| Landscape development | 191.8 | 171.9 | 201.3 | 224.1 | 179.2 |
| Eliminations | (1.9) | (2.1) | (1.8) | (1.8) | (0.9) |
| Net service revenues | 599.2 | 662.6 | 708.3 | 702.7 | 614.7 |
| Year over year growth rate | 2.6% | ||||
| Cost of services | 472.4 | 515.1 | 537.4 | 526.2 | 500.4 |
| Gross profit | 126.8 | 147.5 | 170.9 | 176.5 | 114.3 |
| Gross profit margin | 21.2% | 22.3% | 24.1% | 25.1% | 18.6% |
| Selling, general and admin (SG&A) expenses | 119.3 | 118.1 | 106.2 | 114.2 | 115.2 |
| Adjustments | (14.0) | (13.1) | (8.9) | (9.8) | (11.3) |
| Ongoing SG&A expenses | 105.3 | 105.0 | 97.3 | 104.4 | 103.9 |
| SG&A as a % of revenue | 17.6% | 15.8% | 13.7% | 14.9% | 16.9% |
| Adjusted operating income | $21.5 | $42.5 | $73.6 | $72.1 | $10.4 |
| Operating profit margin | 3.6% | 6.4% | 10.4% | 10.3% | 1.7% |
To see long-term trends, the following table shows operating results for each of the past four 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% |