5 Value Stocks With Incredibly Low EV-to-EBITDA Ratios to Snap Up

Zacks screened 14 companies for below-industry EV/EBITDA, P/E, P/B and P/S multiples, selecting Kohl's, Lifetime Brands, Mativ, Ultrapar and Chatham Lodging Trust as five value candidates. The highlighted names carry Zacks Rank #1 or #2 and Value Score A, alongside positive earnings-growth expectations and upward estimate revisions: KSS current-year EPS estimates rose 39.7%, LCUT's 2026 estimate rose 184.9%, MATV's rose 14.1%, UGP's 2026 estimate rose 21.7%, and CLDT's 2026 estimate rose 4.7% over 60 days. The article is a stock-screening recommendation rather than a material company-specific development.

Analysis

This is a weak standalone catalyst: a mechanical cross-sectional screen is unlikely to alter institutional ownership or fundamentals. The relevant signal is not the low multiple but whether upward estimates translate into cash conversion; EBITDA-based valuation can mask working-capital consumption, lease obligations, restructuring charges and maintenance capex. Treat the cited estimate revisions as a prompt to verify source, breadth and durability before assigning any multiple re-rating.

KSS has the clearest near-term event path, but its equity remains a consumer-discretionary and promotional-intensity trade rather than a pure value trade. A sustained gross-margin recovery would pressure off-price peers such as TJX and ROST only at the margin; more plausibly, an improving KSS result reflects category demand rather than share gains. The risk is that inventory clearance and credit-sensitive middle-income demand force markdowns, converting apparent earnings leverage into another guidance reset over the next one to two quarters.

LCUT and MATV are more vulnerable to the value-screen trap: their small-cap liquidity and cyclical end markets can produce large percentage EPS revisions off depressed bases without improving normalized free cash flow. UGP offers the cleaner relative macro exposure—Brazilian fuel-distribution margins and FX can dominate reported earnings—while CLDT is effectively a lodging-RevPAR plus interest-rate-duration position. For CLDT, lower funding costs matter more to equity value than modest consensus EPS changes; the thesis fails if Treasury yields rise or hotel demand softens.

Contrarianly, low EV/EBITDA names often stay cheap because debt holders, not equity holders, own the upside during a downturn. A broad "cheap stocks" bid would likely favor liquid quality cyclicals and financials before these idiosyncratic names, so there is no reason to chase an immediate reaction. Require next-quarter guidance confirmation and positive free-cash-flow conversion before upgrading the screen into a directional book position.

Key Decisions for Investors

• No basket trade on the screen; monitor 1-3 months for post-earnings estimate breadth, EBITDA-to-free-cash-flow conversion and net-leverage trends. Escalate only if revisions are confirmed by company guidance rather than a small number of analyst changes.
• Watch KSS for a tactical long only after a quarterly gross-margin beat and maintained full-year outlook; target a 10-15% re-rating over 3-6 months, with exit on renewed comparable-sales deterioration or markdown-driven margin compression. Hedge consumer-beta exposure with a partial XRT short rather than treating KSS as a standalone value investment.
• Prefer a conditional long CLDT versus short VNQ if 10-year Treasury yields decline materially and RevPAR remains positive into the next reporting period; the relative trade isolates rate-sensitive select-service lodging from broad office/retail REIT risk. Stop if yields reverse higher by roughly 40-50bp from entry or hotel guidance weakens.
• Keep LCUT and MATV on a liquidity-constrained watchlist, not in size. Require disclosed leverage reduction and normalized free-cash-flow evidence; absent that, upside from a low multiple is asymmetric only for creditors, while an earnings miss can drive disproportionate equity downside.
• For Brazil exposure, evaluate UGP only alongside BRL and domestic fuel-price policy: a long UGP hedged with a Brazil ETF short is appropriate only if distribution-margin expansion is visible and currency volatility is contained. Policy intervention or BRL depreciation would falsify the relative thesis.