Subtitle: Don’t Cancel Your Favorite Show (Yet). 🦊📉➡️📈

🦊 What on Earth Is Fox Factory?

Fox Factory Holding Corp. (FOXF), based in Duluth, Georgia, is basically where fun toys meet serious engineering:

• 🚙 Powered vehicles: Off-road trucks, side-by-sides, ATVs, snowmobiles, motorcycles.

• 🚵 Bikes: High-end suspension, forks, shocks, wheels (FOX, Race Face, Easton, Marzocchi).

• 🧢 Aftermarket & upfitting: Lift kits, wheels, tires, lighting, body kits, custom truck builds (Black Widow, Rocky Ridge, etc.).

• ⚾ Sports gear: Marucci baseball & softball bats, gloves, and gear.

If it flies over rocks, hammers down trails, or hits home runs, Fox probably sells something that makes it perform or look cooler.

The problem? The stock has looked anything but cool lately.

• ATH: ~$190.29 in Nov 2021

• Recent price: ~$14.21 (down ~92.5% from the peak) 😬

And that’s exactly where things get interesting…

🎯 Trigger 1 – The CEO Just Can’t Stop Buying

When a CEO keeps buying shares on the way down, you either have:

• A future turnaround legend, or

• A case study in “hope is not a strategy.”

Recent insider buys:

• Nov 2025: CEO Michael Dennison buys 22,000 shares at ~$14.20

• 2024: Multiple CEO buys between $41–44, plus board members buying in the mid-30s and high-30s

Translation:
The CEO and directors have been adding all the way down, and many of those buys are now deep red. Yet they’re still buying. That’s conviction… or masochism. 😅

For investors, heavy open-market insider buying—especially after a brutal drawdown—often signals “we think this is too cheap” from the people closest to the numbers.

🏦 Trigger 2 – Institutions Own More Than 100% of the Float (!)

Institution breakdown:

• ~101.9% of shares held by institutions

• ~102.4% of float held by institutions

• 337 institutional holders

Top holders include:

• BlackRock (owns more than 15% of shares outstanding)

• Vanguard (>10%)

• RWWM (>5%)

• William Blair (>5%)

• FIL, State Street, Dimensional, etc.

Owning over 100% of the float usually means:

• There’s heavy institutional involvement,

• Plus shorting + stock lending that leads to overlapping claims.

It’s not magic; it’s plumbing. But it does tell you the stock isn’t exactly ignored by the pros. Big money is all over this thing—on both sides.

For Fox Factory (FOXF)'s Institutional Ownership breakdown, 🔍 see here.

🐻 Trigger 3 – Shorts Are Here… But It’s Not a Stampede

• Short interest: ~4.7% of float

So you do have bears, but this isn’t meme-stock territory. It’s more like:
“Yeah, there are problems, but this isn’t GameStop 2.0.”

📊 The Business: Still Moving, Just Bumpier

From the latest quarter (Q3 FY 2025):

• Net sales: $376.4M, up 4.8% YoY

• Segments:

  • AAG (Aftermarket): +17.4% – strong demand for aftermarket parts 🔧

  • PVG (Powered Vehicles): +15.1% – motorcycle & powersports strength 🏍️

  • SSG (Specialty Sports, e.g. bikes): -11.2% – OEMs and retailers cutting inventory 🚲

• Gross margin: 30.4% (up 50 bps YoY)

• Net result: Small net loss of ~$0.6M (-$0.02 per share)

• Adjusted EBITDA: $44.4M (up 5.7%), margin ~11.8%

Nine-month story:

• Revenue: $1.11B, up 6.3%

• Adjusted EBITDA: $133.3M (slightly up YoY)

• BUT: Net loss ~$257.6M, thanks largely to a goodwill impairment (~$262M) and restructuring.

So underneath the accounting carnage and restructuring noise:

• Sales are growing mid-single digits

• Adjusted EBITDA is positive and improving

• But GAAP earnings are a mess and the bike/OEM world is still in inventory-hangover mode.

✂️ Cost Cuts, Tariffs & Tough Love

Management is:

• Running a $25M cost-reduction program (phase 1, with phase 2 coming).

• Dealing with tariff headwinds and product mix shifts (less bike OEM juice, more aftermarket & powersports).

• Focused on:

  • Margin improvement

  • Better free cash flow

  • Paying down debt

  • Being ready for a cyclical rebound instead of face-planting into it.

This is classic “turnaround + optimization” mode. Not pretty… but sometimes profitable.

 👉 Want the full picture? Dive into Fox Factory (FOXF)'s financials here.

💸 Valuation: From Growth Darling to Discount Bin

Using the latest metrics:

• Forward P/E: ~8.4× (about half of what it was a year ago)

• Price/Sales: ~0.38× (hello, value aisle)

• Price/Book: ~0.58× (bargain-basement vibes)

• EV/Revenue: ~0.82×

• EV/EBITDA: ~16.8× (not dirt cheap, but EV is inflated by debt and EBITDA is still catching up)

Put simply:

The market is pricing Fox Factory like a cyclical, bruised, slightly over-levered industrial, not the premium “bike & off-road rock star” it used to be.

If revenue steadies, margins bounce, and profits ramp back up, the re-rating potential can be big. If things keep deteriorating, “cheap” becomes “value trap.” 

🟢 Bullish Case – Why Some See a Foxy Opportunity

Reasons some investors are sniffing around FOXF:

• 🦊 Strong brand portfolio in bikes, off-road, trucks, and performance gear

• 🧪 Ongoing innovation in suspension and upfitting (the gearhead crowd cares)

• 🧱 Installed base & enthusiasts: Once you’re in the Fox ecosystem, you often stay there

• 🧠 Insider conviction: CEO & directors buying aggressively, including at much higher prices

• 🏦 Institutional love: >100% of float tied up by institutions and stock lending

• 💰 Valuation reset: Stock down >90% from highs; multiples now look “value-ish”

If the company executes on cost cuts, fixes mix issues, and demand normalizes, the stock could see serious upside from depressed levels.

🔻 Bearish Case – Why Others Say “For Fox’ Sake, Be Careful”

Key risks:

• 💥 Goodwill impairment & restructuring: Big write-downs = broken expectations.

• 🚲 Bike & OEM weakness: SSG under pressure as OEMs + dealers work down inventory.

• 🧾 Tariffs + costs: Tariffs and input costs continue to squeeze margins.

• 🧮 Debt + macro risk: Higher rates, weaker consumer spending, and discretionary nature of products = cyclical risk.

• 📉 From growth to “show-me” story: The market no longer gives Fox the benefit of the doubt; they have to earn their way back.

This is not a sleepy dividend utility. It’s a cyclical, discretionary, turnaround-ish name with real execution risk.

💡💡💡 Curious about another deep oil exploration play?
Check our takes on UnitedHealth Group or even Oscar Health.

⚡ Quick Take / TL;DR

• Fox Factory designs and sells high-performance suspension, truck upfits, and sports gear.

• Stock is down ~92.5% from its peak, now trading at value-like multiples (P/S ~0.4, P/B ~0.6, forward P/E ~8×).

• CEO and board members have been buying heavily, including a fresh CEO buy around $14.20.

• Institutions hold more than 100% of the float, implying heavy institutional positioning and stock lending.

• Business is still growing top line mid-single digits, with positive adjusted EBITDA, but GAAP earnings are ugly due to goodwill impairment, tariffs, and restructuring.

• Best fit: Patient, risk-tolerant investors looking for a possible multi-year turnaround/value story—not short-term certainty.

❓ FAQ

Q: Is Fox Factory a value play or a value trap?
A: Right now, it’s flirting with both labels. The low valuation and insider/institutional ownership scream “value,” but the impaired goodwill, tariffs, debt, and cyclical headwinds scream “prove it.” This is a turnaround + cyclical bet, not a cozy blue-chip.

Q: What’s the biggest green flag?
A: The combo of CEO buying at current levels, prior buys at much higher prices, and heavy institutional ownership suggests that many informed players think the business is fixable, not doomed.

Q: What’s the biggest red flag?
A: The massive goodwill impairment, ongoing restructuring, and pressure in the bike/OEM segment. When a former market darling trades at a fraction of book value, it’s often because the market doesn’t fully trust the future cash flows yet.

Q: Who might consider FOXF?
A: Investors who:

• Understand cyclical, discretionary, gearhead-adjacent businesses

• Are comfortable with volatility and multi-year holds

• Like insider-buy + cheap-multiple setups

• Can emotionally handle seeing the stock stay ugly longer than they’d like

Q: Could this bounce hard if things go right?
A: Yes. When a stock is down over 90% and the underlying business is still generating revenue and adjusted EBITDA, even modest improvements in margins, tariffs, and sentiment can drive outsized upside. But if execution disappoints, there’s no law saying it can’t get cheaper first.

🧾 Not-So-Standard Disclaimer (With a Fox Twist)

This is education and entertainment, not financial advice. 🦊
I’m not your financial advisor; I’m your FUNanc1al narrator.

If you’re intrigued by Fox Factory:

• 🔍 Do your own research

• 📏 Size positions to your risk tolerance

• 🧊 Keep your FOMO and your shocks well-dampened

Foxes are clever, but markets can still bite.
Invest at your own risk… for Fox’ sake. 😄 

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