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CACC, Credit Acceptance Corporation

Credit Acceptance Corporation makes vehicle ownership possible by providing innovative financing solutions that enable automobile dealers to sell vehicles to consumers, regardless of their credit history.

During the 1980s, we began to market this service to non-affiliated dealers and, at the same time, began to offer dealers a non-recourse cash payment (referred to as an "advance") against anticipated future collections on Consumer Loans serviced for that dealer.

Under the Portfolio Program, we advance money to Dealers (referred to as a "Dealer Loan") in exchange for the right to service the underlying Consumer Loans.

Latest annual: FY2025 10-K

CACC · Credit Acceptance Corporation

The business

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

Revenue · FY2025

$2.3B

+7.2% YoY · 7% 5-yr CAGR

Vital signs · TTM, with 5-yr average

Revenue $2.3B 5-yr avg $2.0B

Operating margin 25.7% 5-yr avg 33.1%

ROIC 7% 5-yr avg 8%

Owner-earnings margin 45% 5-yr avg 57%

Free cash flow margin 45% 5-yr avg 57%

The business in brief

read the 10-K →

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

Situation: 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: Operating margin has run about 39% 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. The operating margin has swung widely — from 15% to 68% 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%). By owner earnings: roughly 54% of revenue reaches owners as cash, consistently. 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.

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
$969M	$1.1B	$1.3B	$1.5B	$1.7B	$1.9B	$1.8B	$1.9B	$2.2B	$2.3B	$2.3B	RevenueRevenue
5%	5%	4%	4%	4%	5%	5%	5%	5%	7%	7%	SG&A / revenueSG&A/rev
$531M	$584M	$755M	$856M	$550M	$1.3B	$712M	$368M	$330M	$565M	$599M	Operating incomeOp. inc.
54.8%	52.6%	58.7%	57.5%	32.9%	67.9%	38.8%	19.3%	15.2%	24.4%	25.7%	Operating marginOp. mgn
$333M	$470M	$574M	$656M	$421M	$958M	$536M	$286M	$248M	$424M	$453M	Net incomeNet inc.
37%	19%	24%	23%	23%	24%	25%	22%	25%	25%	24%	Effective tax rateTax rate
											Cash flow & returns
$507M	$566M	$704M	$812M	$985M	$1.1B	$1.2B	$1.2B	$1.1B	$1.1B	$1.1B	Operating cash flowOp. cash
$6M	$6M	$5M	$7M	$9M	$10M	$9M	$9M	$7M	$4M	$3M	DepreciationDeprec.
$161M	$74M	$114M	$141M	$549M	$77M	$657M	$870M	$838M	$576M	$550M	Working capital & otherWC & other
$6M	$8M	$25M	$27M	$9M	$8M	$3M	$4M	$2M	$2M	$3M	CapexCapex
0.6%	0.8%	2.0%	1.8%	0.5%	0.4%	0.2%	0.2%	0.1%	0.1%	0.1%	Capex / revenueCapex/rev
$502M	$560M	$699M	$805M	$977M	$1.1B	$1.2B	$1.2B	$1.1B	$1.1B	$1.1B	Owner earningsOwner earn.
51.8%	50.5%	54.3%	54.1%	58.5%	57.2%	67.4%	63.1%	52.5%	45.4%	45.3%	Owner earnings marginOE mgn
$502M	$558M	$679M	$786M	$977M	$1.1B	$1.2B	$1.2B	$1.1B	$1.1B	$1.1B	Free cash flowFCF
51.8%	50.2%	52.8%	52.8%	58.5%	57.2%	67.4%	63.1%	52.5%	45.4%	45.3%	Free cash flow marginFCF mgn
$122M	$124M	$129M	$300M	$481M	$1.5B	$785M	$203M	$313M	$725M	—	BuybacksBuybacks
10%	12%	11%	12%	7%	17%	10%	5%	4%	6%	7%	ROICROIC
28%	31%	29%	28%	18%	53%	33%	16%	14%	28%	30%	Return on equityROE
28%	31%	29%	28%	18%	53%	33%	16%	14%	28%	30%	Retained to equityRetained/eq
											Balance sheet
$15M	$8M	$26M	$187M	$16M	$23M	$8M	$13M	$344M	$23M	$26M	Cash & investmentsCash+inv
$4.2B	$5.0B	$6.2B	$7.4B	$7.5B	$7.1B	$6.9B	$7.6B	$8.9B	$8.6B	$8.7B	Total assetsAssets
$2.1B	$2.5B	$3.1B	$3.3B	$3.7B	$3.8B	$3.8B	$4.0B	$5.4B	$5.2B	$5.1B	Total debtDebt
$2.0B	$2.5B	$3.1B	$3.2B	$3.7B	$3.8B	$3.7B	$4.0B	$5.0B	$5.1B	$5.1B	Net debt / (cash)Net debt
5.4×	4.9×	4.8×	4.4×	2.9×	7.7×	4.3×	1.4×	0.8×	1.2×	1.3×	Interest coverageInt. cov.
$1.2B	$1.5B	$2.0B	$2.4B	$2.3B	$1.8B	$1.6B	$1.8B	$1.7B	$1.5B	$1.5B	Shareholders’ equityEquity
0.8%	1.4%	0.8%	0.5%	0.4%	1.3%	2.0%	2.1%	2.1%	2.2%	2.1%	Stock comp / revenueSBC/rev
											Per share
20.4M	19.6M	19.5M	19.0M	17.9M	16.1M	13.6M	13.0M	12.5M	11.7M	11.0M	Shares out (diluted)Shares
$47.49	$56.75	$65.83	$78.47	$93.07	$115.28	$134.49	$146.18	$173.42	$198.89	$212.35	Revenue / shareRev/sh
$16.31	$24.04	$29.39	$34.57	$23.47	$59.52	$39.32	$21.99	$19.88	$36.38	$41.39	EPS (diluted)EPS
$24.58	$28.63	$35.76	$42.42	$54.46	$65.95	$90.69	$92.22	$91.11	$90.38	$96.09	Owner earnings / shareOE/sh
$24.58	$28.51	$34.75	$41.39	$54.46	$65.95	$90.69	$92.22	$91.11	$90.38	$96.09	Free cash flow / shareFCF/sh
$0.27	$0.43	$1.29	$1.41	$0.47	$0.47	$0.23	$0.31	$0.14	$0.14	$0.24	Cap. spending / shareCapex/sh
$57.51	$78.52	$101.93	$124.12	$128.37	$113.30	$119.19	$134.79	$140.31	$130.77	$138.22	Book value / shareBVPS

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

	9-yr	5-yr
Revenue / share	+17.3%/yr	+16.4%/yr
Owner earnings / share	+15.6%/yr	+10.7%/yr
EPS	+9.3%/yr	+9.2%/yr
Capital spending / share	−7.2%/yr	−21.9%/yr
Book value / share	+9.6%/yr	+0.4%/yr

The record, charted

FY2016–2025

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

Share count

12Mpeak FY2016

ROIC

6%low FY2024

Net debt ÷ owner earnings

4.9×peak FY2025

Owner earnings vs. net income

Owner earningsNet income

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

$1.1Bowner earningsvs.$424Mnet incomelow FY2016

Where the cash went

ReinvestBuybacksDividendsAcquisitionsRetained

Each year's operating cash, by what management did with it: the mix, and how it drifts.

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 turned $424M of profit into $1.1B 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$424M

Owner earnings$1.1B · 45% of revenue

	FY2025	FY2024	FY2023	FY2022	FY2021
Reported net income	$424M	$248M	$286M	$536M	$958M
Depreciation & amortizationnon-cash charge added back	+$4M	+$7M	+$9M	+$9M	+$10M
Stock-based compensationreal costnon-cash, but a real cost	+$51M	+$45M	+$39M	+$37M	+$25M
Working capital & othertiming of cash in and out, other non-cash items	+$576M	+$838M	+$870M	+$657M	+$77M
Cash from operations	$1.1B	$1.1B	$1.2B	$1.2B	$1.1B
Capital expenditurecash put back in to keep running and to grow	−$2M	−$2M	−$4M	−$3M	−$8M
Owner earnings	$1.1B	$1.1B	$1.2B	$1.2B	$1.1B
Owner-earnings marginowner earnings ÷ revenue	45%	53%	63%	67%	57%

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 $51M), owner earnings is nearer $1.0B.

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? 1.2×

Thin

Operating income $565M ÷ interest expense $463M

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? $5.1B · 9.1× operating profit

Heavy net debt

Cash $23M − debt $5.2B

What this means
Netting $23M of cash and short-term investments against $5.2B of debt leaves $5.1B owed, about 9.1× a year's operating profit. 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

10-yr median, range 4%–17%; 6% latest = NOPAT $424M ÷ invested capital $6.7B

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 54%

High through the cycle

10-yr median margin, range 45%–67%; latest $1.1B = operating cash $1.1B − maintenance capex $2M

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 45% of revenue this year, a 54% median across 10 years. Treating stock comp as the real expense it is (less $51M of SBC) leaves $1.0B.
Are earnings backed by cash? 2.49×

Cash-backed

Cash from ops $1.1B ÷ net income $424M

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? 69%

Returns about half

Dividends + buybacks $725M ÷ Owner Earnings $1.1B

What this means
Of $1.1B Owner Earnings, $725M (69%) went back to shareholders, $0 dividends, $725M buybacks. Net of $51M stock comp, the real buyback was about $675M. 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? 0.44×

Harvesting

Capex $2M ÷ depreciation $4M

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 4 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 · $2.3B

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 —

Current ratio ≥ 2× · —

What this means
Current assets / liabilities not in the data yet.
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 Miss

Uninterrupted 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 Miss

Earnings +33% over the record · −30%

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 $30.53/share (latest year $40.53), the averaged base the calculator's gate runs on, and book value is $145.66/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% 1 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 55% → 20% (3-yr avg ends)

What this means
Through the cycle the operating margin slipped — about 55% early to 20% lately, median 39% — competition or costs are biting in.
Reinvestment, incremental ROIC −6%

What this means
Reinvested capital came back at a negative incremental return over this window — the invested base grew while operating profit did not. The filings show where it went.
Owner earnings growth +8%/yr

What this means
Owner earnings grew about 8% a year over the record.
Worst year 2024 · 15.2% op. margin

What this means
Stayed profitable even in its hardest year, the resilience that survives recessions.
Share count −6.0%/yr

What this means
The share count is shrinking, buybacks are quietly growing your slice of the business.

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.

In its own filing A competitive risk, new this year

Its FY2025 10-K names artificial intelligence as a competitive threat, in language that was not in the prior year's filing.

“There can be no assurance that such investments will yield the anticipated benefits or that we will be able to successfully integrate AI into our existing systems and processes without disruption.”

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.

How the cash was used, 2016–2025

Over the record, the business generated $9.3B of operating cash; how management split it reads as a balanced allocator, splitting cash between the business, owners, and the balance sheet.

Reinvested$92M · 1%
Buybacks$4.7B · 50%
Retained (debt / cash)$4.5B · 49%

Returned to owners$4.7B
50% of the owner earnings the business produced over the span, $0 as dividends and $4.7B as buybacks.
Source of fundingOperating cash
Operating cash covered reinvestment and returns; over the span debt rose $3.0B and cash and short-term investments rose $11M.
Average price paid for buybacks$443.11
Across the years where the filing reports a share count, 11M shares were bought for $4.7B, about $443.11 each. Year to year the price paid ranged from $182.64 (2016) to $532.80 (2024); its heaviest year, 2021, paid $510.31 ($1.5B).
Net change in share count−46.3%
The diluted count fell from 20M to 11M, so the buybacks outran the stock issued to staff.
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—
Not read here: owner earnings are negative over the span, or the company returned nearly all its earnings rather than retaining them, so there is too little retained to measure a return on.

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	Pay, as filed	“Actually paid”	Owner earnings
2021	$30.5M	$59.1M	$1.1B
2021	$360k	−$46.5M	$1.1B
2022	$1.0M	−$22.6M	$1.2B
2023	$1.0M	$3.6M	$1.2B
2024	$1.0M	−$2.3M	$1.1B
2025	$62.6M	$62.9M	$1.1B
2025	$27.4M	$26.3M	$1.1B

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 ownership6.1%
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$51M
The slice of the business handed to employees in shares this year, 2% of revenue, equal to 9% 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 Credit Acceptance Corporation 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.

1 of the 4 tests turned up something to look into; the other 3 came back clean.

Look hereDid debt outgrow the business?$2.1B → $5.1B
Debt rose from $2.1B to $5.1B while owner earnings went from about $587M to $1.1B — about 3.5 years of owner earnings in debt then, about 4.5 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 the share count rise anyway?
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 →

Does management own its misses?
1 plain admission in this year's filing
“Consumer Loans assigned in 2024 prior to the implementation of our scorecard adjustment during the third quarter of 2024 had underperformed relative to the forecast adjustment we implemented during the second quarter of 2024.”verify →

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

Peers, Consumer Finance

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
COINCoinbase Global Inc.	$7.2B	—	20.0%	11%	2%
UWMCUWM Holdings Corporation	$3.2B	—	13.9%	4%	-86%
CACCCredit Acceptance Corporation	$2.3B	—	45.7%	10%	54%
PGYPagaya Technologies Ltd.	$1.3B	41%	-1.3%	4%	3%
PRAAPRA Group Inc.	$1.2B	—	570.9%	6%	124%
ONITOnity Group Inc.	$1.1B	—	41.0%	2%	15%
RMRegional Management Corp.	$646M	—	21.6%	6%	43%
WRLDWorld Acceptance Corporation	$585M	—	16.9%	8%	44%
Group median	—	—	20.8%	6%	29%

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 Credit Acceptance Corporation has delivered.

Today’s price $

Through the cycle, Credit Acceptance Corporation earns about $1.3B on its 54.2% median owner-earnings margin. This year’s 45.4% margin runs below that; the reported figure may understate a lean year. Normalize, below, values the price on that through-cycle figure rather than the latest year.

Base Normalize · through-cycle ($1.3B) Net of stock comp (−$49M) 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→’25−1%/yr

Owner-earnings growth · ’16→’25+8%/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 $1.1B on 10M shares outstanding, per the 10-Q cover, as of 2026-04-23; net debt $5.1B. The if-converted diluted count is 11M, 5% above the shares outstanding: the dilution overhang (convertibles, options) a buyer inherits. 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. Capex ($3M) runs well above depreciation ($3M), 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 CACC against another business →

The owners of CACC: the meeting and the votes →

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

Manual order: ← CAC its page in the Manual CACI →

Industry order: ← ATLCZ the Consumer Finance chapter DFS →