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CL, Colgate-Palmolive Co.

Colgate-Palmolive makes and sells branded everyday goods — toothpaste and the rest of oral care, where the Colgate name holds a leading position around the world, alongside soaps and personal care, dish and surface cleaners, and Hill's pet nutrition. It sells through retailers into many countries, and earns its money on the steady, repeat purchase of those familiar items rather than on any single sale. The economics turn on moving a great many small, ordinary products, day after day, at a price above what they cost to make.

Our products are marketed in over 200 countries and territories throughout the world.

We operate in two product segments: Oral, Personal and Home Care; and Pet Nutrition.

Latest annual: FY2025 10-K

CL · Colgate-Palmolive Co.

The business

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

Revenue · FY2025

$20.4B

+1.4% YoY · 4% 5-yr CAGR

Vital signs · TTM, with 5-yr average

Revenue $20.8B 5-yr avg $19.1B

Gross margin 60% 5-yr avg 59%

Operating margin 15.4% 5-yr avg 18.6%

ROIC 30% 5-yr avg 36%

Owner-earnings margin 18% 5-yr avg 16%

Free cash flow margin 18% 5-yr avg 15%

The business in brief

read the 10-K →

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

What moves the needle: The governing question is franchise versus commodity: does the Colgate name carry enough trust that a shopper reaches for it by habit and pays up, or is toothpaste interchangeable enough that a store brand can undercut it? Oral care is the heart of the case — a leading global share in a product people buy on reflex is the kind of position that lets a brand pass an input-cost increase along rather than eat it, and the gross margin through cost swings is where that shows. Weigh too the retailers who sit between the brand and the shopper and press on price, and the rival giants spending alongside; the moat, if it is real, is the consumer pulling the tube off the shelf by name. The bad case is brands that quietly stop justifying their premium against cheaper private label, leaving advertising and scale to defend a position that no longer pays. The margins, returns on capital, and debt in the record below show how that contest stands.
Is it a good business?: Return on capital has run high across the record (median 41%, above 15% in 10 of 10 years), though buybacks and expensed R&D and brands shrink the capital base, so the figure overstates the underlying economics. The steadier read is owner earnings: roughly 17% of revenue reaches owners as cash, consistently. Whether these returns reflect real pricing power or an accounting artifact is the judgment the 10-K is for.

Drafted from the company's filings and reviewed by hand; every number is 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
$15.2B	$15.5B	$15.5B	$15.7B	$16.5B	$17.4B	$18.0B	$19.5B	$20.1B	$20.4B	$20.8B	RevenueRevenue
60%	60%	59%	59%	61%	60%	57%	58%	60%	60%	60%	Gross marginGross mgn
34%	35%	35%	36%	37%	37%	37%	37%	38%	39%	39%	SG&A / revenueSG&A/rev
2%	2%	2%	2%	2%	2%	2%	2%	2%	2%	2%	R&D / revenueR&D/rev
$4.0B	$3.7B	$3.7B	$3.6B	$3.9B	$3.3B	$2.9B	$4.0B	$4.3B	$3.3B	$3.2B	Operating incomeOp. inc.
26.0%	24.0%	23.8%	22.6%	23.6%	19.1%	16.1%	20.5%	21.2%	16.2%	15.4%	Operating marginOp. mgn
$2.4B	$2.0B	$2.4B	$2.4B	$2.7B	$2.2B	$1.8B	$2.3B	$2.9B	$2.1B	$2.1B	Net incomeNet inc.
32%	39%	27%	25%	23%	26%	28%	29%	24%	27%	27%	Effective tax rateTax rate
											Cash flow & returns
$3.1B	$3.1B	$3.1B	$3.1B	$3.7B	$3.3B	$2.6B	$3.7B	$4.1B	$4.2B	$4.3B	Operating cash flowOp. cash
$443M	$475M	$511M	$519M	$539M	$556M	$545M	$567M	$605M	$630M	$638M	DepreciationDeprec.
$134M	$428M	$36M	$147M	$378M	$468M	$101M	$756M	$478M	$1.3B	$1.4B	Working capital & otherWC & other
$593M	$553M	$436M	$335M	$409M	$567M	$696M	$705M	$561M	$564M	$578M	CapexCapex
3.9%	3.6%	2.8%	2.1%	2.5%	3.3%	3.9%	3.6%	2.8%	2.8%	2.8%	Capex / revenueCapex/rev
$2.7B	$2.5B	$2.6B	$2.8B	$3.3B	$2.8B	$2.0B	$3.0B	$3.5B	$3.6B	$3.8B	Owner earningsOwner earn.
17.8%	16.2%	16.9%	17.8%	20.1%	15.8%	11.2%	15.6%	17.6%	17.8%	18.1%	Owner earnings marginOE mgn
$2.5B	$2.5B	$2.6B	$2.8B	$3.3B	$2.8B	$1.9B	$3.0B	$3.5B	$3.6B	$3.8B	Free cash flowFCF
16.8%	16.2%	16.9%	17.8%	20.1%	15.8%	10.4%	15.6%	17.6%	17.8%	18.1%	Free cash flow marginFCF mgn
$5M	$0	$728M	$1.7B	$353M	$0	$809M	$0	$0	$293M	$293M	AcquisitionsAcquis.
$1.3B	$1.4B	$1.2B	$1.2B	$1.5B	$1.3B	$1.3B	$1.1B	$1.7B	$1.2B	—	BuybacksBuybacks
54%	45%	49%	39%	42%	35%	25%	36%	46%	36%	30%	ROICROIC
—	—	—	2023%	363%	356%	445%	378%	1363%	3948%	1440%	Return on equityROE
—	—	—	n/m	363%	356%	445%	378%	n/m	n/m	n/m	Retained to equityRetained/eq
											Balance sheet
$1.3B	$1.5B	$726M	$883M	$888M	$832M	$775M	$1.1B	$1.3B	$1.4B	$1.4B	Cash & investmentsCash+inv
$1.4B	$1.5B	$1.4B	$1.4B	$1.3B	$1.3B	$1.5B	$1.6B	$1.5B	$1.7B	$1.9B	ReceivablesReceiv.
$1.2B	$1.2B	$1.3B	$1.4B	$1.7B	$1.7B	$2.1B	$1.9B	$2.0B	$2.0B	$2.1B	InventoryInvent.
$1.1B	$1.2B	$1.2B	$1.2B	$1.4B	$1.5B	$1.6B	$1.7B	$1.8B	$2.1B	$2.1B	Accounts payablePayables
$1.5B	$1.5B	$1.4B	$1.6B	$1.5B	$1.5B	$2.0B	$1.8B	$1.7B	$1.6B	$1.9B	Operating working capitalOper. WC
$4.3B	$4.6B	$3.8B	$4.2B	$4.3B	$4.4B	$5.1B	$5.3B	$5.3B	$5.7B	$6.1B	Current assetsCur. assets
$3.3B	$3.4B	$3.3B	$4.0B	$4.4B	$4.1B	$4.0B	$4.7B	$5.8B	$6.9B	$5.9B	Current liabilitiesCur. liab.
1.3×	1.4×	1.1×	1.0×	1.0×	1.1×	1.3×	1.1×	0.9×	0.8×	1.0×	Current ratioCurr. ratio
$2.1B	$2.2B	$2.5B	$3.5B	$3.8B	$3.3B	$3.4B	$3.4B	$3.3B	$3.1B	$3.1B	GoodwillGoodwill
$12.1B	$12.7B	$12.2B	$15.0B	$15.9B	$15.0B	$15.7B	$16.4B	$16.0B	$16.3B	$16.6B	Total assetsAssets
$6.5B	$6.6B	$6.4B	$7.6B	$7.3B	$7.2B	$8.8B	$8.2B	$7.9B	$8.0B	$9.1B	Total debtDebt
$5.2B	$5.0B	$5.6B	$6.7B	$6.5B	$6.4B	$8.0B	$7.1B	$6.7B	$6.6B	$7.6B	Net debt / (cash)Net debt
—	—	—	—	—	—	17.3×	13.9×	14.6×	12.4×	12.1×	Interest coverageInt. cov.
($243M)	($60M)	($102M)	$117M	$743M	$609M	$401M	$609M	$212M	$54M	$145M	Shareholders’ equityEquity
0.8%	0.8%	0.7%	0.6%	0.6%	0.8%	0.7%	0.6%	0.7%	0.8%	0.8%	Stock comp / revenueSBC/rev
—	—	—	—	—	$367M	$332M	—	—	$582M	$582M	Goodwill written downGW imp.
											Per share
898M	888M	873M	861M	859M	848M	839M	829M	823M	811M	805M	Shares out (diluted)Shares
$16.91	$17.41	$17.81	$18.22	$19.17	$20.54	$21.42	$23.46	$24.42	$25.13	$25.83	Revenue / shareRev/sh
$2.72	$2.28	$2.75	$2.75	$3.14	$2.55	$2.13	$2.77	$3.51	$2.63	$2.59	EPS (diluted)EPS
$3.00	$2.82	$3.00	$3.25	$3.85	$3.25	$2.40	$3.67	$4.31	$4.48	$4.68	Owner earnings / shareOE/sh
$2.84	$2.82	$3.00	$3.25	$3.85	$3.25	$2.22	$3.67	$4.31	$4.48	$4.68	Free cash flow / shareFCF/sh
$0.66	$0.62	$0.50	$0.39	$0.48	$0.67	$0.83	$0.85	$0.68	$0.70	$0.72	Cap. spending / shareCapex/sh
$-0.27	$-0.07	$-0.12	$0.14	$0.86	$0.72	$0.48	$0.73	$0.26	$0.07	$0.18	Book value / shareBVPS

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

	9-yr	5-yr
Revenue / share	+4.5%/yr	+5.6%/yr
Owner earnings / share	+4.5%/yr	+3.1%/yr
EPS	−0.4%/yr	−3.5%/yr
Capital spending / share	+0.6%/yr	+7.9%/yr
Book value / share	—	−40.1%/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.

Operating income-22.5%
“Operating profit in Africa/Eurasia increased 1% in 2025 to $255, while as a percentage of Net sales it decreased by 130 bps to 21.8%. This decrease in Operating profit as a percentage of Net sales was primarily due to a decrease in Gross profit (20 bps) and an increase in Selling, general and administrative expenses (120 bps), both as a percentage of Net sales.”
✓ 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

811Mpeak FY2016

ROIC

36%low FY2022

Gross margin

60%low FY2022

Net debt ÷ owner earnings

1.8×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.

$3.6Bowner earningsvs.$2.1Bnet 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 turned $2.1B of profit into $3.6B 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$2.1B

Owner earnings$3.6B · 18% of revenue

	FY2025	FY2024	FY2023	FY2022	FY2021
Reported net income	$2.1B	$2.9B	$2.3B	$1.8B	$2.2B
Depreciation & amortizationnon-cash charge added back	+$630M	+$605M	+$567M	+$545M	+$556M
Stock-based compensationreal costnon-cash, but a real cost	+$155M	+$135M	+$122M	+$125M	+$135M
Working capital & othertiming of cash in and out, other non-cash items	+$1.3B	+$478M	+$756M	+$101M	+$468M
Cash from operations	$4.2B	$4.1B	$3.7B	$2.6B	$3.3B
Maintenance capital expenditurethe spending needed just to hold position and volume	−$564M	−$561M	−$705M	−$545M	−$567M
Owner earnings	$3.6B	$3.5B	$3.0B	$2.0B	$2.8B
Growth capital expenditurediscretionary; spent to get bigger, not to stand still	—	—	—	−$151M	—
Free cash flow	$3.6B	$3.5B	$3.0B	$1.9B	$2.8B
Owner-earnings marginowner earnings ÷ revenue	18%	18%	16%	11%	16%

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 $155M), owner earnings is nearer $3.5B.

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? 12.4×

Comfortable

Operating income $3.3B ÷ interest expense $267M

What this means
Operating profit covers interest with the kind of margin Graham wanted for a defensive holding. Necessary, not sufficient, it says solvent, not cheap.
How heavy is the debt, net of cash? $6.6B · 2.0× operating profit

Modest net debt

Cash $1.3B + ST investments $107M − debt $8.0B

What this means
Netting $1.4B of cash and short-term investments against $8.0B of debt leaves $6.6B owed, about 2.0× a year's operating profit (2.4× 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? 27d

Tight

DSO 30 + DIO 91 − DPO 94 days

What this means
Days cash is tied up between paying suppliers and collecting from customers. Lower is better; a long cycle means growth itself eats cash.

Is it a good business?

Return on invested capital 39%

Very high (≥25%) through the cycle

10-yr median, range 25%–54%; 36% latest = NOPAT $2.4B ÷ invested capital $6.8B

Industry peers: median 9%

What this means
The rate the business earns on the money tied up in it, Buffett's north star, because over time a stock tracks the ROIC beneath it. Above ~15% sustained hints at a moat; a return below the cost of capital (~8%) erodes value as a business grows rather than building it — the test Buffett weighs most. The headline is the median of the last 10 years (it ran 36% 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 17%

High through the cycle

10-yr median margin, range 11%–20%; latest $3.6B = operating cash $4.2B − maintenance capex $564M

Industry peers: median 12%

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 18% of revenue this year, a 17% median across 10 years. Treating stock comp as the real expense it is (less $155M of SBC) leaves $3.5B.
Are earnings backed by cash? 1.97×

Cash-backed

Cash from ops $4.2B ÷ net income $2.1B

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? 33%

Reinvests most of it

Dividends + buybacks $1.2B ÷ Owner Earnings $3.6B

What this means
Of $3.6B Owner Earnings, $1.2B (33%) went back to shareholders, $0 dividends, $1.2B buybacks. Net of $155M stock comp, the real buyback was about $1.1B. 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? 0.90×

Maintaining

Capex $564M ÷ depreciation $630M

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

Graham’s defensive tests · 2 of 6 met

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

Adequate size Pass

Revenue ≥ $2B · $20.4B

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× · 0.83×

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 · $8.0B vs ($1.1B) 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 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 Near

Earnings +33% over the record · +7%

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 $3.05/share (latest year $2.66), the averaged base the calculator's gate runs on, and book value is $0.07/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% 10 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 25% → 19% (3-yr avg ends)

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

What this means
Through the cycle the operating margin slipped — about 25% early to 19% lately, median 21% — competition or costs are biting in.
Reinvestment, incremental ROIC 14%

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 2022 · 16.1% op. margin

What this means
Stayed profitable even in its hardest year, the resilience that survives recessions.
Share count −1.1%/yr

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

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.

“In addition, the substantial growth in eCommerce and the use of AI have encouraged the entry of new competitors, some of which sell products direct-to-consumer. 7 We face competition in several aspects of our business, including pricing, promotional activities, new product introductions and expansion into new geographi…”

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, 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$6.1B

Cash & short-term investments$1.4B
Receivables$1.9B
Inventory$2.1B
Other current assets$665M

Current liabilities$5.9B

Debt due within a year$1.1B
Accounts payable$2.1B
Other current liabilities$2.7B

Current ratio1.02×all current assets ÷ what's due · Graham looked for 2×

Quick ratio0.67×stricter: inventory excluded

Cash ratio0.24×strictest: cash alone against what's due

Working capital$148Mthe cushion left after near-term bills

Debt due this year vs. cash$1.1B due · $1.4B 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+8.4%the freshest read on whether the business is still growing

Current ratio, recent quarters1.1× → 1.0×

Deeper floors

Tangible book value($4.5B)equity stripped of goodwill & intangibles

Net current asset value($10.0B)Graham's net-net: current assets less all liabilities

Debt incl. operating leases$9.6B$566M of it operating leases

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$1.1B

'27$523M

'28$615M

'29$591M

'30$500M

later$4.5B

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$1.1Bthe first rung: what must be repaid or rolled over within the year

Within two years$1.6Bthe near wall, the part most exposed to today’s credit conditions

Biggest single year$1.1Bin 2026the lumpiest maturity, where a refinancing, if needed, is largest

Total scheduled principal$7.8Bevery year plus what lies beyond, as the footnote totals it

Against what the business has and earns

Cash & short-term investments, Mar 31, 2026$1.4B

One year of owner earnings (FY2025)$3.6B

Together, against $1.1B due next year4.6×

Cash on hand as of Mar 31, 2026 plus a year’s owner earnings comes to $5.1B against the $1.1B due in the twelve months after the Dec 31, 2025 schedule: 4.6 times it.

Maturity schedule extracted from the company’s Dec 31, 2025 annual report and reconciled to the total the table states.

How the cash was used, 2016–2025

Over the record, the business generated $34.0B of operating cash; how management split it reads as a balanced allocator, splitting cash between the business, owners, and the balance sheet.

Reinvested$5.4B · 16%
Buybacks$13.4B · 39%
Retained (debt / cash)$15.3B · 45%

Returned to owners$13.4B
46% of the owner earnings the business produced over the span, $0 as dividends and $13.4B as buybacks.
Average price paid for buybacks$76.99
Across the years where the filing reports a share count, 173M shares were bought for $13.4B, about $76.99 each. Year to year the price paid ranged from $65.90 (2018) to $94.92 (2024), and 2024, near the top of that range, was also its heaviest buyback year ($1.7B).
Net change in share count−10.4%
The diluted count fell from 898M to 805M, 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 retained8%
Of the earnings it kept rather than paid out ($9.8B over the span), annual owner earnings (first three years vs last three) grew $800M, so each retained $1 added about 0.08 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.

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$4.7B29% of all assets; the premium carried on the balance sheet for businesses acquired

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

Cash spent acquiring$3.9Bover 10 years buying other businesses, against $5.4B of capital spent building

$1.3B written down across 3 years (2021, 2022, 2025): goodwill the company has already conceded it overpaid for, charged against earnings. That is roughly 33% of the cash it put into acquisitions over the span. 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	Noel Wallace	$15.5M	$18.0M	$2.8B
2022	Noel Wallace	$14.5M	$11.0M	$2.0B
2023	Noel Wallace	$17.1M	$19.5M	$3.0B
2024	Noel Wallace	$18.2M	$31.7M	$3.5B
2025	Noel Wallace	$16.5M	$12.3M	$3.6B

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.

Stock-based compensation$155M
The slice of the business handed to employees in shares this year, 1% of revenue, equal to 5% 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 Colgate-Palmolive Co. 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.

None of the 6 tests turned up a mark; each came back clean. A clean panel says only that these particular ways of being wrong are not written into the record.

Each test came back clean

Is it less profitable than it was?
Did the share count rise anyway?
Did debt outgrow the business?
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 Pension & retirement, Income taxes, Inventory, Stock compensation 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, Personal Care Products

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
GILDGilead Sciences Inc.	$29.4B	79%	31.0%	15%	35%
CLColgate-Palmolive Co.	$20.4B	60%	21.9%	41%	17%
TEVATeva Pharmaceutical Industries Limited	$17.3B	48%	-2.2%	-2%	6%
ECLEcolab Inc.	$16.1B	42%	14.1%	10%	12%
KVUEKenvue Inc.	$15.1B	57%	16.1%	9%	10%
ELEstee Lauder Companies Inc. (The)	$14.3B	76%	14.4%	19%	12%
VTRSViatris	$14.3B	34%	2.5%	0%	14%
COTYCoty Inc.	$5.9B	60%	-1.0%	-1%	4%
Group median	—	58%	14.3%	10%	12%

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 Colgate-Palmolive Co. has delivered.

Today’s price $

Through the cycle, Colgate-Palmolive Co. earns about $3.5B on its 17.2% median owner-earnings margin. This year’s 17.8% 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 ($3.5B) Net of stock comp (−$172M)

—

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+11%/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.

Owner earnings $3.8B on 800M shares outstanding, per the 10-Q cover, as of 2026-03-31; net debt $7.6B. The base is the latest year by default; Normalize values it on the through-cycle median owner-earnings margin (to avoid paying on a peak year). Net of stock comp treats option pay as the expense it is. The dials set the multiple a growth belief justifies; the price, and every dollar on this page, is yours.

Weigh CL against another business →

The owners of CL: the meeting and the votes →

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

Manual order: ← CIVI its page in the Manual CLB →

Industry order: ← 4911 the Personal Care Products chapter COTY →