← All companies ← FORM Manual FOX → ← FLYW Commercial Services & Supplies FTDR →

FOUR, Shift4 Payments

Commercial Services & Supplies asset-light Distress / turnaroundCyclicalSerial acquirer

We are a leading independent provider of software and payment processing solutions in the U.S. and we are expanding our payment processing solutions to international markets.

Global Blue is a leading technology and travel services platform, primarily providing TFS, dynamic currency conversion, and payments solutions to many of the world's largest retail brands.

We achieved our leadership position through decades of solving business and operational challenges facing our customers' overall commerce needs.

Latest annual: FY2025 10-K

FOUR · Shift4 Payments

The business

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

Revenue · FY2025

$4.2B

+25.5% YoY · 40% 5-yr CAGR

Vital signs · TTM, with 5-yr average

Revenue $4.5B 5-yr avg $2.7B

Operating margin 8.4% 5-yr avg 4.3%

ROIC 5% 5-yr avg 3%

Owner-earnings margin 15% 5-yr avg 11%

Free cash flow margin 15% 5-yr avg 11%

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 Payments-based revenue (83%), Subscription and other revenues (11%) and TFS revenue (6%).
Situation: Distress / turnaround. Thin interest coverage, or operating cash burned against real debt, across the record. The balance sheet carries this situation; the debt schedule sets the clock. Cyclical. Margins collapse and recover repeatedly across the record; a single year, good or bad, misstates the through-cycle earning power. Serial acquirer. Goodwill and acquired intangibles are 66% of assets, with meaningful acquisition spending in 7 of the record's 8 years; much of what this business is was bought, at prices the record carries.
What moves the needle: Operating margin has run around −0.6% through the cycle on a 23% gross margin, 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. 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 −1%, above 15% in 0 of 7 years). The steadier read is owner earnings: roughly 9% of revenue reaches owners as cash, though it swings, and customers and suppliers fund the business through negative working capital. 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 →

Payments-based revenue is 83% of revenue, with Subscription and other revenues the other meaningful line at 11%.

Revenue by product line, FY2025

Payments-based revenue83%$3.5B
Subscription and other revenues11%$454M
TFS revenue6%$255M

By geographyUnited States79%International21%

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, 2018–2025

realized figures from each filing · older years to the left

2018’18	2019’19	2020’20	2021’21	2022’22	2023’23	2024’24	2025’25	TTMTTMMar 2026
									Income statement
$561M	$731M	$767M	$1.4B	$2.0B	$2.6B	$3.3B	$4.2B	$4.5B	RevenueRevenue
25%	24%	23%	20%	—	—	—	—	70%	Gross marginGross mgn
14%	16%	24%	16%	13%	13%	14%	16%	17%	SG&A / revenueSG&A/rev
0%	0%	0%	0%	0%	0%	0%	0%	0%	R&D / revenueR&D/rev
($13M)	($4M)	($58M)	($49M)	$95M	$115M	$247M	$351M	$376M	Operating incomeOp. inc.
−2.3%	−0.6%	−7.5%	−3.6%	4.8%	4.5%	7.4%	8.4%	8.4%	Operating marginOp. mgn
($55M)	($57M)	($18M)	($48M)	$75M	$86M	$230M	$119M	$117M	Net incomeNet inc.
—	—	—	—	0%	-4%	—	29%	22%	Effective tax rateTax rate
									Cash flow & returns
$26M	$8M	$4M	$3M	$275M	$346M	$500M	$634M	$672M	Operating cash flowOp. cash
$71M	$63M	$84M	$104M	$149M	$215M	$297M	$432M	$482M	DepreciationDeprec.
$10M	$2M	($128M)	($94M)	$2M	($12M)	($92M)	$1M	$1M	Working capital & otherWC & other
$2M	$8M	$5M	$8M	$8M	$14M	$7M	$10M	$15M	CapexCapex
0.3%	1.1%	0.6%	0.6%	0.4%	0.5%	0.2%	0.2%	0.3%	Capex / revenueCapex/rev
$24M	($200K)	($800K)	($5M)	$267M	$332M	$493M	$624M	$657M	Owner earningsOwner earn.
4.3%	−0.0%	−0.1%	−0.4%	13.4%	12.9%	14.8%	14.9%	14.8%	Owner earnings marginOE mgn
$24M	($200K)	($800K)	($5M)	$267M	$332M	$493M	$624M	$657M	Free cash flowFCF
4.3%	−0.0%	−0.1%	−0.4%	13.4%	12.9%	14.8%	14.9%	14.8%	Free cash flow marginFCF mgn
$2M	$60M	$50M	$55M	$135M	$170M	$555M	$2.7B	$2.6B	AcquisitionsAcquis.
—	$0	$0	$20M	$186M	$105M	$146M	$453M	—	BuybacksBuybacks
-29%	-1%	-8%	-5%	7%	6%	—	5%	5%	ROICROIC
-154%	—	-4%	-18%	22%	13%	29%	8%	7%	Return on equityROE
−154%	—	−4%	−18%	22%	13%	29%	8%	7%	Retained to equityRetained/eq
									Balance sheet
—	$4M	$928M	$1.2B	$703M	$455M	$1.2B	$964M	$473M	Cash & investmentsCash+inv
—	$79M	$93M	$206M	$195M	$257M	$349M	$742M	$694M	ReceivablesReceiv.
—	$9M	$2M	$4M	$5M	$3M	$9M	—	$6M	InventoryInvent.
—	$58M	$61M	$121M	$167M	$205M	$248M	$679M	$615M	Accounts payablePayables
—	$29M	$34M	$88M	$33M	$56M	$110M	$63M	$85M	Operating working capitalOper. WC
—	$106M	$1.0B	$1.5B	$992M	$1.2B	$1.9B	$2.2B	$2.1B	Current assetsCur. assets
—	$130M	$99M	$184M	$268M	$704M	$1.4B	$1.3B	$1.7B	Current liabilitiesCur. liab.
—	0.8×	10.4×	7.9×	3.7×	1.6×	1.4×	1.7×	1.2×	Current ratioCurr. ratio
$392M	$421M	$477M	$538M	$735M	$1.1B	$1.5B	$2.7B	$2.7B	GoodwillGoodwill
—	$784M	$1.8B	$2.3B	$2.6B	$3.4B	$5.0B	$8.7B	$8.8B	Total assetsAssets
—	$640M	$1.0B	$1.7B	$1.7B	$1.8B	$2.8B	$4.5B	$4.5B	Total debtDebt
—	$637M	$79M	$507M	$1.0B	$1.3B	$1.6B	$3.6B	$4.0B	Net debt / (cash)Net debt
-0.3×	-0.1×	-1.4×	-1.8×	2.9×	3.6×	4.0×	1.8×	1.7×	Interest coverageInt. cov.
$36M	($33M)	$460M	$273M	$347M	$653M	$807M	$1.4B	$1.7B	Shareholders’ equityEquity
—	0.0%	8.6%	3.0%	2.5%	2.2%	2.0%	2.0%	1.6%	Stock comp / revenueSBC/rev
									Per share
—	—	78.0M	—	3.9M	1.9M	1.7M	1.3M	1.3M	Shares out (diluted)Shares
—	—	$9.83	—	$515.86	$1320.77	$1996.01	$3134.17	$3338.87	Revenue / shareRev/sh
—	—	$-0.24	—	$19.43	$44.28	$137.82	$89.23	$87.73	EPS (diluted)EPS
—	—	$-0.01	—	$69.19	$170.95	$295.42	$467.88	$492.62	Owner earnings / shareOE/sh
—	—	$-0.01	—	$69.19	$170.95	$295.42	$467.88	$492.62	Free cash flow / shareFCF/sh
—	—	$0.06	—	$2.07	$7.21	$4.19	$7.50	$11.25	Cap. spending / shareCapex/sh
—	—	$5.89	—	$89.87	$336.40	$483.57	$1081.21	$1239.42	Book value / shareBVPS

The diluted share count moved ×1/20.19 into 2022 — shares retired, not a split the totals corroborate — and the per-share figures carry the counts as filed.

The diluted share count moved ×1/1.99 into 2023 — 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

	7-yr	5-yr
Revenue / share	+216.8%/yr (5-yr)	+216.8%/yr
Capital spending / share	+161.3%/yr (5-yr)	+161.3%/yr
Book value / share	+183.6%/yr (5-yr)	+183.6%/yr

The year, in the company's words

the filing →

Verbatim from the 10-K's management discussion. Each sentence is shown only because its subject, direction, and stated figures check out against the filed numbers on this page. The words are the company's; the arithmetic is the record's.

Payments-based revenue+16.1%
“Payments-based revenue increased by $481 million, or 16%, primarily due to: •the increase in volume of $44 billion, or 27%, for the year ended December 31, 2025 compared to the year ended December 31, 2024, and; •our recent acquisitions in 2024 and 2025.”
✓ figure matches the filed record

The record, charted

FY2018–2025

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

Share count

1Mpeak FY2020

ROIC

5%low FY2018

Gross margin

20%low FY2021

Net debt ÷ owner earnings

5.7×peak 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.

$624Mowner earningsvs.$119Mnet incomelow FY2021

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.

FY2018FY2025

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 $119M of profit into $624M of owner earnings: more cash than the profit line showed, after the non-cash charges and the capital it put back in.

Reported net income$119M

Owner earnings$624M · 15% of revenue

	FY2025	FY2024	FY2023	FY2022	FY2021
Reported net income	$119M	$230M	$86M	$75M	($48M)
Depreciation & amortizationnon-cash charge added back	+$432M	+$297M	+$215M	+$149M	+$104M
Stock-based compensationreal costnon-cash, but a real cost	+$82M	+$65M	+$57M	+$50M	+$41M
Working capital & othertiming of cash in and out, other non-cash items	+$1M	−$92M	−$12M	+$2M	−$94M
Cash from operations	$634M	$500M	$346M	$275M	$3M
Capital expenditurecash put back in to keep running and to grow	−$10M	−$7M	−$14M	−$8M	−$8M
Owner earnings	$624M	$493M	$332M	$267M	($5M)
Owner-earnings marginowner earnings ÷ revenue	15%	15%	13%	13%	0%

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 $82M), owner earnings is nearer $542M.

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 →

Will it survive?

Can it pay its interest? 1.8×

Thin

Operating income $351M ÷ interest expense $190M

What this means
Operating profit covers interest, but with little room. A bad year, a refinancing at higher rates, or a revenue wobble closes the gap fast.
How heavy is the debt, net of cash? $3.6B · 10.2× operating profit

Heavy net debt

Cash $964M − debt $4.5B

What this means
Netting $964M of cash and short-term investments against $4.5B of debt leaves $3.6B owed, about 10.2× a year's operating profit (13.0× 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.
How long is cash tied up? -160d

Negative, funded by others

DSO 65 + DIO 3 − DPO 228 days

What this means
Days cash is tied up between paying suppliers and collecting from customers. A negative cycle is a quiet moat: suppliers and customers fund the operation (Buffett's “float”), the company grows on other people's money.

Is it a good business?

Return on invested capital -1%

Below average through the cycle

7-yr median, range -29%–7%; 5% latest = NOPAT $250M ÷ invested capital $5.0B

Industry peers: median 21%

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 7 years (it ran 5% 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 15%

Solid, recently turned positive

latest $624M = operating cash $634M − maintenance capex $10M; positive each of the last 3 years, after an earlier loss stretch (8-yr median 4%)

Industry peers: median 26%

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 15% of revenue this year, a 4% median across 8 years. Treating stock comp as the real expense it is (less $82M of SBC) leaves $542M.
Are earnings backed by cash? 5.33×

Cash-backed

Cash from ops $634M ÷ net income $119M

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?

Where do the earnings go? 73%

Returns about half

Dividends + buybacks $453M ÷ Owner Earnings $624M

What this means
Of $624M Owner Earnings, $453M (73%) went back to shareholders, $0 dividends, $453M buybacks. Net of $82M stock comp, the real buyback was about $371M. 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? 0.02×

Harvesting

Capex $10M ÷ depreciation $432M

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 Pass

Revenue ≥ $2B · $4.2B

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 Near

Current ratio ≥ 2× · 1.66×

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 · $4.5B vs $867M 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 (8-yr record) · 4 loss years

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 · none paid

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 $1.83/share (latest year $1.50), the averaged base the calculator's gate runs on, and book value is $18.18/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, 2018–2025

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

Profitable years 4 of 8

What this means
Lost money in 4 year(s), look at what happened there before trusting the average.
Return on capital ≥ 15% 0 of 7 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 −3% → 7% (3-yr avg ends)

What this means
Through the cycle the operating margin widened — about −3% early to 7% lately, median −1% — pricing power intact or improving.
Reinvestment, incremental ROIC 8%

What this means
Reinvested capital came back at only a modest incremental return — near the cost of capital, where extra growth adds little per dollar. The record shows whether it is a soft stretch or a thinning moat.
Owner earnings growth +73%/yr

What this means
Owner earnings grew about 73% a year over the record.
Worst year 2020 · −7.5% op. margin

What this means
Operations went underwater in 2020, understand why before trusting the good years.

Does AI threaten the moat?

Elevated contestability

The product is software or information, the very thing capable AI now produces more cheaply, so the moat is more contestable than the record alone implies.

In its own filing Named as a competitive risk

Its FY2025 10-K names artificial intelligence as a competitive threat.

“Further, our ability to continue to develop or use such technologies may be dependent on access to specific third-party software and infrastructure, such as processing hardware or third-party artificial intelligence models, and we cannot control the availability or pricing of such third-party software and infrastructur…”

AI has collapsed the cost of building a capable substitute for the very thing this business sells. When a credible alternative can be assembled for a fraction of the incumbent's price, it is pricing power that erodes first, not revenue tomorrow. The live question is whether the moat survives that, not whether it held in the past. Whether that question is answerable at all is yours to decide, against your own circle of competence.

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, 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$2.1B

Cash & short-term investments$473M
Receivables$694M
Inventory$6M
Other current assets$888M

Current liabilities$1.7B

Debt due within a year$10M
Accounts payable$615M
Other current liabilities$1.1B

Current ratio1.22×all current assets ÷ what's due · Graham looked for 2×

Quick ratio1.22×stricter: inventory excluded

Cash ratio0.28×strictest: cash alone against what's due

Working capital$375Mthe cushion left after near-term bills

Debt due this year vs. cash$10M due · $473M 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+32.2%the freshest read on whether the business is still growing

Current ratio, recent quarters1.4× → 1.2×

Deeper floors

Tangible book value($4.0B)equity stripped of goodwill & intangibles

Net current asset value($4.9B)Graham's net-net: current assets less all liabilities

Debt incl. operating leases$4.6B$60M of it operating leases

Deferred revenue$15Mcustomer cash collected before delivery; operating float

From the company's latest filing.

Debt maturity

the debt note, SEC EDGAR →

Not how much it owes, but when it falls due, and against what. The ladder the company files, beside cash on hand and a year's owner earnings.

'26$10M

'27$643M

'28$10M

'29$10M

'30$10M

later$3.9B

Bars scaled to the largest single year; “later” is everything due after 2030, shown apart since it dwarfs the years.

Due in the next 12 months$10Mthe first rung: what must be repaid or rolled over within the year

Within two years$653Mthe near wall, the part most exposed to today’s credit conditions

Biggest single year$643Min 2027the lumpiest maturity, where a refinancing, if needed, is largest

Total scheduled principal$4.6Bevery year plus what lies beyond, as the footnote totals it

Against what the business has and earns

Cash & short-term investments, Mar 31, 2026$473M

One year of owner earnings (FY2025)$624M

Together, against $10M due next year109.7×

Cash on hand as of Mar 31, 2026 plus a year’s owner earnings comes to $1.1B against the $10M due in the twelve months after the Dec 31, 2025 schedule: 110 times it.

Maturity schedule extracted from the company’s Dec 31, 2025 annual report and reconciled to the total the table states.

How the cash was used, 2018–2025

Over the record, the business generated $1.8B of operating cash; how management split it reads as a balanced allocator, splitting cash between the business, owners, and the balance sheet.

Reinvested$62M · 3%
Buybacks$909M · 51%
Retained (debt / cash)$825M · 46%

Returned to owners$909M
52% of the owner earnings the business produced over the span, $0 as dividends and $909M as buybacks.
Average price paid for buybacks—
Buybacks ran $909M over the span, but the filings don't tag the share count needed to deduce the average price paid.
Net change in share count−98.3%
The diluted count fell from 78M to 1M, so the buybacks outran the stock issued to staff.
Dividend record—
No dividend line was reported in the filing data over the span; the record here neither confirms nor rules out a payout.

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 8-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$5.7B66% 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$3.8Bover 8 years buying other businesses, against $62M 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 8-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	Jared Isaacman	$7.1M	$7.1M	$267M
2023	Jared Isaacman	$8.9M	$8.9M	$332M
2024	Jared Isaacman	$9.5M	$9.5M	$493M
2025	Jared Isaacman	$21.8M	$21.8M	$624M
2025	Taylor Lauber	$12.2M	$4.8M	$624M

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 ownership1.5%
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$82M
The slice of the business handed to employees in shares this year, 2% of revenue, equal to 23% 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.

Inverting the record

Invert: instead of why Shift4 Payments 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 2018–2025.

1 of the 4 tests turned up something to look into; the other 3 came back clean.

Look hereAre "one-time" charges a yearly habit?4 of 8 years
Management took an impairment or write-down in 4 of the last 8 years, $30M in all. Taken across the majority of the record, the "one-time" label is wearing thin — ask whether these are past deals coming due rather than genuinely isolated events. Read it beside the goodwill the company still carries.

And these came back clean

Is it less profitable than it was?
Did the share count rise anyway?
Did reported profit become cash?

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 Revenue recognition, 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, Commercial Services & Supplies

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
CPAYCorpay Inc.	$4.5B	98%	43.9%	11%	37%
FOURShift4 Payments	$4.2B	23%	1.9%	-1%	9%
CARTMaplebear Inc.	$3.7B	74%	2.4%	21%	18%
MSCIMSCI Inc.	$3.1B	80%	52.3%	38%	46%
ETSYEtsy Inc.	$2.9B	70%	10.5%	24%	26%
ZZillow Group Inc. Class C Capital Stock	$2.6B	78%	-8.9%	-3%	10%
EXLSExlService	$2.1B	86%	12.5%	14%	12%
FICOFair Isaac	$2.0B	73%	30.6%	35%	29%
Group median	—	76%	11.5%	18%	22%

The price

What a price has to assume.

What the price implies

reverse-DCF

Type today's close and see the owner-earnings growth you'd have to believe to justify it, beside what Shift4 Payments has delivered.

Shift4 Payments’s latest year runs above its own through-cycle margin — the reported figure may flatter a peak. So the tool opens on the through-cycle base, Graham’s averaging cutting both ways; clear the toggle below to read the latest year exactly as reported.

Today’s price $

Through the cycle, Shift4 Payments earns about $360M on its 8.6% median owner-earnings margin. This year’s 14.9% margin runs above that; the reported figure may flatter a peak you'd be paying on. Normalize, below, values the price on that through-cycle figure rather than the latest year. It comes pre-checked here for that reason, the same rule that already normalizes a trough; clear it to price the year as filed.

Base Normalize · through-cycle ($360M) Net of stock comp (−$72M) Steady-state · maintenance capex ($662M)

—

The assumptions Required return 9% Years of high growth 10 Terminal growth 2.5%

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 · ’21→’25+44%/yr

Owner-earnings growth · ’18→’25+73%/yr

Owner-earnings yield—

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.

Free cash flow $657M on 79M shares outstanding, per the 10-Q cover, as of 2026-04-30; net debt $4.0B. The base opens on the through-cycle figure (the latest year sits above the record’s own median, and Graham’s averaging cuts both ways); clear Normalize to use the year as filed. Net of stock comp treats option pay as the expense it is. Capex ($15M) runs well above depreciation ($482M), so this is a build-out; Steady-state swaps total capex for maintenance (≈ depreciation), lifting the base to about $662M, the cash it would throw off if it stopped expanding. The dials set the multiple a growth belief justifies; the price, and every dollar on this page, is yours.

Weigh FOUR against another business →

The owners of FOUR: the meeting and the votes →

Cite: Owner Scorecard, "Shift4 Payments (FOUR), the owner's record," https://ownerscorecard.com/c/FOUR, data as of 2026-07-09.

Manual order: ← FORM its page in the Manual FOX →

Industry order: ← FLYW the Commercial Services & Supplies chapter FTDR →