$19.80
$60.40
bear $19.80
base $47.50
bull $60.40
margin of safety $16.00
market price* $33.31
Robert Half places temporary and permanent office professionals (finance, accounting, technology, administrative, legal) with companies, and owns Protiviti, a global risk, internal audit and technology consulting firm. In 2025 revenue was $5.38 billion: contract staffing about $3.0 billion, permanent placement about $0.44 billion and Protiviti about $1.95 billion. The business has no borrowings and had $325 million of cash at mid-2026. WHAT HAS HAPPENED. Cash earnings after stock compensation, working-capital swings and the capital spending needed to keep the offices and systems running were about $6.05 and $6.40 per share in 2021 and 2022, the post-pandemic hiring boom, and then fell to $4.22 in 2023, $2.68 in 2024 and $1.73 in 2025 as white-collar hiring weakened and revenue dropped 26% from its 2022 peak. In 2025 contract staffing posted a reported operating loss, permanent placement revenue fell about 10% and Protiviti held revenue flat but at lower margins. The first half of 2026 shows revenue still 3% lower and net income down about 31% (about $40 million against $58 million), with Protiviti revenue down about 5% in the second quarter. Since our last review the main change in the business is that Protiviti, which then looked like the steady part of the company, is now shrinking and earning less, and profits are still falling. Our previous figures were built on a different basis and are not comparable. HOW WE MEASURE EARNINGS. We start from operating cash flow, remove the swings in receivables, payables and accrued payroll (in 2025 these released about $34 million of cash, in 2021 and 2022 they absorbed about $154 million and $127 million), deduct stock compensation (about $59 million a year) as a real cost, and deduct the factory-style spending on equipment and offices that keeps the business running. Software implementation costs and the employee deferred compensation plan (whose cash is separately invested in trusts matching the obligation) are left as reported. The anchor for a normal year is the median of the last ten years, $3.35 per share, a window that includes the 2020 shutdown, the 2021-22 boom and the current slump. Adding that back in aggregate terms ($400 million a year) over today's smaller share count would suggest about $4.00; we use the lower per-share figure because part of the current weakness may be structural, as automation reduces demand for entry-level finance, accounting and administrative work. BASE CASE, about $47.50 per share. The business is worth about $45.30 per share and owes nothing; roughly $2.20 per share of the cash beyond what a staffing company needs to operate is added, giving $47.50. Trailing cash earnings fell 35% in 2025 to $1.73. We assume they fall about 21% more to about $1.37 over the next year: second-half 2026 is guided to roughly flat revenue, and the $18 million first-half drop in net income is about a third the size of the $119 million full-year drop in 2025, so the decline is slowing but not over. We then credit a gradual return to the $3.35 normal level by year six (1.80, 2.30, 2.80, 3.10, 3.35). We count this as a return to a level the company has repeatedly reached, not as growth: every contraction in the company's record has been followed by recovery, most recently from $2.29 in 2020 to $6.05 in 2021. No growth beyond that is credited, including pricing or inflation, and the earning power is carried flat for about thirty years and then faded to nothing over twenty more, because nothing we can evidence reaches further than that. BEAR CASE, about $19.80 per share. The business is worth about $17.50, owes nothing, plus $2.30 of surplus cash. This case has earnings continuing down to about $1.20 and $1.00, then one full recession of the kind seen in 2020 and 2008-09: revenue about 15% below today's already lower base with each lost dollar of revenue costing about 20 cents of cash earnings (the 2020 shutdown cost about 18 cents and the 2022-25 slide about 28 cents), taking cash earnings to roughly zero for two years. It also charges a one-time $150 million (about $1.50 per share) for the Gentry class action in California over unpaid interview time, where a class has been certified, the liability phase was tried in late 2025 and the company has booked no amount and says it cannot estimate the loss. Afterwards earnings recover only to about $2.00 per share (below every year from 2016 to 2023) as automation and the Protiviti margin squeeze (gross margin 18.5% versus 22.3% a year earlier) keep the business permanently smaller, holding for ten years before fading to nothing over ten more. With no debt, the business can carry itself through the zero-earnings years on its cash. BULL CASE, about $60.40 per share. The business is worth about $58.10, owes nothing, plus $2.30 of surplus cash. Earnings recover to $4.20 by year four, the level reached in 2023, helped by the $45 million of annual Protiviti savings the company is already implementing (about $0.30 per share after tax) and technology job orders that were already growing 2.3% in the second quarter. That level is carried flat for about thirty years and then faded to nothing over twenty. WHAT WOULD MAKE THIS WRONG. If AI and automation take a large share of entry-level finance and administrative placements, the normal level is closer to the bear's $2.00 than to $3.35 and the shares are worth closer to $20-25. If hiring recovers faster than we assume, as it did in 2021, the bull case applies. The 2025 dividends ($2.36 per share a year at the current $0.59 quarterly rate) and buybacks of about $330 million exceeded cash earnings of $173 million, and cash fell from $538 million to $464 million in 2025 and to $325 million by mid-2026; a dividend cut would be unsurprising and would not change what the business is worth, only how much of it is paid out. MARGIN-OF-SAFETY PRICE, $16. We are not sure of the earnings level: the last three years moved from $6.40 to $1.73 and the first half of 2026 is lower again, so we do not rely on the median or the recovery arriving on time. The worst plausible outcome is a structural loss of entry-level work combined with a recession and an adverse California ruling; the company would survive that, because it has no debt and a cash cushion, but earnings could sit near zero for two years. If we are wrong about the pace or level of recovery, the shares could be worth about $20 to $25. The price assumes a holding period of five years or more, during which the company pays a dividend that is likely to be partly funded from cash rather than earnings, so we assume roughly $1 to $2 a year, not $2.36. At $16, after the $2.20 of surplus cash, the price implies about $13.80 for the operating business, which earned $1.73 per share in the worst year of this cycle (about 12.5%), $2.00 even on the bear case's permanent level (14%), and $3.35 in a normal year (24%). That starting cash yield, plus recovery that has followed every past downturn, is what a 20% annual return requires without leaning on the bull case.