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COTY, Coty Inc.

Personal Care Products consumer brand UnprofitableDistress / turnaround

Coty Inc. is one of the world's largest beauty companies with an iconic portfolio of brands across fragrance, color cosmetics, and skin and body care.

Over the past few years, we have implemented a comprehensive transformation agenda (the "Transformation Plan"), focusing on our core go-to-market competencies, simplifying our capital structure and deleveraging our balance sheet.

In Prestige, we are accelerating our fragrance business with exceptional new launches and franchise-building extensions, expanding our premium and ultra-premium category portfolio, extending into the rapidly growing fragrance mist adjacency with multiple brands, while also enhancing assortment of our Prestige cosmetic products.

Latest annual: FY2025 10-K

COTY · Coty Inc.

The business

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

Revenue · FY2025

$5.9B

−3.7% YoY · 5% 5-yr CAGR

Vital signs · TTM, with 5-yr average

Revenue $5.8B 5-yr avg $5.5B

Gross margin 63% 5-yr avg 63%

Operating margin −0.4% 5-yr avg 5.3%

ROIC −0% 5-yr avg 2%

Owner-earnings margin 5% 5-yr avg 6%

Free cash flow margin 5% 5-yr avg 6%

The business in brief

read the 10-K →

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

Situation: Unprofitable. No sustained operating profit across the record; an earnings multiple has nothing to rest on. What the record does show is revenue, the gross-margin trajectory, and the burn against the cash on hand. Distress / turnaround. Thin interest coverage, or operating cash burned against real debt, across the record. The balance sheet carries this situation; the debt schedule sets the clock.
What moves the needle: Operating margin has run around −1.0% through the cycle on a 60% gross margin, the operating line in the red even at its best — so the lever is whether the spending below the gross line can come down enough to clear a profit: revenue growth against the cost curve, and the cash runway until it does. The cash cycle has run negative through the cycle (a median of −74 days): the operation is paid before it pays, so working capital releases cash as the business grows rather than tying it up. On its own account, the filing leans hardest on customer concentration, set against the numbers in what the filing emphasizes, below.
Is it a good business?: Return on capital has rarely cleared the cost of capital (median −1%, above 15% in 0 of 7 years). By owner earnings: roughly 4% of revenue reaches owners as cash, though it swings, and customers and suppliers fund the business through negative working capital. This is price-taker territory, where the balance sheet and the cycle matter more than any multiple; 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, 2017–2025

realized figures from each filing · older years to the left

2017’17	2018’18	2019’19	2020’20	2021’21	2022’22	2023’23	2024’24	2025’25	TTMTTMMar 2026
										Income statement
$7.7B	$6.8B	$6.3B	$4.7B	$4.6B	$5.3B	$5.6B	$6.1B	$5.9B	$5.8B	RevenueRevenue
60%	60%	60%	58%	60%	64%	64%	64%	65%	63%	Gross marginGross mgn
53%	56%	55%	66%	51%	54%	51%	52%	53%	53%	SG&A / revenueSG&A/rev
2%	2%	2%	2%	2%	2%	2%	2%	2%	2%	R&D / revenueR&D/rev
($421M)	($156M)	($3.7B)	($1.2B)	($49M)	$241M	$544M	$547M	$241M	($23M)	Operating incomeOp. inc.
−5.5%	−2.3%	−58.7%	−26.2%	−1.0%	4.5%	9.8%	8.9%	4.1%	−0.4%	Operating marginOp. mgn
($422M)	($169M)	($3.8B)	($1.0B)	($201M)	$260M	$508M	$89M	($368M)	($533M)	Net incomeNet inc.
—	—	—	—	—	39%	26%	52%	—	—	Effective tax rateTax rate
										Cash flow & returns
$758M	$414M	$640M	($51M)	$319M	$727M	$626M	$615M	$493M	$505M	Operating cash flowOp. cash
$555M	$737M	$736M	$717M	$585M	$516M	$427M	$421M	$420M	$459M	DepreciationDeprec.
$600M	($185M)	$3.7B	$210M	($95M)	($245M)	($445M)	$15M	$391M	$534M	Working capital & otherWC & other
$432M	$446M	$427M	$267M	$174M	$174M	$223M	$245M	$215M	$195M	CapexCapex
5.7%	6.5%	6.8%	5.7%	3.8%	3.3%	4.0%	4.0%	3.6%	3.4%	Capex / revenueCapex/rev
$325M	($33M)	$213M	($318M)	$145M	$553M	$403M	$369M	$278M	$311M	Owner earningsOwner earn.
4.3%	−0.5%	3.4%	−6.7%	3.1%	10.4%	7.3%	6.0%	4.7%	5.4%	Owner earnings marginOE mgn
$325M	($33M)	$213M	($318M)	$145M	$553M	$403M	$369M	$278M	$311M	Free cash flowFCF
4.3%	−0.5%	3.4%	−6.7%	3.1%	10.4%	7.3%	6.0%	4.7%	5.4%	Free cash flow marginFCF mgn
$743M	$278M	$41M	$592M	$0	—	—	—	—	$0	AcquisitionsAcquis.
$373M	$375M	$345M	$195M	—	—	—	—	—	$195M	Dividends paidDiv. paid
$36M	$0	$0	$5M	$0	—	—	—	—	—	BuybacksBuybacks
-2%	-1%	-24%	-9%	-0%	2%	5%	—	—	-0%	ROICROIC
-5%	-2%	-83%	-34%	-7%	8%	13%	2%	-10%	-17%	Return on equityROE
−9%	−6%	−90%	−40%	—	—	—	—	—	−24%	Retained to equityRetained/eq
										Balance sheet
$535M	$332M	$340M	$308M	$254M	$233M	$247M	$301M	$257M	$257M	Cash & investmentsCash+inv
$1.5B	$1.5B	$859M	$440M	$348M	$365M	$361M	$442M	$526M	$565M	ReceivablesReceiv.
$1.1B	$1.1B	$860M	$678M	$651M	$662M	$853M	$764M	$795M	$786M	InventoryInvent.
$1.7B	$1.9B	$1.6B	$1.2B	$1.2B	$1.3B	$1.4B	$1.4B	$1.9B	$1.8B	Accounts payablePayables
$791M	$756M	$136M	($72M)	($167M)	($242M)	($230M)	($200M)	($569M)	($417M)	Operating working capitalOper. WC
$3.6B	$3.7B	$3.3B	$6.5B	$1.8B	$1.7B	$2.1B	$2.0B	$2.0B	$1.9B	Current assetsCur. assets
$3.8B	$4.0B	$3.5B	$3.6B	$2.4B	$2.6B	$2.7B	$2.6B	$2.5B	$2.4B	Current liabilitiesCur. liab.
0.9×	0.9×	0.9×	1.8×	0.7×	0.7×	0.7×	0.8×	0.8×	0.8×	Current ratioCurr. ratio
$8.6B	$7.6B	$4.2B	$4.0B	$4.1B	$3.9B	$4.0B	$3.9B	$4.1B	$3.8B	GoodwillGoodwill
$22.5B	$22.6B	$17.7B	$16.7B	$13.7B	$12.1B	$12.7B	$12.1B	$11.9B	$10.2B	Total assetsAssets
$7.2B	$7.6B	$7.7B	$8.2B	$5.5B	$4.5B	$4.3B	$3.9B	$4.0B	$4.1B	Total debtDebt
$6.7B	$7.3B	$7.4B	$7.8B	$5.2B	$4.3B	$4.0B	$3.6B	$3.8B	$3.9B	Net debt / (cash)Net debt
-1.9×	-0.7×	-14.6×	-5.3×	-0.2×	1.0×	2.1×	2.2×	1.1×	-0.1×	Interest coverageInt. cov.
$9.3B	$8.8B	$4.6B	$3.0B	$2.9B	$3.2B	$3.8B	$3.8B	$3.5B	$3.1B	Shareholders’ equityEquity
0.3%	0.4%	0.2%	0.6%	0.6%	3.7%	2.4%	1.5%	0.8%	0.8%	Stock comp / revenueSBC/rev
—	—	$3.3B	$105M	—	—	—	—	—	$24M	Goodwill written downGW imp.
										Per share
643M	750M	751M	759M	765M	834M	887M	883M	871M	877M	Shares out (diluted)Shares
$11.90	$9.13	$8.37	$6.21	$6.05	$6.36	$6.27	$6.93	$6.77	$6.61	Revenue / shareRev/sh
$-0.66	$-0.23	$-5.04	$-1.33	$-0.26	$0.31	$0.57	$0.10	$-0.42	$-0.61	EPS (diluted)EPS
$0.51	$-0.04	$0.28	$-0.42	$0.19	$0.66	$0.45	$0.42	$0.32	$0.35	Owner earnings / shareOE/sh
$0.51	$-0.04	$0.28	$-0.42	$0.19	$0.66	$0.45	$0.42	$0.32	$0.35	Free cash flow / shareFCF/sh
$0.58	$0.50	$0.46	$0.26	—	—	—	—	—	$0.22	Dividends / shareDiv/sh
$0.67	$0.60	$0.57	$0.35	$0.23	$0.21	$0.25	$0.28	$0.25	$0.22	Cap. spending / shareCapex/sh
$14.49	$11.80	$6.11	$3.96	$3.74	$3.78	$4.30	$4.33	$4.07	$3.53	Book value / shareBVPS

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

	8-yr	5-yr
Revenue / share	−6.8%/yr	+1.7%/yr
Owner earnings / share	−5.6%/yr	—
Dividends / share	−23.7%/yr (3-yr)	−23.7%/yr (3-yr)
Capital spending / share	−11.8%/yr	−6.9%/yr
Book value / share	−14.7%/yr	+0.5%/yr

The record, charted

FY2017–2025

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

Share count

871Mpeak FY2023

ROIC

5%low FY2019

Gross margin

65%low FY2020

Net debt ÷ owner earnings

13.5×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.

$278Mowner earningsvs.($368M)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.

FY2017FY2025

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 a $368M loss into $278M of owner earnings: more cash than the profit line showed, after the non-cash charges and the capital it put back in.

	FY2025	FY2024	FY2023	FY2022	FY2021
Reported net income	($368M)	$89M	$508M	$260M	($201M)
Depreciation & amortizationnon-cash charge added back	+$420M	+$421M	+$427M	+$516M	+$585M
Stock-based compensationreal costnon-cash, but a real cost	+$50M	+$89M	+$136M	+$196M	+$30M
Working capital & othertiming of cash in and out, other non-cash items	+$391M	+$15M	−$445M	−$245M	−$95M
Cash from operations	$493M	$615M	$626M	$727M	$319M
Capital expenditurecash put back in to keep running and to grow	−$215M	−$245M	−$223M	−$174M	−$174M
Owner earnings	$278M	$369M	$403M	$553M	$145M
Owner-earnings marginowner earnings ÷ revenue	5%	6%	7%	10%	3%

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 $50M), owner earnings is nearer $228M.

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? 1.1×

Thin

Operating income $241M ÷ interest expense $227M

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? $3.8B · 15.6× operating profit

Heavy net debt

Cash $257M − debt $4.0B

What this means
Netting $257M of cash and short-term investments against $4.0B of debt leaves $3.8B owed, about 15.6× a year's operating profit (16.6× 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? -160d

Negative, funded by others

DSO 33 + DIO 140 − DPO 333 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 -1%

Below average through the cycle

7-yr median, range -24%–5%; the latest year is left out — large non-operating charges put its operating line well above pretax profit

Industry peers: median 15%

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 7 years, so one peak or trough year doesn't set the verdict. Asset-light businesses (R&D expensed, little capital) read artificially high, pair this with Owner Earnings.
Owner-earnings margin 5%

Thin, recently turned positive

latest $278M = operating cash $493M − maintenance capex $215M; positive each of the last 3 years, after an earlier loss stretch (9-yr median 4%)

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 5% of revenue this year, a 4% median across 9 years. Treating stock comp as the real expense it is (less $50M of SBC) leaves $228M.
Are earnings backed by cash? $493M

Loss, but cash-generative

Net income ($368M) · cash from operations $493M

In the filing’s words And the filing leans heavily on adjusted, non-GAAP earnings — steering you off the GAAP figure just where the cash is not backing it. Read the reconciliation in the notes before taking the adjusted number.

What this means
The company reported a net loss, so a conversion ratio isn't meaningful. What matters then is whether operations still threw off cash, here, they did.

How is the cash used?

Where do the earnings go? 70%

Returns about half

Dividends + buybacks $195M ÷ Owner Earnings $278M

What this means
Of $278M Owner Earnings, $195M (70%) went back to shareholders, $195M 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? 0.51×

Harvesting

Capex $215M ÷ depreciation $420M

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 5 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 · $5.9B

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× · 0.77×

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 · $4.0B vs ($585M) 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 (9-yr record) · 6 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 · 4 of 9 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 —

Earnings +33% over the record · —

What this means
Earnings were negative early in the record, a growth rate isn't meaningful.
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 $0.09/share (latest year $-0.42), the averaged base the calculator's gate runs on, and book value is $4.02/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, 2017–2025

Whether the record’s returns held, and what the capital reinvested earned.

Profitable years 3 of 9

What this means
Lost money in 6 year(s), look at what happened there before trusting the average.
Return on capital ≥ 15% 0 of 9 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 −22% → 8% (3-yr avg ends)

In the filing’s words The words confirm the number: the filing says price increases held their volume, and the margin widened with them — Buffett’s strongest mark of pricing power.

What this means
Through the cycle the operating margin widened — about −22% early to 8% lately, median −1% — pricing power intact or improving.
Reinvestment, incremental ROIC returns capital

What this means
The capital base barely grew: this business returns cash through dividends and buybacks rather than reinvesting. Judge it on the cash returned, not on compounding.
Owner earnings growth +10%/yr

What this means
Owner earnings grew about 10% a year over the record.
Worst year 2019 · −58.7% op. margin

What this means
Operations went underwater in 2019, understand why before trusting the good years.
Share count +3.9%/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 4 of the years on record.

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.

“The beauty industry is highly competitive and can change rapidly due to consumer preferences and industry trends, such as the expansion of digital channels, direct-to-consumer channels, new "disruptor" trendy brands and advances in technology such as artificial intelligence ("AI").…”

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$1.9B

Cash & short-term investments$257M
Receivables$565M
Inventory$786M
Other current assets$327M

Current liabilities$2.4B

Debt due within a year$2M
Accounts payable$1.8B
Other current liabilities$586M

Current ratio0.82×all current assets ÷ what's due · Graham looked for 2×

Quick ratio0.49×stricter: inventory excluded

Cash ratio0.11×strictest: cash alone against what's due

Working capital($421M)the cushion left after near-term bills

Debt due this year vs. cash$2M due · $257M 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−1.3%the freshest read on whether the business is still growing

Current ratio, recent quarters0.8× → 0.8×

Deeper floors

Tangible book value($3.6B)equity stripped of goodwill & intangibles

Net current asset value($4.8B)Graham's net-net: current assets less all liabilities

Debt incl. operating leases$3.4B$254M of it operating leases

Deferred revenue$14Mcustomer cash collected before delivery; operating float

From the company's latest filing.

How the cash was used, 2017–2025

Over the record, the business generated $4.5B of operating cash; how management split it reads as a reinvestor, most operating cash is plowed back into the business.

Reinvested$2.6B · 57%
Dividends$1.3B · 28%
Buybacks$41M · 1%
Retained (debt / cash)$606M · 13%

Returned to owners$1.3B
69% of the owner earnings the business produced over the span, $1.3B as dividends and $41M as buybacks.
Source of fundingOperating cash
Operating cash covered reinvestment and returns; over the span debt fell $3.1B and cash and short-term investments fell $278M.
Average price paid for buybacks—
Buybacks ran $41M over the span, but the filings don't tag the share count needed to deduce the average price paid.
Net change in share count36.4%
The diluted count rose from 643M to 877M: issuance (stock pay, deals) outran any buybacks, so owners were diluted on net.
Dividend record$0.26/sh
Paid in 4 of the years on record, the per-share dividend shrinking about 24% a year. 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 9-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$7.3B61% 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$1.7Bover 9 years buying other businesses, against $2.6B of capital spent building

$3.4B written down across 2 years (2019, 2020): 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 9-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	Sue Nabi	$283.8M	$283.8M	$145M
2022	Sue Nabi	$3.6M	−$18.7M	$553M
2023	Sue Nabi	$149.4M	$195.0M	$403M
2024	Sue Nabi	$7.3M	−$28.4M	$369M
2025	Sue Nabi	$19.7M	−$46.4M	$278M

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 2025 proxy: skin in the game, the first thing Munger reads.
CEO pay ratio412:1
What the chief earns for every dollar the median employee makes, per the 2025 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$50M
The slice of the business handed to employees in shares this year, 1% of revenue, equal to 21% 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 Coty 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 2017–2025.

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

Look hereDid the share count rise anyway?36.4%
Diluted shares grew 36.4% over 2017–2025, even as the company spent $41M 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.

And these came back clean

Is it less profitable than it was?
Did debt outgrow the business?
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 Revenue recognition, Income taxes, Inventory 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
CLColgate-Palmolive Co.	$20.4B	60%	21.9%	41%	17%
KVUEKenvue Inc.	$15.1B	57%	16.1%	9%	10%
ELEstee Lauder Companies Inc. (The)	$14.3B	76%	14.4%	19%	12%
CLXClorox Co.	$7.1B	44%	17.1%	32%	12%
CHDChurch & Dwight Company Inc.	$6.2B	45%	19.2%	15%	17%
COTYCoty Inc.	$5.9B	60%	-1.0%	-1%	4%
EPCEdgewell Personal Care	$2.2B	45%	9.0%	6%	6%
ELFe.l.f. Beauty	$1.6B	65%	10.3%	7%	8%
Group median	—	58%	15.3%	12%	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 Coty Inc. has delivered.

Today’s price $

Through the cycle, Coty Inc. earns about $250M on its 4.3% median owner-earnings margin. This year’s 4.7% 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 ($250M) Net of stock comp (−$45M)

—

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→’25−2%/yr

Owner-earnings growth · ’17→’25+10%/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 $311M on 880M shares outstanding, per the 10-Q cover, as of 2026-04-28; net debt $3.9B. 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 COTY against another business →

The owners of COTY: the meeting and the votes →

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

Manual order: ← COST its page in the Manual COUR →

Industry order: ← CL the Personal Care Products chapter EL →