Share count
298Mpeak FY2016
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EQH, Equitable Holdings Inc.
Insurance Brokers financial
Equitable Holdings is one of America's leading financial services companies and has helped clients prepare for their financial future with confidence since 1859.
We are a leading provider of retirement, asset management and wealth management solutions for individual and institutional clients, and had $1.1 trillion of assets under management and administration as of December 31, 2025.
Our individual annuity products are primarily sold to affluent and high net worth individuals saving for retirement or seeking guaranteed retirement income.
The business
What it sells, where the money comes from, the kind of company it is.
Revenue · FY2025
$11.7B
−6.1% YoY · −1% 5-yr CAGR
Vital signs · TTM, with 5-yr average
Revenue $11.3B 5-yr avg $11.0B
Net margin −7.3% 5-yr avg 10.2%
Revenue $4.2B −7.6% vs yr-ago qtr
Net income $731M yr-ago $150M
Net margin 17.3% yr-ago 3.3%
The business in brief
read the 10-K →What this business is and what moves its needle, from its own SEC filings.
- What moves the needle
- Commissions on the premiums it places, and organic growth. What decides it: insurance prices in the market, since it earns a slice of them; new business won and kept; and a capital-light fee stream that carries none of the underwriting risk of the insurers it sells for. 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?
- Operating margin has been modest for a fee business (median 11%). It earns this on little capital, so return on equity has run near 13%, the leverage of a model that needs almost no plant to grow. A high return that does not fade can mark a moat, but whether the commissions keep renewing as rates turn 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.
The record
Ten years of arithmetic, read across the cycle.
The record, 2016–2025
realized figures from each filing · older years to the left| 2016’16 | 2017’17 | 2018’18 | 2019’19 | 2020’20 | 2021’21 | 2022’22 | 2023’23 | 2024’24 | 2025’25 | TTMTTMMar 2026 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Income statement | |||||||||||
| $11.8B | $12.5B | $12.1B | $9.6B | $12.4B | $7.6B | $12.6B | $10.5B | $12.4B | $11.7B | $11.3B | RevenueRevenue |
| 15.4% | 8.4% | 19.8% | −22.2% | −9.6% | 32.0% | 23.3% | 5.7% | 14.5% | −11.0% | −5.2% | Operating marginOp. mgn |
| 10.7% | 6.7% | 15.4% | −18.3% | −5.2% | 23.0% | 17.0% | 12.3% | 10.3% | −11.8% | −7.3% | Net marginNet mgn |
| $1.3B | $834M | $1.9B | ($1.8B) | ($648M) | $1.8B | $2.2B | $1.3B | $1.3B | ($1.4B) | ($822M) | Net incomeNet inc. |
| 23% | 6% | 14% | — | — | 20% | 22% | — | 18% | — | — | Effective tax rateTax rate |
| Cash flow & returns | |||||||||||
| 9% | 6% | 13% | -13% | -4% | 15% | 154% | 49% | 82% | — | -301% | Return on equityROE |
| 1% | 6% | 12% | −15% | −6% | 13% | 133% | 37% | 62% | — | −417% | Retained to equityRetained/eq |
| Balance sheet | |||||||||||
| — | $235.6B | $220.8B | $249.8B | $275.4B | $292.3B | $252.7B | $276.7B | $295.7B | $318.0B | $310.4B | Total assetsAssets |
| $5.7B | $4.8B | $4.5B | $4.4B | $6.2B | $5.2B | $4.3B | $8.2B | $7.0B | $12.5B | $9.9B | Cash & investmentsCash+inv |
| $14.5B | $13.4B | $13.9B | $13.5B | $15.6B | $11.5B | $1.4B | $2.6B | $1.6B | ($74M) | $273M | Shareholders’ equityEquity |
| Per share | |||||||||||
| 561M | 561M | 557M | 494M | 450M | 421M | 380M | 352M | 325M | 298M | 284M | Shares out (diluted)Shares |
| $20.97 | $22.21 | $21.69 | $19.49 | $27.56 | $18.08 | $33.28 | $29.75 | $38.25 | $39.13 | $39.88 | Revenue / shareRev/sh |
| $2.24 | $1.49 | $3.33 | $-3.57 | $-1.44 | $4.17 | $5.67 | $3.65 | $3.94 | $-4.63 | $-2.90 | EPS (diluted)EPS |
| $1.87 | $0.00 | $0.28 | $0.58 | $0.66 | $0.70 | $0.77 | $0.86 | $0.93 | $1.05 | $1.11 | Dividends / shareDiv/sh |
| $25.93 | $23.92 | $24.92 | $27.26 | $34.58 | $27.35 | $3.69 | $7.50 | $4.82 | $-0.25 | $0.96 | Book value / shareBVPS |
Per-share growththe realized rate an owner's share compounded
| 9-yr | 5-yr | |
|---|---|---|
| Revenue / share | +7.2%/yr | +7.3%/yr |
| Dividends / share | −6.2%/yr | +9.8%/yr |
The record, charted
FY2016–2025Each measure over its full record; the current point and the worst year marked.
Revenue
$11.7Blow FY2021
Quality & stewardship
Returns, the balance sheet, capital allocation, and pay.
Owner’s Scorecard
FY2025 10-K · source on SEC EDGAR →
Is it a good business?
- Operating margin −11.0%Thin for a fee businessOperating income ($1.3B) ÷ revenue $11.7BIndustry peers: median 16%
What this means
The heart of a insurance broker: how much of each fee dollar survives the cost of running the business. Commissions are a slice of the premiums it places, earned without taking the underwriting risk itself, so it is a capital-light fee stream that rises with new business, retention and the price of insurance. A high margin held for years, through a market it does not control, is the operational mark of a real franchise.
- Net margin −11.8%SlimNet income ($1.4B) ÷ revenue $11.7B
What this means
What reaches the owner after tax and interest. For a capital-light fee business this should be a wide share of revenue; when it is thin despite a high operating margin, debt taken on for acquisitions is usually the reason, so read it next to the balance sheet.
- Not enough dataIndustry peers: median 13%
What this means
Equity is zero or negative (often from buybacks), so the ratio would mislead.
Does AI threaten the moat?
Low contestabilityThe moat is physical, regulated or balance-sheet-funded, the kind AI cuts costs within but does not contest.
In its own filing Named as a competitive risk
Its FY2025 10-K names artificial intelligence as a competitive threat.
“Our competitors may also adopt AI or generative AI more quickly or more effectively than we do, which could cause competitive harm.”
AI is unlikely to contest a moat that is physical, regulated or balance-sheet-funded; here it reads more as a cost tool than a threat, and the company is using it that way.
Read from the filing's own risk factors, paired with the industry's structure under its SIC code; the durability is read above, the price below.
All figures as filed; the source filing is linked above.
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, and what it adds to the debt on the page above.
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$107Ma fixed cash payment, owed whether or not the business has a good year
Total lease payments$946Mevery year plus the tail, undiscounted: the full cash the leases will take
On the balance sheet$712Mthe present value of those payments, the recognised lease liability
True leverage: debt plus leases
On-balance-sheet debt$4.1B
Lease obligations (present value)$712M
Total fixed claims on the business$4.8B
Counting the leases the way Buffett does, the fixed claims on this business come to $4.8B, of which the leases are 15%. 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.
Acquisitions & goodwill
from the balance sheet & the 10-year cash-flow recordGoodwill 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$4.6B1% of all assets; the premium carried on the balance sheet for businesses acquired
Against book equity—goodwill is this share of book equity; the rest is the company’s own retained and paid-in capital
Cash spent acquiring$191Mover 10 years buying other businesses
$369M written down across 1 year (2017): 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 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” | Net income |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2020 | Mark Pearson | $14.9M | $17.0M | ($648M) |
| 2021 | Mark Pearson | $14.2M | $28.5M | $1.8B |
| 2022 | Mark Pearson | $15.3M | $7.2M | $2.2B |
| 2023 | Mark Pearson | $15.8M | $19.2M | $1.3B |
| 2024 | Mark Pearson | $17.4M | $40.2M | $1.3B |
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. Net income is the whole business's, as filed, for the same fiscal years.
- Insider ownership1.1%
The stake all directors and executive officers hold together, per the 2025 proxy: skin in the game, the first thing Munger reads.
- CEO pay ratio140:1
What the chief earns for every dollar the median employee makes, per the 2025 proxy. A high ratio alone settles nothing; some businesses are genuinely top-heavy in scarce skill. A runaway figure is where Buffett starts asking whether the board is doing its job.
What an owner would ask, FY2025
read the 10-K →- Which reported numbers are a judgment call?Management names 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, Insurance Brokers
The same industry, side by side on fee margins. 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 | Op. margin | Net margin | ROE |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| MMCMarsh & Mclennan Companies, Inc. | $27.0B | 19.8% | 14.1% | 28% |
| AONAon PLC | $17.2B | 22.1% | 15.9% | 41% |
| AJGArthur J. Gallagher & Co. | $13.9B | 11.8% | 10.2% | 11% |
| EQHEquitable Holdings Inc. | $11.7B | 11.4% | 10.5% | 13% |
| WTWWillis Towers Watson PLC | $9.5B | 11.4% | 11.5% | 10% |
| BROBrown & Brown Inc. | $5.9B | 26.7% | 18.6% | 13% |
| ERIEErie Indemnity Company | $4.1B | 15.2% | 12.4% | 25% |
| RYANRyan Specialty Holdings Inc. | $3.0B | 16.5% | 3.9% | 11% |
| Group median | — | 15.8% | 11.9% | 13% |
The price
What a price has to assume.
What the price implies
reverse-DCFThe owner-earnings base could not be formed from this filing’s tagged data (operating cash flow or capital spending is missing), so the owner-earnings reverse-DCF has no base to grow. We read the price from both ends instead: type a price to see the 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.
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The assumptions
Revenue, delivered3%/yr’20→’25
Enter a price to run it.
Owner earnings it must reach—
Margin the price demands—
Owner-earnings margin today—
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.
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.
Cite: Owner Scorecard, "Equitable Holdings Inc. (EQH), the owner's record," https://ownerscorecard.com/c/EQH, data as of 2026-07-09.
Manual order: ← EQBK its page in the Manual EQIX →
Industry order: ← CRVL the Insurance Brokers chapter ERIE →