CACI International Inc (CACI)

Investment Committee Summary

Investment Thesis

CACI International provides information solutions and services in North America and internationally — a contracted services business where revenue is recurring by contract rather than by preference, and where growth comes from winning re-competes, adding scope and buying adjacent capability. At $625 on 9 September 2026 the shares are trading rich to the engine's triangulated fair value (-31%), the widest gap in this group, and the engine reaches SELL. The market pays 25 times forward earnings for an operating margin near 7.9% while the business carries net debt of ~$5.5B — a full multiple on a thin-margin, labour-based model with acquisition debt behind it. The variable that decides this is pricing on re-competition: contracts are re-bid, and the incumbent's margin is exactly what a hungrier bidder can compete away. Two engine diagnostics deserve disclosure rather than footnoting: the modelled probability of the fair value clearing today's price is far below the band that is normally credible, and the discounted-cash-flow value diverges from the simulation median by a wide margin. The most damaging risk is a pricing reset on re-bid, which removes margin without removing revenue and is therefore invisible until it is done.

Narrative drafted 2026-08-16 by claude-opus-5 under supervision; reviewed by Marinus 2026-08-16.

The dashboard below is the whole argument on one page: spot ($625) against each valuation anchor, the scenario tree, technicals and the options-implied move.

Anti-Thesis (The Real Bear Case)

A services business that bills labour at a spread has two structural weaknesses, and both are live here. First, the margin is the spread, and at an operating margin near 7.9% there is very little of it: a couple of points conceded to win a re-compete removes a large share of profit while revenue looks unchanged, so the damage shows up late and all at once. Second, the same delivery model is the one automation compresses first — if the work can be done with fewer billable people, the customer captures that saving at the next contract, not the vendor. Debt makes both worse: net debt of ~$5.5B was raised against acquired revenue that has to keep renewing at planned margins. The multiple is the aggravating factor — 25 times forward earnings assumes durable pricing power that the contracting model does not actually confer — and the model's structural branch targets a level below the 52-week low.

Key Debate

Gross Margin explains 70% of Monte Carlo outcome variance — the single variable that decides which side is right.

What the Market Is Pricing In

At the current price, the market pays 18.6× consensus forward EPS, vs the house DCF terminal 15.0×, and a peer median 10.0×. The house DCF sits 75% below spot, so the market is pricing in more than the house case — roughly 12.7pp of revenue CAGR.

Variant perception: the house view is below-consensus, and the thesis is primarily multiple-driven.

Scenario Analysis

The scenario tree spans a structural 'Structural — Pricing / Competition Reset' downside ($231) to a 'Bull — Defensive Re-Rate' bull case ($709); the probability-weighted blend (PWEV $454) is -27% versus spot.

Share-count charge: none applied. The probability-weighted value above is the gross per-share figure — no annual dilution is deducted — stock-based compensation runs at 0.9% of revenue; free cash flow net of SBC is $0.70B. SBC is therefore disclosed, not charged: read the per-share figures as before dilution.

Scenario rationale — the driver path behind every target:

• Structural — Pricing / Competition Reset (20%, $231). Structural impairment — pricing / competition reset: earnings AND the multiple compress together. Target sits below the 52-week low by construction.
• Volume / Recession Pressure (17%, $373). Cyclical downturn — contracted service revenue + pricing + retention + bolt-on M&A weakens for 1–2 years before normalising.
• Base — Pricing + Volume + Tuck-Ins (35%, $478). Mid-cycle — normalised contracted service revenue + pricing + retention + bolt-on M&A; disciplined capital allocation; steady returns.
• Growth — Share / New-Service Expansion (20%, $603). Upside — share + new-service expansion lifts earnings above mid-cycle; the multiple expands modestly.
• Bull — Defensive Re-Rate (8%, $709). Upside tail — sustained tight conditions or a structural re-rate on share + new-service expansion.

Valuation Triangulation

Two weighted anchors — a scenario-weighted pwev and a monte carlo median (student-t + regime switching) — read them with their basis in mind. The Monte Carlo, the DCF terminal and any peer re-rate key off a market multiple, so they are not fully independent; only discounted cash flows themselves are genuinely multiple-free. The discipline is to read the spread and weight the cash-based view, not to treat two numbers as two independent votes.

The house blend DECLARES five anchor weights — DCF 35%, scenario PWEV 25%, Monte Carlo 15%, sum-of-parts 15%, peer re-rate 10%. For this name DCF, sum-of-parts, peer P/E re-rate are not computed, so 60% of the declared weight is redistributed across the anchors that exist — which is why the weights above differ from the declared ones. The fair value is unaffected by this disclosure; the blend has always worked this way.

Peer EV/Revenue re-rate — 0% weight: it duplicates the peer-multiple information already carried by the Peer P/E anchor while ignoring margin mix; weighting both would double-count the peer view. Shown as a cross-check.

DCF excluded from the weighted blend — diverges >55% from the Monte-Carlo / scenario core. For a high-leverage equity the per-share DCF (enterprise value less large net debt) is hypersensitive to the terminal multiple; a peer re-rate across heterogeneous margins is apples-to-oranges. Shown above for reference; the blend leans on the multiple-discipline and scenario anchors.

Monte Carlo — the outcome distribution

10,000 paths, Student-t shocks (fat tails) with a regime-switching overlay. The median lands at $400 and 20% of paths finish above spot. The variance decomposition shows the gross margin is the dominant swing factor (70% of variance). The fundamental driver, not the multiple, sets the spread — a cleaner setup.

DCF — the cash-flow anchor

Independent of the market multiple: a 5-year path, WACC 8.0%, 15.0x terminal FCF multiple → $158. Excluded from the weighted blend as an outlier — retained as an independent cross-check on the multiple-driven anchors.

Peer benchmarking — relative value

Against the peer cohort, re-rating to the peer-median EV/Revenue multiple implies $171; the peer-median forward P/E is 10.0x, but the engine carries no P/E-implied price for this name (no forward-EPS basis at the peer step). A premium is only justified by superior growth/margins; otherwise it is multiple risk. Excluded from the weighted blend — shown only as a market cross-check.

Across all anchors the spread is 74% of the median — wide (genuine disagreement — the blend carries low valuation confidence).

Sensitivity

DCF/share — WACC × terminal multiple

DCF/share — revenue CAGR Δ × op-margin Δ

Tornado — DCF/share swing by driver (widest first)

Company lever — SoP/share vs Recurring Business Services multiple (AI re-rating) (base 18.0x)

Peer Quality & Weighting

Quality-weighted forward P/E: 18.5× (simple median 10.0×). Direct peers count 100%, segment 50%, broad 25%.

Valuation-anchor screen: DCF (exit) (excluded (>3× or <0.3× spot)). Anchor median 314.2. Extreme/excluded anchors carry no headline weight.

Historical-range cross-check: 52-week range $435–$684, centre $545 (-13% vs spot); spot sits at the 77th percentile of the range. Low-weight mean-reversion cross-check, not a fundamental anchor.

Risk / Reward & Margin of Safety

That ratio compares triangulated upside against the probability-weighted bear target, not the extreme tail; with a leg missing it is withheld rather than computed from a magnitude. Bull case (Bull — Defensive Re-Rate): $709.

Company Overview & Business Model

CACI International Inc — TECHNOLOGY · INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY SERVICES. CACI International Inc, provides information solutions and services in North America and internationally. The company is headquartered in Arlington, Virginia.

How it makes money.

Edge. Narrow moat — inferred from a 7.9% operating margin and the commercial & environmental services business model. Some pricing power / share stability; terminal multiple near the market.

Revenue-Segment Breakdown

The company-specific drivers behind the valuation — each segment carries its own growth, margin, multiple and capex intensity. (Tags: FACT reported · ESTIMATE from disclosures · INFERENCE judgment.)

Named Exposures

Demand & pricing cycle (FACT/ESTIMATE)

Capital intensity & shareholder returns (ESTIMATE)

Structural risk vs optionality (INFERENCE)

Industry Context — Industrials — Services

This name sits in the Industrials — Services cluster as a recurring business services name. recurring B2B services (waste / uniforms / pest / facilities) + pricing + tuck-in M&A. Its scenarios are not guessed in isolation — they inherit a single, shared view of the cluster's driver cycle, so the names that depend on the same event are mutually consistent.

Value chain: RBA (recurring business services) · ULS (professional & data services) · CLH (recurring business services) · TRU (professional & data services) · CACI (recurring business services) · BAH (professional & data services) · PCTY (professional & data services) · G (professional & data services) · BCO (recurring business services) · SAIC (recurring business services) · FCN (professional & data services) · KBR (recurring business services) · EXLS (professional & data services) · LOPE (recurring business services) · MMS (professional & data services) · EXPO (professional & data services)

Mapping note: name-level 'Structural — Pricing / Competition Reset' (20%) + 'Volume / Recession Pressure' (17%) map to cluster Pricing / AI-Disintermediation Reset (37%); name-level 'Growth — Share / New-Service Expansion' (20%) + 'Bull — Defensive Re-Rate' (8%) map to cluster Upside — Share / New-Service Expansion (28%) — the cluster row is the SUM of the mapped scenario probabilities, not a different estimate.

On the cluster's key downside — Pricing / AI-Disintermediation Reset — this name implies 37% vs the cluster house view of 37% (in line with the house). The cluster's full cross-stock reconciliation governs that the names which ride the same capex cycle assign it comparable odds.

Structure: Shared State — The Industrials — Services cycle is the shared macro driver. Driver — recurring B2B services (waste/uniforms/data/payroll) + pricing + AI-disruption debate. Dispersion — Members differ by cyclicality (quality compounders vs deep cyclicals).

Balance Sheet & Liquidity

Balance-sheet data as of 2026-06-30 (Alpha Vantage).

Capital Allocation

Free-Cash-Flow Quality

Accounting quality: SBC 1% of revenue; cash conversion (OCF/NI) 166% — cash-backed.

Earnings-Call Disconfirmation & Sentiment

Derived signals from the MCH market-data store (Alpha Vantage transcripts + news). Quantitative tone only — a disconfirmation flag, not a substitute for reading the call.

Management vs analyst tone (2026Q3): management +0.63 vs analyst floor +0.01 → delta +0.63 (n=29 mgmt / 19 Q&A; 90th pctile across the S&P book, z +1.4).

Flag: ELEVATED — management unusually upbeat vs the analyst floor relative to peers (disconfirmation watch).

News (last 365d, 464 articles): avg ticker sentiment +0.28 (bullish 50% / bearish 2%)

Consensus & Market Expectations

_Consensus figures: Alpha Vantage sell-side aggregates. Where the house view sits materially above or below the street, the divergence is itself a datum — see the thesis.

Catalyst Calendar

• 2026-10-28 (~50d) — Quarterly earnings — est. EPS $6.45 (AV EARNINGS_CALENDAR)

Forecast Track Record

• EPS surprise: beat 100% of the last 8 quarters; average surprise +14.3%.
• Prior-forecast backtest (19 snapshots, 2026-07-21→2026-09-03): directional hit-rate 63%; mean predicted -22.0% vs realised +7.4%. Disconfirming track record is reported, not suppressed.

Catalyst Timeline

5 catalysts in the next 90 days (of 13 tracked). Importance 1–3; confidence 0–1.

_Sources: extended.catalysts, data/catalysts/.json, data/catalysts/macro.json, AV DIVIDENDS, opex 3rd-Friday calc.

Scenario Macro & Key Risks

Decision Rules (Machine-Checked)

Stance: Hold — 0 bullish / 1 bearish / 0 caution rules triggered of 6 evaluable (0 lacked data).

Machine-checked rules over disclosed inputs. The authored falsification triggers elsewhere in this report are analyst judgment and are NOT evaluated here. The stance is a portfolio-management signal and does not modify the published research rating.

Reasons the Thesis Could Fail (Falsifiable)

Pre-registered signals that would break the thesis — each polices a specific scenario boundary and is checked at every earnings update:

• Organic revenue growth / order backlog < flat-to-negative for two consecutive quarters (2 consecutive prints). Sustained demand rollover breaks the base case toward the recession scenario.
• FY revenue ($B) < 9.45 (next reported fiscal year). (rationale withheld pending re-authoring — frozen figure or verdict)
• Probability-weighted fair value (PWEV) at the next re-run < 625.31 (any scheduled re-run). (rationale withheld pending re-authoring — frozen figure or verdict)

Fact / Inference / Speculation

• FACT: Spot $625; 52-week range $435–$684; engine rating SELL; house target $454 (-27%). (source: Alpha Vantage 2026-09-08, 9 September 2026)
• INFERENCE: Triangulated FV $434 (-31% vs spot · triangulated FV); the rating tracks the Monte-Carlo + scenario-PWEV core; the cash-flow anchor sits below the multiple-discipline core.
• SPECULATION: At current prices the embedded bet is that Gross Margin keeps surprising favourably — an operating call the next two prints will test.

Conviction Score

Research Conviction measures the strength and quality of the research setup — input coverage, financial quality, valuation support, process agreement. It is NOT the probability that the recommendation succeeds; the forecast track record section is the evidence on that.

49.4/100 (confidence band 36.8–62.0), 17th percentile of 893 covered names (as of 2026-09-08). Weighted composite under config ros-1.20.0 — every component and its inputs below.

Score history: 49.5 → 49.5 → 49.3 → 49.1 → 49.3 → 49.0 → 49.4 → 49.5.

Probability-Weighted Return Profile

Horizon: 1 year — at this horizon CAGR equals total return by definition. Expected values are the probability-weighted sums over the full scenario set below.

The gross expected return is the probability-weighted scenario return (it reconciles to the gross PWEV); the diluted figure applies the SBC share-count charge and matches the published PWEV-based target.

Expected Alpha

Expected return minus the return this name is REQUIRED to deliver for its risk (1-year horizon). Constants are pre-registered (preregistered-static (amendment #2, 2026-07-29); not fitted to MCH outcomes).

A negative expected alpha does not change the rating — it says the expected return does not clear the risk-adjusted hurdle at today's price. Rating mechanics are unchanged by this section.

Probability Cross-Checks

Not authoritative. The scenario probabilities in this report are AUTHORED — a judgement about how the world might go, not a measurement. Nothing below modifies them, the target, the rating or any position size. These checks ask only whether anything outside our own model agrees with us; where it does not, that is information for the reader, not a correction we have quietly applied.

Authored set: 5 scenarios, probabilities summing to 1.0, mean target $454.14.

Factor Exposures

Cross-sectional percentiles over 893 covered names (style scores sector-demeaned; thematic = return-beta to the theme's proxy ETF). 50 = estate median.

Market interaction: correlation vs SPY +0.19, vs QQQ +0.13 (trailing ~1y daily returns).

Options Intelligence

Preferred structure: Put Debit Spread. The selector reads the equity view (direction) and the volatility surface — nothing here re-prices the chain.

• bearish with cheap options — buy defined-risk downside
• Direction bearish from the overlay conviction/rating (read-only input).
• IV/RV at the 2nd percentile of the cross-section → low vol bucket. This is the measure that selects the structure above: it ranks how rich this name's implied vol is against its own realised vol, relative to other names.
• Reported alongside and not used to select: this name's own ATM IV sits at the 67th percentile of its own month-end history (decile 7). The two measures disagree here — vol is high for this name by its own history while its options are not unusually rich against its realised vol. Where they diverge, the cross-sectional measure is the one acting.
• IV term structure is in contango (longer-dated richer, slope +4.9pp) — favour longer-dated ownership (LEAPS) or calendars that are long the cheaper front.

IV term structure (contango, slope +4.9pp): 38-DTE 36% · 101-DTE 40% · 192-DTE 40%

Economics copied verbatim from the options overlay (priced from the listed chain (EOD marks)); the selector does not re-price.

Alternatives: Protective Put. IV rank shown via the name's own monthly IV history (advisory); structure selected on the cross-sectional IV/RV percentile. Model output for research and education only — not individualised investment advice. Position-sizing and stance figures are mechanical outputs of the disclosed rules and inputs; they do not consider any person's objectives, financial situation, or tax status.

Position Sizing Framework

research rating is SELL-tier — the model carries no long position.

Model output for research and education only — not individualised investment advice. Position-sizing and stance figures are mechanical outputs of the disclosed rules and inputs; they do not consider any person's objectives, financial situation, or tax status.

Options Overlay

A defined-risk way to express the SELL equity view. Chain as of 2026-09-08 — end-of-day marks — indicative, not executable quotes.

Market signals — ATM IV 35.6% (subdued regime) · expected move ±9.1% (2026-10-16) · put/call OI 0.38 · ATM Δ 0.51 / Θ -0.40 / ν 0.81 · next earnings 2026-10-28. Direction: SHORT/HEDGE (implied return -30.6% to triangulated fair value $433.9).

Bear Put Spread (Bearish) — Long 620 P / Short 440 P · 2027-03-19 · net debit $54.45 · max profit $125.55 · breakeven $565.55 · RoR 231.0% · max loss $54.45 · priced from the listed chain (EOD marks)

Defined-risk downside expression: the debit caps the loss, with the position gaining as the stock falls toward the lower strike — a way to act on a bearish view without shorting stock. Subdued implied volatility currently lowers the premium paid. Illustrative — no outcome is implied or guaranteed.

Protective Put (if held) (Hedge) — Long 620 P · 2027-03-19 · premium $63.1 · floor -1.0% · max loss $63.10 · priced from the listed chain (EOD marks)

Insurance for an existing holding — a known premium buys a floor while leaving the upside intact. A way to hold through a binary event or volatility with defined downside.

Protective Collar (if held) (Hedge) — Long 560 P / Short 680 C · 2027-03-19 · net $18.3 · floor -10.0% · cap +9.0% · priced from the listed chain (EOD marks)

For a holder who wants to stay invested but cap risk: the sold call funds most of the protective put, fencing the position into a band — a way to ride out a de-rating without selling.

Indicative options structures — a defined-risk expression of the equity view, model-and-market illustrated from the last-close chain. NOT personalised advice or an executable quote; premiums, IV and greeks move intraday. Options carry the risk of total loss of premium. Not a registered financial adviser.

Rating Bridge

Rating = SELL because:

• Probability-weighted scenario value implies -27% vs spot
• Monte Carlo median implies -36% vs spot
• DCF fair value implies -75% vs spot — but this is terminal-value sensitive (exit-multiple $158 vs Gordon $228, 44% apart), so it carries less weight
• Bear case (Structural — Pricing / Competition Reset) downside is -63% vs spot
• Net: the valuation anchor itself sits 30.6% below spot, so there is no reward leg to weigh against the bear case and the reward-to-risk ratio is withheld rather than computed off a negative upside. The rating warrants a Sell.

Model Appendix

DCF — line items

FCF is bridged: NOPAT + D&A − Capex − ΔNWC (capex intensity 10% of revenue, weighted from the segments) — not a single conversion fudge.

WACC 8.0% · Σ PV(FCF) $2B + PV(terminal) $7B = EV $9B; − net debt $5.5B → equity $4B ÷ diluted shares $0.02B = $158/share (exit-multiple terminal).

• Gordon terminal at 2.5% → $228/share — a genuinely non-multiple, cash-based cross-check; the exit-multiple and Gordon values bracket the terminal-value risk.
• Incremental ROIC on the forecast capex ≈ 3% vs WACC 8.0% → below WACC — the incremental build is value-dilutive.

Peer set

Implied prices at the peer medians: EV/Rev → $171 (no P/E-implied price — no forward-EPS basis at the peer step).

Weighted fair-value math

Assumption Register

Sensitivity-ranked drivers (widest fair-value swing first): Op margin ±3pp (318.0); Capex intensity ±15% (209.0); Terminal × ±15% (86.0); WACC ±1pp (32.0); Revenue CAGR ±3pp (28.0).

Inputs, Sources & Confidence

Every load-bearing input, labelled by type and confidence. (reported fact · company guidance · consensus estimate · market data · house estimate · inference.)

Research Provenance

Load-Bearing Assumptions

DCF: WACC 8.0%, terminal multiple 15×, FY+5 revenue $12B. Triangulation leans 62% on PWEV, 37% on the Monte Carlo median.