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Burford Capital
(NYSE:BUR)
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Rating:49Neutral
Price Target:
$4.00
▼(-8.26% Downside)
Action:Reiterated
Date:09/29/26
The score is held back primarily by inconsistent cash generation and recent weakening in revenue/earnings, alongside bearish technicals with the stock trading below key moving averages and negative momentum. A decent dividend yield and a constructive debt-refinancing event provide partial support but do not fully offset the financial and trend-related risks.
Positive Factors
Specialized legal finance business model
Burford operates in a specialized legal-finance niche where capital is linked to legal recoveries rather than conventional lending alone. Its financing, portfolio solutions and asset-management activities provide multiple ways to deploy expertise and earn returns across corporate and law-firm matters.
Negative Factors
Declining revenue and earnings
Recent deterioration in revenue and earnings indicates that prior strong results have not translated into a stable growth trajectory. Continued weakness would reduce internal capacity to fund new legal investments and could make reported performance more dependent on the timing of individual realizations.
Read all positive and negative factors
Positive Factors
Negative Factors
Specialized legal finance business model
Burford operates in a specialized legal-finance niche where capital is linked to legal recoveries rather than conventional lending alone. Its financing, portfolio solutions and asset-management activities provide multiple ways to deploy expertise and earn returns across corporate and law-firm matters.
Read all positive factors
Burford Capital (BUR) vs. SPDR S&P 500 ETF (SPY)
Market Cap
$860.77M
Dividend Yield3.27%
Average Volume (3M)1.76M
Price to Earnings (P/E)―
Beta (1Y)1.59
Revenue Growth-337.19%
EPS Growth-798.12%
CountryUS
Employees172
SectorFinancial
Sector Strength70
IndustryAsset Management
Share Statistics
EPS (TTM)-0.08
Shares Outstanding219,584,500
10 Day Avg. Volume2,403,005
30 Day Avg. Volume1,762,492
Financial Highlights & Ratios
PEG Ratio-0.54
Price to Book (P/B)0.80
Price to Sales (P/S)5.75
P/FCF Ratio-66.72
Enterprise Value/Market Cap<0.01
Enterprise Value/Revenue>-0.01
Enterprise Value/Gross Profit<0.01
Enterprise Value/Ebitda>-0.01
Forecast
1Y Price Target
$5.85Price Target Upside34.17% Upside
Rating ConsensusModerate Buy
Number of Analyst Covering1
EPS Forecast (FY)-6.78
Revenue Forecast (FY)-$1.29B
Burford Capital Business Overview & Revenue Model
Company Description
Burford Capital Limited provides legal finance products and services worldwide. The company operates in two segments, Principal Finance, and Asset Management and Other Services. The Principal Finance segment provides capital against the underlying...
How the Company Makes Money
Burford primarily makes money by investing capital into legal matters and earning returns that are contingent on case outcomes. Its key revenue and earnings sources include: (1) Litigation and arbitration finance (legal asset investing): Burford p...
Burford Capital Earnings Call Summary
Earnings Call Date:May 08, 2026
(Q1-2026)
| % Change Since: |
Next Earnings Date:Nov 05, 2026
Earnings Call Sentiment Positive
The call emphasized a strong, large and diversified core litigation finance business with healthy liquidity, robust new business momentum and substantial modeled future cash realizations. Key metrics included $740 million in cash and marketable securities, $133 million of Q1 new commitments (up 25% vs. recent Q1 average), $1.3 billion of unfunded definitive commitments, and more than $3.8 billion of cumulative realizations. Major negatives centered on the significant noncash YPF appellate loss and related accounting write-down, several one-off charges (including a $19 million case-related expense recognition and FX impact tied to redemption), and fair-value accounting and discount-rate headwinds that compressed reported capital provision income. Management presented a clear plan to focus the narrative on the core portfolio, harvest cash, manage expenses and delever over time while remaining comfortable with current leverage. Given the breadth and strength of operational highlights and cash-related metrics relative to the primarily noncash and manageable lowlights, the overall tone is constructive.Positive Updates
Large, Diversified Portfolio and Scale
237 active assets (around 900 cases when multicase matters counted), widely diversified across geographies and case types, producing accelerating realizations and substantial runway for future cash generation.
Negative Updates
YPF Adverse Appellate Decision and Large Noncash Write-Down
Unfavorable divided appellate panel ruling on the YPF matter led to a substantial noncash valuation write-down of the YPF asset; while management stresses this is noncash and that the investment generated a cash profit of more than $100 million, the accounting impact materially affected reported results and increased near-term volatility.
Read all updates
Q1-2026 Updates
Positive
Negative
Large, Diversified Portfolio and Scale
237 active assets (around 900 cases when multicase matters counted), widely diversified across geographies and case types, producing accelerating realizations and substantial runway for future cash generation.
Read all positive updates
Company Guidance
Management's guidance emphasized strong liquidity and a cash-first view: visibility to >$280M of cash so far in 2026 and $740M of cash & marketable securities at quarter end (after a $500M debt raise in January). Q1 new definitive commitments were $133M with $108M deployed, $1.3B of unfunded definitive commitments and $600M+ of discretionary capacity; the firm reports 237 active assets (≈900 cases) and models >$5B of realizations with a modeled ROIC of ~110% (historical ROIC ~82%), cumulative realizations of $3.8B (>$6B group-wide), and Q1 realizations of $97M from 25 assets. Portfolio metrics: 35% vintage 2015–2019, concluded weighted‑average life 2.6 years (up from 2.3), active deployed capital life 3.4 years, 36 trials/merit hearings scheduled in 2026, and ~23 assets with potential to generate $10M+ in 2026. Balance‑sheet and leverage: net debt ~$1.7B, debt/equity ~1.35x (incurrence covenant 2.0x), debt WAL 5.5 years vs concluded assets WAL 2.6 years; ratings Ba1 (Moody’s) and BB (S&P). They reiterated intent to delever over time, noted a noncash YPF write‑down despite >$100M cash profit, a $19M case‑cost charge, and a ~50bp discount‑rate headwind to capital provision income.Burford Capital Financial Statement Overview
Summary
Income Statement
58
Neutral
Balance Sheet
64
Positive
Cash Flow
38
Negative
| Breakdown | TTM | Dec 2025 | Dec 2024 | Dec 2023 | Mar 2023 | Dec 2021 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Income Statement | ||||||
| Total Revenue | -1.55B | 339.85M | 472.25M | 1.08B | 270.62M | 108.12M |
| Gross Profit | 105.64M | 193.77M | 341.23M | 1.06B | 195.62M | 51.67M |
| EBITDA | -2.53M | 84.03M | 253.59M | 821.19M | 113.38M | 5.98M |
| Net Income | -1.65B | 62.57M | 146.48M | 610.52M | 30.51M | -28.75M |
Balance Sheet | ||||||
| Total Assets | 4.27B | 6.64B | 6.18B | 5.84B | 4.29B | 3.74B |
| Cash, Cash Equivalents and Short-Term Investments | 747.26M | 655.92M | 469.93M | 220.55M | 107.66M | 180.25M |
| Total Debt | 2.42B | 2.15B | 1.78B | 1.55B | 1.27B | 1.03B |
| Total Liabilities | 2.80B | 3.51B | 2.92B | 2.63B | 1.90B | 1.63B |
| Stockholders Equity | 819.06M | 2.45B | 2.42B | 2.29B | 1.74B | 1.70B |
Cash Flow | ||||||
| Free Cash Flow | -104.86M | -29.30M | 216.06M | -277.89M | -466.51M | -585.65M |
| Operating Cash Flow | -104.70M | -29.01M | 216.72M | -274.68M | -466.10M | -585.36M |
| Investing Cash Flow | -11.37M | -8.80M | -661.00K | -3.21M | -407.00K | -285.00K |
| Financing Cash Flow | 552.63M | 132.41M | 33.83M | 389.53M | 399.13M | 444.83M |
Burford Capital Technical Analysis
Negative
4.36
Price Trends
4.20
Negative
4.27
Negative
5.94
Negative
Market Momentum
-0.12
Positive
41.67
Neutral
51.24
Neutral
Evaluating momentum and price trends is crucial in stock analysis to make informed investment decisions. For BUR, the sentiment is Negative. The current price of 4.36 is above the 20-day moving average (MA) of 4.07, above the 50-day MA of 4.20, and below the 200-day MA of 5.94, indicating a bearish trend. The MACD of -0.12 indicates Positive momentum. The RSI at 41.67 is Neutral, neither overbought nor oversold. The STOCH value of 51.24 is Neutral, not indicating any strong overbought or oversold conditions. Overall, these indicators collectively point to a Negative sentiment for BUR.
Burford Capital Risk Analysis
Burford Capital disclosed 51 risk factors in its most recent earnings report. Burford Capital reported the most risks in the "Finance & Corporate" category.
Finance & Corporate - Financial and accounting risks. Risks related to the execution of corporate activity and strategy
Latest Risks Added 0 New Risks
Burford Capital Peers Comparison
UnderperformOutperform
Sector (68)
Name | Overall Rating | Market Cap | P/E Ratio | ROE | Dividend Yield | Revenue Growth | EPS Growth |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
75 Outperform | £1.94B | 14.84 | 4.51% | 2.02% | 68.95% | 109.67% | |
73 Outperform | £543.60M | 11.22 | 8.17% | 6.11% | -5.11% | -7.96% | |
72 Outperform | £26.68B | 4.74 | 17.91% | 3.32% | -25.49% | 3.34% | |
68 Neutral | $18.00B | 11.42 | 9.92% | 3.81% | 9.73% | 1.22% | |
66 Neutral | £5.29B | 10.75 | 18.00% | 4.85% | 6.46% | 6.47% | |
61 Neutral | £3.03B | 103.95 | 2.71% | 2.82% | 36.24% | -53.64% | |
49 Neutral | $860.77M | -48.06 | -99.46% | 3.27% | -337.19% | -798.12% |
* Financial Sector Average
BUR
Burford Capital
3.65
-8.05
-68.81%
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Burford Capital Corporate Events
Business Operations and StrategyPrivate Placements and Financing
Burford Capital Refinances Debt with New Senior Notes
Positive
Sep 17, 2026
On September 17, 2026, Burford Capital Global Finance LLC, an indirect wholly owned subsidiary of Burford Capital, closed a $300 million private offering of 8.000% senior secured notes due 2029, guaranteed on a senior secured basis by Burford Capi...
Glossary
BuyA stock rated as a "Buy" is expected to perform better than the overall market or a specific benchmark over the near-to-medium term. This rating suggests the stock is likely to deliver higher returns compared to other stocks in the same sector or market index. Note: This is not investment advice; please consult a financial advisor before making investment decisions.
HoldA stock rated as a "Hold" is expected to perform in line with the overall market or a specific benchmark. This rating indicates that the stock is neither particularly compelling nor unfavorable for investment. Note: This is not investment advice; please consult a financial advisor before making investment decisions.
SellA stock rated as a "Sell" is expected to perform worse than the overall market or a specific benchmark over the near-to-medium term. This rating suggests the stock may deliver lower returns compared to other stocks in the same sector or market index. Note: This is not investment advice; please consult a financial advisor before making investment decisions.
Disclaimer
This AI Analyst Stock Report is automatically generated by our AI systems using advanced algorithms and publicly available financial, technical, and market data. While the information provided aims to be accurate and insightful, it is intended for informational purposes only and should not be considered financial advice. Any content created by an AI (Artificial Intelligence) system may contain inaccuracies and/or contain errors. Investing in stocks carries inherent risks, and past performance is not indicative of future results. This report does not account for your personal financial circumstances, objectives, or risk tolerance. Always conduct your own research or consult with a qualified financial advisor before making investment decisions. The analysis and recommendations provided are based on historical and current data and may not fully reflect future market conditions or unexpected developments. Neither the creators of this report nor its affiliated entities guarantee the accuracy, completeness, or reliability of the information presented. Use this report at your own discretion and risk.