“I buy on the assumption that they could close the market the next day and not reopen it for five years.”
— Warren Buffett
Cintas Corporation shares have delivered a strong five-year total return for investors who bought in 2021 and held through April 2026. For a hypothetical $10,000 investment in NASD: CTAS, the combination of share-price appreciation and reinvested dividends would have produced a result that meaningfully outpaced the original capital outlay. The exercise illustrates a core principle of long-term equity investing: total return depends on both the stock price path and the treatment of cash distributions along the way.
That is especially relevant for a company such as Cintas, whose investment case has historically rested less on a high current yield and more on durable operating execution, recurring customer relationships, and steady capital compounding. A five-year holding period helps reveal whether those qualities translated into shareholder value. In this case, they did.
CTAS 5-Year Return Details
| Start date: | 04/22/2021 |
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| End date: | 04/21/2026 | ||||
| Start price/share: | $87.14 | ||||
| End price/share: | $176.26 | ||||
| Starting shares: | 114.76 | ||||
| Ending shares: | 120.13 | ||||
| Dividends reinvested/share: | $6.55 | ||||
| Total return: | 111.74% | ||||
| Average annual return: | 16.19% | ||||
| Starting investment: | $10,000.00 | ||||
| Ending investment: | $21,175.99 | ||||
Over the period from 04/22/2021 to 04/21/2026, a $10,000 investment in Cintas grew to $21,175.99, assuming dividends were reinvested. That equates to a total return of 111.74% and an average annual return of 16.19%. Put differently, the investment more than doubled over five years.
The share price itself rose from $87.14 to $176.26, accounting for most of the gain. Reinvested dividends added to that outcome by increasing the investor’s share count from 114.76 to 120.13 shares. That detail matters: even when a stock’s yield is modest, dividend reinvestment can incrementally improve long-run compounding.
[These numbers were computed with the Dividend Channel DRIP Returns Calculator.]
What Drove the Return
Cintas is best known for uniform rental, facility services, workplace safety products, and related business services. Its business model has tended to produce recurring revenue, substantial route density, and a customer base that spans a wide range of industries. Those characteristics can support margin stability and cash generation, which in turn can underpin both earnings growth and shareholder returns.
In a five-year return analysis, the main drivers are straightforward:
- Share-price appreciation: CTAS shares roughly doubled from the starting price to the ending price.
- Dividend income: Investors received $6.55 per share in dividends over the period examined.
- Reinvestment effect: Reinvesting those dividends increased the share count, modestly enhancing the ending value.
This is a useful reminder that total return is not the same as price return. A stock can generate a better result than its price chart alone suggests if dividends are reinvested consistently over time.
CTAS Dividend Yield and Yield on Cost
Cintas is not typically viewed as a high-yield stock. Based on the most recent annualized dividend rate of $1.80 per share, CTAS has a current yield of approximately 1.02% using the $176.26 ending share price in this example.
A related measure is yield on cost, which compares the current annualized dividend to the original purchase price. Using the starting price of $87.14, the current $1.80 annualized dividend implies a yield on cost of about 1.17%.
That distinction is worth keeping in mind:
- Current yield measures income relative to today’s market price.
- Yield on cost measures income relative to the original entry price.
For stocks that raise their dividends over time, yield on cost can improve even if the current yield remains comparatively low.
What the Five-Year Result Suggests
The CTAS five-year return profile highlights the kind of outcome long-term investors often seek: a business that compounds value through a combination of operating consistency, share-price appreciation, and a growing stream of cash distributions. The result was not driven by dividend yield alone. Rather, it came from a relatively low-yielding stock delivering strong underlying business performance and then supplementing that with disciplined capital returns.
That also helps explain why time horizon matters. A shorter holding period can overemphasize valuation swings and market sentiment. A five-year view is more likely to capture the economics of the business itself, including the cumulative effect of dividend reinvestment and earnings growth.
More investment wisdom to consider:
“The individual investor should act consistently as an investor and not as a speculator. This means that he should be able to justify every purchase he makes and each price he pays by impersonal, objective reasoning that satisfies him that he is getting more than his money’s worth for his purchase.” — Benjamin Graham
