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CNK, Cinemark Holdings, Inc.

Entertainment & Studios capital-intensive Cyclical

Revenue is Us Operating (80%) and International Operating (20%).

Latest annual: FY2025 10-K

CNK · Cinemark Holdings, Inc.

The business

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

Revenue · FY2025

$3.1B

+2.1% YoY · 35% 5-yr CAGR

Vital signs · TTM, with 5-yr average

Revenue $3.2B 5-yr avg $2.6B

Operating margin −1.5% 5-yr avg −1.9%

ROIC −2% 5-yr avg −9%

Owner-earnings margin 3% 5-yr avg 5%

Free cash flow margin 3% 5-yr avg 5%

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: A capital-intensive business, run on heavy physical assets that must be kept working and earn a return above what they cost to maintain.
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 9.4% through the cycle, a thin margin, where volume, cost discipline and the price it gets all bear on the result. The margin is cyclical, swinging between −110% and 14% 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. Capital spending runs about 11% of sales, so the return earned on what it sinks into that plant weighs as much as the margin. On its own account, the filing leans hardest on concentrated dependence, 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 9%). By owner earnings: roughly 5% 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.

Where the money comes from

read the 10-K →

Us Operating is 80% of revenue, with International Operating the other meaningful segment at 20%.

Revenue by reportable segment, FY2025

Us Operating80%$2.5B
International Operating20%$613M

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	TTMTTMMar 2026
											Income statement
$2.9B	$3.0B	$3.2B	$3.3B	$686M	$1.5B	$2.5B	$3.1B	$3.0B	$3.1B	$3.2B	RevenueRevenue
5%	5%	5%	5%	19%	11%	—	—	—	—	5%	SG&A / revenueSG&A/rev
$423M	$392M	$388M	$338M	($755M)	($252M)	($424M)	$68M	$394M	$293M	($49M)	Operating incomeOp. inc.
14.5%	13.1%	12.1%	10.3%	−110.0%	−16.7%	−17.3%	2.2%	12.9%	9.4%	−1.5%	Operating marginOp. mgn
$255M	$264M	$214M	$191M	($617M)	($423M)	($271M)	$188M	$310M	$138M	$171M	Net incomeNet inc.
29%	23%	31%	29%	—	—	—	14%	—	8%	7%	Effective tax rateTax rate
											Cash flow & returns
$463M	$529M	$557M	$562M	($330M)	$166M	—	—	—	—	$236M	Operating cash flowOp. cash
$209M	$238M	$261M	$261M	$260M	$265M	$238M	$210M	$198M	$202M	$204M	DepreciationDeprec.
($15M)	$15M	$68M	$95M	$8M	$294M	—	—	—	—	($175M)	Working capital & otherWC & other
$327M	$381M	$346M	$304M	$84M	$96M	$111M	—	—	—	$135M	CapexCapex
11.2%	12.7%	10.7%	9.2%	12.2%	6.3%	4.5%	—	—	—	4.2%	Capex / revenueCapex/rev
$136M	$148M	$211M	$258M	($414M)	$71M	—	—	—	—	$101M	Owner earningsOwner earn.
4.7%	5.0%	6.5%	7.9%	−60.3%	4.7%	—	—	—	—	3.1%	Owner earnings marginOE mgn
$136M	$148M	$211M	$258M	($414M)	$71M	—	—	—	—	$101M	Free cash flowFCF
4.7%	5.0%	6.5%	7.9%	−60.3%	4.7%	—	—	—	—	3.1%	Free cash flow marginFCF mgn
$15M	$41M	$11M	$10M	$0	$0	—	—	—	—	$0	AcquisitionsAcquis.
$125M	$135M	$149M	$159M	$42M	$0	—	—	—	—	$0	Dividends paidDiv. paid
12%	11%	10%	9%	-24%	-9%	—	—	—	—	-2%	ROICROIC
20%	19%	15%	13%	-78%	-131%	—	—	—	—	88%	Return on equityROE
10%	9%	5%	2%	−84%	−131%	—	—	—	—	88%	Retained to equityRetained/eq
											Balance sheet
$561M	$523M	$426M	$488M	$655M	$707M	$15M	$11M	$0	$0	$19M	Cash & investmentsCash+inv
$75M	$89M	$95M	$84M	$25M	$69M	—	—	—	—	$52M	ReceivablesReceiv.
$17M	$18M	$19M	$22M	$13M	$15M	—	—	—	—	$20M	InventoryInvent.
$110M	$110M	$105M	$92M	$71M	$76M	—	—	—	—	$372M	Accounts payablePayables
($18M)	($3M)	$10M	$14M	($33M)	$8M	—	—	—	—	($300M)	Operating working capitalOper. WC
$676M	$658M	$559M	$635M	$893M	$874M	—	—	—	—	$801M	Current assetsCur. assets
$443M	$469M	$475M	$709M	$606M	$769M	—	—	—	—	$628M	Current liabilitiesCur. liab.
1.5×	1.4×	1.2×	0.9×	1.5×	1.1×	—	—	—	—	1.3×	Current ratioCurr. ratio
$1.3B	$1.3B	$1.3B	$1.3B	$1.3B	$1.2B	$1.3B	$1.3B	$1.2B	$1.2B	$1.2B	GoodwillGoodwill
$4.3B	$4.5B	$4.5B	$5.8B	$5.6B	$5.2B	—	—	—	—	$4.9B	Total assetsAssets
$1.8B	$1.8B	$1.8B	$1.8B	$2.4B	$2.5B	—	—	—	—	$2.5B	Total debtDebt
$1.2B	$1.3B	$1.4B	$1.3B	$1.7B	$1.8B	—	—	—	—	$2.5B	Net debt / (cash)Net debt
3.9×	3.7×	3.5×	3.4×	-5.8×	—	—	—	2.7×	2.1×	-0.4×	Interest coverageInt. cov.
$1.3B	$1.4B	$1.4B	$1.4B	$788M	$323M	—	—	—	—	$195M	Shareholders’ equityEquity
0.5%	0.4%	0.4%	0.4%	2.8%	1.9%	0.9%	0.8%	1.1%	1.2%	1.1%	Stock comp / revenueSBC/rev
											Per share
116M	116M	116M	117M	117M	117M	118M	152M	155M	134M	115M	Shares out (diluted)Shares
$25.21	$25.78	$27.69	$28.16	$5.88	$12.88	$20.77	$20.18	$19.69	$23.19	$28.05	Revenue / shareRev/sh
$2.20	$2.28	$1.84	$1.64	$-5.29	$-3.60	$-2.29	$1.24	$2.00	$1.03	$1.49	EPS (diluted)EPS
$1.17	$1.28	$1.81	$2.22	$-3.55	$0.60	—	—	—	—	$0.88	Owner earnings / shareOE/sh
$1.17	$1.28	$1.81	$2.22	$-3.55	$0.60	—	—	—	—	$0.88	Free cash flow / shareFCF/sh
$1.08	$1.16	$1.28	$1.37	$0.36	$0.00	—	—	—	—	$0.00	Dividends / shareDiv/sh
$2.82	$3.28	$2.97	$2.60	$0.72	$0.81	$0.94	—	—	—	$1.18	Cap. spending / shareCapex/sh
$10.90	$12.01	$12.00	$12.31	$6.75	$2.75	—	—	—	—	$1.70	Book value / shareBVPS

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

	9-yr	5-yr
Revenue / share	−0.9%/yr	+31.6%/yr
Owner earnings / share	−12.5%/yr (5-yr)	−12.5%/yr
EPS	−8.1%/yr	—
Capital spending / share	−16.8%/yr (6-yr)	−22.2%/yr
Book value / share	−24.1%/yr (5-yr)	−24.1%/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 check out against the filed numbers on this page. The words are the company's; the arithmetic is the record's.

Concession+2.5%
“Concession revenue per patron increased 5.2% to $8.30 during 2025 compared with $7.89 during 2024 driven by strategic pricing actions, increased incidence rates, and a higher mix of merchandise.”
✓ direction 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

134Mpeak FY2024

ROIC

−9%low FY2020

Net debt ÷ owner earnings

25.4×peak FY2021

Owner earnings vs. net income

Owner earningsNet income

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

$71Mowner earningsvs.($423M)net incomelow FY2020

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.

FY2016FY2021

Owner-earnings bridge

FY2017–FY2021cash-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 2021 the business turned a $423M loss into $71M of owner earnings: more cash than the profit line showed, after the non-cash charges and the capital it put back in.

	FY2021	FY2020	FY2019	FY2018	FY2017
Reported net income	($423M)	($617M)	$191M	$214M	$264M
Depreciation & amortizationnon-cash charge added back	+$265M	+$260M	+$261M	+$261M	+$238M
Stock-based compensationreal costnon-cash, but a real cost	+$29M	+$19M	+$15M	+$14M	+$13M
Working capital & othertiming of cash in and out, other non-cash items	+$294M	+$8M	+$95M	+$68M	+$15M
Cash from operations	$166M	($330M)	$562M	$557M	$529M
Capital expenditurecash put back in to keep running and to grow	−$96M	−$84M	−$304M	−$346M	−$381M
Owner earnings	$71M	($414M)	$258M	$211M	$148M
Owner-earnings marginowner earnings ÷ revenue	5%	-60%	8%	7%	5%

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 $29M), owner earnings is nearer $41M.

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? -1.8×

Does not cover its interest

Operating income ($252M) ÷ interest expense $142M

What this means
A full year of operating profit didn't cover the interest bill. This is the zombie zone: the business depends on refinancing, asset sales, or forbearance to service its debt.
How heavy is the debt, net of cash? $2.5B

Net debt against an operating loss

Cash $0 − debt $2.5B

What this means
Netting $0 of cash and short-term investments against $2.5B of debt leaves $2.5B owed, with no operating profit this year to measure it against — understand that combination before anything else about the company. 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 9%

Solid through the cycle

6-yr median, range -24%–12%; -8% latest = NOPAT ($232M) ÷ invested capital $2.8B

Industry peers: median 11%

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 6 years (it ran -8% 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 5%

Thin through the cycle

6-yr median margin, range -60%–8%; latest $56M = operating cash $166M − maintenance capex $111M

Industry peers: median 4%

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 2% of revenue this year, a 5% median across 6 years. Treating stock comp as the real expense it is (less $37M of SBC) leaves $19M.
Are earnings backed by cash? 1.20×

Cash-backed

Cash from ops $166M ÷ net income $138M

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 $56M

What this means
Of $56M 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? 0.55×

Harvesting

Capex $111M ÷ depreciation $202M

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 · $3.1B

What this means
Big enough to weather a storm. Graham's 1972 floor was ~$100M of sales (≈ $700M today); we use a $2B revenue line as a conservative modern stand-in.
Strong liquidity Miss

Current ratio ≥ 2× · 1.14×

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 · $2.5B vs $105M 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) · 3 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 · −13%

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 $1.85/share (latest year $1.20), the averaged base the calculator's gate runs on, and book value is $2.82/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 7 of 10

What this means
Lost money in 3 year(s), look at what happened there before trusting the average.
Return on capital ≥ 15% 0 of 6 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 13% → 8% (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 13% early to 8% lately, median 9% — competition or costs are biting in.
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.
Worst year 2020 · −110.0% op. margin

What this means
Operations went underwater in 2020, understand why before trusting the good years.
Share count +1.7%/yr

What this means
The share count is rising, dilution works against you on a per-share basis.
Dividend record paid

What this means
Paid a dividend in 5 of the years on record.

Does AI threaten the moat?

Moderate contestability

AI 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, Sep 30, 2022

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$801M

Receivables$52M
Inventory$20M
Other current assets$729M

Current liabilities$628M

Debt due within a year$22M
Accounts payable$372M
Other current liabilities$235M

Current ratio1.27×all current assets ÷ what's due · Graham looked for 2×

Quick ratio1.24×stricter: inventory excluded

Cash ratio0.00×strictest: cash alone against what's due

Working capital$173Mthe cushion left after near-term bills

Debt due this year vs. cash$22M due · $0 cash cash alone won't cover the maturities; it leans on refinancing or operating cash · both figures from the Sep 30, 2022 balance sheet

Revenue, latest quarter vs. a year ago+18.9%the freshest read on whether the business is still growing

Deeper floors

Tangible book value($1.4B)equity stripped of goodwill & intangibles

Net current asset value($148M)Graham's net-net: current assets less all liabilities

Debt incl. operating leases$3.5B$1.0B of it operating leases; with finance leases, “total fixed claims” below reaches $3.6B (annual-report basis)

Deferred revenue$341Mcustomer cash collected before delivery; operating float

From the company's latest filing.

Debt maturity

the debt note, SEC EDGAR →

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

'26$6M

'27$6M

'28$771M

'29$6M

'30$607M

later$500M

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$6Mthe first rung: what must be repaid or rolled over within the year

Within two years$13Mthe near wall, the part most exposed to today’s credit conditions

Biggest single year$771Min 2028the lumpiest maturity, where a refinancing, if needed, is largest

Total scheduled principal$1.9Bevery year plus what lies beyond, as the footnote totals it

Against what the business has and earns

Cash & short-term investments, Sep 30, 2022$0

One year of owner earnings (FY2025)$56M

Together, against $6M due next year8.7×

Cash on hand as of Sep 30, 2022 plus a year’s owner earnings comes to $56M against the $6M due in the twelve months after the Dec 31, 2025 schedule: 8.7 times it.

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

Lease obligations

the lease note, SEC EDGAR →

Debt by another name. What the business owes on the property, aircraft, stores and equipment it rents rather than owns is a fixed claim due on a schedule; added back to the debt, it is the true leverage. That ladder, operating and finance leases together, and what it adds to the debt on the page above.

Operating leasesFinance leases

'26$294M

'27$262M

'28$223M

'29$182M

'30$138M

later$241M

Lease payments by year, scaled to the largest; “later” is everything beyond year five, shown apart. These are the contractual cash payments, before the interest the filing imputes back out to the balance-sheet liability.

Due in the next 12 months$294Ma fixed cash payment, owed whether or not the business has a good year

Total lease payments$1.3Bevery year plus the tail, undiscounted: the full cash the leases will take

On the balance sheet$1.1Bthe present value of those payments, the recognised lease liability

True leverage: debt plus leases

On-balance-sheet debt$2.5B

Lease obligations (present value)$1.1B

Total fixed claims on the business$3.6B

Counting the leases the way Buffett does, the fixed claims on this business come to $3.6B, of which the leases are 31%. The lease wall above and the debt schedule together are the calendar of what must be paid, and when.

Lease ladder read from the ASC 842 tags in the company’s Dec 31, 2025 annual report and reconciled: the yearly buckets sum to the undiscounted total, which less the imputed interest equals the balance-sheet liability; a ladder that doesn’t tie out is withheld.

How the cash was used, 2016–2021

Over the record, the business generated $1.9B of operating cash; how management split it reads as a reinvestor, most operating cash is plowed back into the business.

Reinvested$1.5B · 79%
Dividends$612M · 31%

Returned to owners$612M
149% of the owner earnings the business produced over the span, $612M as dividends and $0 as buybacks.
Source of funding−$202M
Reinvestment and shareholder returns ran $202M beyond the operating cash the business generated, so the gap was financed off the balance sheet: debt rose from $1.8B to $2.5B, and cash and short-term investments drew down $561M.
Net change in share count−0.9%
The diluted count barely moved (116M to 115M): buybacks roughly offset the stock issued to staff.
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$1.5B30% 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$78Mover 10 years buying other businesses, against $1.6B of capital spent building

$16M written down across 1 year (2020): goodwill the company has already conceded it overpaid for, charged against earnings. That is roughly 21% 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”	Net income
2021	Mark Zoradi	$7.8M	$6.8M	($423M)
2022	—	$6.0M	$3.3M	($271M)
2023	—	$8.8M	$12.2M	$188M
2024	—	$9.8M	$27.3M	$310M
2025	Sean Gamble	$10.8M	−$2.7M	$138M

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. Net income is the whole business's, as filed, for the same fiscal years. A dash under the name means the filing tags the figure without naming the officer.

Insider ownership<1%
The stake all directors and executive officers hold together, per the 2026 proxy: skin in the game, the first thing Munger reads.
Stock-based compensation$37M
The slice of the business handed to employees in shares this year, 1% of revenue. 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 Cinemark 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 2016–2025.

3 of the 5 tests turned up something to look into; the other 2 came back clean.

Look hereIs it less profitable than it was?−15.9% vs 5.4%
The owner-earnings margin averaged 5.4% early in the record and −15.9% 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 debt outgrow the business?$1.8B → $2.5B
Debt rose from $1.8B to $2.5B while owner earnings went from about $165M to ($28M): the borrowing grew and the earnings that would carry it are not there now. 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?10 of 10 years
Management took an impairment or write-down in 10 of the last 10 years, $496M 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

Did the share count rise anyway?
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.

What an owner would ask, FY2025

read the 10-K →

Does management own its misses?
1 plain admission in this year's filing
“We recorded asset impairment charges of $6.5 million during 2025 related to four domestic theaters and 13 international theaters that have underperformed relative to the rest of our theater circuit.”verify →

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

Peers, nearest by economic model

No close industry peers in the catalog yet, so these are the nearest by economic model (capital-intensive), compared 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
AMCAMC Entertainment Holdings Inc.	$4.8B	78%	-1.0%	-3%	-7%
MODModine Manufacturing Company	$3.2B	17%	5.4%	12%	3%
SBGISinclair Inc.	$3.2B	—	5.5%	11%	4%
CNKCinemark Holdings, Inc.	$3.1B	—	9.9%	9%	5%
GTNGray Media Inc.	$3.1B	—	25.1%	8%	15%
WSWorthington Steel Inc.	$3.1B	11%	5.2%	12%	3%
VNTVontier Corporation Common Stock	$3.1B	44%	18.2%	17%	14%
MCSMarcus Corporation (The)	$758M	—	3.4%	5%	8%
Group median	—	—	5.4%	10%	4%

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 Cinemark Holdings, Inc. has delivered.

Today’s price $

Through the cycle, Cinemark Holdings, Inc. earns about $146M on its 4.7% median owner-earnings margin. This year’s 1.8% 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 ($146M) Net of stock comp (−$36M) Steady-state · maintenance capex ($125M)

—

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, delivered—

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 $101M on 115M shares outstanding (a weighted basic average, the only count this filer tags); net debt $2.5B. 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 ($135M) runs well above depreciation ($204M), so this is a build-out; Steady-state swaps total capex for maintenance (≈ depreciation), lifting the base to about $125M, 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 CNK against another business →

The owners of CNK: the meeting and the votes →

Cite: Owner Scorecard, "Cinemark Holdings, Inc. (CNK), the owner's record," https://ownerscorecard.com/c/CNK, data as of 2026-07-09.

Manual order: ← CNH its page in the Manual CNM →

Industry order: ← BUUU the Entertainment & Studios chapter DIS →