If you still associate Equifax (NYSE: EFX) with the 2017 data breach, you’re not alone. Yet the market has a short memory when a company starts printing cash.
The million‑dollar, or, rather, the two‑for‑one, question is whether those shares can climb to around $500 per share, a full‑blown double from here.
We dig into the math, the moat, and a few under‑the‑radar nuggets that even seasoned investors may have missed.
Momentum Hiding in Plain Sight
Equifax’s Q2 2025 report was easy to gloss over, 7% top‑line growth looks “good, not great.”
Read the fine print, though and mortgage revenue surged 14% even though U.S. mortgage originations are still 20 percent below pre‑pandemic norms.
Meanwhile, the company’s self‑imposed “Vitality Index”, the share of revenue from products launched in the past three years, hit 14%, smashing its long‑term 10 percent goal.
Those two stats tell you Equifax isn’t simply riding an economic rebound but is stealing share and inventing new lines of business.
The Crown Jewel Few Retail Investors Watch
Most people pigeonhole Equifax as a credit bureau, but the Workforce Solutions unit, home of The Work Number, is now its single biggest profit engine.
The database holds 152 million active employment records contributed by 2.6 million U.S. employers, and that figure keeps expanding.
In Q2 the segment still eked out 8% revenue growth, with government‑related verification work up double‑digits as states automate unemployment and Medicaid eligibility checks.
These government contracts are sticky and usually CPI‑linked, giving Equifax pricing power that doesn’t show up in simple “credit bureau” comps.
Data Empire Most Analysts Ignore
Buried deep in Equifax’s marketing decks is the IXI™ Network, a trove of anonymized data from 95 institutions.
IXI directly measures about $30.6 trillion in U.S. consumer assets, roughly 45% of every dollar Americans have invested.
That intel feeds not just marketing insights but also real‑time credit‑risk models for lenders and insurers.
Unlike credit files, where Experian and TransUnion have near‑identical data, IXI is proprietary. Replicating it would require prying transactional feeds from dozens of banks that already inked exclusivity deals with Equifax.
Cloud, AI, and $3 Billion Later, Now the Payoff Starts
Management spent the last five years and ~$3 billion migrating 90 percent of its workloads to the Equifax Cloud™.
That Herculean lift is now a tailwind rather than a sinkhole and the Q2 earnings call cited operating‑cost savings and 180‑basis‑point margin expansion thanks to shutting down on‑premise data centers.
Cloud topology lets Equifax deploy EFX.AI models across all 100+ data silos in weeks, not months, an advantage that explains why the Vitality Index is at a record high.
Free Cash Flow Is The Stat That Fuels a Double
Wall Street loves EPS, but FCF pays the bills. Management now guides to “over $900 million” in 2025 free cash flow with a cash‑conversion ratio above 95%.
That surplus is already finding its way back to shareholders: in Q2 alone Equifax repurchased $127 million of stock under a brand‑new $3 billion authorization, roughly 10 percent of the float at today’s prices.
Buybacks at this pace could shave the share count by 2–3% annually, juicing per‑share metrics even if revenue merely trends at the 6% midpoint of 2025 guidance.
From Punchline to Powerhouse
Remember the post‑breach hangover? In 2019 Equifax’s ROCE was ‑6.1 percent.
Fast‑forward to 2025 and the figure has climbed to ~11 percent, driven by high‑return cloud and AI initiatives.
That turnaround matters because companies that consistently reinvest above their cost of capital compound faster, and markets eventually reward the discipline.
Not Cheap, But Maybe Less Expensive Than You Think
At close to $250, the market is paying roughly 33x 2025 adjusted EPS and around 27 times 2026 consensus as cloud amortization rolls off.
Analysts’ 12‑month price target average of $285 implies just 16 percent upside in the near term. Yes, the stock is pricey on trailing numbers, but two levers might well compress that P/E rapidly:
Management’s long‑term framework calls for EBITDA margins “north of 35 percent” as cloud savings scale and Q2 margins already crossed 32.5 percent.
A fully executed $3 billion buyback at today’s price cancels ballpark 12 million shares, lowering the denominator for every per‑share metric.
Will Equifax Stock Double?
A double in five years requires about 21% compounded EPS growth or a healthy dose of multiple expansion. Equifax doesn’t need both if it can stitch together 6 – 8 percent organic revenue growth that in line with guidance and 200 bps margin expansion as cloud depreciation flattens.
Add to that 2–3% annual share reduction via buybacks. Stack those, and you’re looking at 12 – 14 percent EPS growth without heroic assumptions.
Layer a return of the P/E from 27× (2026E) to the mid‑30s the stock enjoyed pre‑inflation scare, and you’ve crossed the 100% mark.
Could it happen sooner? Sure, but only if the Street starts valuing Equifax as a data‑and‑analytics SaaS rather than a credit bureau.
Risks That Could Keep the Share Price Grounded
Even eight years later, Equifax still books legal accruals tied to the 2017 incident, a small but persistent $0.4 million hit in Q2. Any fresh oversight could crimp free cash flow.
A cyclical downturn would hammer high‑margin verification revenue, though Q2’s share gains hint that Equifax can outrun the market for now.
Experian and TransUnion are belatedly modernizing their tech stacks. If they achieve parity sooner than expected, Equifax’s “speed premium” could erode.
Another concern is recession would dent hiring and consumer lending, the lifeblood of Workforce Solutions and U.S. Information Services.
The Bottom Line
Can Equifax double? Mathematically, yes, if management converts its post‑cloud runway into mid‑teens EPS growth and continues to shrink the share count.
The ingredients are already in the pressure cooker: a proprietary wealth‑data monopoly (IXI), an employment‑verification fortress (The Work Number), a cloud platform that finally shifts from cost center to cash machine, and a management team freshly armed with a $3 billion buyback pass.
Investors fixated on last decade’s breach may miss the bigger story is Equifax is morphing from a credit bureau into a vertically integrated data‑analytics utility. If it executes, the debate in 2030 could shift from “Will it double?” to “Why didn’t we see it coming?”
The author has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. Financhill has a disclosure policy. This post may contain affiliate links or links from our sponsors.