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CCL, Carnival Corp.

Cruise Lines capital-intensive Cyclical

Carnival sells leisure vacations at sea. It owns and operates a fleet of cruise ships under a group of brands, filling the cabins with travelers — most from North America, the rest largely from Europe — who pay a fare to sail and then spend more once aboard, on drinks, shore excursions, casinos and the like. The money comes from ticket sales and that onboard spending; the cost of building, fueling and crewing the ships stands against it.

Latest annual: FY2025 10-K

CCL · Carnival Corp.

The business

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

Revenue · FY2025

$26.6B

+6.4% YoY · 37% 5-yr CAGR

Vital signs · TTM, with 5-yr average

Revenue $27.3B 5-yr avg $17.5B

Gross margin 42% 5-yr avg 25%

Operating margin 16.3% 5-yr avg −73.5%

ROIC 12% 5-yr avg 0%

Owner-earnings margin 14% 5-yr avg −66%

Free cash flow margin 12% 5-yr avg −88%

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 North America (66%), Europe (32%) and Cruise (1%).
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: The whole thing turns on filling expensive ships at fares above the cost of running them, so the test is whether the fleet commands pricing and full cabins across the cycle, or whether a cruise is just a discretionary trip bought on price. The ships are fixed cost whether they sail empty or full, a cruise is among the first vacations cut when wallets tighten, and the company carries debt with cross-default and cross-acceleration terms the filing itself underlines, so a soft year strains the balance sheet and not merely the income statement; fuel and emissions rules sit on the cost line as a standing claim. The reinvestment question is whether new ships, which cost a great deal to build and finance, earn back more than they take. The record below holds the margins, the returns on capital and the debt.
Is it a good business?: Return on capital has sat near the cost of capital (median 9%). By owner earnings: roughly 13% of revenue reaches owners as cash, though it swings, 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.

Drafted from the company's filings and reviewed by hand; every number is shown in full in the sections below.

Where the money comes from

read the 10-K →

North America is 66% of revenue, with Europe the other meaningful segment at 32%.

Revenue by reportable segment, FY2025

North America66%$17.6B
Europe32%$8.5B
Cruise1%$309M
Tour and Other1%$241M

By geographyUnited States56%Other20%Germany13%United Kingdom11%

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, 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	TTMTTMMay 2026
											Income statement
$16.4B	$17.5B	$18.9B	$20.8B	$5.6B	$1.9B	$12.2B	$21.6B	$25.0B	$26.6B	$27.3B	RevenueRevenue
43%	40%	41%	38%	—	—	3%	34%	38%	—	42%	Gross marginGross mgn
13%	13%	13%	12%	34%	99%	21%	14%	13%	13%	13%	SG&A / revenueSG&A/rev
$3.1B	$2.8B	$3.3B	$3.3B	($8.9B)	($7.1B)	($4.4B)	$2.0B	$3.6B	$4.5B	$4.5B	Operating incomeOp. inc.
18.7%	16.0%	17.6%	15.7%	−158.4%	−371.5%	−36.0%	9.1%	14.3%	16.8%	16.3%	Operating marginOp. mgn
$2.8B	$2.6B	$3.2B	$3.0B	($10.2B)	($9.5B)	($6.1B)	($74M)	$1.9B	$2.8B	$3.1B	Net incomeNet inc.
-2%	2%	2%	2%	—	—	—	—	-0%	0%	1%	Effective tax rateTax rate
											Cash flow & returns
$5.1B	$5.3B	$5.5B	$5.5B	($6.3B)	($4.1B)	($1.7B)	$4.3B	$5.9B	$6.2B	$6.8B	Operating cash flowOp. cash
$1.7B	$1.8B	$2.0B	$2.2B	$2.2B	$2.2B	$2.3B	$2.4B	$2.6B	$2.8B	$2.9B	DepreciationDeprec.
$562M	$807M	$315M	$279M	$1.6B	$3.0B	$2.0B	$1.9B	$1.4B	$570M	$759M	Working capital & otherWC & other
$3.1B	$2.9B	$3.7B	$5.4B	$3.6B	$3.6B	$4.9B	$3.3B	$4.6B	$3.6B	$3.6B	CapexCapex
18.7%	16.8%	19.9%	26.1%	64.7%	189.0%	40.6%	15.2%	18.5%	13.6%	13.2%	Capex / revenueCapex/rev
$3.4B	$3.5B	$3.5B	$3.3B	($8.5B)	($6.3B)	($3.9B)	$1.9B	$3.4B	$3.4B	$3.9B	Owner earningsOwner earn.
20.7%	19.9%	18.7%	15.9%	−152.7%	−332.4%	−32.4%	8.9%	13.5%	12.9%	14.4%	Owner earnings marginOE mgn
$2.1B	$2.4B	$1.8B	$46M	($9.9B)	($7.7B)	($6.6B)	$997M	$1.3B	$2.6B	$3.2B	Free cash flowFCF
12.6%	13.6%	9.5%	0.2%	−177.3%	−404.4%	−54.3%	4.6%	5.2%	9.8%	11.7%	Free cash flow marginFCF mgn
$977M	$1.1B	$1.4B	$1.4B	$689M	$0	$0	—	—	—	$0	Dividends paidDiv. paid
$2.3B	$552M	$1.5B	$603M	$12M	$0	$0	—	—	—	—	BuybacksBuybacks
10%	8%	10%	9%	-18%	-15%	-9%	4%	10%	12%	12%	ROICROIC
12%	11%	13%	12%	-50%	-78%	-86%	-1%	21%	22%	24%	Return on equityROE
8%	6%	7%	6%	−53%	−78%	−86%	—	—	—	24%	Retained to equityRetained/eq
											Balance sheet
$603M	$395M	$982M	$518M	$9.5B	$9.1B	$4.0B	$2.4B	$1.2B	$1.9B	$2.2B	Cash & investmentsCash+inv
$298M	$312M	$358M	$444M	$273M	$246M	$395M	$556M	$590M	$678M	$633M	ReceivablesReceiv.
$322M	$387M	$450M	$427M	$335M	$356M	$428M	$528M	$507M	$505M	$552M	InventoryInvent.
$713M	$762M	$730M	$756M	$624M	$797M	$1.1B	$1.2B	$1.1B	$1.2B	$1.2B	Accounts payablePayables
($93M)	($63M)	$78M	$115M	($16M)	($195M)	($227M)	($84M)	($36M)	($62M)	($61M)	Operating working capitalOper. WC
$1.7B	$1.6B	$2.2B	$2.1B	$10.6B	$10.1B	$7.5B	$5.3B	$3.4B	$4.2B	$4.5B	Current assetsCur. assets
$7.1B	$8.8B	$9.2B	$9.1B	$8.7B	$10.4B	$10.6B	$11.5B	$11.6B	$13.1B	$13.4B	Current liabilitiesCur. liab.
0.2×	0.2×	0.2×	0.2×	1.2×	1.0×	0.7×	0.5×	0.3×	0.3×	0.3×	Current ratioCurr. ratio
$2.9B	$3.0B	$2.9B	$2.9B	$807M	$579M	$579M	$579M	$579M	$579M	$579M	GoodwillGoodwill
$38.9B	$40.8B	$42.4B	$45.1B	$53.6B	$53.3B	$51.7B	$49.1B	$49.1B	$51.7B	$52.2B	Total assetsAssets
$9.5B	$9.2B	$10.4B	$11.6B	$27.6B	$34.0B	$35.6B	$31.3B	$28.2B	$27.4B	$25.6B	Total debtDebt
$8.9B	$8.9B	$9.4B	$11.1B	$18.1B	$24.8B	$31.6B	$28.9B	$27.0B	$25.5B	$23.3B	Net debt / (cash)Net debt
13.8×	14.2×	17.1×	15.9×	-9.9×	-4.4×	-2.7×	0.9×	2.0×	3.3×	3.7×	Interest coverageInt. cov.
$22.6B	$24.2B	$24.4B	$25.4B	$20.6B	$12.1B	$7.1B	$6.9B	$9.3B	$12.3B	$13.0B	Shareholders’ equityEquity
0.3%	0.4%	0.3%	0.2%	1.9%	6.3%	0.8%	0.2%	0.2%	0.4%	0.4%	Stock comp / revenueSBC/rev
—	$38M	—	—	$2.1B	$226M	—	—	—	—	—	Goodwill written downGW imp.
											Per share
747M	725M	710M	692M	775M	1.12B	1.18B	1.26B	1.40B	1.40B	1.39B	Shares out (diluted)Shares
$21.94	$24.15	$26.59	$30.09	$7.22	$1.70	$10.31	$17.11	$17.90	$18.99	$19.65	Revenue / shareRev/sh
$3.72	$3.59	$4.44	$4.32	$-13.21	$-8.46	$-5.16	$-0.06	$1.37	$1.97	$2.21	EPS (diluted)EPS
$4.55	$4.79	$4.97	$4.79	$-11.02	$-5.65	$-3.34	$1.51	$2.41	$2.45	$2.83	Owner earnings / shareOE/sh
$2.77	$3.28	$2.54	$0.07	$-12.80	$-6.87	$-5.60	$0.79	$0.93	$1.86	$2.30	Free cash flow / shareFCF/sh
$1.31	$1.50	$1.91	$2.00	$0.89	$0.00	$0.00	—	—	—	$0.00	Dividends / shareDiv/sh
$4.10	$4.06	$5.28	$7.85	$4.67	$3.21	$4.19	$2.60	$3.31	$2.58	$2.59	Cap. spending / shareCapex/sh
$30.25	$33.40	$34.43	$36.65	$26.52	$10.81	$5.99	$5.45	$6.62	$8.76	$9.33	Book value / shareBVPS

The diluted share count moved ×1.45 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

	9-yr	5-yr
Revenue / share	−1.6%/yr	+21.3%/yr
Owner earnings / share	−6.7%/yr	—
EPS	−6.8%/yr	—
Capital spending / share	−5.0%/yr	−11.2%/yr
Book value / share	−12.9%/yr	−19.9%/yr

The year, in the company's words

the filing →

Verbatim from the 10-K's management discussion. Each sentence is shown only because its subject, direction, and stated figures check out against the filed numbers on this page. The words are the company's; the arithmetic is the record's.

Passenger ticket+5.8%
“Passenger ticket revenues increased by $956 million, or 5.8%, to $17.4 billion in 2025 from $16.5 billion in 2024. This increase was caused by: •$635 million - higher ticket prices driven by continued strength in demand •$196 million - net favorable foreign currency translation impact •$159 million - 1.0% capacity increase in ALBDs These increases were partially offset by a decrease of $74 million in air transportation revenue.”
✓ figure matches the filed record

The record, charted

FY2016–2025

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

Share count

1.4Bpeak FY2025

ROIC

12%low FY2020

Gross margin

38%low FY2022

Net debt ÷ owner earnings

7.4×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.

$3.4Bowner earningsvs.$2.8Bnet incomelow FY2020

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 earned $3.4B of owner earnings, the operating cash left after the $2.8B it takes just to hold its position. It put $821M more into growth; free cash flow, after that spending, was $2.6B.

Reported net income$2.8B

Owner earnings$3.4B · 13% of revenue

	FY2025	FY2024	FY2023	FY2022	FY2021
Reported net income	$2.8B	$1.9B	($74M)	($6.1B)	($9.5B)
Depreciation & amortizationnon-cash charge added back	+$2.8B	+$2.6B	+$2.4B	+$2.3B	+$2.2B
Stock-based compensationreal costnon-cash, but a real cost	+$98M	+$62M	+$53M	+$101M	+$121M
Working capital & othertiming of cash in and out, other non-cash items	+$570M	+$1.4B	+$1.9B	+$2.0B	+$3.0B
Cash from operations	$6.2B	$5.9B	$4.3B	($1.7B)	($4.1B)
Maintenance capital expenditurethe spending needed just to hold position and volume	−$2.8B	−$2.6B	−$2.4B	−$2.3B	−$2.2B
Owner earnings	$3.4B	$3.4B	$1.9B	($3.9B)	($6.3B)
Growth capital expenditurediscretionary; spent to get bigger, not to stand still	−$821M	−$2.1B	−$914M	−$2.7B	−$1.4B
Free cash flow	$2.6B	$1.3B	$997M	($6.6B)	($7.7B)
Owner-earnings marginowner earnings ÷ revenue	13%	13%	9%	-32%	-332%

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 $2.8B, roughly its depreciation, the rate its assets wear out). The other $821M 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. 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 $98M), owner earnings is nearer $3.3B.

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? 3.3×

Adequate

Operating income $4.5B ÷ interest expense $1.3B

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? $25.5B · 5.7× operating profit

Heavy net debt

Cash $1.9B − debt $27.4B

What this means
Netting $1.9B of cash and short-term investments against $27.4B of debt leaves $25.5B owed, about 5.7× a year's operating profit (6.1× 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? -8d

Negative, funded by others

DSO 9 + DIO 12 − DPO 29 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?

Return on invested capital 8%

Solid through the cycle

10-yr median, range -18%–12%; 12% latest = NOPAT $4.5B ÷ invested capital $37.7B

Industry 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 10 years (it ran 12% 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 13%

Solid through the cycle

10-yr median margin, range -332%–21%; latest $3.4B = operating cash $6.2B − maintenance capex $2.8B

Industry peers: median 11%

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 13% of revenue this year, a 13% median across 10 years. It chose to put $821M more into growth, so free cash flow this year was $2.6B — the gap is investment, not weakness. Treating stock comp as the real expense it is (less $98M of SBC) leaves $3.3B.
Are earnings backed by cash? 2.25×

Cash-backed

Cash from ops $6.2B ÷ net income $2.8B

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? 0%

Reinvests most of it

Dividends + buybacks $0 ÷ Owner Earnings $3.4B

What this means
Of $3.4B Owner Earnings, $0 (0%) went back to shareholders, $0 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? 1.29×

Expanding

Capex $3.6B ÷ depreciation $2.8B

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 Pass

Revenue ≥ $2B · $26.6B

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 Miss

Current ratio ≥ 2× · 0.32×

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 · $27.4B vs ($8.9B) 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 Miss

A profit every year (10-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 Miss

Uninterrupted dividends · 5 of 10 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 Miss

Earnings +33% over the record · −46%

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 $1.12/share (latest year $2.02), the averaged base the calculator's gate runs on, and book value is $8.97/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 6 of 10

What this means
Lost money in 4 year(s), look at what happened there before trusting the average.
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 17% → 13% (3-yr avg ends)

What this means
The recent-years average (13%) sits below the early years (17%), but the latest year (17%) is back near the early level: a cyclical trough dragging the window down, not a one-way slide. The through-cycle median is 14% — read it across the cycle, not on the dip.
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 −0%/yr

What this means
Owner earnings shrank about 0% a year over the record.
Worst year 2021 · −371.5% op. margin

What this means
Operations went underwater in 2021, understand why before trusting the good years.
Dividend record paid

What this means
Paid a dividend in 5 of the years on record.
How management talks about it Owner’s terms

What this means
Returns have thinned, but the filing discusses it in an owner’s vocabulary rather than selling past it — candor about a hard stretch counts for more than an adjective.

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 Named as a competitive risk

Its FY2025 10-K names artificial intelligence as a competitive threat.

“A failure to adopt the appropriate technology, including AI, or a failure, disruption or obsolescence in the technology that we do adopt, could have adverse effects on our business. f.”

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, and the company is using it that way.

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, May 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$4.5B

Cash & short-term investments$2.2B
Receivables$633M
Inventory$552M
Other current assets$1.1B

Current liabilities$13.4B

Debt due within a year$1.5B
Accounts payable$1.2B
Other current liabilities$10.7B

Current ratio0.33×all current assets ÷ what's due · Graham looked for 2×

Quick ratio0.29×stricter: inventory excluded

Cash ratio0.17×strictest: cash alone against what's due

Working capital($8.9B)the cushion left after near-term bills

Its current ratio is below 1, which usually reads as strain; here it is likely structural strength. This business collects from customers before it pays suppliers (a negative cash-conversion cycle), so the balance sheet is funded by that float, the way Costco's and Amazon's are. The low ratio can be the edge, not the risk; the cash-conversion cycle and the debt due above say which.

Debt due this year vs. cash$1.5B due · $2.2B cash covered by cash on hand, no refinancing forced · both figures from the May 31, 2026 balance sheet

Revenue, latest quarter vs. a year ago+5.3%the freshest read on whether the business is still growing

Current ratio, recent quarters0.3× → 0.3×

Deeper floors

Tangible book value$11.2Bequity stripped of goodwill & intangibles

Debt incl. operating leases$26.2B$1.3B of it operating leases

Deferred revenue$8.5Bcustomer cash collected before delivery; operating float

From the company's latest filing.

How the cash was used, 2016–2025

Over the record, the business generated $25.8B of operating cash; how management split it reads as a reinvestor, most operating cash is plowed back into the business.

Reinvested$38.9B · 151%
Dividends$5.5B · 21%
Buybacks$5.0B · 19%

Returned to owners$10.5B
291% of the owner earnings the business produced over the span, $5.5B as dividends and $5.0B as buybacks.
Source of funding−$23.5B
Reinvestment and shareholder returns ran $23.5B beyond the operating cash the business generated, so the gap was financed off the balance sheet: debt rose from $9.5B to $25.6B.
Average price paid for buybacks—
Buybacks ran $5.0B over the span, but the filings don't tag the share count needed to deduce the average price paid.
Net change in share count86.1%
The diluted count rose from 747M to 1390M: issuance (stock pay, deals) outran any buybacks, so owners were diluted on net.
Dividend record$0.00/sh
Paid in 5 of the years on record. It was cut at least once along the way.

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 10-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$1.8B3% of all assets; the premium carried on the balance sheet for businesses acquired

Against book equity5%goodwill is this share of book equity; the rest is the company’s own retained and paid-in capital

Cash spent acquiring$0over 10 years buying other businesses, against $38.9B of capital spent building

$2.4B written down across 3 years (2017, 2020, 2021): goodwill the company has already conceded it overpaid for, charged against earnings. A write-down costs no cash (the cash went out when the deal was signed), but it is management marking its own past judgment to market.

Goodwill, acquired intangibles and equity from the latest balance sheet; acquisition spend and write-downs summed across the 10-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	Josh Weinstein	$15.1M	$11.2M	($6.3B)
2022	Josh Weinstein	$8.0M	$7.9M	($3.9B)
2022	Josh Weinstein	$11.1M	$5.8M	($3.9B)
2023	Josh Weinstein	$13.8M	$23.3M	$1.9B
2024	Josh Weinstein	$23.6M	$63.8M	$3.4B
2025	Josh Weinstein	$18.9M	$37.1M	$3.4B

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.
CEO pay ratio1,063:1
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$98M
The slice of the business handed to employees in shares this year, 0% of revenue, equal to 2% 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 Carnival 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 2016–2025.

4 of the 5 tests turned up something to look into; the other 1 came back clean.

Look hereIs it less profitable than it was?11.7% vs 19.8%
The owner-earnings margin averaged 19.8% early in the record and 11.7% 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?86.1%
Diluted shares grew 86.1% over 2016–2025, even as the company spent $5.0B 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?$9.5B → $25.6B
Debt rose from $9.5B to $25.6B while owner earnings went from about $3.5B to $2.9B — about 2.7 years of owner earnings in debt then, about 8.8 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.
Look hereAre "one-time" charges a yearly habit?7 of 10 years
Management took an impairment or write-down in 7 of the last 10 years, $8.2B in all. Taken across the majority of the record, the "one-time" label is wearing thin — ask whether these are past deals coming due rather than genuinely isolated events. Read it beside the goodwill the company still carries.

And these came back clean

Did receivables and inventory outpace sales?

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.

Peers, Cruise Lines

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
CCLCarnival Corp.	$26.6B	38%	15.0%	9%	13%
RCLRoyal Caribbean Cruises	$17.9B	44%	19.4%	7%	22%
NCLHNorwegian Cruise Line Holdings Ltd.	$9.8B	38%	15.7%	9%	11%
KEXKirby	$3.4B	—	7.7%	4%	10%
MATXMatson	$3.3B	96%	11.4%	11%	12%
TDWTidewater Inc.	$1.4B	—	-12.5%	-6%	3%
INSWInternational Seaways Inc. Common Stock	$843M	—	12.3%	3%	33%
PANLPangaea Logistics Solutions Ltd.	$632M	—	7.7%	10%	10%
Group median	—	41%	11.8%	8%	11%

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 Carnival Corp. has delivered.

Today’s price $

Through the cycle, Carnival Corp. earns about $3.9B on its 14.7% median owner-earnings margin. This year’s 12.9% 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 ($3.9B) Net of stock comp (−$103M) Steady-state · maintenance capex ($4.0B)

—

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 · ’16→’25−1%/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 $3.2B on 1370M shares outstanding, per the 10-Q cover, as of 2026-06-19; net debt $23.3B. 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 ($3.6B) runs well above depreciation ($2.9B), so this is a build-out; Steady-state swaps total capex for maintenance (≈ depreciation), lifting the base to about $4.0B, 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 CCL against another business →

The owners of CCL: the meeting and the votes →

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

Manual order: ← CCK its page in the Manual CCNE →

Industry order: the Cruise Lines chapter