Enviri Corporation heads into its May 14 Q1 results with short sellers the most committed they've been in months — and borrowing conditions that suggest more conviction still to come.
Short interest has climbed to nearly 14% of the free float, up more than 12% over the past month, making Enviri one of the more heavily shorted names in its sector. The ORTEX short score of 65.9 puts it in roughly the bottom 5th percentile of its universe on this metric. Days to cover runs at approximately 14 days on the official FINRA settlement, meaning a meaningful position unwind would take real time. Yet the borrow market tells a calmer story: cost to borrow has actually eased over the past month, dropping around 15% to 0.39%, and the lending pool still has ample room with shares available far exceeding current demand. Short sellers are adding, but the cost to do so isn't rising — suggesting orderly accumulation rather than a scramble.
The fundamental backdrop gives bears plenty to work with. Enviri carries approximately $1.4 billion in net debt against an enterprise value near $3.2 billion, and the company is running at an operating loss at the net income line — an EPS of around -$0.49 on an estimated revenue base of $2.3 billion. The EV/EBITDA multiple at roughly 10.5x is not demanding for an environmental services company, but with negative free cash flow after capex and interest expense of $115 million annualised, the path to debt reduction is narrow. EPS momentum factor scores are deeply negative — the 30-day reading ranks in just the 6th percentile — suggesting forward estimates have been drifting lower. Analyst data is too stale to quote current targets with confidence. What is notable is that the EPS surprise score ranks in the 96th percentile, meaning Enviri has a strong history of beating reduced estimates — a pattern worth watching.
Ownership adds a layer of nuance. Mason Capital Management entered or rebuilt a full stake of around 5.5% of shares outstanding as recently as March, and Davidson Kempner added more than 2 million shares in February. Both are activist-adjacent value investors. Their presence alongside a 14% short interest creates a genuine ownership tension: event-driven longs holding the same stock as a growing short base, with earnings as the next catalyst to resolve the disagreement. Meanwhile, the CEO sold $1.4 million of stock in mid-March — a modest but real signal from the inside, though it followed stock awards to other executives at the same time.
Options positioning is almost entirely call-skewed. The put/call ratio runs at just 0.063, near its 52-week low of 0.009, meaning options traders are expressing very little desire for downside protection. That diverges sharply from the short interest picture — where the float is heavily borrowed — and the divergence itself is the story. The Q1 print on May 14 tests whether Enviri's track record of beating lowered estimates can hold against a balance sheet that continues to consume cash, and whether activist-aligned longs or a growing short base reads the results correctly.
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