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TickerCTS
SectorHardware, Equipment & Parts
Mkt cap$1.8B
EV / EBITDA14.4×
PostureHigh Velocity
Composite70/100
LensTarget-side
SE-Cluster Research·Issuer Brief·Q2 2026CIK 26058

CTS Corporation

CTSHIGH VELOCITYFILING INTENSITY

CTS Corporation reads as High Velocity (composite 70/100); pressure / disclosure signals dominate the posture this cycle · primary market Semis & Hardware.

Lens

Disclosed M&A capital (2023–2025)

$253M

−30%

vs $360M in 2020–2022

Disclosed transactions

3

flat

3/3 active fiscal years in window

Buyer archetype

Consistent Strategic Buyer

Meaningful spend appears across repeat years.

Composite score

70

/100

High Velocity dominates · Filing Intensity

Financial snapshot
Revenue$556M
EBITDA$123M
Enterprise value$1.8B
EV / Revenue3.2×
EV / EBITDA14.4×
P/EN/A
Cash$91M
Total debt$75M
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

27/100

Companies actively deploying disclosed capital into M&A

  • $701M disclosed buyer spend

Buyer Cadence

22/100

Buyer-side companies with recent filing activity

  • Filed within 41d
  • 339 8-Ks

Target Probability

20/100

Issuers showing target-side patterns from filings

  • 63 activism filings

Spin/Carve

0/100

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

  • 2 divestiture 8-Ks
  • Latest event 22y ago; heavily discounted
  • 63 activism filings

Pressure Watch

34/100

Issuers facing activism, governance, or control pressure

  • 63 activism filings
  • Latest activism 3.2y ago; discounted

Distress Watch

18/100

Issuers showing financial-distress filing patterns

  • 63 activism filings

Restatement Risk

2/100

Issuers with accounting-integrity flags from filings

  • 1 non-reliance 8-K
  • 5 auditor changes
  • 2 NT late filings
  • Latest event 19y ago; heavily discounted

Capital Velocity

Dominant
70/100

Issuers with the highest filing-activity intensity

  • 339 8-Ks
  • 5 form types

Quiet Power

0/100

Large issuers with low signal volume and clean disclosure cadence

  • Enterprise value $1.8B
  • 10-Q 41d ago
  • 4 active 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: $255M · Peak count: 2

FYDisclosed buysDisclosed spendAvg ticketAudited tier
20251$128M$128MN/A
20241$122M$122MN/A
20231$3M$3MN/A
20222$97M$48MN/A
2021N/A$255MN/AN/A
20201$8M$8MN/A
§ III·SE-Cluster Issuer Brief

Strategy posture.

The buyer's playbook in terms of strategic archetype: what each disclosed move says about how they're deploying capital.

Archetype mix

  • Geographic Expansion
    50%
  • Bolt On
    50%

Strategy keywords

Terms recurring across recent 10-K acquisition disclosures.

  • geographic_expansion
  • bolt_on
  • horizontal_consolidation
  • technology_acquisition
§ 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.

Ferroperm has complementary capabilities with our existing medical diagnostics and imaging product lines. The acquisition supports our end market diversification strategy and expands our presence in European end markets.

10-KFY2023

TEWA has complementary capabilities with our existing temperature sensing platform, and the acquisition supports our end market diversification strategy and expands our presence in Europe.

10-KFY2023

Ferroperm acquisition supports our end market diversification strategy and expands our presence in European end markets.

10-KFY2024

TEWA acquisition supports our end market diversification strategy and expands our presence in Europe.

10-KFY2024
§ 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

Semis & Hardware

Market spend (2023–2025)
$118.8B
Market spend (2020–2022)
$89.3B
Recent vs prior
+33%
Issuer rank in market
N/A
Share of market capital
0.0%

Valuation positioning

14.4×EV / EBITDA

CTS trades at a -5.1-turn discount to the Semis & Hardware peer median of 19.5×.

EV / Revenue
3.2×
Net debt / EBITDA
-0.1×
Peer median EV / EBITDA
19.5×

Trading comparables

FMP market data · 2026-05-10

CompanyEV / EBITDAEV / RevNet debt / EBITDARevenueM&A 2023–2025
30.8×8.0×3.8×$3.2B$6B
21.7×6.6×-0.1×$25.9B$6.9B
19.5×4.5×2.8×$4.7B$1.8B
18.1×5.4×-0.4×$44.5B$997M
14.5×3.5×-0.2×$18.5B$3.1B
CTS CorporationCTS
14.4×3.2×-0.1×$556M$253M

Trading multiples from FMP market data; disclosed M&A spend from the SE-Cluster EDGAR 10-K corpus. Peer set = top disclosed buyers in Semis & Hardware. 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)362026-02-24
  • 10-Q (quarterly)1032026-04-29
  • 8-K (event)3392026-04-29
  • Proxy / DEF 14A402026-04-02
  • Activism (13D / DFAN / PREC)632023-04-03

Signals on file

  • critical

    Non-reliance disclosure

    2007-02-09

    1 Item 4.02 filing on file; financial-statement non-reliance.

  • elevated

    Auditor change

    2007-06-25

    5 Item 4.01 filings on file; certifying accountant change.

  • watch

    Late-filing notice

    2007-05-11

    2 NT 10-K/10-Q filings on file.

  • watch

    Divestiture / strategic-alternatives 8-K

    2004-04-20

    2 8-K filings matching divestiture / strategic-alternatives language.

  • elevated

    Activism on file

    2023-04-03

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

  • info

    Signal

    Serial acquisition history

  • info

    Signal

    10-K strategy themes

  • info

    Signal

    Spin/Carve candidate

§ 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.

CTS Corporation: Issuer Brief | SE-Cluster