M/I Homes Adjusted EPS Falls to $2.70, UniFirst Earnings Decline
Key Facts
M/I Homes' adjusted diluted earnings per share fell to $2.70 in the third quarter of 2026 from $4.14 a year earlier, according to the company's filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. The homebuilder's net income fell to $66,553 thousand from $106,490 thousand in the corresponding quarter. Reported diluted earnings per share under generally accepted accounting principles were $2.56, compared with $3.92 a year earlier. Adjusted earnings exclude inventory charges included in reported results. In separate results, UniFirst reported a decline in net income for the fourth quarter of fiscal 2026 to $34.7 million from $41.0 million.
M/I Homes posted quarterly revenue of $1,076,069 thousand, according to the same filing. Revenue was $1,131,791 thousand in the third quarter of 2025, with sales declining alongside earnings. The company delivered 2,241 homes during the quarter, compared with 2,296 in the corresponding period a year earlier. New contracts fell to 1,861 from 1,908 a year earlier. Homes under contract but not yet delivered totaled 2,046 at the end of September, compared with 2,189 at the end of the corresponding period, leaving the backlog lower alongside deliveries and new contracts.
M/I Homes' chief executive attributed difficult market conditions to "high mortgage rates and weak demand," according to the company's filing. Reported gross margin for the quarter was 20.9%, including the impact of inventory charges on the company's results. Excluding those charges, gross margin was 21.3%, according to the adjusted calculation in the company's filing. Management said cash totaled about $621 million at the end of the quarter. Across the U.S. sector, the Census Bureau reported that single-family housing starts reached a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 859,000 homes in September 2026.
UniFirst, meanwhile, reported in its earnings release that revenue for the fiscal fourth quarter rose 5.0% year on year to $645.0 million. Its core uniform and facility services segment posted organic growth of 4.6% during the quarter. The company's reported organic growth rate excludes the effects of acquisitions and Canadian dollar fluctuations from the comparison between the periods. UniFirst said customer retention rates in the core segment continued to improve during the quarter alongside organic revenue growth. For the full fiscal year 2026, revenue rose 3.7% to $2.523 billion, according to its release.
UniFirst's diluted earnings per share for the fiscal fourth quarter were $1.90, according to the earnings release. That compares with diluted earnings of $2.23 per share in the fiscal fourth quarter of the previous year. Quarterly operating margin also narrowed to 6.5% from 8.1% in the corresponding period, despite higher revenue during the quarter. Quarterly results included about $14.4 million in costs related to the proposed merger with Cintas, according to the company. UniFirst said most of these costs consisted of legal, advisory and professional fees related to the transaction, which remains pending.
With the Cintas transaction still pending, UniFirst said it had stopped providing financial guidance for its business because of the deal. The company also stopped holding quarterly earnings calls for the same reason, according to its statement to investors. Among upcoming economic releases for the housing sector, the U.S. Census Bureau has scheduled new home sales data for October 27, 2026. The forthcoming release covers sales for September 2026, according to the bureau's official publication schedule. The next update to the Case-Shiller home price indexes is also due on October 27, 2026, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis release calendar.