Share count
101Mpeak FY2025
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FUN, Cedar Fair
Cedar Fair is North America's largest regional amusement park operator with 26 amusement parks, 15 separately gated water parks and nine resort properties.
Generates revenue from sales of admission to the amusement parks and water parks, from purchases of food, merchandise and games both inside and outside the parks, from the sale of accommodations and other extra-charge products, and other revenue sources.
Purchases rides and attractions, inventory, operating and maintenance supplies, and services from a variety of suppliers both domestic and abroad.
The business
What it sells, where the money comes from, the kind of company it is.
Revenue · FY2025
$3.1B
+14.4% YoY · 19% 3-yr CAGR
Vital signs · TTM, with 4-yr average
Revenue $3.1B 4-yr avg $2.4B
Revenue $226M +11.7% vs yr-ago qtr
Operating margin −138.4% yr-ago −158.9%
Net income ($269M) yr-ago ($220M)
Net margin −119.0% yr-ago −108.7%
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 Admission (51%), Food, merchandise and games (33%) and Accommodations, extra-charge products and other (15%).
- Situation
- Unprofitable. No sustained operating profit across the record; an earnings multiple has nothing to rest on. What the record does show is revenue, the gross-margin trajectory, and the burn against the cash on hand.
- What moves the needle
- Gross margin has run about 91% and operating margin about 11% through the cycle, a wide spread between price and the cost of what it sells — whether that advantage is durable pricing power or a margin that can erode is the question the record is for. The operating margin has swung widely — from −44% to 29% — on a steadier 91% gross margin, so what moves it sits below the gross line, in operating spend and one-off charges more than in the cost of the product itself. Capital spending runs about 12% of sales, so the return earned on what it sinks into that plant weighs as much as the margin. On its own account, the filing leans hardest on pricing power & competition, 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.
Where the money comes from
read the 10-K →Revenue spreads across 3 lines, the largest Admission at 51%.
Revenue by product line, FY2025
- Admission51%$1.6B
- Food, merchandise and games33%$1.0B
- Accommodations, extra-charge products and other15%$478M
By geographyUnited States89%International11%
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, 2022–2025
realized figures from each filing · older years to the left| 2022’22 | 2023’23 | 2024’24 | 2025’25 | TTMTTMMar 2026 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Income statement | |||||
| $1.8B | $1.8B | $2.7B | $3.1B | $3.1B | RevenueRevenue |
| 91% | 91% | 91% | 91% | 91% | Gross marginGross mgn |
| 10% | 12% | 15% | 14% | 14% | SG&A / revenueSG&A/rev |
| $520M | $306M | $311M | ($1.4B) | ($1.4B) | Operating incomeOp. inc. |
| 28.6% | 17.0% | 11.5% | −44.4% | −43.7% | Operating marginOp. mgn |
| $308M | $125M | ($231M) | ($1.6B) | ($1.6B) | Net incomeNet inc. |
| 17% | 28% | — | — | — | Effective tax rateTax rate |
| Cash flow & returns | |||||
| $408M | $326M | $373M | $327M | $422M | Operating cash flowOp. cash |
| $153M | $158M | $318M | $486M | $491M | DepreciationDeprec. |
| ($74M) | $21M | $223M | $1.4B | $1.5B | Working capital & otherWC & other |
| $183M | $220M | $321M | $480M | $394M | CapexCapex |
| 10.1% | 12.3% | 11.8% | 15.5% | 12.6% | Capex / revenueCapex/rev |
| $224M | $168M | $53M | ($152M) | $29M | Owner earningsOwner earn. |
| 12.3% | 9.3% | 1.9% | −4.9% | 0.9% | Owner earnings marginOE mgn |
| $224M | $105M | $53M | ($152M) | $29M | Free cash flowFCF |
| 12.3% | 5.9% | 1.9% | −4.9% | 0.9% | Free cash flow marginFCF mgn |
| $0 | $0 | $152M | $0 | $0 | AcquisitionsAcquis. |
| — | — | 2% | -19% | -20% | ROICROIC |
| — | — | -11% | -291% | -590% | Return on equityROE |
| — | — | −11% | −291% | −590% | Retained to equityRetained/eq |
| Balance sheet | |||||
| $101M | $65M | $83M | $91M | $117M | Cash & investmentsCash+inv |
| — | $80M | $125M | $160M | $130M | ReceivablesReceiv. |
| — | $41M | $71M | $69M | $71M | InventoryInvent. |
| — | $38M | $107M | $74M | $115M | Accounts payablePayables |
| — | $83M | $89M | $155M | $86M | Operating working capitalOper. WC |
| — | $209M | $400M | $473M | $831M | Current assetsCur. assets |
| — | $403M | $927M | $685M | $1.2B | Current liabilitiesCur. liab. |
| — | 0.5× | 0.4× | 0.7× | 0.7× | Current ratioCurr. ratio |
| $263M | $265M | $3.3B | $2.1B | $2.1B | GoodwillGoodwill |
| — | $2.2B | $9.1B | $7.8B | $7.7B | Total assetsAssets |
| — | $2.3B | $4.9B | $5.2B | $5.4B | Total debtDebt |
| — | $2.2B | $4.8B | $5.1B | $5.2B | Net debt / (cash)Net debt |
| — | — | $2.0B | $550M | $279M | Shareholders’ equityEquity |
| 1.1% | 1.3% | 2.3% | 2.0% | 1.6% | Stock comp / revenueSBC/rev |
| — | — | $42M | $1.3B | $1.4B | Goodwill written downGW imp. |
| Per share | |||||
| 56.4M | 51.5M | 75.3M | 101M | 101M | Shares out (diluted)Shares |
| $32.22 | $34.92 | $36.00 | $30.80 | $30.78 | Revenue / shareRev/sh |
| $5.45 | $2.42 | $-3.07 | $-15.89 | $-16.24 | EPS (diluted)EPS |
| $3.98 | $3.26 | $0.70 | $-1.51 | $0.28 | Owner earnings / shareOE/sh |
| $3.98 | $2.04 | $0.70 | $-1.51 | $0.28 | Free cash flow / shareFCF/sh |
| $3.25 | $4.28 | $4.26 | $4.77 | $3.88 | Cap. spending / shareCapex/sh |
| — | — | $27.13 | $5.46 | $2.75 | Book value / shareBVPS |
The diluted share count moved ×1.46 into 2024 — shares issued, 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
| 3-yr | 5-yr | |
|---|---|---|
| Revenue / share | −1.5%/yr | −1.5%/yr (3-yr) |
| Capital spending / share | +13.6%/yr | +13.6%/yr (3-yr) |
| Book value / share | −79.9%/yr (1-yr) | −79.9%/yr (1-yr) |
The record, charted
FY2022–2025Each measure over its full record; the current point and the worst year marked.
Gross margin
91%low FY2022
Owner earnings vs. net income
Owner earningsNet incomeThe accountant's number, and the cash an owner can take; the gap is the tell.
($152M)owner earningsvs.($1.6B)net 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.
FY2022FY2025
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 a $1.6B loss into ($152M) of owner earnings: more cash than the profit line showed, after the non-cash charges and the capital it put back in.
| FY2025 | FY2024 | FY2023 | FY2022 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Reported net income | ($1.6B) | ($231M) | $125M | $308M |
| Depreciation & amortizationnon-cash charge added back | +$486M | +$318M | +$158M | +$153M |
| Stock-based compensationreal costnon-cash, but a real cost | +$64M | +$64M | +$23M | +$21M |
| Working capital & othertiming of cash in and out, other non-cash items | +$1.4B | +$223M | +$21M | −$74M |
| Cash from operations | $327M | $373M | $326M | $408M |
| Maintenance capital expenditurethe spending needed just to hold position and volume | −$480M | −$321M | −$158M | −$183M |
| Owner earnings | ($152M) | $53M | $168M | $224M |
| Growth capital expenditurediscretionary; spent to get bigger, not to stand still | — | — | −$62M | — |
| Free cash flow | ($152M) | $53M | $105M | $224M |
| Owner-earnings marginowner earnings ÷ revenue | -5% | 2% | 9% | 12% |
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 $64M), owner earnings is nearer ($216M).
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 →
Will it survive?
- Interest expense not tagged in the data
What this means
No usable interest-expense line was tagged in the filing data, but the balance sheet carries real net debt — so the interest burden here is unknown, not absent. Read the debt on the net-debt check below.
- Net debt against an operating lossCash $91M − debt $5.2B
What this means
Netting $91M of cash and short-term investments against $5.2B of debt leaves $5.1B owed, with no operating profit this year to measure it against — understand that combination before anything else about the company. 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 19 + DIO 93 − DPO 100 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?
- Below averageNOPAT ($1.1B) ÷ invested capital $5.6B (debt + equity − cash)Industry peers: median 8%
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. Asset-light businesses (R&D expensed, little capital) read artificially high, pair this with Owner Earnings.
- Thin through the cycle4-yr median margin, range -5%–12%; latest ($152M) = operating cash $327M − maintenance capex $480MIndustry 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 -5% of revenue this year, a 2% median across 4 years. Treating stock comp as the real expense it is (less $64M of SBC) leaves ($216M).
- Loss, but cash-generativeNet income ($1.6B) · cash from operations $327M
What this means
The company reported a net loss, so a conversion ratio isn't meaningful. What matters then is whether operations still threw off cash, here, they did.
How is the cash used?
- Not enough data
What this means
The filing data didn't include the inputs for this check.
- Investing or harvesting? 0.99×MaintainingCapex $480M ÷ depreciation $486M
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 · $3.1B
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× · 0.69×
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 · $5.2B vs ($212M) 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 $-5.56/share (latest year $-15.65), the averaged base the calculator's gate runs on, and book value is $5.38/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, 2022–2025
Whether the record’s returns held, and what the capital reinvested earned.
- Profitable years 2 of 4
What this means
Lost money in 2 year(s), look at what happened there before trusting the average.
- Operating margin 23% → −16% (2-yr avg ends)
What this means
Through the cycle the operating margin slipped — about 23% early to −16% lately, median 11% — competition or costs are biting in.
- Reinvestment, incremental ROIC returns capital
What this means
The capital base barely grew: this business returns cash through dividends and buybacks rather than reinvesting. Judge it on the cash returned, not on compounding.
- Worst year 2025 · −44.4% op. margin
What this means
Operations went underwater in 2025, understand why before trusting the good years.
- Share count +21.3%/yr
What this means
The share count is rising, dilution works against you on a per-share basis.
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 Named as a competitive risk
Its FY2025 10-K names artificial intelligence as a competitive threat.
“Increased dependence on these technology platforms, including these platforms' usage of artificial intelligence, may adversely impact sales, and therefore revenues, if key systems are disrupted for an extended period of time.”
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 29, 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$831M
- Cash & short-term investments$117M
- Receivables$130M
- Inventory$71M
- Other current assets$513M
Current liabilities$1.2B
- Debt due within a year$15M
- Accounts payable$115M
- Other current liabilities$1.1B
Current ratio0.68×all current assets ÷ what's due · Graham looked for 2×
Quick ratio0.62×stricter: inventory excluded
Cash ratio0.10×strictest: cash alone against what's due
Working capital($384M)the cushion left after near-term bills
Debt due this year vs. cash$15M due · $117M cash
covered by cash on hand, no refinancing forced · both figures from the Mar 29, 2026 balance sheet
Revenue, latest quarter vs. a year ago+11.7%the freshest read on whether the business is still growing
Current ratio, recent quarters0.5× → 0.7×
Deeper floors
Tangible book value($2.5B)equity stripped of goodwill & intangibles
Debt incl. operating leases$5.6B$245M of it operating leases
Deferred revenue$362Mcustomer cash collected before delivery; operating float
From the company's latest filing.
How the cash was used, 2022–2025
Over the record, the business generated $1.4B of operating cash; how management split it reads as a reinvestor, most operating cash is plowed back into the business.
- Reinvested$1.2B · 84%
- Retained (debt / cash)$230M · 16%
- Net change in share count79.9%
The diluted count rose from 56M to 101M: issuance (stock pay, deals) outran any buybacks, so owners were diluted on net.
- 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 4-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 & intangibles$2.8B36% 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$152Mover 4 years buying other businesses, against $1.2B of capital spent building
$1.4B written down across 2 years (2024, 2025): 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 4-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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2021 | Mr. Zimmerman | $10.0M | $10.6M | — |
| 2022 | Mr. Zimmerman | $7.3M | $8.4M | $224M |
| 2023 | Mr. Zimmerman | $6.5M | $5.8M | $168M |
| 2024 | Mr. Bassoul | $20.4M | $20.1M | $53M |
| 2024 | Mr. Zimmerman | $9.1M | $16.4M | $53M |
| 2025 | Mr. Reilly | $5.8M | $7.4M | ($152M) |
| 2025 | Mr. Zimmerman | $17.9M | $4.5M | ($152M) |
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 ownership5%
The stake all directors and executive officers hold together, per the 2026 proxy: skin in the game, the first thing Munger reads.
- CEO pay ratio1,896:1
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$64M
The slice of the business handed to employees in shares this year, 2% of revenue. 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 Cedar Fair 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 2022–2025.
2 of the 3 tests turned up something to look into; the other 1 came back clean.
- Look hereIs it less profitable than it was?−1.5% vs 10.8%
The owner-earnings margin averaged 10.8% early in the record and −1.5% across the last three years, and the latest year has not recovered. Ask the filing whether that is a structural drift or a cyclical trough — price, mix, cost, or a competitor — and whether it is permanent.
- Look hereDid the share count rise anyway?79.9%
Diluted shares grew 79.9% over 2022–2025. Owners were diluted on net; each share owns less of the business than it did. Read the buyback line beside this one, not on its own.
And these came back clean
- Are "one-time" charges a yearly habit?
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, Entertainment & Studios
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| FUNCedar Fair | $3.1B | 91% | 14.2% | -19% | 6% |
| LTHLife Time Group Holdings Inc. | $3.0B | 47% | 8.9% | 4% | 7% |
| MTNVail Resorts Inc. | $3.0B | — | 18.3% | 12% | 18% |
| CHDNChurchill Downs | $2.9B | — | 18.3% | 8% | 23% |
| PRKSUnited Parks & Resorts Inc. | $1.7B | — | 18.6% | 16% | 10% |
| SPHRSphere Entertainment Co. | $1.2B | — | -21.3% | -6% | -10% |
| LUCKLucky Strike Entertainment Corporation | $1.2B | 30% | 11.4% | 8% | 4% |
| BATRAAtlanta Braves Holdings Inc. Series A | $732M | — | -5.6% | -3% | -10% |
| Group median | — | 47% | 12.8% | 6% | 6% |
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 Cedar Fair has delivered.
$
Through the cycle, Cedar Fair earns about $175M on its 5.6% median owner-earnings margin. This year’s −4.9% margin runs below that; the reported figure may understate a lean year. 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.
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, delivered—
Owner-earnings growth, delivered—
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 $29M on 102M shares outstanding, per the 10-Q cover, as of 2026-05-01; net debt $5.2B. 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, "Cedar Fair (FUN), the owner's record," https://ownerscorecard.com/c/FUN, data as of 2026-07-09.
Manual order: ← FULTP its page in the Manual FVR →
Industry order: ← FUBO the Entertainment & Studios chapter IMAX →