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DBI, Designer Brands Inc.

Designer Brands Inc., originally founded as DSW Inc., is one of the world's largest designers, producers, and retailers of footwear and accessories.

The Retail segment operates the DSW Designer Shoe Warehouse ("DSW"), The Shoe Co., and Rubino banners through its direct-to-consumer stores and e-commerce sites.

Latest annual: FY2026 10-K

DBI · Designer Brands Inc.

The business

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

Revenue · FY2026

$2.9B

−3.9% YoY · 5% 5-yr CAGR

Vital signs · TTM, with 5-yr average

Revenue $2.9B 5-yr avg $3.1B

Gross margin 31%

Operating margin 2.6% 5-yr avg 3.4%

ROIC 5% 5-yr avg 18%

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

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

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 Retail (92%) and Brand Portfolio (8%).
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 2.4% through the cycle, a thin margin, where volume, cost discipline and the price it gets all bear on the result. The operating margin has swung widely — from −26% to 7.4% over the years — so the through-cycle figure carries more than any single year, and the worst year more than the best. Inventory runs near 18% of sales, so how fast it turns back into cash — and the risk of writing it down when demand softens — sits alongside the margin. 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 run in the teens (median 18%, above 15% in 3 of 6 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 3% of revenue reaches owners as cash, consistently. Returns like these are solid but short of clear franchise economics; whether they hold is what the 10-K settles, not the multiple.

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 →

Retail is 92% of revenue, with Brand Portfolio the other meaningful segment at 8%.

Revenue by reportable segment, FY2026

Retail92%$2.7B
Brand Portfolio8%$236M

By geographyUnited States90%Canada10%

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, 2017–2026

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	2026’26	TTMTTMMay 2026
											Income statement
$2.7B	$2.8B	$3.2B	$3.5B	$2.2B	$3.2B	$3.3B	$3.1B	$3.0B	$2.9B	$2.9B	RevenueRevenue
29%	28%	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	31%	Gross marginGross mgn
22%	22%	26%	25%	34%	27%	38%	41%	41%	42%	42%	SG&A / revenueSG&A/rev
$200M	$125M	$59M	$127M	($586M)	$205M	$187M	$72M	$35M	$48M	$75M	Operating incomeOp. inc.
7.4%	4.5%	1.9%	3.6%	−26.2%	6.4%	5.7%	2.4%	1.2%	1.7%	2.6%	Operating marginOp. mgn
$124M	$67M	($20M)	$94M	($489M)	$154M	$163M	$29M	($11M)	($8M)	$11M	Net incomeNet inc.
39%	47%	—	21%	—	11%	-2%	27%	—	—	57%	Effective tax rateTax rate
											Cash flow & returns
$213M	$191M	$175M	$197M	($154M)	$171M	$201M	$162M	$82M	$110M	$108M	Operating cash flowOp. cash
$83M	$81M	$79M	$87M	$88M	$78M	$81M	$66M	$64M	$59M	$59M	DepreciationDeprec.
($7M)	$28M	$99M	($1M)	$227M	($85M)	($71M)	$38M	$10M	$40M	$20M	Working capital & otherWC & other
$88M	$56M	$65M	$78M	$31M	$33M	$55M	$55M	$51M	$32M	$34M	CapexCapex
3.2%	2.0%	2.1%	2.2%	1.4%	1.0%	1.7%	1.8%	1.7%	1.1%	1.2%	Capex / revenueCapex/rev
$125M	$135M	$110M	$119M	($185M)	$138M	$146M	$107M	$31M	$78M	$74M	Owner earningsOwner earn.
4.6%	4.8%	3.5%	3.4%	−8.3%	4.3%	4.4%	3.5%	1.0%	2.7%	2.5%	Owner earnings marginOE mgn
$125M	$135M	$110M	$119M	($185M)	$138M	$146M	$107M	$31M	$78M	$74M	Free cash flowFCF
4.6%	4.8%	3.5%	3.4%	−8.3%	4.3%	4.4%	3.5%	1.0%	2.7%	2.5%	Free cash flow marginFCF mgn
$60M	$0	$199M	$0	$0	$0	$19M	$127M	$16M	$0	$0	AcquisitionsAcquis.
$65M	$64M	$80M	$73M	$7M	$0	$13M	$12M	$10M	$10M	$10M	Dividends paidDiv. paid
$50M	$9M	$48M	$142M	$0	$0	$148M	$102M	$69M	$0	—	BuybacksBuybacks
—	—	—	99%	-170%	32%	29%	7%	—	6%	5%	ROICROIC
—	—	—	—	—	37%	38%	8%	-4%	-3%	4%	Return on equityROE
—	—	—	—	—	37%	34%	5%	−8%	−6%	0%	Retained to equityRetained/eq
											Balance sheet
$209M	$301M	$169M	$112M	$60M	$73M	$59M	$49M	$45M	$51M	$126M	Cash & investmentsCash+inv
$18M	$19M	$69M	$89M	$196M	$200M	$78M	$84M	$50M	$59M	$78M	ReceivablesReceiv.
$500M	$502M	$645M	$633M	$473M	$586M	$606M	$571M	$600M	$564M	$587M	InventoryInvent.
$185M	$179M	$262M	$299M	$245M	$341M	$255M	$289M	$272M	$236M	$236M	Accounts payablePayables
$333M	$342M	$453M	$423M	$424M	$445M	$428M	$366M	$379M	$387M	$428M	Operating working capitalOper. WC
$759M	$871M	$955M	$901M	$781M	$914M	$790M	$777M	$735M	$708M	$764M	Current assetsCur. assets
$317M	$328M	$463M	$680M	$753M	$759M	$636M	$622M	$590M	$588M	$603M	Current liabilitiesCur. liab.
2.4×	2.7×	2.1×	1.3×	1.0×	1.2×	1.2×	1.2×	1.2×	1.2×	1.3×	Current ratioCurr. ratio
$80M	$26M	$90M	$114M	$94M	$94M	$97M	$124M	$130M	$131M	$131M	GoodwillGoodwill
$1.4B	$1.4B	$1.6B	$2.5B	$2.0B	$2.0B	$2.0B	$2.1B	$2.0B	$1.9B	$2.0B	Total assetsAssets
—	$0	$160M	$190M	$335M	$226M	$281M	$427M	$491M	$435M	$475M	Total debtDebt
—	($301M)	($9M)	$78M	$275M	$153M	$222M	$378M	$446M	$384M	$349M	Net debt / (cash)Net debt
840.2×	256.3×	24.3×	14.3×	-24.4×	6.4×	12.4×	2.2×	0.8×	—	1.6×	Interest coverageInt. cov.
($14M)	($10M)	($3M)	($2M)	($3M)	$412M	$433M	$359M	$278M	$282M	$281M	Shareholders’ equityEquity
0.5%	0.5%	0.5%	0.5%	0.9%	0.7%	0.9%	1.0%	0.6%	0.7%	0.7%	Stock comp / revenueSBC/rev
—	$54M	$42M	$8M	$154M	$2M	—	—	—	—	$5M	Goodwill written downGW imp.
											Per share
82.1M	80.7M	80.0M	74.6M	72.2M	77.3M	72.1M	63.4M	53.7M	49.1M	55.9M	Shares out (diluted)Shares
$33.10	$34.77	$39.71	$46.82	$30.95	$41.37	$45.98	$48.52	$56.08	$58.87	$51.90	Revenue / shareRev/sh
$1.51	$0.84	$-0.26	$1.27	$-6.77	$2.00	$2.26	$0.46	$-0.20	$-0.17	$0.19	EPS (diluted)EPS
$1.53	$1.67	$1.37	$1.59	$-2.56	$1.79	$2.03	$1.69	$0.58	$1.59	$1.32	Owner earnings / shareOE/sh
$1.53	$1.67	$1.37	$1.59	$-2.56	$1.79	$2.03	$1.69	$0.58	$1.59	$1.32	Free cash flow / shareFCF/sh
$0.79	$0.79	$1.00	$0.97	$0.10	$0.00	$0.19	$0.19	$0.19	$0.20	$0.17	Dividends / shareDiv/sh
$1.07	$0.70	$0.82	$1.04	$0.43	$0.43	$0.76	$0.87	$0.95	$0.64	$0.61	Cap. spending / shareCapex/sh
$-0.17	$-0.12	$-0.03	$-0.03	$-0.05	$5.34	$6.00	$5.67	$5.19	$5.75	$5.02	Book value / shareBVPS

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

	9-yr	5-yr
Revenue / share	+6.6%/yr	+13.7%/yr
Owner earnings / share	+0.5%/yr	—
Dividends / share	−14.4%/yr	+14.6%/yr
Capital spending / share	−5.5%/yr	+8.3%/yr

The record, charted

FY2017–2026

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

Share count

49Mpeak FY2017

ROIC

6%low FY2021

Net debt ÷ owner earnings

4.9×peak FY2025

Owner earnings vs. net income

Owner earningsNet income

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

$78Mowner earningsvs.($8M)net incomelow FY2021

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.

FY2017FY2026

Owner-earnings bridge

FY2022–FY2026cash-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 2026 the business turned a $8M loss into $78M of owner earnings: more cash than the profit line showed, after the non-cash charges and the capital it put back in.

	FY2026	FY2025	FY2024	FY2023	FY2022
Reported net income	($8M)	($11M)	$29M	$163M	$154M
Depreciation & amortizationnon-cash charge added back	+$59M	+$64M	+$66M	+$81M	+$78M
Stock-based compensationreal costnon-cash, but a real cost	+$19M	+$19M	+$29M	+$29M	+$24M
Working capital & othertiming of cash in and out, other non-cash items	+$40M	+$10M	+$38M	−$71M	−$85M
Cash from operations	$110M	$82M	$162M	$201M	$171M
Capital expenditurecash put back in to keep running and to grow	−$32M	−$51M	−$55M	−$55M	−$33M
Owner earnings	$78M	$31M	$107M	$146M	$138M
Owner-earnings marginowner earnings ÷ revenue	3%	1%	3%	4%	4%

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 $19M), owner earnings is nearer $59M.

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

FY2026 10-K · source on SEC EDGAR →

Will it survive?

Can it pay its interest? 1.0×

Thin

Operating income $48M ÷ interest expense $46M

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? $384M · 8.0× operating profit

Heavy net debt

Cash $51M − debt $435M

What this means
Netting $51M of cash and short-term investments against $435M of debt leaves $384M owed, about 8.0× a year's operating profit (9.1× 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? 67d

Long (60+ days)

DSO 8 + DIO 102 − DPO 43 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 7%

Below average through the cycle

6-yr median, range -170%–99%; the latest year is left out — large non-operating charges put its operating line well above pretax profit

Industry peers: median 16%

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, 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 3%

Thin, recently turned positive

latest $78M = operating cash $110M − maintenance capex $32M; positive each of the last 3 years, after an earlier loss stretch (10-yr median 3%)

Industry peers: median 5%

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 3% of revenue this year, a 3% median across 10 years. Treating stock comp as the real expense it is (less $19M of SBC) leaves $59M.
Are earnings backed by cash? $110M

Loss, but cash-generative

Net income ($8M) · cash from operations $110M

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? 12%

Reinvests most of it

Dividends + buybacks $10M ÷ Owner Earnings $78M

What this means
Of $78M Owner Earnings, $10M (12%) went back to shareholders, $10M 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? 0.53×

Harvesting

Capex $32M ÷ depreciation $59M

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 · $2.9B

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× · 1.20×

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 · $435M vs $120M 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 Near

Uninterrupted dividends · 9 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 · −94%

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 $0.07/share (latest year $-0.17), the averaged base the calculator's gate runs on, and book value is $5.62/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, 2017–2026

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% 4 of 8 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 5% → 2% (3-yr avg ends)

What this means
Through the cycle the operating margin slipped — about 5% early to 2% lately, median 2% — competition or costs are biting in.
Reinvestment, incremental ROIC −6%

What this means
Reinvested capital came back at a negative incremental return over this window — the invested base grew while operating profit did not. The filings show where it went.
Owner earnings growth −9%/yr

What this means
Owner earnings shrank about 9% a year over the record.
Worst year 2021 · −26.2% op. margin

What this means
Operations went underwater in 2021, understand why before trusting the good years.
Share count −5.5%/yr

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

What this means
Paid a dividend in 9 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.

In its own filing A competitive risk, new this year

Its FY2026 10-K names artificial intelligence as a competitive threat, in language that was not in the prior year's filing.

“Our use of artificial intelligence tools and other new technologies may subject us to significant competitive, legal, regulatory and other risks, and there can be no assurance that our use of such tools or technologies will enhance our business operations or result in a benefit to us.…”

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, May 2, 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$764M

Cash & short-term investments$50M
Receivables$78M
Inventory$587M
Other current assets$50M

Current liabilities$603M

Debt due within a year$7M
Accounts payable$236M
Other current liabilities$360M

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

Quick ratio0.29×stricter: inventory excluded

Cash ratio0.08×strictest: cash alone against what's due

Working capital$161Mthe cushion left after near-term bills

Debt due this year vs. cash$7M due · $50M cash covered by cash on hand, no refinancing forced · both figures from the May 2, 2026 balance sheet

Revenue, latest quarter vs. a year ago+1.4%the freshest read on whether the business is still growing

Current ratio, recent quarters1.3× → 1.3×

Deeper floors

Tangible book value$69Mequity stripped of goodwill & intangibles

Net current asset value($950M)Graham's net-net: current assets less all liabilities

Debt incl. operating leases$1.2B$751M of it operating leases; with finance leases, “total fixed claims” below reaches $1.2B (annual-report basis)

From the company's latest filing.

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$219M

'27$197M

'28$155M

'29$115M

'30$81M

later$208M

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$219Ma fixed cash payment, owed whether or not the business has a good year

Total lease payments$977Mevery year plus the tail, undiscounted: the full cash the leases will take

On the balance sheet$803Mthe present value of those payments, the recognised lease liability

True leverage: debt plus leases

On-balance-sheet debt$435M

Lease obligations (present value)$803M

Total fixed claims on the business$1.2B

Counting the leases the way Buffett does, the fixed claims on this business come to $1.2B, of which the leases are 65%, more than the debt itself. 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 Jan 31, 2026 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, 2017–2026

Over the record, the business generated $1.3B of operating cash; how management split it reads as a cash returner, paying most of what it earns straight back to owners.

Reinvested$544M · 40%
Dividends$334M · 25%
Buybacks$567M · 42%

Returned to owners$901M
112% of the owner earnings the business produced over the span, $334M as dividends and $567M as buybacks.
Source of funding−$95M
Reinvestment and shareholder returns ran $95M beyond the operating cash the business generated, so the gap was financed off the balance sheet: cash and short-term investments drew down $159M.
Average price paid for buybacks$12.47
Across the years where the filing reports a share count, 30M shares were bought for $369M, about $12.47 each. Year to year the price paid ranged from $6.63 (2025) to $23.77 (2019); its heaviest year, 2020, paid $19.95 ($142M).
Net change in share count−31.9%
The diluted count fell from 82M to 56M, so the buybacks outran the stock issued to staff.
Dividend record$0.20/sh
Paid in 9 of the years on record, the per-share dividend shrinking about 14% 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 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$212M11% of all assets; the premium carried on the balance sheet for businesses acquired

Against book equity46%goodwill is this share of book equity; the rest is the company’s own retained and paid-in capital

Cash spent acquiring$422Mover 10 years buying other businesses, against $544M of capital spent building

$259M written down across 5 years (2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022): goodwill the company has already conceded it overpaid for, charged against earnings. That is roughly 61% 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
2022	—	$9.7M	$11.9M	$138M
2023	—	$8.5M	$4.7M	$146M
2024	—	$5.7M	$5.0M	$107M
2024	—	$5.7M	$5.0M	$107M
2025	Roger Rawlins	$4.9M	−$989k	$31M
2026	Douglas Howe	$7.9M	$9.9M	$78M

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. A dash under the name means the filing tags the figure without naming the officer.

Insider ownership33%
The stake all directors and executive officers hold together, per the 2026 proxy: skin in the game, the first thing Munger reads.
CEO pay ratio493:1
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$19M
The slice of the business handed to employees in shares this year, 1% of revenue, equal to 40% 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 Designer Brands 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 2017–2026.

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

Look hereIs it less profitable than it was?2.4% vs 4.3%
The owner-earnings margin averaged 4.3% early in the record and 2.4% 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 hereAre "one-time" charges a yearly habit?9 of 10 years
Management took an impairment or write-down in 9 of the last 10 years, $562M 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 reported profit become cash?
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, FY2026

read the 10-K →

How much of the revenue rides on one buyer?
≈$1.1B · 38% of revenue on the largest customers (TTM)
“The Brand Portfolio segment has five customers that made up 38.0% of its segment net sales in 2025, excluding intersegment net sales, and the loss of any or all of these customers could have a material adverse effect on the Brand Portfolio segment.”verify →

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

Peers, Specialty Retail

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
FLFoot Locker	$8.0B	32%	7.3%	17%	6%
AEOAmerican Eagle	$5.5B	37%	6.7%	21%	5%
ANFAbercrombie & Fitch	$5.3B	73%	3.5%	12%	6%
HBIHanesbrands	$3.5B	38%	9.3%	16%	8%
DBIDesigner Brands Inc.	$2.9B	30%	3.0%	18%	3%
GCOGenesco Inc.	$2.4B	48%	3.6%	6%	4%
BOOTBoot Barn Holdings	$2.3B	35%	10.8%	17%	4%
SCVLShoe Carnival	$1.1B	33%	5.6%	14%	5%
Group median	—	36%	6.1%	17%	5%

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 Designer Brands Inc. has delivered.

Today’s price $

Through the cycle, Designer Brands Inc. earns about $101M on its 3.5% median owner-earnings margin. This year’s 2.7% 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 ($101M) Net of stock comp (−$19M)

—

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 · ’22→’26−21%/yr

Owner-earnings growth · ’17→’26−9%/yr

Owner-earnings yield—

P/E (3-yr earnings ’24–’26)—

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 $74M on 50M shares outstanding (a weighted basic average, the only count this filer tags); net debt $349M. The if-converted diluted count is 56M, 11% above the shares outstanding: the dilution overhang (convertibles, options) a buyer inherits. The base is the latest year by default; Normalize values it on the through-cycle median owner-earnings margin (to avoid paying on a peak year). Net of stock comp treats option pay as the expense it is. The dials set the multiple a growth belief justifies; the price, and every dollar on this page, is yours.

Weigh DBI against another business →

The owners of DBI: the meeting and the votes →

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

Manual order: ← DBD its page in the Manual DBRG →

Industry order: ← CTRN the Specialty Retail chapter DKS →