Share count
96Mpeak FY2025
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DOLE, Dole plc
Agricultural Products diversified
Dole plc is a global leader in the production, sourcing, distribution, and marketing of fresh fruits and vegetables.
Our portfolio encompasses more than 300 products, which we grow and source both locally and worldwide from over 100 countries.
As of December 31, 2025, we operate in 30 countries and distribute our products in more than 85 countries through retail, wholesale, foodservice and e-commerce channels.
The business
What it sells, where the money comes from, the kind of company it is.
Revenue · FY2025
$9.2B
+8.2% YoY
Vital signs · TTM, with 3-yr average
Revenue $9.4B 3-yr avg $8.6B
Revenue $2.3B +11.6% vs yr-ago qtr
Operating margin 2.6% yr-ago 3.2%
Net income $38M yr-ago $44M
Net margin 1.6% yr-ago 2.1%
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 led by Diversified produce (61%) and Tropical fruit (33%), with 2 more lines behind.
- What moves the needle
- Gross margin has run about 8.4% and operating margin about 3.3% through the cycle, a thin spread that turns the result on volume and the cost of what it sells far more than on the price it sets. That margin has held in a narrow 2.4%–3.3% band over the years, so steadiness itself is the evidence — the lever is unit growth and cost discipline, not a moving line. 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 sat near the cost of capital (median 9%). Owner earnings, the cash-based check, have been thin too. 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.
Where the money comes from
read the 10-K →Diversified produce is 61% of revenue, with Tropical fruit the other meaningful line at 33%.
Revenue by product line, FY2025
- Diversified produce61%$5.7B
- Tropical fruit33%$3.1B
- Commercial cargo2%$189M
- Health foods and consumer goods2%$162M
- Other0%$39M
By geographyUnited States33%Other33%United Kingdom11%Spain8%Sweden7%Ireland5%
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, 2023–2025
realized figures from each filing · older years to the left| 2023’23 | 2024’24 | 2025’25 | TTMTTMMar 2026 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Income statement | ||||
| $8.2B | $8.5B | $9.2B | $9.4B | RevenueRevenue |
| 8% | 8% | 8% | 8% | Gross marginGross mgn |
| 6% | 6% | 5% | 5% | SG&A / revenueSG&A/rev |
| 0% | 0% | 0% | 0% | R&D / revenueR&D/rev |
| $272M | $281M | $223M | $217M | Operating incomeOp. inc. |
| 3.3% | 3.3% | 2.4% | 2.3% | Operating marginOp. mgn |
| $124M | $126M | $51M | $44M | Net incomeNet inc. |
| 26% | 38% | 58% | — | Effective tax rateTax rate |
| Cash flow & returns | ||||
| $299M | $263M | $123M | $180M | Operating cash flowOp. cash |
| $104M | $99M | $113M | $114M | DepreciationDeprec. |
| $64M | $30M | ($48M) | $15M | Working capital & otherWC & other |
| $78M | $82M | $121M | $86M | CapexCapex |
| 0.9% | 1.0% | 1.3% | 0.9% | Capex / revenueCapex/rev |
| $221M | $180M | $2M | $93M | Owner earningsOwner earn. |
| 2.7% | 2.1% | 0.0% | 1.0% | Owner earnings marginOE mgn |
| $221M | $180M | $2M | $93M | Free cash flowFCF |
| 2.7% | 2.1% | 0.0% | 1.0% | Free cash flow marginFCF mgn |
| $1M | $926K | $2M | $2M | AcquisitionsAcquis. |
| $30M | $31M | $32M | $32M | Dividends paidDiv. paid |
| 18% | 9% | 6% | 5% | ROICROIC |
| 9% | 10% | 4% | 3% | Return on equityROE |
| 7% | 7% | 1% | 1% | Retained to equityRetained/eq |
| Balance sheet | ||||
| $277M | $336M | $274M | $280M | Cash & investmentsCash+inv |
| — | $474M | $540M | $593M | ReceivablesReceiv. |
| — | $430M | $509M | $491M | InventoryInvent. |
| — | $649M | $712M | $703M | Accounts payablePayables |
| — | $255M | $337M | $381M | Operating working capitalOper. WC |
| — | $1.8B | $1.8B | $1.8B | Current assetsCur. assets |
| — | $1.6B | $1.5B | $1.4B | Current liabilitiesCur. liab. |
| — | 1.2× | 1.2× | 1.3× | Current ratioCurr. ratio |
| $513M | $430M | $434M | $431M | GoodwillGoodwill |
| — | $4.4B | $4.4B | $4.4B | Total assetsAssets |
| — | $958M | $867M | $924M | Total debtDebt |
| — | $622M | $593M | $644M | Net debt / (cash)Net debt |
| 3.4× | 3.9× | 3.4× | 3.5× | Interest coverageInt. cov. |
| $1.4B | $1.3B | $1.4B | $1.4B | Shareholders’ equityEquity |
| 0.1% | 0.1% | 0.1% | 0.1% | Stock comp / revenueSBC/rev |
| Per share | ||||
| 95.1M | 95.5M | 95.9M | 95.8M | Shares out (diluted)Shares |
| $86.68 | $88.77 | $95.65 | $98.33 | Revenue / shareRev/sh |
| $1.30 | $1.31 | $0.54 | $0.46 | EPS (diluted)EPS |
| $2.32 | $1.89 | $0.02 | $0.97 | Owner earnings / shareOE/sh |
| $2.32 | $1.89 | $0.02 | $0.97 | Free cash flow / shareFCF/sh |
| $0.32 | $0.32 | $0.33 | $0.34 | Dividends / shareDiv/sh |
| $0.82 | $0.86 | $1.27 | $0.90 | Cap. spending / shareCapex/sh |
| $14.58 | $13.55 | $14.22 | $14.37 | Book value / shareBVPS |
The record, charted
FY2023–2025Each measure over its full record; the current point and the worst year marked.
ROIC
6%low FY2025
Gross margin
8%low FY2025
Owner earnings vs. net income
Owner earningsNet incomeThe accountant's number, and the cash an owner can take; the gap is the tell.
$2Mowner earningsvs.$51Mnet incomelow FY2025
Where the cash went
ReinvestBuybacksDividendsAcquisitionsRetainedBeyond op. cashEach 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.
FY2023FY2025
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 reported $51M of profit but $2M of owner earnings: $50M less than the profit line, taken out by capital spending and the timing of cash.
| FY2025 | FY2024 | FY2023 | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Reported net income | $51M | $126M | $124M |
| Depreciation & amortizationnon-cash charge added back | +$113M | +$99M | +$104M |
| Stock-based compensationreal costnon-cash, but a real cost | +$7M | +$8M | +$6M |
| Working capital & othertiming of cash in and out, other non-cash items | −$48M | +$30M | +$64M |
| Cash from operations | $123M | $263M | $299M |
| Capital expenditurecash put back in to keep running and to grow | −$121M | −$82M | −$78M |
| Owner earnings | $2M | $180M | $221M |
| Owner-earnings marginowner earnings ÷ revenue | 0% | 2% | 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 $7M), owner earnings is nearer ($5M).
Much of fiscal 2025's profit didn't arrive as operating cash; it sits in “working capital & other” above. That can be a real inventory or timing swing, or profit that doesn't run through operating cash at all: a heavy tax year, equity-method earnings, or investment income booked through investing. For a year like this, owner earnings understates the cash earned; the full cash-flow statement carries the rest.
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.
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
“In the past we identified material weaknesses with respect to internal control over financial reporting.”
The figures below are only as sound as the controls that produced them. read the note →
Will it survive?
- AdequateOperating income $223M ÷ interest expense $67M
What this means
Comfortable in a normal year, but below the margin of safety Graham looked for. Worth checking how stable the coverage has been across a full cycle.
- How heavy is the debt, net of cash? $593M · 2.7× operating profitMeaningful net debtCash $268M + ST investments $6M − debt $867M
What this means
Netting $274M of cash and short-term investments against $867M of debt leaves $593M owed, about 2.7× a year's operating profit (3.9× 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.
- TightDSO 21 + DIO 22 − DPO 31 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?
- Solid through the cycle3-yr median, range 6%–18%; 6% latest = NOPAT $111M ÷ invested capital $2.0BIndustry peers: median 4%
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 3 years (it ran 6% 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.
- Thin through the cycle3-yr median margin, range 0%–3%; latest $2M = operating cash $123M − maintenance capex $121MIndustry peers: median 7%
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 0% of revenue this year, a 2% median across 3 years. Treating stock comp as the real expense it is (less $7M of SBC) leaves ($5M).
- Cash-backedCash from ops $123M ÷ net income $51M
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
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?
- Returned more than it generatedDividends + buybacks $32M ÷ Owner Earnings $2M
What this means
The company returned more than it generated: against $2M of Owner Earnings, $32M (1847%) went back to shareholders, $32M dividends, $0 buybacks — the excess came from the balance sheet or borrowing, not the year's operations. Sustained, that pattern draws down cash or adds debt; the net-debt line above shows where it stands.
- Investing or harvesting? 1.08×MaintainingCapex $121M ÷ depreciation $113M
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 3 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 PassRevenue ≥ $2B · $9.2B
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 MissCurrent ratio ≥ 2× · 1.17×
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 MissDebt ≤ working capital · $867M vs $257M 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.
- 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 $1.05/share (latest year $0.54), the averaged base the calculator's gate runs on, and book value is $14.33/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.
Does AI threaten the moat?
Moderate contestabilityAI 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 31, 2026Can 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$1.8B
- Cash & short-term investments$280M
- Receivables$593M
- Inventory$491M
- Other current assets$427M
Current liabilities$1.4B
- Debt due within a year$41M
- Accounts payable$703M
- Other current liabilities$688M
Current ratio1.25×all current assets ÷ what's due · Graham looked for 2×
Quick ratio0.91×stricter: inventory excluded
Cash ratio0.20×strictest: cash alone against what's due
Working capital$358Mthe cushion left after near-term bills
Debt due this year vs. cash$41M due · $280M 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+11.6%the freshest read on whether the business is still growing
Current ratio, recent quarters1.2× → 1.3×
Deeper floors
Tangible book value$619Mequity stripped of goodwill & intangibles
Net current asset value($1.1B)Graham's net-net: current assets less all liabilities
Debt incl. operating leases$1.3B$410M of it operating leases; with finance leases, “total fixed claims” below reaches $1.3B (annual-report basis)
Deferred revenue$49Mcustomer 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
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$102Ma fixed cash payment, owed whether or not the business has a good year
Total lease payments$518Mevery year plus the tail, undiscounted: the full cash the leases will take
On the balance sheet$423Mthe present value of those payments, the recognised lease liability
True leverage: debt plus leases
On-balance-sheet debt$867M
Lease obligations (present value)$423M
Total fixed claims on the business$1.3B
Counting the leases the way Buffett does, the fixed claims on this business come to $1.3B, of which the leases are 33%. 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.
Management, ownership & pay
From the proxy: how much of the business the people running it own, and how they are paid.
- Stock-based compensation$7M
The slice of the business handed to employees in shares this year, 0% of revenue, equal to 3% 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.
What an owner would ask, FY2025
read the 10-K →- Which reported numbers are a judgment call?Management names Pension & retirement, Income taxes, Acquisitions 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, nearest by economic model
No close industry peers in the catalog yet, so these are the nearest by economic model (general), 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| FISFidelity National Info | $10.7B | 36% | 14.3% | 4% | 23% |
| CNXCConcentrix Corporation | $9.8B | 36% | 6.5% | 6% | 7% |
| IPGInterpublic | $9.2B | 14% | 11.1% | 24% | 7% |
| DOLEDole plc | $9.2B | 8% | 3.3% | 9% | 2% |
| ABMABM Industries Incorporated | $8.7B | 12% | 3.2% | 7% | 2% |
| HTZHertz Global Holdings Inc | $8.5B | — | -4.1% | -2% | 25% |
| NWSNews Corporation | $8.5B | — | 3.3% | 2% | 7% |
| APGAPi Group Corporation | $7.9B | 25% | 3.9% | 4% | 7% |
| Group median | — | 19% | 3.6% | 5% | 7% |
The price
What a price has to assume.
What the price implies
reverse-DCFType today's close and see the owner-earnings growth you'd have to believe to justify it, beside what Dole plc has delivered.
$
Base
—
The assumptions
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.
A dated snapshot of the price you typed, the assumptions you set, and what the page showed for them. A snapshot is never edited after it is saved. Your notebook is yours alone — the commitment states what is stored and what we will never do.
Implied by the price—
Owner-earnings growth · since FY2023−91%/yr
Owner-earnings growth · since FY2023−91%/yr
Owner-earnings yield—
What a growth belief costs, in multiples
The growth each return requires, at your price
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 yield—
High-grade bond yield—
Margin over the bond—
Owner earnings $93M on 95M shares outstanding, per the 10-Q cover, as of 2026-05-01; net debt $644M. 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.
Cite: Owner Scorecard, "Dole plc (DOLE), the owner's record," https://ownerscorecard.com/c/DOLE, data as of 2026-07-09.
Manual order: ← DOCU its page in the Manual DOMO →
Industry order: ← DAR the Agricultural Products chapter FDP →