Cintas Corporation

Cintas Corporation is the largest route-based provider of uniform rental, facility services, first aid and safety, and fire protection to more than one million businesses across North America — a business that generated $11.26 billion of revenue in fiscal 2026.

This is a story about a compounder defending an unusually long record against the two things that could break it: a $5.5 billion acquisition of its closest remaining competitor that is still waiting on antitrust clearance, and the question of whether a business that has added 450 basis points of gross margin in four years can keep going. Cintas has grown revenue in 55 of the past 57 years, and it has raised its dividend every year since going public 43 years ago. The file turns on a single question: whether UniFirst is the consolidation that extends the runway, or the deal that finally tests the discipline that made the record possible.

The company is controlled in spirit, if not in stock, by the family that founded it: Richard T. Farmer started Cintas in 1968, and Scott D. Farmer, who ran it as CEO from 2003 until 2021, remains Executive Chairman with roughly 14% of the shares. That continuity matters less as a governance footnote than as an operating fact — Cintas prices, hires, invests and now acquires on a horizon measured in decades, and the analysis below tries to take that self-image seriously on both sides.