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TickerFIVE
SectorDiscount Stores
Mkt cap$12.3B
EV / EBITDA21.0×
PostureHigh Velocity
Composite70/100
LensTarget-side
SE-Cluster Research·Issuer Brief·Q2 2026CIK 1177609

Five Below, Inc.

FIVEHIGH VELOCITYFILING INTENSITY

Five Below, Inc. reads as High Velocity (composite 70/100); pressure / disclosure signals dominate the posture this cycle · primary market Consumer Products.

Lens

Disclosed M&A capital (2023–2025)

$556M

new

vs N/A in 2020–2022

Disclosed transactions

N/A

flat

1/3 active fiscal years in window

Buyer archetype

Selective Buyer

Acquisition use is visible but targeted.

Composite score

70

/100

High Velocity dominates · Filing Intensity

Financial snapshot
Revenue$4.8B
EBITDA$650M
Enterprise value$13.6B
EV / Revenue2.9×
EV / EBITDA21.0×
P/EN/A
Cash$724M
Total debtN/A
as of 2026-05-10
§ I·SE-Cluster Issuer Brief

Behavioral posture, nine reads.

Each index scores the issuer 0–100 against an EDGAR-anchored definition. Scores ≥ threshold elevate the issuer into the index's constituent set; the dominant index drives the masthead label.

Active Acquirer

26/100

Companies actively deploying disclosed capital into M&A

  • $556M disclosed buyer spend

Buyer Cadence

12/100

Buyer-side companies with recent filing activity

  • Filed within 39d
  • 128 8-Ks

Target Probability

20/100

Issuers showing target-side patterns from filings

  • 5 activism filings

Spin/Carve

0/100

Issuers showing spin-off, carve-out, or sum-of-parts posture

  • 5 activism filings

Pressure Watch

14/100

Issuers facing activism, governance, or control pressure

  • 5 activism filings
  • Latest activism 12y ago; heavily discounted

Distress Watch

37/100

Issuers showing financial-distress filing patterns

  • 10-Q 187d stale
  • 5 activism filings

Restatement Risk

0/100

Issuers with accounting-integrity flags from filings

Capital Velocity

Dominant
70/100

Issuers with the highest filing-activity intensity

  • 128 8-Ks
  • 5 form types

Quiet Power

0/100

Large issuers with low signal volume and clean disclosure cadence

  • Enterprise value $13.6B
  • 10-Q 187d ago
  • Quiet signals
§ II·SE-Cluster Issuer Brief

Capital cadence.

Ten-year disclosed M&A activity. Bars show spend ($MM); ticks show recorded transaction count. Disclosure tier annotated where v6 audited corpus carries an entry.

16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25

Disclosed spend $MM Disclosed transactions (right axis)Peak spend year: $556M · Peak count: 1

FYDisclosed buysDisclosed spendAvg ticketAudited tier
2025N/AN/AN/AN/A
2024N/AN/AN/AN/A
2023N/A$556MN/AN/A
2022N/AN/AN/AN/A
2021N/AN/AN/AN/A
2020N/AN/AN/AN/A
§ IV·SE-Cluster Issuer Brief

Filing language.

Direct excerpts from acquisition disclosures and strategy sections: the verbs the buyer chose, in the filings they signed.

We currently do not own any real estate but may in the future. Currently, we lease all of our store locations, as well as our corporate headquarters and distribution facilities in Pedricktown, New Jersey and Olive Branch, Mississippi.

10-KFY2017

Currently, we lease all of our store locations, as well as our corporate headquarters and distribution facilities in Pedricktown, New Jersey and Olive Branch, Mississippi (and own our distribution center in Forsyth, Georgia).

10-KFY2018

Historically, we have been able to negotiate terms that fit within our economic model and that we believe are favorable; however, there is no guarantee that we will be able to continue to negotiate such terms.

10-KFY2015

Consolidation in the commercial retail real estate market could affect our ability to successfully negotiate favorable rental terms for our stores in the future.

10-KFY2017

Our stores are leased from third parties, with typical initial lease terms of ten years.

10-KFY2018
§ V·SE-Cluster Issuer Brief

Market context.

Where this issuer sits inside its SE-Cluster rollup wedge, with disclosed-spend rank plus trading comparables against the public peer set.

Primary market

Consumer Products

Market spend (2023–2025)
$145.2B
Market spend (2020–2022)
$102.1B
Recent vs prior
+42%
Issuer rank in market
N/A
Share of market capital
0.0%

Valuation positioning

21.0×EV / EBITDA

FIVE trades at a +8.8-turn premium to the Consumer Products peer median of 12.2×.

EV / Revenue
2.9×
Net debt / EBITDA
N/A
Peer median EV / EBITDA
12.2×

Trading comparables

FMP market data · 2026-05-10

CompanyEV / EBITDAEV / RevNet debt / EBITDARevenueM&A 2023–2025
Five Below, Inc.FIVE
21.0×2.9×N/A$4.8B$556M
15.7×2.3×2.0×$164.7B$24.6B
8.7×1.3×-0.1×$10B$5.5B

Trading multiples from FMP market data; disclosed M&A spend from the SE-Cluster EDGAR 10-K corpus. Peer set = top disclosed buyers in Consumer Products. Bars scaled to the highest EV/EBITDA in the set.

§ VI·SE-Cluster Issuer Brief

Buyer landscape.

Public buyers whose stated archetypes, target categories, and recent cadence align with this issuer as a plausible acquisition target. Scores cross EDGAR signal and disclosure overlap.

Likely buyers

No public buyers surface as a strong target-side fit on current signal.

Likely sellers / divestiture partners

No reciprocal divestiture / strategic-alternatives matches identified.

§ VII·SE-Cluster Issuer Brief

Filing activity & signal stream.

Filing cadence and event-driven signals visible on EDGAR. The signal stream below is curated from restatement / spin-carve / activism categories, providing context for any near-term call.

Filing cadence

  • 10-K (annual)142026-03-19
  • 10-Q (quarterly)412025-12-04
  • 8-K (event)1282026-03-18
  • Proxy / DEF 14A332026-05-01
  • Activism (13D / DFAN / PREC)52014-04-03

Signals on file

  • elevated

    Activism on file

    2014-04-03

    5 activist filings on file (13D, DFAN14A, PREC14A series).

§ VIII·SE-Cluster Issuer Brief

Audited corpus.

No audited record on file for this CIK in the current v6 corpus.

This issuer has not been extracted into the v6 audited acquirer corpus yet. The brief above pulls from ranking-level aggregates and issuer-index signal only.