Cintas Corporation

Cintas Corporation is an American business services company that provides uniform rental and facility services, first aid and safety products, and fire protection services to more than one million businesses across the United States, Canada, and Latin America, generating $10.34 billion in revenue in fiscal 2025. Founded in 1968 by Richard T. Farmer and headquartered in Cincinnati, Ohio, Cintas has grown revenue and earnings in 54 of its last 56 fiscal years — a consistency record that places it among a very small handful of publicly traded companies.

This is a story about a deeply moated compounder entering its next chapter. Cintas has spent five decades building an irreplaceable network of 478 facilities, 12,100 delivery routes, and 48,300 employee-partners that collectively serve as a nearly impossible-to-replicate competitive advantage. The business generates prodigious free cash flow, returns the vast majority of it to shareholders, and has only scratched the surface of a total addressable market estimated at 16 to 20 million businesses. The file turns on two questions: whether the March 2026 agreement to acquire UniFirst for $5.5 billion is the defining consolidation of the decade — or an integration risk at the top of the cycle — and whether the valuation, even after a ~25% pullback from all-time highs, adequately compensates for the uncertainty embedded in that question.