SLM Corp (SLM) Stock Analysis
SLM Corp
▾ What's in the 42/100 risk score? (higher = riskier)
Contributions (weight × component score) sum to the total. This near-term score now includes fundamental health (leverage, FCF trend). See the Financial Health section for the full balance-sheet read.
How to read SLM
We are not publishing an intrinsic value for this one — the section below says exactly why. Everything on this page that comes straight from the filings and the tape is still here; treat the missing valuation as a known gap, not as a verdict on the business.
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Reported earnings & margins ↓
What the company actually reported — unaffected by the valuation being held.
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Balance sheet & book value ↓
Assets, liabilities and equity as filed.
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Who's selling & betting against it ↓
Insider and short-interest behaviour needs no valuation model.
SLM's SEC filings give us limited machine-readable financials — common for some foreign or newly-listed filers that report under IFRS or file abbreviated statements. We can't run a full valuation on a partial dataset.
What to use instead: What we have parsed is shown below. As more complete filings arrive (or IFRS support lands), the valuation will populate.
⚠ We found no genuine same-industry (Personal Credit Institutions) comparables at all — fewer than the 4 we require for a reliable median. The 8 names in the table below therefore include 8 broader Financial Services names marked fallback, whose business models and margins differ — which is why any median below is computed over that wider set, not over true comparables. So we do not derive a peer-implied share value here. Read the multiples as rough context only.
How does SLM stack up against its closest peers?
Ideally we compare SLM only to same-industry peers, but too few exist in our universe right now, so the basket below mixes in broader-sector names. Treat the multiples as rough context, not a valuation. For a leveraged business, EV/EBIT and FCF yield (both in the table) are usually more reliable than EV/Sales, because revenue multiples ignore differences in margins and debt.
▾ What's "EV / Sales" in plain English?
EV (Enterprise Value) = market cap + total debt − cash. It's "what you'd pay to buy the entire company outright" — you pay the market cap to shareholders and take over their debt, but you keep their cash. EV is fairer than market cap alone because it includes the debt the new owner inherits.
EV / Sales = EV ÷ annual revenue. So "2.5×" means investors pay $2.50 of enterprise value per $1 of yearly sales. Higher = market is paying more per dollar of sales (usually because they expect future growth or fat margins).
p25 / median / p75 are the 25th, 50th (middle), and 75th percentile of the peers' multiples. Half the peers fall between p25 and p75. The median (p50) is the typical peer — that's the benchmark we compare to.
| EV / SalesEV / Sales — For every $1 of yearly revenue, this is how many dollars investors pay to own the whole business (including debt). Why it matters: Works for pre-profit growth companies where P/E and FCF don't apply. The most apples-to-apples cross-company multiple because it ignores accounting choices. Reference: 1–3x for mature companies · 4–10x for software/SaaS · 10–20x for hypergrowth · >20x is rare and demanding Full explanation → |
1.6x / 4.5x / 9.7x |
Bold middle number = median peer. Half the peers trade above it, half below. Computed over 8 peers (broad — see caveat); implausible multiples excluded.
⚠️ Important caveat: peer multiples only work if the peers are genuinely comparable. Always check the peer list below — if the auto-picker grabbed micro-caps or unrelated businesses, the comparison is noise. A medical-device giant priced against tiny biotech startups won't produce a useful signal.
▾ View peer list (8)
| Ticker | Company | Industry | Mcap | EV/Sales | EV/GP | EV/EBIT | FCF Yield |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| WDH | Waterdrop Inc. | Insurance Brokers ·fallback | $5.5B | 9.7x | — | 104.1x | 1.3% |
| YCL | ProShares Trust II | Investment Banking ·fallback | $5.4B | — | — | — | 31.8% |
| WTM | WHITE MOUNTAINS INSURANCE GROUP LT | Property & Casualty Insura ·fallback | $5.1B | 1.6x | — | — | 21.1% |
| VNO | VORNADO REALTY TRUST | REITs ·fallback | $6.3B | 4.8x | — | — | 2.1% |
| VOYA | Voya Financial, Inc. | Life Insurance ·fallback | $7.4B | 4.2x | — | 9.1x | 8.3% |
| WSBC | WESBANCO INC | Banks ·fallback | $4.1B | — | — | — | 5.8% |
| YB | Yuanbao Inc. | Insurance Brokers ·fallback | $4.0B | — | — | — | — |
| WSFS | WSFS FINANCIAL CORP | Banks ·fallback | $3.7B | — | — | — | 7.1% |
Quality & solvency checks
Cheap stocks can be cheap for a reason. These screens warn when a low valuation comes paired with structural fragility.
Why it matters: Cheap-looking stocks (low P/E or P/B) often have low Z-scores because the market knows the company is dying. Z-score warns you before you fall into a value trap.
Reference: > 3.0 = safe zone · 1.81–3.0 = grey zone · < 1.81 = distress zone
Full explanation →
The Z-score needs working capital, retained earnings, EBIT, sales and total assets from the latest balance sheet, and at least one of those isn't reported in machine-readable form here — common for foreign private issuers. We leave it blank rather than compute a distress verdict from an estimated input. It doesn't affect the reported figures in the financial tables below.
▾ The checks — what passed, what didn't (and what we couldn't measure)
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✓ Positive net incomeNet income $744.8M in FY2025.
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✗ Positive operating cash flowOperating cash flow -$398.6M (was -$329.4M the prior year).Why this matters: Profit can be an accounting figure; cash from running the business is harder to fake. Negative operating cash flow means the core business consumes cash and must be funded externally.
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✗ Cash flow backs up reported profitOperating cash flow -$398.6M vs net income $744.8M.Why this matters: When cash generated exceeds reported earnings, profits are high-quality (not propped up by accruals or one-time items).
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✓ Return on assets improvingReturn on assets 2.5% vs 2.0% a year ago.
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✓ Debt load (vs assets)Long-term debt is 18.0% of assets vs 21.4% a year ago ($5,362.5M of $29,746.3M assets).
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· Short-term liquidity (current ratio) (n/a — data not reported; not scored)
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✓ Share count (dilution)Share count declined 4.1% (219.9M → 210.9M year-over-year), so the no-dilution check passed. (One-year change; the multi-year buyback pace can differ.)
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· Pricing power (gross margin) (n/a — data not reported; not scored)
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· Sales per asset (asset turnover) (n/a — data not reported; not scored)
Missing data is never counted as a pass or a fail — it's shown as n/a and excluded from the denominator. Each check compares the company against its own prior year.
A standard discounted cash flowDCF — Discounted Cash Flow — sums up all future cash a business will produce, adjusted for the fact that future dollars are worth less than dollars today.
Why it matters: It is the most fundamentally honest valuation method when applicable — but only works for companies with predictable, positive cash flow.
Reference: Best for: mature, profitable businesses. Fails for: pre-profit growth, banks, REITs.
Full explanation → (DCF) valuation is not meaningful for SLM Corp because the model projects negative free cash flowFree Cash Flow (FCF) — Operating cash flow minus capital spending: cash left after a company covers operating costs, taxes and interest and reinvests in the business — but BEFORE repaying debt principal or paying dividends. The cash actually available to investors.
Why it matters: A company can show big profits on paper while burning through cash. FCF is what actually fills the bank account.
Reference: Healthy mature businesses convert 8–15% of revenue into FCF · Growth companies often negative
Full explanation →, as indicated by 'FCF negative: revenue/margin growth model projects future cash flows from revenue trajectory.' Investors are likely focused on the company's ability to generate consistent positive operating cash flow and maintain profitability. The market may be assigning value to the company's established position in the student lending market, which is not fully captured by backward-looking cash flow models. The #1 quantifiable risk is the inconsistent operating cash flow, which has been positive in only 1 of the last 5 years.
As of 3 months ago
Anatomy of a share
What you're buying per share. Bars are at the same scale so you can see the relative size of revenue, costs, cash flow, and debt — not just read them in a table.
What's free cash flow / what do these mean?
Revenue per share — how much the business earns from customers, divided by the number of shares outstanding. Top of the income statement.
Earnings per share — profit left after operating costs, interest, and taxes, per share. Two versions appear on this page and are not interchangeable: GAAP diluted EPS uses the company's weighted-average diluted share count during the reporting period (this is the "earnings" in "price-to-earnings"); net income per current share divides annual net income by today's share count. They differ whenever the share count has changed.
Owner-earnings free cash flow per share — the cash the business produces for shareholders. Savng's owner-earnings FCF subtracts capital expenditures and stock-based compensation from operating cash flow (SBC is a real dilution cost even though it's non-cash). This is deliberately more conservative than "standard" FCF, which subtracts only capital expenditures — so our figure is lower than the headline FCF you'll see elsewhere. FCF funds dividends, buybacks, debt repayment, and acquisitions; a company can report positive earnings yet negative FCF.
Debt per share — total interest-bearing borrowings divided by shares. High debt-per-share next to thin FCF-per-share is a fragility signal.
What you actually need to decide
Every stock price is a disagreement. Here's the single thing that must go right for the bulls, the single thing that breaks the thesis, and the concrete signposts to watch so you can update your view as real results arrive.
- Return to positive operating cash flow in upcoming quarters
- Growth in private education loan originations
- Further reduction in long-term debt
The trend, in plain numbers (FY2024 → FY2025, latest reported)
Straight from the financial statements — no model, no opinion. For a small or unprofitable company, the direction of these numbers usually tells you more than any single valuation.
- Net income grew +22% to $744.8M.
- Free cash flow is negative at -$439.1M — the cash burn widened vs last year.
Management & Leadership
SLM Corp, commonly known as Sallie Mae, is led by CEO Jonathan W. Witter, who assumed the role in May 2020. The company's leadership focuses on its core business of private student lending and related financial services.
What They Make
SLM Corp (Sallie Mae) provides private education loans and other financial services to students and families to help them save, plan, and pay for college. Its primary customers are students and their parents seeking financing for higher education.
End Markets
Revenue Drivers
Why Is It Priced Like This?
Why Customers Pay
What we use instead: earnings (P/E, EV/EBIT), book value (P/B) — computed from the figures this company does report, shown in the sections below. Those numbers are unaffected by the missing cash-flow data.
The market is likely pricing SLM Corp based on its consistent net income profitability (profitable 5/5 yrs) and its established brand in private student lending, despite negative operating cash flow in the latest period. The market may be assigning value to the company's ability to adapt to changes in the education finance landscape and maintain its market share, which is not in the model. Investors are likely looking for a sustained return to positive operating cash flow to validate its business model.
Business Model & Valuation
How They Make Money
SLM Corp funds itself primarily through its lending operations and debt, with long-term debt falling from $5931M to $5362M, indicating a focus on debt reduction.
Growth / Revenue DCF
Negative free cash flow: revenue/margin growth model used - standard FCF DCF is unreliable for companies still scaling.
Show advanced inputs
| Revenue Growth | 15.0% |
What this model does NOT do: this is a consolidated owner-earnings FCF model. Standalone segment assumptions: none. It does not project net interest income and fee-income lines independently; their combined effect is embedded in the historical revenue and cash-flow trend the model extrapolates. The calculator above can only approximate a segment's impact through the single consolidated growth rate — it cannot model any one line separately. For a true segment-level view, build a separate model from the company's segment disclosures.
Maturity & Competitive Position
Moat Signals
Net income has been positive in 5 out of 5 years, while operating cash flow has been positive in only 1 out of 5 years.
Geography & Markets
SLM Corp is headquartered in the United States and primarily serves the U.S. higher education market. Exact geographic segment splits are not available in current filings.
Geographic Risks
Market Signals
These are timing signals, not value signals — they describe the stock's recent price behavior, not what the business is worth. Use them for the "the thesis looks good, but is now the moment?" question. Each tile below explains what it's saying.
Why it matters: Short-term contrarian indicator. Extreme readings often precede mean reversion, though not always.
Reference: 30–70 normal · >70 overbought · <30 oversold
Full explanation → (14)50.9NeutralMomentum is balanced — neither overbought nor oversold.
Why it matters: When the fast line crosses above the slow line, short-term momentum is turning up; below, turning down. A timing cue, not a value signal.
Reference: Line above signal = bullish momentum · below = bearish
Full explanation →BullishLine above signalThe fast trend is above the slow trend — short-term momentum is currently upward.
Technicals describe price, not the business. A great company can have a "bearish" tape (a buying chance) and a weak one a "bullish" tape (a trap). Pair these with the valuation and health sections above.
QUALITY
Data Quality & Risk Flags (3 notes — click to expand/collapse)
Guardrail Notes (3)
- FCF negative: revenue/margin growth model projects future cash flows from revenue trajectory.
- INVARIANT: weighted IV is non-positive. Model may not be appropriate.
- Model implies no positive equity value under these assumptions. Valuation is speculative/low-confidence.
FINANCIALS
Financial Statements (5-year tables — click to expand)
From SLM Corp's SEC filings (EDGAR).
Income (5yr)
| Year | Revenue | Net Income | EPS |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2025 | — | 744.8M | $3.46 |
| 2024 | — | 608.3M | $2.68 |
| 2023 | — | 581.4M | $2.41 |
| 2022 | — | 469.0M | $1.76 |
| 2021 | — | 1.2B | $3.61 |
Cash Flow (5yr)
Capital expenditure isn't tagged in this filer's machine-readable data (the CapEx column shows "—"). The free-cash-flow column is therefore operating cash flow less stock-based compensation only — an upper bound on true owner earnings, not the real figure. Companies that report capex under a custom label (some large IFRS filers do) look better here than they are.
| Year | Operating CF | CapEx | − SBC & adj. | Free Cash Flow |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2025 | -398.6M | — | 40.6M | -439.1M |
| 2024 | -329.4M | — | 40.0M | -369.4M |
| 2023 | -144.6M | — | 36.4M | -181.0M |
| 2022 | 5.0M | — | 34.5M | -29.5M |
| 2021 | -49.5M | — | 30.6M | -80.2M |
How we define FCF: operating cash flow − capital expenditure − stock-based compensation (owner-earnings basis — SBC is a real cost to shareholders even though it's non-cash). Latest year: -398.6M − — − 40.6M (SBC & adj.) = -439.1M. This is the same owner-earnings FCF definition the valuation model uses, though the DCF's starting value is a projected from revenue × terminal margin, not this single year.
Balance Sheet
| Total Assets | 29.7B |
| Total Liabilities | 27.3B |
| Equity | 2.5B |
| Total Debt | 5.4B |