ROIC
3%low FY2018
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BH, Biglari Holdings Inc.
Biglari Holdings Inc. is a holding company owning subsidiaries engaged in a number of diverse business activities, including property and casualty insurance and reinsurance, licensing and media, restaurants, and oil and gas.
Biglari Holdings' management system combines decentralized operations with centralized financial decision-making.
Restaurant operations obtain food products and supplies from independent national distributors.
The business
What it sells, where the money comes from, the kind of company it is.
Revenue · FY2025
$395M
+9.2% YoY · −2% 5-yr CAGR
Vital signs · TTM, with 5-yr average
Revenue $398M 5-yr avg $371M
Revenue $97M +2.6% vs yr-ago qtr
Net income ($15M) yr-ago ($33M)
Net margin −14.9% yr-ago −35.0%
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 led by Restaurant (71%) and Insurance (19%), with 3 more lines behind.
- Situation
- Unprofitable. No sustained operating profit across the record; an earnings multiple has nothing to rest on. What the record does show is revenue, the gross-margin trajectory, and the burn against the cash on hand. 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. Cyclical. Margins collapse and recover repeatedly across the record; a single year, good or bad, misstates the through-cycle earning power.
- What moves the needle
- Gross margin has run about 54% and operating margin about 4.8% through the cycle, a wide spread between price and the cost of what it sells — whether that advantage is durable pricing power or a margin that can erode is the question the record is for. The margin is cyclical, swinging between −7.5% and 12% over the years, so the through-cycle figure carries more than any single year — and the balance sheet at the trough more than the peak. The cash cycle has run negative through the cycle (a median of −37 days): the operation is paid before it pays, so working capital releases cash as the business grows rather than tying it up. Read this kind of business on same-store sales and unit economics. 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 rarely cleared the cost of capital (median 3%, above 15% in 0 of 8 years). By owner earnings: roughly 16% of revenue reaches owners as cash, consistently, and customers and suppliers fund the business through negative working capital. The cycle and the balance sheet decide this one; the worst year tells more than the median, and 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 →Restaurant is 71% of revenue, with Insurance the other meaningful line at 19%.
Revenue by product line, FY2025
- Restaurant71%$281M
- Insurance19%$76M
- Oil and gas8%$30M
- Licensing and media2%$8M
- Gift Cards1%$5M
- Advertising1%$3M
- Franchise0%$330K
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, 2018–2025
realized figures from each filing · older years to the left| 2018’18 | 2019’19 | 2020’20 | 2021’21 | 2022’22 | 2023’23 | 2024’24 | 2025’25 | TTMTTMMar 2026 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Income statement | |||||||||
| $776M | $669M | $434M | $366M | $368M | $365M | $362M | $395M | $398M | RevenueRevenue |
| 18% | 25% | 43% | 54% | 62% | 62% | 60% | 59% | 60% | Gross marginGross mgn |
| 16% | 15% | 18% | 21% | 19% | 21% | 21% | 22% | 23% | SG&A / revenueSG&A/rev |
| ($58M) | ($23M) | ($11M) | $25M | $36M | $43M | $33M | $19M | $5M | Operating incomeOp. inc. |
| −7.5% | −3.4% | −2.5% | 6.8% | 9.9% | 11.8% | 9.0% | 4.8% | 1.2% | Operating marginOp. mgn |
| $19M | $45M | ($38M) | $35M | ($32M) | $55M | ($4M) | ($37M) | ($19M) | Net incomeNet inc. |
| — | 18% | — | 16% | — | 14% | — | — | — | Effective tax rateTax rate |
| Cash flow & returns | |||||||||
| $21M | $94M | $118M | $229M | $128M | $73M | $50M | $107M | $111M | Operating cash flowOp. cash |
| $19M | $30M | $32M | $30M | $36M | $39M | $40M | $41M | $41M | DepreciationDeprec. |
| ($18M) | $19M | $123M | $163M | $123M | ($21M) | $14M | $104M | $89M | Working capital & otherWC & other |
| $15M | $18M | $21M | $65M | $30M | $23M | $31M | $30M | $30M | CapexCapex |
| 2.0% | 2.6% | 4.8% | 17.6% | 8.1% | 6.4% | 8.4% | 7.7% | 7.5% | Capex / revenueCapex/rev |
| $5M | $76M | $97M | $164M | $98M | $50M | $19M | $77M | $81M | Owner earningsOwner earn. |
| 0.7% | 11.4% | 22.3% | 44.9% | 26.6% | 13.6% | 5.3% | 19.4% | 20.5% | Owner earnings marginOE mgn |
| $5M | $76M | $97M | $164M | $98M | $50M | $19M | $77M | $81M | Free cash flowFCF |
| 0.7% | 11.4% | 22.3% | 44.9% | 26.6% | 13.6% | 5.3% | 19.4% | 20.5% | Free cash flow marginFCF mgn |
| $0 | $51M | $36M | $0 | $58M | $0 | $0 | — | $0 | AcquisitionsAcquis. |
| -11% | -2% | -1% | 3% | 6% | 6% | 4% | 3% | — | ROICROIC |
| 3% | 7% | -7% | 6% | -6% | 9% | -1% | -7% | -4% | Return on equityROE |
| 3% | 7% | −7% | 6% | −6% | 9% | −1% | −7% | −4% | Retained to equityRetained/eq |
| Balance sheet | |||||||||
| $49M | $68M | $25M | $42M | $37M | $28M | $31M | $269M | $200M | Cash & investmentsCash+inv |
| — | $22M | $19M | $29M | $29M | $22M | $25M | $23M | $25M | ReceivablesReceiv. |
| — | $5M | $3M | $4M | $4M | $3M | $4M | $4M | $4M | InventoryInvent. |
| — | — | $27M | $37M | $28M | $22M | $29M | $34M | $32M | Accounts payablePayables |
| — | $26M | ($5M) | ($4M) | $5M | $3M | $673K | ($7M) | ($4M) | Operating working capitalOper. WC |
| — | $145M | $148M | $165M | $151M | $153M | $171M | $379M | $356M | Current assetsCur. assets |
| — | $140M | $288M | $144M | $135M | $111M | $147M | $156M | $144M | Current liabilitiesCur. liab. |
| — | 1.0× | 0.5× | 1.1× | 1.1× | 1.4× | 1.2× | 2.4× | 2.5× | Current ratioCurr. ratio |
| $40M | $40M | $54M | $54M | $54M | $53M | $52M | $53M | $53M | GoodwillGoodwill |
| — | $1.1B | $1.0B | $895M | $828M | $849M | $866M | $1.0B | $1.0B | Total assetsAssets |
| — | $270M | $264M | $104M | $10M | $0 | $45M | $247M | $240M | Total debtDebt |
| — | $203M | $239M | $62M | ($27M) | ($28M) | $14M | ($22M) | $40M | Net debt / (cash)Net debt |
| -2.9× | -1.1× | -0.7× | — | — | — | — | — | 0.3× | Interest coverageInt. cov. |
| $570M | $616M | $565M | $588M | $547M | $599M | $573M | $523M | $519M | Shareholders’ equityEquity |
| — | — | $300K | — | — | — | $1M | — | $1M | Goodwill written downGW imp. |
The record, charted
FY2018–2025Each measure over its full record; the current point and the worst year marked.
Gross margin
59%low FY2018
Net debt ÷ owner earnings
-0.3×peak FY2019
Owner earnings vs. net income
Owner earningsNet incomeThe accountant's number, and the cash an owner can take; the gap is the tell.
$77Mowner earningsvs.($37M)net incomelow FY2018
Where the cash went
ReinvestBuybacksDividendsAcquisitionsRetainedEach year's operating cash, by what management did with it: the mix, and how it drifts.
FY2018FY2025
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 a $37M loss into $77M of owner earnings: more cash than the profit line showed, after the non-cash charges and the capital it put back in.
| FY2025 | FY2024 | FY2023 | FY2022 | FY2021 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Reported net income | ($37M) | ($4M) | $55M | ($32M) | $35M |
| Depreciation & amortizationnon-cash charge added back | +$41M | +$40M | +$39M | +$36M | +$30M |
| Working capital & othertiming of cash in and out, other non-cash items | +$104M | +$14M | −$21M | +$123M | +$163M |
| Cash from operations | $107M | $50M | $73M | $128M | $229M |
| Capital expenditurecash put back in to keep running and to grow | −$30M | −$31M | −$23M | −$30M | −$65M |
| Owner earnings | $77M | $19M | $50M | $98M | $164M |
| Owner-earnings marginowner earnings ÷ revenue | 19% | 5% | 14% | 27% | 45% |
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 .
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.
Quality & stewardship
Returns, the balance sheet, capital allocation, and pay.
Owner’s Scorecard
FY2025 10-K · source on SEC EDGAR →
Material weakness in financial controls
“We have identified a material weakness in our internal control over financial reporting.”
The figures below are only as sound as the controls that produced them. read the note →
Will it survive?
- ThinOperating income $19M ÷ interest expense $16M
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.
- Net cashCash $269M − debt $247M
What this means
Cash and short-term investments exceed every dollar of debt by $22M, on net the company owes nothing, and can act from strength when others can't. Net debt is the leverage figure that matters: the cash is already set against the debt. Strategic or illiquid investments aren't counted here.
- Negative, funded by othersDSO 22 + DIO 9 − DPO 77 days
What this means
Days cash is tied up between paying suppliers and collecting from customers. A negative cycle is a quiet moat: suppliers and customers fund the operation (Buffett's “float”), the company grows on other people's money.
Is it a good business?
- Below average through the cycle8-yr median, range -11%–6%; the latest year is left out — large non-operating charges put its operating line well above pretax profitIndustry peers: median 7%
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 8 years, 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.
- Solid through the cycle8-yr median margin, range 1%–45%; latest $77M = operating cash $107M − maintenance capex $30MIndustry peers: median 6%
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 19% of revenue this year, a 14% median across 8 years.
- Loss, but cash-generativeNet income ($37M) · cash from operations $107M
In the filing’s words The filing discloses a material weakness in its financial controls — the reported numbers here, and the record built on them, are only as reliable as the controls that produced them.
What this means
The company reported a net loss, so a conversion ratio isn't meaningful. What matters then is whether operations still threw off cash, here, they did.
How is the cash used?
- Not enough data
What this means
The filing data didn't include the inputs for this check.
- Investing or harvesting? 0.74×HarvestingCapex $30M ÷ depreciation $41M
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 · 1 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 MissRevenue ≥ $2B · $395M
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 PassCurrent ratio ≥ 2× · 2.43×
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 NearDebt ≤ working capital · $247M vs $223M 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 MissA profit every year (8-yr record) · 4 loss years
What this means
Graham wanted earnings in each of the past ten years, the stability a defensive owner leans on.
- Dividend record MissUninterrupted dividends · none paid
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 MissEarnings +33% over the record · −49%
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 $1.99/share (latest year $-16.34), the averaged base the calculator's gate runs on, and book value is $228.14/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, 2018–2025
Whether the record’s returns held, and what the capital reinvested earned.
- Profitable years 4 of 8
What this means
Lost money in 4 year(s), look at what happened there before trusting the average.
- Return on capital ≥ 15% 0 of 7 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 −4% → 9% (3-yr avg ends)
What this means
Through the cycle the operating margin widened — about −4% early to 9% lately, median 5% — pricing power intact or improving.
- 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 +2%/yr
What this means
Owner earnings grew about 2% a year over the record.
- Worst year 2018 · −7.5% op. margin
What this means
Operations went underwater in 2018, understand why before trusting the good years.
Does AI threaten the moat?
Moderate contestabilityAI 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.
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, 2026Can 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$356M
- Cash & short-term investments$200M
- Receivables$25M
- Inventory$4M
- Other current assets$128M
Current liabilities$144M
- Debt due within a year$28M
- Accounts payable$32M
- Other current liabilities$84M
Current ratio2.47×all current assets ÷ what's due · Graham looked for 2×
Quick ratio2.44×stricter: inventory excluded
Cash ratio1.39×strictest: cash alone against what's due
Working capital$212Mthe cushion left after near-term bills
Debt due this year vs. cash$28M due · $200M 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+2.6%the freshest read on whether the business is still growing
Current ratio, recent quarters1.4× → 2.5×
Deeper floors
Tangible book value$443Mequity stripped of goodwill & intangibles
Net current asset value($143M)Graham's net-net: current assets less all liabilities
Debt incl. operating leases$283M$44M of it operating leases
Deferred revenue$6Mcustomer cash collected before delivery; operating float
From the company's latest filing.
How the cash was used, 2018–2025
Over the record, the business generated $818M of operating cash; how management split it reads as a balanced allocator, splitting cash between the business, owners, and the balance sheet.
- Reinvested$232M · 28%
- Retained (debt / cash)$586M · 72%
- Net change in share count—
No continuous share count across the span.
- Dividend record—
No dividend line was reported in the filing data over the span; the record here neither confirms nor rules out a payout.
- Return on what it retained−25%
Of the earnings it kept rather than paid out ($44M over the span), annual owner earnings (first three years vs last three) fell $11M, so each retained $1 gave back about 0.25 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2023 | Sardar Biglari | $8.2M | $8.2M | $50M |
| 2024 | Sardar Biglari | $1.4M | $1.4M | $19M |
| 2025 | Sardar Biglari | $900k | $900k | $77M |
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.
Inverting the record
Invert: instead of why Biglari Holdings 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 2018–2025.
1 of the 3 tests turned up something to look into; the other 2 came back clean.
- Look hereAre "one-time" charges a yearly habit?8 of 8 years
Management took an impairment or write-down in 8 of the last 8 years, $53M in all. A charge taken almost every year is not one-time; it is the business — past deals coming due, and an admission the assets were worth less than what was paid. Munger's rule: when the "one-time" keeps happening, it is the business. Read it beside the goodwill the company still carries.
And these came back clean
- Is it less profitable than it was?
- 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, Restaurants
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| DINDine Brands Global Inc. | $879M | 63% | 17.1% | 9% | 12% |
| PTLOPortillo's Inc. | $732M | — | 8.2% | 7% | 6% |
| WINGWingstop | $697M | 80% | 25.6% | 48% | 19% |
| SGSweetgreen Inc. | $679M | — | -30.2% | -43% | -16% |
| LOCOEl Pollo Loco Holdings Inc. | $490M | — | 8.5% | 8% | 6% |
| CNNECannae Holdings Inc. | $424M | 15% | -19.4% | -5% | -14% |
| BHBiglari Holdings Inc. | $395M | 57% | 5.8% | 3% | 16% |
| KRUSKura Sushi USA Inc. | $283M | — | -1.1% | -2% | 5% |
| Group median | — | 60% | 7.0% | 5% | 6% |
The price
What a price has to assume.
What the price implies
reverse-DCFType today's close and see the owner-earnings growth you'd have to believe to justify it, beside what Biglari Holdings Inc. has delivered.
Biglari Holdings Inc.’s latest year runs above its own through-cycle margin — the reported figure may flatter a peak. So the tool opens on the through-cycle base, Graham’s averaging cutting both ways; clear the toggle below to read the latest year exactly as reported.
$
Through the cycle, Biglari Holdings Inc. earns about $65M on its 16.5% median owner-earnings margin. This year’s 19.4% margin runs above that; the reported figure may flatter a peak you'd be paying on. Normalize, below, values the price on that through-cycle figure rather than the latest year. It comes pre-checked here for that reason, the same rule that already normalizes a trough; clear it to price the year as filed.
Base
—
The assumptions
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.
A dated snapshot of the price you typed, the assumptions you set, and what the page showed for them. A snapshot is never edited after it is saved. Your notebook is yours alone — the commitment states what is stored and what we will never do.
Implied by the price—
Owner-earnings growth · ’21→’25−22%/yr
Owner-earnings growth · ’18→’25+2%/yr
Owner-earnings growth · ’18→’25+2%/yr
Owner-earnings yield—
What a growth belief costs, in multiples
The growth each return requires, at your price
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 yield—
High-grade bond yield—
Margin over the bond—
Owner earnings $81M on 2M shares outstanding (a weighted cover-text, the only count this filer tags); net debt $40M. The base opens on the through-cycle figure (the latest year sits above the record’s own median, and Graham’s averaging cuts both ways); clear Normalize to use the year as filed. 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.
Cite: Owner Scorecard, "Biglari Holdings Inc. (BH), the owner's record," https://ownerscorecard.com/c/BH, data as of 2026-07-09.
Manual order: ← BGS its page in the Manual BHB →
Industry order: ← ARMK the Restaurants chapter BJRI →