Owner Scorecard


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ELPC, Companhia Paranaense de Energia (COPEL)

Electric Utilities capital-intensive Regulated utility

Companhia Paranaense de Energia (COPEL) offer innovative and digital services and products.

Below is the distribution of electricity supply in 2025 by consumption class, including Free Customers: 35.3% was to industrial customers; 27.5% was to residential customers; 20.2% was to commercial customers; and 14.1% was to rural and other customers.

Latest annual: FY2024 20-F · figures as filed, in BRL · 1 ADS = 4 ordinary shares
ELPC · Companhia Paranaense de Energia (COPEL)
I

The business

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

Revenue · FY2024
R$22.7B
+5.5% YoY · 7% 5-yr CAGR
Vital signs · TTM, with 5-yr average
Revenue R$22.7B 5-yr avg R$20.9B
Operating margin −3.7% 5-yr avg −4.3%
Owner-earnings margin 13% 5-yr avg 17%
Free cash flow margin 13% 5-yr avg 17%

The business in brief

read the 10-K →

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

Situation
Regulated utility. Returns are set by regulation on an approved rate base; the capital spending regulators approve becomes the growth, recovered through allowed rates.
What moves the needle
Operating margin has run around −6.8% through the cycle, the operating line deeply negative — so the lever is the path to a margin at all: revenue growth against the cost curve and the cash runway, not the level of a margin that isn't there yet. Read this kind of business on rate base and the allowed return. On its own account, the filing leans hardest on customer concentration, set against the numbers in what the filing emphasizes, below.

Every line is arithmetic on the company's filings, shown in full in the sections below.

II

The record

Ten years of arithmetic, read across the cycle.

The record, 2015–2024

realized figures from each filing · older years to the left
2015’152016’162017’172018’182019’192020’202021’212022’222023’232024’24TTMTTMDec 2024
Income statement
R$14.9BR$13.1BR$14.0BR$14.9BR$16.2BR$18.6BR$21.0BR$20.5BR$21.5BR$22.7BR$22.7BRevenueRevenue
(R$1.0B)(R$879M)(R$1.2B)(R$1.0B)(R$1.1B)(R$1.0B)R$658M(R$2.0B)(R$1.2B)(R$827M)(R$827M)Operating incomeOp. inc.
−6.9%−6.7%−8.7%−7.0%−6.8%−5.5%3.1%−9.6%−5.6%−3.7%−3.7%Operating marginOp. mgn
R$1.2BR$874MR$1.1BR$1.4BR$2.1BR$3.9BR$5.0BR$1.1BR$2.3BR$2.8BR$2.8BNet incomeNet inc.
31%37%20%26%25%19%13%18%18%Effective tax rateTax rate
Cash flow & returns
R$1.3BR$1.5BR$989MR$1.8BR$2.9BR$3.9BR$3.4BR$3.9BR$3.5BR$3.4BR$3.4BOperating cash flowOp. cash
R$676MR$708MR$732MR$749MR$951MR$1.0BR$1.1BR$1.2BR$1.4BR$1.5BR$1.1BDepreciationDeprec.
(R$517M)(R$106M)(R$861M)(R$422M)(R$69M)(R$979M)(R$579M)R$1.5B(R$191M)(R$871M)R$1.7BWorking capital & otherWC & other
R$753MR$1.3BR$1.2BR$1.5BR$368MR$226MR$338MR$536MR$536MCapexCapex
5.0%9.8%8.6%10.0%2.3%1.2%1.6%2.6%2.4%Capex / revenueCapex/rev
R$568MR$769MR$258MR$1.0BR$2.6BR$3.7BR$3.0BR$3.4BR$2.9BOwner earningsOwner earn.
3.8%5.9%1.8%6.8%15.9%19.9%14.5%16.4%12.6%Owner earnings marginOE mgn
R$568MR$192M(R$216M)R$282MR$2.6BR$3.7BR$3.0BR$3.4BR$2.9BFree cash flowFCF
3.8%1.5%−1.5%1.9%15.9%19.9%14.5%16.4%12.6%Free cash flow marginFCF mgn
R$308MR$369MR$506MR$301MR$380MR$626MR$1.1BR$358MR$626MDividends paidDiv. paid
8%6%7%9%12%20%23%6%10%11%11%Return on equityROE
6%3%4%7%10%16%18%4%8%Retained to equityRetained/eq
Balance sheet
R$2.4BR$982MR$1.2BR$2.4BR$3.3BR$3.4BR$3.9BR$2.9BR$5.7BR$4.2BR$4.2BCash & investmentsCash+inv
R$475MR$307MR$409MR$363MR$427MR$514MR$750MR$897MR$570MR$950MR$950MReceivablesReceiv.
R$131MR$131MR$111MR$116MR$130MR$163MR$198MR$195MR$175MR$136MR$136MInventoryInvent.
R$62MR$66MR$63MR$68MR$73MR$89MR$105MR$105MR$102MR$113MR$113MAccounts payablePayables
R$544MR$371MR$457MR$412MR$484MR$588MR$843MR$987MR$643MR$973MR$973MOperating working capitalOper. WC
R$6.8BR$4.2BR$5.7BR$6.7BR$7.9BR$11.4BR$11.2BR$9.3BR$13.7BR$13.0BR$13.0BCurrent assetsCur. assets
R$4.8BR$5.7BR$6.1BR$6.7BR$5.3BR$9.7BR$8.0BR$7.2BR$9.3BR$10.3BR$10.3BCurrent liabilitiesCur. liab.
1.4×0.7×0.9×1.0×1.5×1.2×1.4×1.3×1.5×1.3×1.3×Current ratioCurr. ratio
R$28.8BR$30.3BR$33.2BR$35.9BR$38.3BR$46.8BR$49.5BR$49.7BR$55.8BR$57.4BR$57.4BTotal assetsAssets
-0.9×-0.6×-0.8×-0.8×-0.9×-1.1×0.5×-1.0×-0.5×-0.4×-0.4×Interest coverageInt. cov.
R$14.2BR$14.7BR$15.2BR$16.0BR$17.3BR$20.0BR$21.8BR$20.8BR$23.9BR$25.7BR$25.7BShareholders’ equityEquity
Per share
273.66B273.66B273.66B273.66B273.66B2.74B2.74B2.74B2.98B2.98BShares out (diluted)Shares
R$0.05R$0.05R$0.05R$0.05R$0.06R$6.81R$7.67R$7.50R$7.20R$7.59Revenue / shareRev/sh
R$0.00R$0.00R$0.00R$0.01R$0.01R$1.43R$1.84R$0.42R$0.78R$0.94EPS (diluted)EPS
R$0.00R$0.00R$0.00R$0.00R$0.01R$1.36R$1.11R$1.23R$0.96Owner earnings / shareOE/sh
R$0.00R$0.00R$-0.00R$0.00R$0.01R$1.36R$1.11R$1.23R$0.96Free cash flow / shareFCF/sh
R$0.00R$0.00R$0.00R$0.00R$0.00R$0.23R$0.41R$0.13R$0.21Dividends / shareDiv/sh
R$0.00R$0.00R$0.00R$0.01R$0.00R$0.08R$0.12R$0.20R$0.18Cap. spending / shareCapex/sh
R$0.05R$0.05R$0.06R$0.06R$0.06R$7.29R$7.98R$7.61R$8.01R$8.61Book value / shareBVPS

The diluted share count moved ×1/100 into 2020 — shares retired, not a split the totals corroborate — and the per-share figures carry the counts as filed.

Per-share growththe realized rate an owner's share compounded
9-yr5-yr
Revenue / share+84.1%/yr (8-yr)+165.5%/yr
Owner earnings / share+148.9%/yr (7-yr)+320.0%/yr
EPS+91.9%/yr (8-yr)+171.6%/yr
Dividends / share+97.3%/yr (7-yr)+134.4%/yr
Capital spending / share+83.9%/yr (7-yr)+113.6%/yr
Book value / share+87.8%/yr (8-yr)+167.4%/yr

The record, charted

FY2015–2024

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

Share count
3Bpeak FY2015

Owner earnings vs. net income

Owner earningsNet income

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

R$3.4Bowner earningsvs.R$1.1Bnet incomelow FY2017

Where the cash went

ReinvestBuybacksDividendsAcquisitionsRetained

Each year's operating cash, by what management did with it: the mix, and how it drifts.

FY2015FY2024

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 2022 the business turned R$1.1B of profit into R$3.4B of owner earnings: more cash than the profit line showed, after the non-cash charges and the capital it put back in.

Reported net incomeR$1.1B
Owner earningsR$3.4B · 16% of revenue
FY2022FY2021FY2020FY2019FY2018
Reported net incomeR$1.1BR$5.0BR$3.9BR$2.1BR$1.4B
Depreciation & amortizationnon-cash charge added back+R$1.2B−R$1.1B+R$1.0B+R$951M+R$749M
Working capital & othertiming of cash in and out, other non-cash items+R$1.5B−R$579M−R$979M−R$69M−R$422M
Cash from operationsR$3.9BR$3.4BR$3.9BR$2.9BR$1.8B
Maintenance capital expenditurethe spending needed just to hold position and volume−R$536M−R$338M−R$226M−R$368M−R$749M
Owner earningsR$3.4BR$3.0BR$3.7BR$2.6BR$1.0B
Growth capital expenditurediscretionary; spent to get bigger, not to stand still−R$740M
Free cash flowR$3.4BR$3.0BR$3.7BR$2.6BR$282M
Owner-earnings marginowner earnings ÷ revenue16%15%20%16%7%

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 .

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

FY2024 20-F · source on SEC EDGAR →

Will it survive?

  • Does not cover its interest
    Operating income (R$827M) ÷ interest expense R$2.3B
    What this means

    A full year of operating profit didn't cover the interest bill. This is the zombie zone: the business depends on refinancing, asset sales, or forbearance to service its debt.

  • Debt under-captured — leverage unknown, not low
    What this means

    This company pays far more interest than its tagged debt implies (the rest sits under segment dimensions the data source strips), so its net cash or net debt cannot be read honestly: the gap is unknown, not zero, and 'net cash' here would be exactly the fiction the figure is meant to prevent. Judge it on the record and owner earnings instead.

  • Not enough data
    What this means

    The filing data didn't include the inputs for this check.

Is it a good business?

  • Debt under-captured
    Industry peers: median 6%
    What this means

    This company's interest bill implies far more debt than its filings tag at the consolidated level (the rest sits under segment dimensions the data source strips), so invested capital, and the return on it, cannot be read honestly. Judge this one on Owner Earnings and the record instead.

  • Solid through the cycle
    8-yr median margin, range 2%–20%; latest R$2.9B = operating cash R$3.4B − maintenance capex R$536M
    Industry peers: median 9%
    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 13% of revenue this year, a 7% median across 8 years.

  • Cash-backed
    Cash from ops R$3.4B ÷ net income R$2.8B
    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?

  • Reinvests most of it
    Dividends + buybacks R$626M ÷ Owner Earnings R$2.9B
    What this means

    Of R$2.9B Owner Earnings, R$626M (22%) went back to shareholders, R$626M dividends, R$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? -0.49×
    Harvesting
    Capex R$536M ÷ depreciation (R$1.1B)
    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 · 2 of 4 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
    Revenue ≥ $2B (a dollar floor) · R$22.7B
    What this means

    Big enough to weather a storm. Graham's floor is a dollar figure — about $2B of revenue as a conservative modern stand-in. This company reports in its home currency and we carry no exchange rate, so we show the figure and leave the size bar for you to apply rather than convert it with a number we don't have.

  • Strong liquidity Miss
    Current ratio ≥ 2× · 1.26×
    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
    Debt ≤ working capital ·
    What this means

    The filings tag only a fraction of the debt this company's interest bill implies (much of it sits under segment dimensions the data source strips), so this test can't be run honestly.

  • Earnings stability Pass
    A profit every year (10-yr record) · no losses
    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 · 8 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 Pass
    Earnings +33% over the record · +99%
    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 R$0.70/share (latest year R$0.94), the averaged base the calculator's gate runs on, and book value is R$8.61/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, 2015–2024

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

  • Profitable years 10 of 10
    What this means

    Never lost money over the record, the earnings stability Graham insisted on.

  • Operating margin −7% → −6% (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 held roughly steady — about −7% early, −6% lately, median −7%.

  • Owner earnings growth +25%/yr
    What this means

    Owner earnings grew about 25% a year over the record.

  • Worst year 2022 · −9.6% op. margin
    What this means

    Operations went underwater in 2022, understand why before trusting the good years.

  • Dividend record rising
    What this means

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

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.

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.

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 fiscal year-end, Dec 31, 2024

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 assetsR$13.0B
  • Cash & short-term investmentsR$4.2B
  • ReceivablesR$950M
  • InventoryR$136M
  • Other current assetsR$7.8B
Current liabilitiesR$10.3B
  • Accounts payableR$113M
  • Other current liabilitiesR$10.2B
Current ratio1.26×all current assets ÷ what's due · Graham looked for 2×
Quick ratio1.25×stricter: inventory excluded
Cash ratio0.40×strictest: cash alone against what's due
Working capitalR$2.7Bthe cushion left after near-term bills
Deeper floors
Tangible book valueR$8.8Bequity stripped of goodwill & intangibles
Net current asset value(R$20.1B)Graham's net-net: current assets less all liabilities
Debt incl. operating leasesR$329MR$329M of it operating leases

From the company's latest filing.

How the cash was used, 2015–2022

Over the record, the business generated R$19.7B of operating cash; how management split it reads as a balanced allocator, splitting cash between the business, owners, and the balance sheet.

  • ReinvestedR$6.2B · 31%
  • DividendsR$4.0B · 20%
  • Retained (debt / cash)R$9.6B · 48%
  • Returned to ownersR$4.0B

    26% of the owner earnings the business produced over the span, R$4.0B as dividends and R$0 as buybacks.

  • Net change in share count−98.9%

    The diluted count fell from 273655M to 2983M, so the buybacks outran the stock issued to staff.

  • Dividend recordR$0.13/sh

    Paid in 8 of the years on record, the per-share dividend growing about 97% a year. It was cut at least once along the way.

  • Return on what it retained22%

    Of the earnings it kept rather than paid out (R$12.8B over the span), annual owner earnings (first three years vs last three) grew R$2.8B, so each retained R$1 added about 0.22 of yearly owner earnings. Buffett's test, run on owner earnings instead of market value.

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 & intangiblesR$16.8B29% of all assets; the premium carried on the balance sheet for businesses acquired
Against book equity1%goodwill is this share of book equity; the rest is the company’s own retained and paid-in capital
Cash spent acquiringR$0over 10 years buying other businesses, against R$6.2B of capital spent building

None written down over the record; the goodwill is still carried at full cost. That is the deals holding their value on the books so far; whether they keep doing so is the test an owner watches, since the write-down, when it comes, is the admission the price was too high.

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.

Inverting the record

Invert: instead of why Companhia Paranaense de Energia (COPEL) 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 2015–2024.

None of the 4 tests turned up a mark; each came back clean. A clean panel says only that these particular ways of being wrong are not written into the record.

Each test came back clean
  • Is it less profitable than it was?
  • 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.

Peers, Electric Utilities

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.

CompanyRevenueGross marginOp. marginROICOwner earn. margin
NRGNRG Energy$30.3B24%7.6%13%9%
NEENextEra Energy Inc.$27.4B28.2%6%
CEGConstellation Energy$22.7B5.0%8%-17%
ELPCCompanhia Paranaense de Energia (COPEL)R$22.7B-6.7%11%
AEPAmerican Electric Power Company Inc.$21.7B19.2%6%26%
EIXEdison International$19.3B13.1%4%7%
VSTVistra$17.6B10.8%7%17%
DTBDTE Energy Co$15.8B13.6%6%
Group median12.0%10%
IV

The price

What a price has to assume.

What the price implies

reverse-DCF

Enter the US price, in dollars: the NYSE/Nasdaq quote you hold. Per the filing's own cover, “American Depositary Shares (as evidenced by American Depositary Receipts), each representing four Common”; Companhia Paranaense de Energia (COPEL) reports in BRL, so every figure in this tool is stated per ADS and translated at BRL 1 = $0.197 (2026-07-17, reference rate) so your dollar quote reconciles exactly. The record tables elsewhere on this page remain as filed, in BRL.

Type today's close and see the owner-earnings growth you'd have to believe to justify it, beside what Companhia Paranaense de Energia (COPEL) has delivered.

$

Through the cycle, Companhia Paranaense de Energia (COPEL) earns about $562M on its 12.6% median owner-earnings margin. This year’s 12.6% margin runs in line with that. Normalize, below, values the price on that through-cycle figure rather than the latest year.

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.

Implied by the price
Owner-earnings growth · ’18→’22+16%/yr
Owner-earnings growth · ’15→’22+36%/yr
Owner-earnings yield
P/E (3-yr earnings ’22–’24)
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 $562M on 746M shares outstanding, the balance-sheet count at 2023-12-31; net cash $819M. 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, "Companhia Paranaense de Energia (COPEL) (ELPC), the owner's record," https://ownerscorecard.com/c/ELPC, data as of 2026-07-09.

Manual order: ← ELLO its page in the Manual ELTK →

Industry order: ← ELLO the Electric Utilities chapter EMA →