Share count
270Mpeak FY2017
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ESRT, Empire State Realty Trust Inc.
Empire State Realty Trust Inc. is a recognized leader in energy efficiency and indoor environmental quality.
The business
What it sells, where the money comes from, the kind of company it is.
Revenue · FY2025
$768M
+0.0% YoY · 5% 5-yr CAGR
Vital signs · TTM, with 5-yr average
Revenue $190M +5.8% vs yr-ago qtr
Operating margin 15.5% yr-ago 14.4%
Net income $3M yr-ago $16M
Net margin 1.6% yr-ago 8.8%
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
- Occupancy, rents, and the cost of debt. Read on funds from operations and net asset value, because GAAP depreciation distorts the earnings, and a property downturn meets a balance sheet built on leverage. 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?
- Funds from operations per share have been roughly flat (0% a year). The dividend takes 11% of FFO, and is covered. The quality and location of the properties, the lease terms and occupancy, and the cost of the debt are what the 10-K settles, and no single ratio captures them.
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 | |||||||||||
| $677M | $710M | $732M | $731M | $609M | $624M | $727M | $740M | $768M | $768M | $779M | RevenueRevenue |
| $51M | $63M | $66M | $49M | ($17M) | ($11M) | $36M | $49M | $47M | $43M | $35M | Net incomeNet inc. |
| Cash flow & returns | |||||||||||
| $207M | $223M | $234M | $231M | $174M | $191M | $219M | $212M | $219M | $203M | $210M | Funds from operationsFFO |
| Balance sheet | |||||||||||
| 27% | 30% | 30% | 33% | 21% | 9% | 11% | 11% | 11% | 12% | 11% | Dividend payout (FFO)Payout |
| $2.5B | $2.7B | $2.9B | $3.1B | $3.1B | $3.5B | $3.6B | $3.7B | $3.8B | $4.2B | $4.3B | Real estate (gross)RE gross |
| $3.9B | $3.9B | $4.2B | $3.9B | $4.2B | $4.3B | $4.2B | $4.2B | $4.5B | $4.5B | $4.4B | Total assetsAssets |
| 20% | 18% | — | — | 19% | 22% | 21% | 21% | — | — | — | Debt / assetsDebt/assets |
| $759M | $717M | $609M | $606M | $776M | $949M | $884M | $877M | $692M | $619M | $621M | Total debtDebt |
| $205M | $253M | $4M | $372M | $249M | $525M | $619M | $531M | $307M | $487M | $553M | Net debt / (cash)Net debt |
| 2.6× | 2.8× | 2.4× | 2.0× | 0.7× | 0.8× | 1.3× | 1.4× | 1.5× | 1.3× | 1.3× | Interest coverageInt. cov. |
| $1.2B | $1.2B | $1.2B | $1.2B | $1.1B | $998M | $954M | $986M | $1.0B | $1.1B | $1.1B | Shareholders’ equityEquity |
| Per share | |||||||||||
| 278M | 298M | 297M | 298M | 284M | 277M | 270M | 266M | 269M | 270M | 269M | Shares out (diluted)Shares |
| $0.74 | $0.75 | $0.79 | $0.78 | $0.61 | $0.69 | $0.81 | $0.80 | $0.81 | $0.75 | $0.78 | FFO / shareFFO/sh |
| $0.20 | $0.22 | $0.24 | $0.25 | $0.13 | $0.07 | $0.09 | $0.09 | $0.09 | $0.09 | $0.09 | Dividends / shareDiv/sh |
| $4.16 | $3.92 | $4.17 | $4.13 | $3.72 | $3.60 | $3.54 | $3.71 | $3.83 | $3.93 | $3.95 | Book value / shareBVPS |
Per-share growththe realized rate an owner's share compounded
| 9-yr | 5-yr | |
|---|---|---|
| Revenue / share | +1.7%/yr | +5.8%/yr |
| Owner earnings / share | +13.2%/yr | −7.4%/yr |
| EPS | −1.6%/yr | — |
| Dividends / share | −8.8%/yr | −7.7%/yr |
| Capital spending / share | +0.4%/yr | +14.9%/yr |
| Book value / share | −0.6%/yr | +1.1%/yr |
The record, charted
FY2016–2025Each measure over its full record; the current point and the worst year marked.
Revenue
$768Mlow FY2020
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 prior periods, we identified a material weakness in our internal control over financial reporting related to information technology general controls.”
The figures below are only as sound as the controls that produced them. read the note →
Is it a good business?
- about $0.75 per shareNet income $43M + depreciation $195M − gains on sale $35M
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
GAAP net income with property depreciation added back, because the buildings a REIT charges against earnings usually hold or grow their value. This, not net income, is what a REIT is actually priced on. It is an approximation here: where a filing reports gains on property sales, we remove them, the way the NAREIT definition does.
- Lightly coveredDividends $24M ÷ FFO $203MIndustry peers: median 47%
What this means
A REIT must distribute most of its taxable income, so a high payout is normal and the question is whether FFO covers it. Above 100%, the trust is funding the dividend with debt or asset sales, and a cut usually follows.
Is it sound?
- Not cleanly capturedIndustry peers: median 37%
What this means
This REIT tags its borrowings in a way the pipeline could not fully total, so we decline to show a leverage figure rather than a misleadingly low one. The debt schedule in the 10-K is where to read its true leverage.
- Comfortable(operating income + depreciation) ÷ interest $103MIndustry peers: median 4.5×
What this means
How many times the property cash earnings cover the interest bill. Comfortable coverage is what lets a REIT refinance through a tight credit market instead of being forced to sell into one.
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 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.
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.
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2021 | Mr. Malkin | $7.9M | $1.3M | ($186M) |
| 2022 | Mr. Malkin | $8.4M | $6.5M | $125M |
| 2023 | Mr. Malkin | $9.0M | $20.8M | $63M |
| 2024 | Mr. Malkin | $13.2M | $17.6M | $88M |
| 2025 | Mr. Malkin | $12.7M | $2.7M | $51M |
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 ownership0.1%
The stake all directors and executive officers hold together, per the 2026 proxy: skin in the game, the first thing Munger reads.
- CEO pay ratio170:1
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$25M
The slice of the business handed to employees in shares this year, 3% of revenue, equal to 19% 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.
Peers, Office REITs
The same industry, side by side on the REIT lens. 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 | FFO margin | FFO / assets | Payout (FFO) | Debt / assets |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| KRCKilroy Realty | $1.1B | 56% | 5.6% | 42% | 39% |
| DEIDouglas Emmett | $1.0B | 47% | 4.6% | 40% | 53% |
| SLGSL Green Realty | $1.0B | 37% | 3.4% | 69% | 27% |
| CUZCousins Properties | $994M | 52% | 5.7% | 45% | 31% |
| HIWHighwoods Properties | $806M | 55% | 8.1% | 47% | — |
| ESRTEmpire State Realty Trust Inc. | $768M | 30% | 5.1% | 17% | 20% |
| CDPCopt Defense Properties | $764M | 36% | 5.6% | 55% | 52% |
| JBGSJBG SMITH Properties | $499M | 20% | 2.0% | 81% | 35% |
| Group median | — | 42% | 5.4% | 46% | 35% |
The price
What a price has to assume.
What the price implies
price / FFOA REIT is priced on a multiple of its funds from operations (FFO), the cash it earns once the depreciation on its buildings is added back. Type today’s price; we show the multiple you would pay and the income and growth it implies.
$
The assumptions
FFO / share, delivered4%/yr’20→’25
The justified multiple is 1 ÷ (required return − growth), a perpetuity on FFO. At an 8% required return and 3% growth, a REIT is worth about 20× FFO.
Enter a price above to run it.
Price / FFO—
Justified by growth—
Dividend yield—
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.
FFO about $0.78 per share on 171M shares. The dials set the multiple they justify; your price sets the multiple you are paying. FFO here adds back depreciation and removes property-sale gains, the NAREIT method; it does not net out maintenance capex (AFFO), occupancy or lease terms, which the 10-K does.
Cite: Owner Scorecard, "Empire State Realty Trust Inc. (ESRT), the owner's record," https://ownerscorecard.com/c/ESRT, data as of 2026-07-09.
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