← All companies ← AWI Manual AWR → ← ARTNA Water Utilities AWR →

AWK, American Water Works Company Inc.

Water Utilities capital-intensive Regulated utility

The Company's primary business involves the ownership of utilities that provide water and wastewater services to residential, commercial, industrial, public authority, fire service and sale for resale customers.

The Company's utilities operate in 14 states in the United States, with 3.6 million active customers in its water and wastewater networks.

Reports the results of the services provided by its utilities in the Regulated Businesses segment.

Latest annual: FY2025 10-K

AWK · American Water Works Company Inc.

The business

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

Revenue · FY2025

$5.1B

+9.7% YoY · 6% 5-yr CAGR

Vital signs · TTM, with 5-yr average

Revenue $5.2B 5-yr avg $4.4B

Operating margin 36.5% 5-yr avg 34.6%

ROIC 6% 5-yr avg 6%

Owner-earnings margin 21% 5-yr avg 22%

Free cash flow margin −23% 5-yr avg −19%

The business in brief

read the 10-K →

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

Situation: Regulated utility. Returns are set by regulation on an approved rate base; the capital spending regulators approve becomes the growth, recovered through allowed rates.
What moves the needle: Operating margin has run about 34% through the cycle, a wide margin for the work it does — whether that reflects a durable edge or one that can fade is what the record weighs. That margin has stayed fairly steady relative to where it runs (30%–37% over the years), so unit growth and cost discipline, not a moving line, are the lever. Capital spending runs about 46% of sales, well above depreciation, so the return earned on what it sinks into that plant weighs as much as the margin. Read this kind of business on rate base and the allowed return. On its own account, the filing leans hardest on supplier & input dependence, set against the numbers in what the filing emphasizes, below.
Is it a good business?: Return on capital has rarely cleared the cost of capital (median 6%, above 15% in 0 of 10 years). By owner earnings: roughly 24% of revenue reaches owners as cash, consistently. 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.

The record

Ten years of arithmetic, read across the cycle.

The record, 2016–2025

realized figures from each filing · older years to the left

2016’16	2017’17	2018’18	2019’19	2020’20	2021’21	2022’22	2023’23	2024’24	2025’25	TTMTTMMar 2026
											Income statement
$3.3B	$3.4B	$3.4B	$3.6B	$3.8B	$3.9B	$3.8B	$4.2B	$4.7B	$5.1B	$5.2B	RevenueRevenue
$1.1B	$1.3B	$1.1B	$1.2B	$1.2B	$1.2B	$1.3B	$1.5B	$1.7B	$1.9B	$1.9B	Operating incomeOp. inc.
32.9%	37.3%	32.0%	33.6%	33.0%	30.4%	33.6%	35.5%	36.7%	36.6%	36.5%	Operating marginOp. mgn
$468M	$426M	$567M	$621M	$709M	$1.3B	$820M	$944M	$1.1B	$1.1B	$1.1B	Net incomeNet inc.
39%	53%	28%	25%	23%	23%	19%	21%	23%	22%	22%	Effective tax rateTax rate
											Cash flow & returns
$1.3B	$1.4B	$1.4B	$1.4B	$1.4B	$1.4B	$1.1B	$1.9B	$2.0B	$2.1B	$2.0B	Operating cash flowOp. cash
$470M	$492M	$545M	$582M	$604M	$636M	$649M	$704M	$788M	$894M	$915M	DepreciationDeprec.
$351M	$531M	$274M	$180M	$113M	($458M)	($361M)	$226M	$206M	$54M	$3M	Working capital & otherWC & other
$1.3B	$1.4B	$1.6B	$1.7B	$1.8B	$1.8B	$2.3B	$2.6B	$2.9B	$3.1B	$3.2B	CapexCapex
39.7%	42.7%	46.1%	45.8%	48.2%	44.9%	60.6%	60.8%	61.0%	60.8%	62.2%	Capex / revenueCapex/rev
$819M	$957M	$841M	$801M	$822M	$805M	$459M	$1.2B	$1.3B	$1.2B	$1.1B	Owner earningsOwner earn.
24.8%	28.5%	24.4%	22.2%	21.8%	20.5%	12.1%	27.6%	26.8%	22.7%	21.5%	Owner earnings marginOE mgn
($22M)	$15M	($200M)	($271M)	($396M)	($323M)	($1.2B)	($701M)	($811M)	($1.1B)	($1.2B)	Free cash flowFCF
−0.7%	0.4%	−5.8%	−7.5%	−10.5%	−8.2%	−31.4%	−16.6%	−17.3%	−20.8%	−23.1%	Free cash flow marginFCF mgn
$204M	$177M	$398M	$235M	$135M	$135M	$315M	$81M	$417M	$71M	$88M	AcquisitionsAcquis.
$261M	$289M	$319M	$353M	$389M	$428M	$467M	$532M	$585M	$633M	$646M	Dividends paidDiv. paid
$65M	$54M	$45M	$36M	$0	$0	—	—	—	—	—	BuybacksBuybacks
6%	5%	6%	6%	6%	5%	6%	6%	6%	6%	6%	ROICROIC
9%	8%	10%	10%	11%	17%	11%	10%	10%	10%	10%	Return on equityROE
4%	3%	4%	4%	5%	11%	5%	4%	5%	4%	4%	Retained to equityRetained/eq
											Balance sheet
$75M	$55M	$130M	$60M	$547M	$116M	$85M	$330M	$96M	$98M	$137M	Cash & investmentsCash+inv
$269M	$272M	$301M	$294M	$321M	$271M	$334M	$339M	$416M	$395M	$386M	ReceivablesReceiv.
$154M	$195M	$175M	$203M	$189M	$235M	$254M	$294M	$346M	$378M	$272M	Accounts payablePayables
$115M	$77M	$126M	$91M	$132M	$36M	$80M	$45M	$70M	$17M	$114M	Operating working capitalOper. WC
$784M	$720M	$781M	$1.3B	$1.9B	$1.6B	$1.3B	$1.4B	$1.2B	$2.2B	$1.5B	Current assetsCur. assets
$2.4B	$2.3B	$2.1B	$2.0B	$2.9B	$2.1B	$2.8B	$2.2B	$3.1B	$4.7B	$4.1B	Current liabilitiesCur. liab.
0.3×	0.3×	0.4×	0.6×	0.7×	0.7×	0.4×	0.6×	0.4×	0.5×	0.4×	Current ratioCurr. ratio
$1.3B	$1.4B	$1.6B	$1.5B	$1.5B	$1.1B	$1.1B	$1.1B	$1.1B	$1.2B	$1.2B	GoodwillGoodwill
$18.5B	$19.5B	$21.2B	$22.7B	$24.8B	$26.1B	$27.8B	$30.3B	$32.8B	$35.4B	$35.3B	Total assetsAssets
$6.3B	$6.8B	$7.6B	$8.7B	$9.7B	$10.3B	$10.9B	$11.7B	$12.5B	$12.8B	$12.8B	Total debtDebt
$6.2B	$6.8B	$7.5B	$8.6B	$9.1B	$10.2B	$10.8B	$11.4B	$12.4B	$12.7B	$12.6B	Net debt / (cash)Net debt
—	—	—	—	—	—	2.9×	3.3×	3.3×	3.1×	3.0×	Interest coverageInt. cov.
$5.2B	$5.4B	$5.9B	$6.1B	$6.5B	$7.3B	$7.7B	$9.8B	$10.3B	$10.8B	$11.0B	Shareholders’ equityEquity
											Per share
179M	179M	180M	181M	182M	182M	182M	193M	195M	195M	195M	Shares out (diluted)Shares
$18.45	$18.75	$19.11	$19.94	$20.75	$21.59	$20.84	$21.94	$24.02	$26.36	$26.69	Revenue / shareRev/sh
$2.61	$2.38	$3.15	$3.43	$3.90	$6.94	$4.51	$4.89	$5.39	$5.70	$5.65	EPS (diluted)EPS
$4.58	$5.35	$4.67	$4.43	$4.52	$4.42	$2.52	$6.06	$6.45	$5.97	$5.73	Owner earnings / shareOE/sh
$-0.12	$0.08	$-1.11	$-1.50	$-2.18	$-1.77	$-6.53	$-3.63	$-4.16	$-5.47	$-6.17	Free cash flow / shareFCF/sh
$1.46	$1.61	$1.77	$1.95	$2.14	$2.35	$2.57	$2.76	$3.00	$3.25	$3.31	Dividends / shareDiv/sh
$7.32	$8.01	$8.81	$9.14	$10.01	$9.69	$12.62	$13.34	$14.65	$16.03	$16.60	Cap. spending / shareCapex/sh
$29.15	$30.08	$32.58	$33.82	$35.46	$40.10	$42.27	$50.76	$52.98	$55.57	$56.60	Book value / shareBVPS

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

	9-yr	5-yr
Revenue / share	+4.0%/yr	+4.9%/yr
Owner earnings / share	+3.0%/yr	+5.8%/yr
EPS	+9.0%/yr	+7.9%/yr
Dividends / share	+9.3%/yr	+8.7%/yr
Capital spending / share	+9.1%/yr	+9.9%/yr
Book value / share	+7.4%/yr	+9.4%/yr

The record, charted

FY2016–2025

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

Share count

195Mpeak FY2024

ROIC

6%low FY2017

Net debt ÷ owner earnings

10.9×peak FY2022

Owner earnings vs. net income

Owner earningsNet income

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

$1.2Bowner earningsvs.$1.1Bnet incomelow FY2022

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.

FY2016FY2025

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 earned $1.2B of owner earnings, the operating cash left after the $894M it takes just to hold its position. It put $2.2B more into growth; free cash flow, after that spending, was ($1.1B).

Reported net income$1.1B

Owner earnings$1.2B · 23% of revenue

	FY2025	FY2024	FY2023	FY2022	FY2021
Reported net income	$1.1B	$1.1B	$944M	$820M	$1.3B
Depreciation & amortizationnon-cash charge added back	+$894M	+$788M	+$704M	+$649M	+$636M
Working capital & othertiming of cash in and out, other non-cash items	+$54M	+$206M	+$226M	−$361M	−$458M
Cash from operations	$2.1B	$2.0B	$1.9B	$1.1B	$1.4B
Maintenance capital expenditurethe spending needed just to hold position and volume	−$894M	−$788M	−$704M	−$649M	−$636M
Owner earnings	$1.2B	$1.3B	$1.2B	$459M	$805M
Growth capital expenditurediscretionary; spent to get bigger, not to stand still	−$2.2B	−$2.1B	−$1.9B	−$1.6B	−$1.1B
Free cash flow	($1.1B)	($811M)	($701M)	($1.2B)	($323M)
Owner-earnings marginowner earnings ÷ revenue	23%	27%	28%	12%	20%

Owner earnings is the cash an owner could pull out without starving the business: operating cash less the maintenance capital it must spend to hold its position (here about $894M, roughly its depreciation, the rate its assets wear out). The other $2.2B of its capital spending is growth it chose, not upkeep it owed; charged only with the maintenance it must do, the business earns well more than the year's free cash flow shows.

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? 3.1×

Adequate

Operating income $1.9B ÷ interest expense $615M

What this means
Comfortable in a normal year, but below the margin of safety Graham looked for. Worth checking how stable the coverage has been across a full cycle.
How heavy is the debt, net of cash? $12.7B · 6.7× operating profit

Heavy net debt

Cash $98M − debt $12.8B

What this means
Netting $98M of cash and short-term investments against $12.8B of debt leaves $12.7B owed, about 6.7× a year's operating profit (6.8× 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 6%

Below average through the cycle

10-yr median, range 5%–6%; 6% latest = NOPAT $1.5B ÷ invested capital $23.5B

Industry peers: median 6%

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 10 years (it ran 6% 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 23%

High through the cycle

10-yr median margin, range 12%–29%; latest $1.2B = operating cash $2.1B − maintenance capex $894M

Industry peers: median 15%

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 23% of revenue this year, a 23% median across 10 years. It chose to put $2.2B more into growth, so free cash flow this year was ($1.1B) — the gap is investment, not weakness. Treating stock comp as the real expense it is (less $13M of SBC) leaves $1.2B.
Are earnings backed by cash? 1.85×

Cash-backed

Cash from ops $2.1B ÷ net income $1.1B

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? 54%

Returns about half

Dividends + buybacks $633M ÷ Owner Earnings $1.2B

What this means
Of $1.2B Owner Earnings, $633M (54%) went back to shareholders, $633M dividends, $0 buybacks. 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? 3.50×

Expanding

Capex $3.1B ÷ depreciation $894M

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 · 4 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 · $5.1B

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 Miss

Current ratio ≥ 2× · 0.46×

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 · $12.8B vs ($2.6B) 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 Pass

A profit every year (10-yr record) · no losses

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

Uninterrupted dividends · paid every year (10)

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 · +113%

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 $5.30/share (latest year $5.69), the averaged base the calculator's gate runs on, and book value is $55.49/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, 2016–2025

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

Profitable years 10 of 10

What this means
Never lost money over the record, the earnings stability Graham insisted on.
Return on capital ≥ 15% 0 of 10 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 34% → 36% (3-yr avg ends)

What this means
Through the cycle the operating margin widened — about 34% early to 36% lately, median 34% — pricing power intact or improving.
Reinvestment, incremental ROIC 6%

What this means
Reinvested capital came back at only a modest incremental return — near the cost of capital, where extra growth adds little per dollar. The record shows whether it is a soft stretch or a thinning moat.
Owner earnings growth +4%/yr

What this means
Owner earnings grew about 4% a year over the record.
Worst year 2021 · 30.4% op. margin

What this means
Stayed profitable even in its hardest year, the resilience that survives recessions.
Share count +1.0%/yr

What this means
Roughly flat share count, little dilution, little buyback.
Dividend record rising

What this means
Paid and raised the dividend across the record, the continuity Graham prized.
How management talks about it Owner’s terms

What this means
The filing reasons in an owner’s terms — per-share, return on capital, the long term — and the record has held; the words and the results are of a piece.

Does AI threaten the moat?

Low contestability

The moat is physical, regulated or balance-sheet-funded, the kind AI cuts costs within but does not contest.

AI is unlikely to contest a moat that is physical, regulated or balance-sheet-funded; here it reads more as a cost tool than a threat.

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$1.5B

Cash & short-term investments$137M
Receivables$386M
Other current assets$1.0B

Current liabilities$4.1B

Debt due within a year$56M
Accounts payable$272M
Other current liabilities$3.8B

Current ratio0.37×all current assets ÷ what's due · Graham looked for 2×

Quick ratio0.37×stricter: inventory excluded

Cash ratio0.03×strictest: cash alone against what's due

Working capital($2.6B)the cushion left after near-term bills

Debt due this year vs. cash$56M due · $137M 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+6.1%the freshest read on whether the business is still growing

Current ratio, recent quarters0.6× → 0.4×

Deeper floors

Tangible book value$9.8Bequity stripped of goodwill & intangibles

Debt incl. operating leases$9.8B$72M of it operating leases

Deferred revenue$39Mcustomer cash collected before delivery; operating float

From the company's latest filing.

Debt maturity

the debt note, SEC EDGAR →

Not how much it owes, but when it falls due, and against what. The ladder the company files, beside cash on hand and a year's owner earnings.

'26$1.5B

'27$646M

'28$869M

'29$938M

'30$517M

later$9.9B

Bars scaled to the largest single year; “later” is everything due after 2030, shown apart since it dwarfs the years.

Due in the next 12 months$1.5Bthe first rung: what must be repaid or rolled over within the year

Within two years$2.1Bthe near wall, the part most exposed to today’s credit conditions

Biggest single year$1.5Bin 2026the lumpiest maturity, where a refinancing, if needed, is largest

Total scheduled principal$14.3Bevery year plus what lies beyond, as the footnote totals it

Against what the business has and earns

Cash & short-term investments, Mar 31, 2026$137M

One year of owner earnings (FY2025)$1.2B

Together, against $1.5B due next year0.88×

Cash on hand as of Mar 31, 2026 plus a year’s owner earnings comes to $1.3B against the $1.5B due in the twelve months after the Dec 31, 2025 schedule: about 88% of it, so the near maturities lean on refinancing or the rest of the year’s cash.

Maturity schedule extracted from the company’s Dec 31, 2025 annual report and reconciled to the balance-sheet debt.

How the cash was used, 2016–2025

Over the record, the business generated $15.5B of operating cash; how management split it reads as a reinvestor, most operating cash is plowed back into the business.

Reinvested$20.4B · 132%
Dividends$4.3B · 28%
Buybacks$200M · 1%

Returned to owners$4.5B
49% of the owner earnings the business produced over the span, $4.3B as dividends and $200M as buybacks.
Source of funding−$9.4B
Reinvestment and shareholder returns ran $9.4B beyond the operating cash the business generated, so the gap was financed off the balance sheet: debt rose from $6.3B to $12.8B.
Average price paid for buybacks$74.07
Across the years where the filing reports a share count, 3M shares were bought for $200M, about $74.07 each. Year to year the price paid ranged from $65.00 (2016) to $90.00 (2019); its heaviest year, 2016, paid $65.00 ($65M).
Net change in share count8.9%
The diluted count rose from 179M to 195M: issuance (stock pay, deals) outran any buybacks, so owners were diluted on net.
Dividend record$3.25/sh
Paid in 10 of the years on record, the per-share dividend growing about 9% a year. It was never cut over the span.
Return on what it retained9%
Of the earnings it kept rather than paid out ($3.5B over the span), annual owner earnings (first three years vs last three) grew $325M, so each retained $1 added about 0.09 of yearly owner earnings. Buffett's test, run on owner earnings instead of market value.

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.

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	Walter J. Lynch	$7.4M	$8.4M	$805M
2022	Ms. Hardwick	$6.7M	$6.6M	$459M
2022	Walter J. Lynch	$1.5M	$545k	$459M
2023	Ms. Hardwick	$7.7M	$6.7M	$1.2B
2024	Ms. Hardwick	$8.6M	$7.8M	$1.3B
2025	Mr. Griffith	$7.1M	$7.5M	$1.2B
2025	Ms. Hardwick	$6.3M	$7.2M	$1.2B

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 ownership<1%
The stake all directors and executive officers hold together, per the 2026 proxy: skin in the game, the first thing Munger reads.
Stock-based compensation$13M
The slice of the business handed to employees in shares this year, 0% of revenue, equal to 1% 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 American Water Works Company Inc. 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 2016–2025.

2 of the 6 tests turned up something to look into; the other 4 came back clean.

Look hereDid the share count rise anyway?8.9%
Diluted shares grew 8.9% over 2016–2025, even as the company spent $200M 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.
Look hereDid debt outgrow the business?$6.3B → $12.8B
Debt rose from $6.3B to $12.8B while owner earnings went from about $872M to $1.2B — about 7.2 years of owner earnings in debt then, about 11 now: measured against what the business earns, the balance sheet carries more debt than it did. Debt raised for buybacks or deals rather than growth is the kind that bites in a downturn.

And these came back clean

Is it less profitable than it was?
Did reported profit become cash?
Did receivables and inventory outpace sales?
Are "one-time" charges a yearly habit?

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 Revenue recognition, Pension & retirement, Income taxes, Contingencies 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, Water Utilities

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
NINiSource Inc	$6.5B	68%	20.5%	6%	10%
EVRGEvergy	$5.7B	—	24.7%	6%	17%
PNWPinnacle West	$5.3B	71%	20.5%	6%	11%
AWKAmerican Water Works Company Inc.	$5.1B	—	33.6%	6%	24%
ATOAtmos Energy Corporation	$4.7B	68%	26.6%	6%	21%
LNTAlliant Energy	$4.4B	86%	21.7%	6%	1%
WTRGEssential Utilities	$2.5B	—	36.8%	6%	30%
CWTCalifornia Water Service	$964M	—	16.5%	5%	15%
Group median	—	—	23.2%	6%	16%

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 American Water Works Company Inc. has delivered.

American Water Works Company Inc.’s latest year shows negative owner earnings, the mark of a build-out: total capital spending outruns the cash the business throws off today. So the tool opens on the steady-state base (maintenance capex in place of the build-out spend), the cash it would earn at rest; clear the toggle below to read the latest year exactly as reported.

Today’s price $

Through the cycle, American Water Works Company Inc. earns about $1.2B on its 23.6% median owner-earnings margin. This year’s 22.7% 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 ($1.2B) Net of stock comp (−$13M) Steady-state · maintenance capex ($1.1B)

—

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+18%/yr

Owner-earnings growth · ’16→’25+4%/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.

Free cash flow ($1.2B) on 195M shares outstanding, per the 10-Q cover, as of 2026-04-20; net debt $12.6B. The base opens on the steady-state figure (the latest year is negative on total capex mid-build-out); clear Steady-state to use the year as filed. Net of stock comp treats option pay as the expense it is. Capex ($3.2B) runs well above depreciation ($915M), so this is a build-out; Steady-state swaps total capex for maintenance (≈ depreciation), lifting the base to about $1.1B, the cash it would throw off if it stopped expanding. The dials set the multiple a growth belief justifies; the price, and every dollar on this page, is yours.

Weigh AWK against another business →

The owners of AWK: the meeting and the votes →

Cite: Owner Scorecard, "American Water Works Company Inc. (AWK), the owner's record," https://ownerscorecard.com/c/AWK, data as of 2026-07-09.

Manual order: ← AWI its page in the Manual AWR →

Industry order: ← ARTNA the Water Utilities chapter AWR →