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DNUT, Krispy Kreme Inc.

Restaurants retail UnprofitableCyclical

Krispy Kreme Inc. is one of the most beloved and well-known sweet treat brands in the world.

We refer to the points of access where consumers can purchase our doughnuts as our "Global Points of Access" or "Points of Access" when referring to points of access in a particular region or segment.

Consumer-facing Hubs where fresh doughnuts are made and sold on premise, providing a unique and differentiated consumer experiences while serving as local production Hubs for our network.

Latest annual: FY2025 10-K

DNUT · Krispy Kreme Inc.

The business

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

Revenue · FY2025

$1.5B

−8.6% YoY · 10% 5-yr CAGR

Vital signs · TTM, with 5-yr average

Revenue $1.5B 5-yr avg $1.5B

Operating margin −29.9% 5-yr avg −5.4%

ROIC −25% 5-yr avg −4%

Owner-earnings margin −0% 5-yr avg −4%

Free cash flow margin −0% 5-yr avg −4%

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. 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 0.4% 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 −31% to 4.0% over the years — so the through-cycle figure carries more than any single year, and the worst year more than the best. On its own account, the filing leans hardest on pricing power & competition, 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 0%, above 15% in 0 of 6 years). Owner earnings, the cash-based check, have been thin too. 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 →

38% of revenue comes from outside the United States.

Revenue by geography, FY2025

United States62%$938M
All other12%$182M
United Kingdom10%$159M
Mexico8%$125M
Australia / New Zealand8%$118M

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, 2019–2025

realized figures from each filing · older years to the left

2019’19	2021’21	2022’22	2023’23	2024’24	2025’25	TTMTTMMar 2026
							Income statement
$959M	$1.1B	$1.4B	$1.7B	$1.7B	$1.5B	$1.5B	RevenueRevenue
17%	16%	16%	16%	16%	15%	15%	SG&A / revenueSG&A/rev
$38M	$4M	$41M	$13M	($9M)	($469M)	($453M)	Operating incomeOp. inc.
4.0%	0.4%	3.0%	0.8%	−0.5%	−30.8%	−29.9%	Operating marginOp. mgn
($37M)	($64M)	($25M)	($38M)	$3M	($516M)	($505M)	Net incomeNet inc.
							Cash flow & returns
$81M	$29M	$141M	$46M	$46M	$34M	$75M	Operating cash flowOp. cash
$64M	$80M	$102M	$126M	$134M	$137M	$135M	DepreciationDeprec.
$44M	$977K	$41M	($67M)	($126M)	$400M	$430M	Working capital & otherWC & other
$76M	$98M	$119M	$121M	$121M	$98M	$81M	CapexCapex
8.0%	8.7%	8.6%	7.2%	7.3%	6.4%	5.3%	Capex / revenueCapex/rev
$4M	($69M)	$22M	($76M)	($75M)	($64M)	($6M)	Owner earningsOwner earn.
0.5%	−6.2%	1.6%	−4.5%	−4.5%	−4.2%	−0.4%	Owner earnings marginOE mgn
$4M	($69M)	$22M	($76M)	($75M)	($64M)	($6M)	Free cash flowFCF
0.5%	−6.2%	1.6%	−4.5%	−4.5%	−4.2%	−0.4%	Free cash flow marginFCF mgn
$150M	$75M	$46M	$0	$32M	$0	$0	AcquisitionsAcquis.
$3M	$42K	$48M	$24M	$24M	$12M	$6M	Dividends paidDiv. paid
$0	$0	$139M	$2M	$5M	$1M	—	BuybacksBuybacks
4%	0%	2%	1%	-0%	-23%	-25%	ROICROIC
-4%	-9%	-2%	-3%	0%	-79%	-80%	Return on equityROE
−5%	−9%	−6%	−5%	−2%	−81%	−81%	Retained to equityRetained/eq
							Balance sheet
$35M	$37M	$39M	$38M	$29M	$42M	$74M	Cash & investmentsCash+inv
—	$40M	$41M	$46M	$57M	$56M	$53M	ReceivablesReceiv.
—	$39M	$35M	$35M	$28M	$27M	$27M	InventoryInvent.
—	$149M	$182M	$156M	$123M	$134M	$131M	Accounts payablePayables
—	($71M)	($106M)	($76M)	($38M)	($52M)	($50M)	Operating working capitalOper. WC
—	$164M	$157M	$174M	$173M	$174M	$187M	Current assetsCur. assets
—	$498M	$526M	$526M	$486M	$457M	$446M	Current liabilitiesCur. liab.
—	0.3×	0.3×	0.3×	0.4×	0.4×	0.4×	Current ratioCurr. ratio
$1.0B	$1.1B	$1.1B	$1.1B	$1.0B	$712M	$669M	GoodwillGoodwill
—	$3.1B	$3.1B	$3.2B	$3.1B	$2.6B	$2.4B	Total assetsAssets
—	$827M	$717M	$891M	$901M	$978M	$888M	Total debtDebt
—	$790M	$678M	$853M	$872M	$935M	$814M	Net debt / (cash)Net debt
$883M	$685M	$1.2B	$1.2B	$1.1B	$650M	$632M	Shareholders’ equityEquity
1.1%	1.0%	1.7%	1.4%	2.1%	0.8%	1.0%	Stock comp / revenueSBC/rev
							Per share
125M	125M	148M	168M	172M	171M	172M	Shares out (diluted)Shares
$7.68	$8.98	$9.38	$10.02	$9.71	$8.91	$8.80	Revenue / shareRev/sh
$-0.30	$-0.51	$-0.17	$-0.23	$0.02	$-3.02	$-2.94	EPS (diluted)EPS
$0.04	$-0.55	$0.15	$-0.45	$-0.44	$-0.37	$-0.03	Owner earnings / shareOE/sh
$0.04	$-0.55	$0.15	$-0.45	$-0.44	$-0.37	$-0.03	Free cash flow / shareFCF/sh
$0.02	$0.00	$0.33	$0.14	$0.14	$0.07	$0.03	Dividends / shareDiv/sh
$0.61	$0.78	$0.81	$0.72	$0.70	$0.57	$0.47	Cap. spending / shareCapex/sh
$7.07	$5.48	$8.34	$6.95	$6.62	$3.80	$3.67	Book value / shareBVPS

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

	6-yr	5-yr
Revenue / share	+2.5%/yr	−0.2%/yr (4-yr)
Dividends / share	+22.1%/yr	+279.7%/yr (4-yr)
Capital spending / share	−1.1%/yr	−7.5%/yr (4-yr)
Book value / share	−9.8%/yr	−8.7%/yr (4-yr)

The record, charted

FY2019–2025

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

Share count

171Mpeak FY2024

ROIC

−23%low 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.

($64M)owner earningsvs.($516M)net incomelow FY2023

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.

FY2019FY2025

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 $516M loss into ($64M) 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	($516M)	$3M	($38M)	($25M)	($64M)
Depreciation & amortizationnon-cash charge added back	+$137M	+$134M	+$126M	+$102M	+$80M
Stock-based compensationreal costnon-cash, but a real cost	+$13M	+$35M	+$24M	+$23M	+$12M
Working capital & othertiming of cash in and out, other non-cash items	+$400M	−$126M	−$67M	+$41M	+$977K
Cash from operations	$34M	$46M	$46M	$141M	$29M
Capital expenditurecash put back in to keep running and to grow	−$98M	−$121M	−$121M	−$119M	−$98M
Owner earnings	($64M)	($75M)	($76M)	$22M	($69M)
Owner-earnings marginowner earnings ÷ revenue	-4%	-5%	-5%	2%	-6%

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 $13M), owner earnings is nearer ($77M).

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 →

Material weakness in financial controls

“We identified a material weakness in our internal control over financial reporting in fiscal 2025.”

The figures below are only as sound as the controls that produced them. read the note →

Will it survive?

Can it pay its interest? —

Interest expense not tagged in the data

What this means
No usable interest-expense line was tagged in the filing data, but the balance sheet carries real net debt — so the interest burden here is unknown, not absent. Read the debt on the net-debt check below.
How heavy is the debt, net of cash? $935M

Net debt against an operating loss

Cash $42M − debt $978M

What this means
Netting $42M of cash and short-term investments against $978M of debt leaves $935M 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 0%

Below average through the cycle

6-yr median, range -23%–4%; -23% latest = NOPAT ($371M) ÷ invested capital $1.6B

Industry peers: median 10%

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 -23% 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%

Consumes cash through the cycle

6-yr median margin, range -6%–2%; latest ($64M) = operating cash $34M − maintenance capex $98M

Industry peers: median 2%

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 -4% of revenue this year, a -5% median across 6 years. Treating stock comp as the real expense it is (less $13M of SBC) leaves ($77M).
Are earnings backed by cash? $34M

Loss, but cash-generative

Net income ($516M) · cash from operations $34M

In the filing’s words The filing discloses a material weakness in its financial controls — the reported numbers here, and the record built on them, are only as reliable as the controls that produced them.

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? —

No surplus to allocate

What this means
The business didn't generate positive Owner Earnings this year, so any distributions came from the balance sheet or borrowing, not from operations.
Investing or harvesting? 0.71×

Harvesting

Capex $98M ÷ depreciation $137M

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 Near

Revenue ≥ $2B · $1.5B

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× · 0.38×

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 · $978M vs ($283M) 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 (6-yr record) · 5 loss years

What this means
Graham wanted earnings in each of the past ten years, the stability a defensive owner leans on.
Dividend record Pass

Uninterrupted dividends · paid every year (6)

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 $-1.06/share (latest year $-2.99), the averaged base the calculator's gate runs on, and book value is $3.77/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, 2019–2025

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

Profitable years 1 of 6

What this means
Lost money in 5 year(s), look at what happened there before trusting the average.
Return on capital ≥ 15% 0 of 5 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 2% → −10% (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 2% early to −10% lately, median 0% — 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 2025 · −30.8% op. margin

What this means
Operations went underwater in 2025, understand why before trusting the good years.
Share count +5.4%/yr

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

What this means
Paid and raised the dividend across the record, the continuity Graham prized.

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 Raised, but not as a competitor

The filing raises AI among its risks, but in other terms (security, regulation, energy or the like), not as a competitor to its product.

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, Mar 29, 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$187M

Cash & short-term investments$74M
Receivables$53M
Inventory$27M
Other current assets$32M

Current liabilities$446M

Debt due within a year$59M
Accounts payable$131M
Other current liabilities$257M

Current ratio0.42×all current assets ÷ what's due · Graham looked for 2×

Quick ratio0.36×stricter: inventory excluded

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

Working capital($259M)the cushion left after near-term bills

Debt due this year vs. cash$59M due · $74M cash covered by cash on hand, no refinancing forced · both figures from the Mar 29, 2026 balance sheet

Revenue, latest quarter vs. a year ago−2.2%the freshest read on whether the business is still growing

Current ratio, recent quarters0.3× → 0.4×

Deeper floors

Tangible book value($771M)equity stripped of goodwill & intangibles

Net current asset value($1.6B)Graham's net-net: current assets less all liabilities

Debt incl. operating leases$1.3B$386M of it operating leases; with finance leases, “total fixed claims” below reaches $1.5B (annual-report basis)

Deferred revenue$25Mcustomer cash collected before delivery; operating float

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$106M

'27$96M

'28$81M

'29$74M

'30$57M

later$320M

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$106Ma fixed cash payment, owed whether or not the business has a good year

Total lease payments$734Mevery year plus the tail, undiscounted: the full cash the leases will take

On the balance sheet$525Mthe present value of those payments, the recognised lease liability

True leverage: debt plus leases

On-balance-sheet debt$978M

Lease obligations (present value)$525M

Total fixed claims on the business$1.5B

Counting the leases the way Buffett does, the fixed claims on this business come to $1.5B, of which the leases are 35%. 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 28, 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, 2019–2025

Over the record, the business generated $376M of operating cash; how management split it reads as a cash returner, paying most of what it earns straight back to owners.

Reinvested$634M · 169%
Dividends$110M · 29%
Buybacks$148M · 39%

Returned to owners$258M
$110M as dividends and $148M as buybacks.
Source of funding−$516M
Reinvestment and shareholder returns ran $516M beyond the operating cash the business generated, so the gap was financed off the balance sheet.
Average price paid for buybacks—
Buybacks ran $148M over the span, but the filings don't tag the share count needed to deduce the average price paid.
Net change in share count37.6%
The diluted count rose from 125M to 172M: issuance (stock pay, deals) outran any buybacks, so owners were diluted on net.
Dividend record$0.07/sh
Paid in 6 of the years on record, the per-share dividend growing about 27% 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 6-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$1.5B58% 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$304Mover 6 years buying other businesses, against $634M of capital spent building

$356M written down across 1 year (2025): 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 6-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	Michael Tattersfield	$23.6M	$28.3M	$22M
2023	Michael Tattersfield	$10.5M	$19.0M	($76M)
2024	Joshua Charlesworth	$2.5M	−$3.2M	($75M)
2025	Joshua Charlesworth	$3.7M	−$5.2M	($64M)

Both pay figures are the company’s own, from the pay-versus-performance table its proxy statement files. “As filed” is the Summary Compensation Table total: salary, bonus, and equity awards at their value on the day of grant. “Actually paid” is the SEC’s prescribed recalculation, which re-marks those equity awards to what they became as they vested; it can swing far above or below the filed figure in either direction, and negative years occur. Owner earnings are the whole business's, from the record above, for the same fiscal years.

Insider ownership<1%
The stake all directors and executive officers hold together, per the 2026 proxy: skin in the game, the first thing Munger reads.
Stock-based compensation$13M
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 Krispy Kreme 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 2019–2025.

2 of the 3 tests turned up something to look into; the other 1 came back clean.

Look hereDid the share count rise anyway?37.6%
Diluted shares grew 37.6% over 2019–2025, even as the company spent $148M on buybacks. The repurchases were outrun by issuance — to staff, in a raise, or in a deal — and the filing says which; owners' slice still shrank. Read the buyback line beside this one, not on its own.
Look hereAre "one-time" charges a yearly habit?6 of 6 years
Management took an impairment or write-down in 6 of the last 6 years, $422M 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

Is it less profitable than it was?

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 Income taxes, Insurance reserves 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, Restaurants

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
SFMSprouts Farmers	$8.8B	36%	5.3%	30%	5%
ARKOARKO Corp.	$7.6B	—	1.3%	10%	1%
IMKTAIngles Markets Incorporated	$5.3B	24%	3.6%	9%	2%
WMKWeis Markets Inc.	$5.0B	—	2.7%	8%	2%
GOGrocery Outlet	$4.7B	30%	2.9%	5%	3%
VLGEAVillage Super Market Inc.	$2.3B	28%	2.1%	10%	2%
DNUTKrispy Kreme Inc.	$1.5B	—	0.6%	0%	-4%
NGVCNatural Grocers by Vitamin Cottage Inc.	$1.3B	—	2.7%	15%	2%
Group median	—	—	2.7%	9%	2%

The price

What a price has to assume.

What the price implies

reverse-DCF

Krispy Kreme Inc. is profitable, but owner earnings are negative this year because capital spending currently outruns operating cash, a build-out, so the owner-earnings reverse-DCF has no positive base to grow. We read the price from both ends instead: type a price to see the steady-state profitability it demands, then set the mature margin you would believe and weigh the two against each other. Nothing leaves your browser unless you enter it in your notebook.

Today’s price $

The assumptions Required return 9% Years to get there 10 Revenue growth 0%

Revenue, delivered11%/yr’19→’25

Mature owner-earnings margin 15%

Enter a price to run it.

Owner earnings it must reach—

Margin the price demands—

Owner-earnings margin today−0%

Two reads of one future. From your price: the owner earnings the company must reach, valued at a mature multiple and discounted back at your rate, expressed as the margin it implies on revenue grown at your rate. From your belief: the mature margin you would credit, set on the dial above. When the margin the price demands runs above the one you would believe, you are paying for a future taken on faith. For a deep cyclical at a trough, normalized through-cycle earnings are the better lens; this mode is for the genuinely unprofitable, and for the profitable business whose capital spending currently outruns its cash.

Weigh DNUT against another business →

The owners of DNUT: the meeting and the votes →

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

Manual order: ← DNTH its page in the Manual DOC →

Industry order: ← DIN the Restaurants chapter DPZ →