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ARKO, ARKO Corp.

Food & Drug Retailing retail Distress / turnaround

ARKO Corp. is one of the largest operators of convenience stores and wholesalers of fuel in the United States, ranked by store count and gallons sold, respectively.

As of December 31, 2025, we operated 1,118 retail convenience stores under more than 25 regional store brands.

Our brands have been in existence for an average of more than 50 years, and we consider them "a Family of Community Brands."

Latest annual: FY2025 10-K

ARKO · ARKO Corp.

The business

What it sells, where the money comes from, the kind of company it is.

Revenue · FY2025

$7.6B

−12.5% YoY · 14% 5-yr CAGR

Vital signs · TTM, with 5-yr average

Revenue $7.6B 5-yr avg $8.5B

Operating margin 1.6% 5-yr avg 1.5%

ROIC 9% 5-yr avg 12%

Owner-earnings margin 0% 5-yr avg 1%

Free cash flow margin 0% 5-yr avg 1%

The business in brief

read the 10-K →

What this business is and what moves its needle, from its own SEC filings.

What it is: Revenue is Fuel Revenue (79%), Merchandise Revenue (19%) and Other Revenue (2%).
Situation: Distress / turnaround. Thin interest coverage, or operating cash burned against real debt, across the record. The balance sheet carries this situation; the debt schedule sets the clock.
What moves the needle: Operating margin has run about 1.3% through the cycle, a thin margin, where volume, cost discipline and the price it gets all bear on the result. The operating margin has swung widely — from 0.0% to 2.0% over the years — so the through-cycle figure carries more than any single year, and the worst year more than the best. On its own account, the filing leans hardest on pricing power & competition, set against the numbers in what the filing emphasizes, below.
Is it a good business?: Return on capital has sat near the cost of capital (median 10%). Owner earnings, the cash-based check, have been thin too. This is price-taker territory, where the balance sheet and the cycle matter more than any multiple; the rest is in the 10-K.

Every line is arithmetic on the company's filings, shown in full in the sections below.

Where the money comes from

read the 10-K →

Fuel Revenue is 79% of revenue, with Merchandise Revenue the other meaningful line at 19%.

Revenue by product line, FY2025

Fuel Revenue79%$6.0B
Merchandise Revenue19%$1.5B
Other Revenue2%$122M

From the segment footnote of the company's own 10-K. Shares are of total revenue; the profit bar shows each segment's share of segment operating profit, before unallocated corporate costs.

The record

Ten years of arithmetic, read across the cycle.

The record, 2019–2025

realized figures from each filing · older years to the left

2019’19	2020’20	2021’21	2022’22	2023’23	2024’24	2025’25	TTMTTMMar 2026
								Income statement
$4.1B	$4.0B	$7.4B	$9.1B	$9.4B	$8.7B	$7.6B	$7.6B	RevenueRevenue
2%	2%	2%	2%	2%	2%	2%	2%	SG&A / revenueSG&A/rev
$1M	$80M	$142M	$167M	$118M	$94M	$102M	$124M	Operating incomeOp. inc.
0.0%	2.0%	1.9%	1.8%	1.3%	1.1%	1.3%	1.6%	Operating marginOp. mgn
($44M)	$14M	$59M	$72M	$34M	$21M	$23M	$29M	Net incomeNet inc.
—	—	16%	33%	26%	23%	22%	37%	Effective tax rateTax rate
								Cash flow & returns
$43M	$174M	$159M	$209M	$136M	$222M	$193M	$168M	Operating cash flowOp. cash
$62M	$74M	$97M	$102M	$128M	$132M	$134M	$132M	DepreciationDeprec.
$24M	$84M	($3M)	$24M	($41M)	$56M	$20M	($9M)	Working capital & otherWC & other
$58M	$45M	$226M	$99M	$111M	$114M	$127M	$130M	CapexCapex
1.4%	1.1%	3.0%	1.1%	1.2%	1.3%	1.7%	1.7%	Capex / revenueCapex/rev
($15M)	$129M	$62M	$111M	$25M	$108M	$65M	$38M	Owner earningsOwner earn.
−0.4%	3.2%	0.8%	1.2%	0.3%	1.2%	0.9%	0.5%	Owner earnings marginOE mgn
($15M)	$129M	($67M)	$111M	$25M	$108M	$65M	$38M	Free cash flowFCF
−0.4%	3.2%	−0.9%	1.2%	0.3%	1.2%	0.9%	0.5%	Free cash flow marginFCF mgn
$34M	$364M	$203M	$420M	$495M	—	—	$495M	AcquisitionsAcquis.
—	$0	$0	$11M	$14M	$14M	$14M	$13M	Dividends paidDiv. paid
—	$0	$0	$40M	$34M	$32M	$28M	—	BuybacksBuybacks
—	—	17%	15%	10%	8%	9%	9%	ROICROIC
-22%	7%	23%	26%	12%	8%	9%	7%	Return on equityROE
—	7%	23%	22%	7%	2%	3%	4%	Retained to equityRetained/eq
								Balance sheet
$32M	$294M	$311M	$301M	$222M	$267M	$311M	$279M	Cash & investmentsCash+inv
—	$47M	$62M	$118M	$135M	$96M	$87M	$160M	ReceivablesReceiv.
—	$164M	$198M	$222M	$251M	$231M	$191M	$206M	InventoryInvent.
—	$156M	$173M	$217M	$214M	$190M	$157M	$202M	Accounts payablePayables
—	$55M	$87M	$123M	$172M	$137M	$121M	$164M	Operating working capitalOper. WC
—	$609M	$684M	$747M	$749M	$722M	$718M	$770M	Current assetsCur. assets
—	$387M	$408M	$446M	$486M	$445M	$433M	$475M	Current liabilitiesCur. liab.
—	1.6×	1.7×	1.7×	1.5×	1.6×	1.7×	1.6×	Current ratioCurr. ratio
$134M	$174M	$198M	$217M	$292M	$300M	$300M	$300M	GoodwillGoodwill
—	$2.7B	$2.9B	$3.3B	$3.7B	$3.6B	$3.5B	$3.6B	Total assetsAssets
—	$750M	$717M	$752M	$845M	$881M	$912M	$704M	Total debtDebt
—	$456M	$406M	$451M	$623M	$614M	$601M	$425M	Net debt / (cash)Net debt
0.0×	1.6×	1.9×	2.7×	1.3×	1.0×	1.1×	1.4×	Interest coverageInt. cov.
$195M	$192M	$253M	$281M	$276M	$277M	$267M	$395M	Shareholders’ equityEquity
0.0%	0.0%	0.1%	0.1%	0.2%	0.1%	0.2%	0.2%	Stock comp / revenueSBC/rev
								Per share
66.7M	71.1M	125M	123M	120M	117M	115M	111M	Shares out (diluted)Shares
$61.90	$56.42	$59.13	$74.20	$78.70	$74.66	$66.48	$68.14	Revenue / shareRev/sh
$-0.65	$0.19	$0.47	$0.58	$0.29	$0.18	$0.20	$0.26	EPS (diluted)EPS
$-0.22	$1.82	$0.49	$0.90	$0.21	$0.92	$0.57	$0.34	Owner earnings / shareOE/sh
$-0.22	$1.82	$-0.53	$0.90	$0.21	$0.92	$0.57	$0.34	Free cash flow / shareFCF/sh
—	$0.00	$0.00	$0.09	$0.12	$0.12	$0.12	$0.12	Dividends / shareDiv/sh
$0.87	$0.63	$1.80	$0.80	$0.93	$0.97	$1.11	$1.17	Cap. spending / shareCapex/sh
$2.92	$2.70	$2.02	$2.28	$2.31	$2.37	$2.32	$3.55	Book value / shareBVPS

The diluted share count moved ×1.76 into 2021 — shares issued, not a split the totals corroborate — and the per-share figures carry the counts as filed.

Per-share growththe realized rate an owner's share compounded

	6-yr	5-yr
Revenue / share	+1.2%/yr	+3.3%/yr
Owner earnings / share	—	−20.8%/yr
EPS	—	+0.5%/yr
Capital spending / share	+4.0%/yr	+12.0%/yr
Book value / share	−3.7%/yr	−2.9%/yr

The record, charted

FY2019–2025

Each measure over its full record; the current point and the worst year marked.

Share count

115Mpeak FY2021

ROIC

9%low FY2024

Net debt ÷ owner earnings

9.2×peak FY2023

Owner earnings vs. net income

Owner earningsNet income

The accountant's number, and the cash an owner can take; the gap is the tell.

$65Mowner earningsvs.$23Mnet incomelow FY2019

Where the cash went

ReinvestBuybacksDividendsAcquisitionsRetainedBeyond op. cash

Each year's outlays against its operating cash: the mix, and how it drifts. The hatched cap is spending beyond that year's operating cash — financed from the balance sheet or borrowing, not operations.

FY2019FY2025

Owner-earnings bridge

FY2021–FY2025cash-flow statement, SEC EDGAR →

Net income is the accountant's number; owner earnings is the cash an owner could take out. The walk between them, off the cash-flow statement, and whether the gap is widening or holding.

In fiscal 2025 the business turned $23M of profit into $65M of owner earnings: more cash than the profit line showed, after the non-cash charges and the capital it put back in.

Reported net income$23M

Owner earnings$65M · 1% of revenue

	FY2025	FY2024	FY2023	FY2022	FY2021
Reported net income	$23M	$21M	$34M	$72M	$59M
Depreciation & amortizationnon-cash charge added back	+$134M	+$132M	+$128M	+$102M	+$97M
Stock-based compensationreal costnon-cash, but a real cost	+$15M	+$12M	+$15M	+$12M	+$6M
Working capital & othertiming of cash in and out, other non-cash items	+$20M	+$56M	−$41M	+$24M	−$3M
Cash from operations	$193M	$222M	$136M	$209M	$159M
Maintenance capital expenditurethe spending needed just to hold position and volume	−$127M	−$114M	−$111M	−$99M	−$97M
Owner earnings	$65M	$108M	$25M	$111M	$62M
Growth capital expenditurediscretionary; spent to get bigger, not to stand still	—	—	—	—	−$129M
Free cash flow	$65M	$108M	$25M	$111M	($67M)
Owner-earnings marginowner earnings ÷ revenue	1%	1%	0%	1%	1%

Owner earnings is the cash an owner could pull out without starving the business: operating cash less the capital it must spend to hold its position . The cash-flow statement also adds stock comp back as non-cash, but it is a real cost paid in shares; counted as the expense it is (less $15M), owner earnings is nearer $50M.

Maintenance capex is estimated as depreciation where a growing business invests above it; free cash flow is the figure the scorecard's free-cash margin reads.

III

Quality & stewardship

Returns, the balance sheet, capital allocation, and pay.

Owner’s Scorecard

FY2025 10-K · source on SEC EDGAR →

Will it survive?

Can it pay its interest? 1.1×

Thin

Operating income $102M ÷ interest expense $93M

What this means
Operating profit covers interest, but with little room. A bad year, a refinancing at higher rates, or a revenue wobble closes the gap fast.
How heavy is the debt, net of cash? $601M · 5.9× operating profit

Heavy net debt

Cash $305M + ST investments $6M − debt $912M

What this means
Netting $311M of cash and short-term investments against $912M of debt leaves $601M owed, about 5.9× a year's operating profit (8.9× on the gross debt, before the cash). Net debt is the leverage figure that matters: the cash is already set against the debt. Strategic or illiquid investments aren't counted here.
How long is cash tied up? —

Not enough data

What this means
The filing data didn't include the inputs for this check.

Is it a good business?

Return on invested capital 10%

Solid through the cycle

5-yr median, range 8%–17%; 9% latest = NOPAT $80M ÷ invested capital $874M

Industry peers: median 9%

What this means
The rate the business earns on the money tied up in it, Buffett's north star, because over time a stock tracks the ROIC beneath it. Above ~15% sustained hints at a moat; a return below the cost of capital (~8%) erodes value as a business grows rather than building it — the test Buffett weighs most. The headline is the median of the last 5 years (it ran 9% most recently), so one peak or trough year doesn't set the verdict. Asset-light businesses (R&D expensed, little capital) read artificially high, pair this with Owner Earnings.
Owner-earnings margin 1%

Thin, recently turned positive

latest $65M = operating cash $193M − maintenance capex $127M; positive each of the last 3 years, after an earlier loss stretch (7-yr median 1%)

Industry peers: median 2%

What this means
What an owner could take out without starving the business: operating cash less the maintenance capital it must spend to hold its position — Buffett's owner earnings. That's 1% of revenue this year, a 1% median across 7 years. Treating stock comp as the real expense it is (less $15M of SBC) leaves $50M.
Are earnings backed by cash? 8.47×

Cash-backed

Cash from ops $193M ÷ net income $23M

What this means
How much of reported profit showed up as operating cash. Above 1× is reassuring; well below suggests earnings lean on accruals. One year is noisy, growth and working-capital swings distort it, and this is operating cash, not free cash. Watch the multi-year trend.

How is the cash used?

Where do the earnings go? 64%

Returns about half

Dividends + buybacks $42M ÷ Owner Earnings $65M

What this means
Of $65M Owner Earnings, $42M (64%) went back to shareholders, $14M dividends, $28M buybacks. Net of $15M stock comp, the real buyback was about $13M. Returning most of it is the mark of a mature business with little left to reinvest at a high return; reinvesting most could mean a long runway, or empire-building. The split doesn't say which; the return earned on it (see ROIC) does.
Investing or harvesting? 0.95×

Maintaining

Capex $127M ÷ depreciation $134M

What this means
Descriptive, not a grade. Above ~1× means investing faster than assets wear out (growth, or, sustained for years, today's earnings carrying less depreciation than tomorrow's will). Below means spending less than it's wearing out (efficiency, or a melting asset base). The ratio won't tell you which; the filings will.

Graham’s defensive tests · 2 of 6 met

Graham’s numerical criteria for the defensive investor (The Intelligent Investor, ch. 14), run on the filings. A floor of safety, not a buy signal; many fine modern businesses fail his strictest liquidity rules by design.

Adequate size Pass

Revenue ≥ $2B · $7.6B

What this means
Big enough to weather a storm. Graham's 1972 floor was ~$100M of sales (≈ $700M today); we use a $2B revenue line as a conservative modern stand-in.
Strong liquidity Near

Current ratio ≥ 2× · 1.66×

What this means
Current assets at least twice current liabilities, near-term bills covered without touching the business. Strict by design: many cash-rich modern firms run leaner and miss it, holding their cushion in longer-dated securities.
Conservative debt Miss

Debt ≤ working capital · $912M vs $285M WC

What this means
Graham's rule that borrowings not exceed net current assets. Capital-heavy and buyback-heavy firms routinely fail it, read it next to interest coverage, not alone.
Earnings stability Near

A profit every year (7-yr record) · 1 loss year

What this means
Graham wanted earnings in each of the past ten years, the stability a defensive owner leans on.
Dividend record Miss

Uninterrupted dividends · 4 of 7 yrs

What this means
An unbroken dividend was Graham's mark of durability. He wanted twenty years; the filings show about ten, and a single suspension breaks the streak. Non-payers, many fine modern compounders, fall outside his defensive net by design.
Earnings growth Pass

Earnings +33% over the record · +165%

What this means
At least a third more earnings than a decade ago, averaging three years at each end. Net income (not per-share), so stock splits don't distort it, buybacks and dilution show up in the share-count line instead.
Moderate price —

P/E ≤ 15 and P/E × P/B ≤ 22.5 · decided by the price

What this means
Graham's valuation gate, the wall he kept between a sound business and a sound investment. Three-year average earnings are $0.23/share (latest year $0.20), the averaged base the calculator's gate runs on, and book value is $2.38/share. Enter a price in “What the price implies” just below for the P/E, P/B, and whether it clears. But this is the rule Buffett outgrew: there's no hard P/E law, and a wonderful business can deserve a far richer multiple if the thesis holds, treat it as the bargain-hunter's floor, not a verdict on the price.

Durability & moat, 2019–2025

Whether the record’s returns held, and what the capital reinvested earned.

Profitable years 6 of 7

What this means
Lost money in 1 year(s), look at what happened there before trusting the average.
Return on capital ≥ 15% 2 of 6 yrs

What this means
A moat shows up as a high return on invested capital that holds year after year, not one good vintage.
Operating margin 1% → 1% (3-yr avg ends)

In the filing’s words The filing attributes gains to higher prices, but the margin in the record has not followed — the claim outruns the result here.

What this means
Through the cycle the operating margin held roughly steady — about 1% early, 1% lately, median 1%.
Reinvestment, incremental ROIC returns capital

What this means
The capital base barely grew: this business returns cash through dividends and buybacks rather than reinvesting. Judge it on the cash returned, not on compounding.
Owner earnings growth +7%/yr

What this means
Owner earnings grew about 7% a year over the record.
Worst year 2019 · 0.0% op. margin

What this means
Stayed profitable even in its hardest year, the resilience that survives recessions.
Share count +9.5%/yr

What this means
The share count is rising, dilution works against you on a per-share basis.
Dividend record rising

What this means
Paid and raised the dividend across the record, the continuity Graham prized.

Does AI threaten the moat?

Moderate contestability

AI is likely to reshape costs and some products here without clearly contesting or sparing the core moat; how the company itself frames it is the tell.

In its own filing Raised, but not as a competitor

The filing raises AI among its risks, but in other terms (security, regulation, energy or the like), not as a competitor to its product.

The question is whether a moat the record shows as durable outlasts a technology that lowers the cost of part of what the firm sells. The durability is read in the record above, the filing's own framing of AI beside it; the industry label decides nothing on its own.

Read from the filing's own risk factors, paired with the industry's structure under its SIC code; the durability is read above, the price below.

All figures as filed; the source filing is linked above.

Current Position

as of the latest quarter, Mar 31, 2026

Can the business pay what it owes this year, off the freshest balance sheet: the quality of the assets, the debt actually coming due, and what a low ratio means here.

Current assets$770M

Cash & short-term investments$279M
Receivables$160M
Inventory$206M
Other current assets$124M

Current liabilities$475M

Debt due within a year$13M
Accounts payable$202M
Other current liabilities$259M

Current ratio1.62×all current assets ÷ what's due · Graham looked for 2×

Quick ratio1.19×stricter: inventory excluded

Cash ratio0.59×strictest: cash alone against what's due

Working capital$295Mthe cushion left after near-term bills

Debt due this year vs. cash$13M due · $279M cash covered by cash on hand, no refinancing forced · both figures from the Mar 31, 2026 balance sheet

Revenue, latest quarter vs. a year ago−3.1%the freshest read on whether the business is still growing

Current ratio, recent quarters1.6× → 1.6×

Deeper floors

Tangible book value($59M)equity stripped of goodwill & intangibles

Net current asset value($2.2B)Graham's net-net: current assets less all liabilities

Debt incl. operating leases$2.1B$1.4B of it operating leases; with finance leases, “total fixed claims” below reaches $2.6B (annual-report basis)

From the company's latest filing.

Lease obligations

the lease note, SEC EDGAR →

Debt by another name. What the business owes on the property, aircraft, stores and equipment it rents rather than owns is a fixed claim due on a schedule; added back to the debt, it is the true leverage. That ladder, operating and finance leases together, and what it adds to the debt on the page above.

Operating leasesFinance leases

'26$214M

'27$206M

'28$203M

'29$202M

'30$197M

later$1.8B

Lease payments by year, scaled to the largest; “later” is everything beyond year five, shown apart. These are the contractual cash payments, before the interest the filing imputes back out to the balance-sheet liability.

Due in the next 12 months$214Ma fixed cash payment, owed whether or not the business has a good year

Total lease payments$2.8Bevery year plus the tail, undiscounted: the full cash the leases will take

On the balance sheet$1.7Bthe present value of those payments, the recognised lease liability

True leverage: debt plus leases

On-balance-sheet debt$912M

Lease obligations (present value)$1.7B

Total fixed claims on the business$2.6B

Counting the leases the way Buffett does, the fixed claims on this business come to $2.6B, of which the leases are 65%, more than the debt itself. The lease wall above and the debt schedule together are the calendar of what must be paid, and when.

Lease ladder read from the ASC 842 tags in the company’s Dec 31, 2025 annual report and reconciled: the yearly buckets sum to the undiscounted total, which less the imputed interest equals the balance-sheet liability; a ladder that doesn’t tie out is withheld.

How the cash was used, 2019–2025

Over the record, the business generated $1.1B of operating cash; how management split it reads as a reinvestor, most operating cash is plowed back into the business.

Reinvested$780M · 69%
Dividends$53M · 5%
Buybacks$134M · 12%
Retained (debt / cash)$170M · 15%

Returned to owners$186M
38% of the owner earnings the business produced over the span, $53M as dividends and $134M as buybacks.
Source of fundingOperating cash
Operating cash covered reinvestment and returns; over the span cash and short-term investments rose $247M.
Average price paid for buybacks$6.82
Across the years where the filing reports a share count, 20M shares were bought for $134M, about $6.82 each. Year to year the price paid ranged from $4.58 (2025) to $8.90 (2022), and 2022, near the top of that range, was also its heaviest buyback year ($40M).
Net change in share count66.9%
The diluted count rose from 67M to 111M: issuance (stock pay, deals) outran any buybacks, so owners were diluted on net.
Dividend record$0.12/sh
Paid in 4 of the years on record. It was never cut over the span.

Buybacks are gross of stock issued to staff; the share-count line above is the net of that, the figure that decides whether owners gained. The average price paid blends a year of purchases (and any accelerated repurchase), so it is close, not exact. The record of where the cash went and on what terms.

Acquisitions & goodwill

from the balance sheet & the 7-year cash-flow record

Goodwill grows only when a company acquires and falls only when it concedes it overpaid. The size of that bet, the cash put into buying rather than building, and how much has already been written off.

Goodwill & intangibles$460M13% of all assets; the premium carried on the balance sheet for businesses acquired

Against book equityexceeds itgoodwill alone is larger than the company’s entire book equity; stripped of the acquisition premium, there is no net book worth

Cash spent acquiring$1.5Bover 7 years buying other businesses, against $780M of capital spent building

None written down over the record; the goodwill is still carried at full cost. That is the deals holding their value on the books so far; whether they keep doing so is the test an owner watches, since the write-down, when it comes, is the admission the price was too high.

Goodwill, acquired intangibles and equity from the latest balance sheet; acquisition spend and write-downs summed across the 7-year record, from the company's own filings.

Management, ownership & pay

read the proxy →

From the proxy: how much of the business the people running it own, and how they are paid, beside what the business earned for its owners in the same years.

Fiscal year	Chief executive	Pay, as filed	“Actually paid”	Owner earnings
2021	Mr. Kotler	$6.4M	$6.4M	$62M
2022	Mr. Kotler	$6.7M	$7.0M	$111M
2023	Mr. Kotler	$6.0M	$4.3M	$25M
2024	Mr. Kotler	$4.8M	$2.8M	$108M
2025	Mr. Kotler	$5.5M	$3.1M	$65M

Both pay figures are the company’s own, from the pay-versus-performance table its proxy statement files. “As filed” is the Summary Compensation Table total: salary, bonus, and equity awards at their value on the day of grant. “Actually paid” is the SEC’s prescribed recalculation, which re-marks those equity awards to what they became as they vested; it can swing far above or below the filed figure in either direction, and negative years occur. Owner earnings are the whole business's, from the record above, for the same fiscal years.

Insider ownership21.9%
The stake all directors and executive officers hold together, per the 2026 proxy: skin in the game, the first thing Munger reads.
CEO pay ratio210:1
What the chief earns for every dollar the median employee makes, per the 2026 proxy. A high ratio alone settles nothing; some businesses are genuinely top-heavy in scarce skill. A runaway figure is where Buffett starts asking whether the board is doing its job.
Stock-based compensation$15M
The slice of the business handed to employees in shares this year, 0% of revenue, equal to 15% of operating profit. Buffett's oldest accounting fight: this is compensation, compensation is an expense, real whether or not the headline earnings admit it. One trap: the cash-flow statement adds SBC back, so the operating cash, and the owner earnings drawn from it, are flattered by exactly this amount; counted as the cost it is, what an owner keeps is lower.

Inverting the record

Invert: instead of why ARKO Corp. is a good business, the question is what would make owning it a mistake, and whether those marks are in the record. Disconfirming tests across 2019–2025.

2 of the 3 tests turned up something to look into; the other 1 came back clean.

Look hereIs it less profitable than it was?0.8% vs 1.2%
The owner-earnings margin averaged 1.2% early in the record and 0.8% across the last three years, and the latest year has not recovered. Ask the filing whether that is a structural drift or a cyclical trough — price, mix, cost, or a competitor — and whether it is permanent.
Look hereDid the share count rise anyway?66.9%
Diluted shares grew 66.9% over 2019–2025, even as the company spent $134M on buybacks. The repurchases were outrun by issuance — to staff, in a raise, or in a deal — and the filing says which; owners' slice still shrank. Read the buyback line beside this one, not on its own.

And these came back clean

Did reported profit become cash?

Each test is read from the filings and is noisy alone; a flag can mark a cyclical trough or a year of heavy investment as easily as a problem. The filing says which.

What an owner would ask, FY2025

read the 10-K →

Which reported numbers are a judgment call?
Management names Income taxes as critical estimates
each rests partly on management's judgment; the filing's note sets out the assumptionsverify →

The questions the record and the charts do not answer on their own; each carries the figure and the place to look.

Peers, Food & Drug Retailing

The same industry, side by side on owner economics. Each figure is a through-cycle median, so a peak or trough year can’t distort it; the group median at the foot is the line to read each against.

Company	Revenue	Gross margin	Op. margin	ROIC	Owner earn. margin
SFMSprouts Farmers	$8.8B	36%	5.3%	30%	5%
ARKOARKO Corp.	$7.6B	—	1.3%	10%	1%
IMKTAIngles Markets Incorporated	$5.3B	24%	3.6%	9%	2%
WMKWeis Markets Inc.	$5.0B	—	2.7%	8%	2%
GOGrocery Outlet	$4.7B	30%	2.9%	5%	3%
VLGEAVillage Super Market Inc.	$2.3B	28%	2.1%	10%	2%
DNUTKrispy Kreme Inc.	$1.5B	—	0.6%	0%	-4%
NGVCNatural Grocers by Vitamin Cottage Inc.	$1.3B	—	2.7%	15%	2%
Group median	—	—	2.7%	9%	2%

The price

What a price has to assume.

What the price implies

reverse-DCF

Type today's close and see the owner-earnings growth you'd have to believe to justify it, beside what ARKO Corp. has delivered.

Today’s price $

Through the cycle, ARKO Corp. earns about $65M on its 0.9% median owner-earnings margin. This year’s 0.9% margin runs in line with that. Normalize, below, values the price on that through-cycle figure rather than the latest year.

Base Normalize · through-cycle ($65M) Net of stock comp (−$16M)

—

The assumptions Required return 9% Years of high growth 10 Terminal growth 2.5%

9.0% = the 4.55% 10-year Treasury (Jul 15, 2026) + 4.45 points of equity premium. The rate you require is yours to set.

Enter a price above to run it.

Implied by the price—

Owner-earnings growth · ’21→’25+0%/yr

Owner-earnings growth · ’19→’25+7%/yr

Owner-earnings yield—

P/E (3-yr earnings ’23–’25)—

P/B—

Graham’s price gate—

Graham capped the multiple at 15×; Buffett and Munger let that rule go: a wonderful business can deserve 50× if the thesis holds. The gate marks the bargain-hunter's floor.

Against a high-grade bond: Graham’s yardstick bond yield%

Prefilled with the 10-year Treasury (4.55%, as of Jul 15, 2026). Edit it for today’s exact figure, or a AAA corporate yield.

Graham measured a stock against the bond you could own instead, the heart of his margin of safety. Enter a price above to weigh the owner-earnings yield against this bond.

Owner earnings $38M on 112M shares outstanding, per the 10-Q cover, as of 2026-05-05; net debt $425M. The base is the latest year by default; Normalize values it on the through-cycle median owner-earnings margin (to avoid paying on a peak year). Net of stock comp treats option pay as the expense it is. The dials set the multiple a growth belief justifies; the price, and every dollar on this page, is yours.

Weigh ARKO against another business →

Cite: Owner Scorecard, "ARKO Corp. (ARKO), the owner's record," https://ownerscorecard.com/c/ARKO, data as of 2026-07-09.

Manual order: ← ARI its page in the Manual ARL →

Industry order: ← ACI the Food & Drug Retailing chapter CASY →