Share count
238Mpeak FY2016
← All companies ← HLNE Manual HLX → ← HGV Hotels & Resorts HTHT →
HLT, Hilton Worldwide Holdings Inc.
Hotels & Resorts diversified
Hilton is one of the largest global hospitality companies, with 9,158 properties comprising 1,351,351 rooms in 143 countries and territories as of December 31, 2025.
Our premier brand portfolio includes luxury, lifestyle, full service, focused service and all-suites hotel brands, as well as timeshare brands.
As of December 31, 2025, we had 243 million members in our award-winning guest loyalty program, Hilton Honors, an increase of 15 percent from December 31, 2024; refer to "—Our Brand Portfolio" and "—Our Guest Loyalty Program" below for additional information on our brands, including Hilton Honors.
The business
What it sells, where the money comes from, the kind of company it is.
Revenue · FY2025
$12.0B
+7.7% YoY · 23% 5-yr CAGR
Vital signs · TTM, with 5-yr average
Revenue $12.3B 5-yr avg $9.6B
Revenue $2.9B +9.0% vs yr-ago qtr
Operating margin 23.1% yr-ago 19.9%
Net income $383M yr-ago $300M
Net margin 13.0% yr-ago 11.1%
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 led by Reimbursement Revenue (59%) and Franchise and licensing fees (23%), with 4 more lines behind.
- What moves the needle
- Operating margin has run about 17% through the cycle, a solid margin the cost base and competition set as much as the price does. The operating margin has swung widely — from −10% to 24% over the years — so the through-cycle figure carries more than any single year, and the worst year more than the best. Read this kind of business on occupancy and revenue per available room, and the model. 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 run high across the record (median 20%, above 15% in 5 of 8 years). Owner earnings agree: roughly 15% of revenue reaches owners as cash, consistently. Whether these returns reflect real pricing power or an accounting artifact is the judgment the 10-K is for.
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 6 lines, the largest Reimbursement Revenue at 59%.
Revenue by product line, FY2025
- Reimbursement Revenue59%$7.1B
- Franchise and licensing fees23%$2.8B
- Ownership10%$1.2B
- Management Service, Base3%$376M
- Incentive management fees3%$313M
- Hotel, Other2%$252M
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, 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 | |||||||||||
| $6.6B | $8.1B | $8.9B | $9.5B | $4.3B | $5.8B | $8.8B | $10.2B | $11.2B | $12.0B | $12.3B | RevenueRevenue |
| 6% | 5% | 5% | 5% | 7% | 7% | 4% | 4% | 4% | 3% | 3% | SG&A / revenueSG&A/rev |
| $868M | $1.1B | $1.4B | $1.7B | ($418M) | $1.0B | $2.1B | $2.2B | $2.4B | $2.7B | $2.8B | Operating incomeOp. inc. |
| 13.2% | 13.9% | 16.1% | 17.5% | −9.7% | 17.4% | 23.9% | 21.7% | 21.2% | 22.4% | 23.1% | Operating marginOp. mgn |
| $338M | $1.1B | $764M | $881M | ($715M) | $410M | $1.3B | $1.1B | $1.5B | $1.5B | $1.5B | Net incomeNet inc. |
| — | 24% | — | 29% | — | 27% | 28% | 32% | 14% | 30% | 29% | Effective tax rateTax rate |
| Cash flow & returns | |||||||||||
| $1.3B | $849M | $1.3B | $1.4B | $708M | $109M | $1.7B | $1.9B | $2.0B | $2.1B | $2.3B | Operating cash flowOp. cash |
| $353M | $336M | $325M | $346M | $331M | $188M | $162M | $147M | $146M | $177M | $186M | DepreciationDeprec. |
| $528M | ($692M) | $39M | $3M | $995M | ($682M) | $102M | $489M | $156M | $325M | $388M | Working capital & otherWC & other |
| $317M | $58M | $72M | $81M | $46M | $35M | $39M | $151M | $96M | $101M | $91M | CapexCapex |
| 4.8% | 0.7% | 0.8% | 0.9% | 1.1% | 0.6% | 0.4% | 1.5% | 0.9% | 0.8% | 0.7% | Capex / revenueCapex/rev |
| $993M | $791M | $1.2B | $1.3B | $662M | $74M | $1.6B | $1.8B | $1.9B | $2.0B | $2.2B | Owner earningsOwner earn. |
| 15.1% | 9.7% | 13.3% | 13.8% | 15.4% | 1.3% | 18.7% | 17.5% | 17.2% | 16.8% | 17.9% | Owner earnings marginOE mgn |
| $993M | $791M | $1.2B | $1.3B | $662M | $74M | $1.6B | $1.8B | $1.9B | $2.0B | $2.2B | Free cash flowFCF |
| 15.1% | 9.7% | 13.3% | 13.8% | 15.4% | 1.3% | 18.7% | 17.5% | 17.2% | 16.8% | 17.9% | Free cash flow marginFCF mgn |
| $0 | $0 | — | — | — | — | $0 | $0 | $236M | $4M | $4M | AcquisitionsAcquis. |
| $277M | $195M | $181M | $172M | $42M | $0 | $123M | $158M | $150M | $143M | $141M | Dividends paidDiv. paid |
| $0 | $891M | $1.7B | $1.5B | $296M | $0 | $1.6B | $2.3B | $2.9B | $3.2B | — | BuybacksBuybacks |
| — | 11% | — | 17% | -6% | 11% | 24% | 25% | 37% | 31% | 34% | ROICROIC |
| 6% | 64% | 139% | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | Return on equityROE |
| 1% | 53% | 106% | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | Retained to equityRetained/eq |
| Balance sheet | |||||||||||
| $1.1B | $570M | $403M | $538M | $3.2B | $1.4B | $1.2B | $800M | $1.3B | $918M | $564M | Cash & investmentsCash+inv |
| $755M | $1.0B | $1.1B | $1.3B | $771M | $1.1B | $1.3B | $1.5B | $1.6B | $1.7B | $1.7B | ReceivablesReceiv. |
| $314M | $282M | $283M | $303M | $224M | $274M | $368M | $457M | $409M | $376M | $2.4B | Accounts payablePayables |
| $982M | $723M | $867M | $958M | $547M | $794M | $959M | $1.0B | $1.2B | $1.3B | ($151M) | Operating working capitalOper. WC |
| $3.6B | $2.0B | $2.0B | $2.1B | $4.2B | $2.9B | $2.9B | $2.6B | $3.3B | $3.0B | $2.8B | Current assetsCur. assets |
| $2.7B | $2.5B | $2.6B | $2.9B | $2.4B | $3.0B | $3.4B | $3.7B | $4.7B | $4.5B | $4.6B | Current liabilitiesCur. liab. |
| 1.3× | 0.8× | 0.8× | 0.7× | 1.7× | 1.0× | 0.9× | 0.7× | 0.7× | 0.7× | 0.6× | Current ratioCurr. ratio |
| $5.2B | $5.2B | $5.2B | $5.2B | $5.1B | $5.1B | $5.0B | $5.1B | $5.0B | $5.1B | $5.1B | GoodwillGoodwill |
| $26.2B | $14.2B | $14.0B | $15.0B | $16.8B | $15.4B | $15.5B | $15.4B | $16.5B | $16.8B | $16.4B | Total assetsAssets |
| $6.6B | $6.6B | $7.3B | $8.0B | $10.4B | $8.7B | $8.7B | $9.2B | $10.6B | $12.3B | $12.3B | Total debtDebt |
| $5.5B | $6.0B | $6.9B | $7.4B | $7.2B | $7.3B | $7.5B | $8.4B | $9.3B | $11.4B | $11.8B | Net debt / (cash)Net debt |
| 2.6× | 3.2× | 3.9× | 4.0× | -1.0× | 2.5× | 5.0× | 4.8× | 4.2× | 4.3× | 4.5× | Interest coverageInt. cov. |
| $5.9B | $1.7B | $551M | ($482M) | ($1.5B) | ($821M) | ($1.1B) | ($2.4B) | ($3.7B) | ($5.4B) | ($5.9B) | Shareholders’ equityEquity |
| 1.4% | 1.5% | 1.4% | 1.6% | 2.3% | 3.3% | 1.8% | 1.7% | 1.6% | 1.4% | 1.5% | Stock comp / revenueSBC/rev |
| Per share | |||||||||||
| 329M | 327M | 305M | 290M | 277M | 281M | 277M | 264M | 250M | 238M | 232M | Shares out (diluted)Shares |
| $19.99 | $24.87 | $29.20 | $32.59 | $15.55 | $20.60 | $31.67 | $38.77 | $44.70 | $50.58 | $52.94 | Revenue / shareRev/sh |
| $1.03 | $3.31 | $2.50 | $3.04 | $-2.58 | $1.46 | $4.53 | $4.32 | $6.14 | $6.12 | $6.65 | EPS (diluted)EPS |
| $3.02 | $2.42 | $3.88 | $4.49 | $2.39 | $0.26 | $5.93 | $6.80 | $7.67 | $8.52 | $9.50 | Owner earnings / shareOE/sh |
| $3.02 | $2.42 | $3.88 | $4.49 | $2.39 | $0.26 | $5.93 | $6.80 | $7.67 | $8.52 | $9.50 | Free cash flow / shareFCF/sh |
| $0.84 | $0.60 | $0.59 | $0.59 | $0.15 | $0.00 | $0.44 | $0.60 | $0.60 | $0.60 | $0.61 | Dividends / shareDiv/sh |
| $0.96 | $0.18 | $0.24 | $0.28 | $0.17 | $0.12 | $0.14 | $0.57 | $0.38 | $0.42 | $0.39 | Cap. spending / shareCapex/sh |
| $17.93 | $5.16 | $1.81 | $-1.66 | $-5.38 | $-2.92 | $-3.98 | $-8.94 | $-14.91 | $-22.64 | $-25.45 | Book value / shareBVPS |
Per-share growththe realized rate an owner's share compounded
| 9-yr | 5-yr | |
|---|---|---|
| Revenue / share | +10.9%/yr | +26.6%/yr |
| Owner earnings / share | +12.2%/yr | +29.0%/yr |
| EPS | +21.9%/yr | — |
| Dividends / share | −3.7%/yr | +31.7%/yr |
| Capital spending / share | −8.7%/yr | +20.6%/yr |
The record, charted
FY2016–2025Each measure over its full record; the current point and the worst year marked.
ROIC
31%low FY2020
Net debt ÷ owner earnings
5.6×peak FY2021
Owner earnings vs. net income
Owner earningsNet incomeThe accountant's number, and the cash an owner can take; the gap is the tell.
$2.0Bowner earningsvs.$1.5Bnet incomelow FY2021
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.
FY2016FY2025
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 $1.5B of profit into $2.0B 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 | FY2021 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Reported net income | $1.5B | $1.5B | $1.1B | $1.3B | $410M |
| Depreciation & amortizationnon-cash charge added back | +$177M | +$146M | +$147M | +$162M | +$188M |
| Stock-based compensationreal costnon-cash, but a real cost | +$170M | +$176M | +$169M | +$162M | +$193M |
| Working capital & othertiming of cash in and out, other non-cash items | +$325M | +$156M | +$489M | +$102M | −$682M |
| Cash from operations | $2.1B | $2.0B | $1.9B | $1.7B | $109M |
| Capital expenditurecash put back in to keep running and to grow | −$101M | −$96M | −$151M | −$39M | −$35M |
| Owner earnings | $2.0B | $1.9B | $1.8B | $1.6B | $74M |
| Owner-earnings marginowner earnings ÷ revenue | 17% | 17% | 18% | 19% | 1% |
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 $170M), owner earnings is nearer $1.9B.
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?
- AdequateOperating income $2.7B ÷ interest expense $620M
What this means
Comfortable in a normal year, but below the margin of safety Graham looked for. Worth checking how stable the coverage has been across a full cycle.
- How heavy is the debt, net of cash? $11.4B · 4.2× operating profitHeavy net debtCash $918M − debt $12.3B
What this means
Netting $918M of cash and short-term investments against $12.3B of debt leaves $11.4B owed, about 4.2× a year's operating profit (4.6× 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.
- Not enough data
What this means
The filing data didn't include the inputs for this check.
Is it a good business?
- High through the cycle8-yr median, range -6%–37%; 31% latest = NOPAT $1.9B ÷ invested capital $6.0BIndustry peers: median 9%
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 8 years (it ran 31% 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.
- High through the cycle10-yr median margin, range 1%–19%; latest $2.0B = operating cash $2.1B − maintenance capex $101MIndustry 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 17% of revenue this year, a 15% median across 10 years. Treating stock comp as the real expense it is (less $170M of SBC) leaves $1.9B.
- Cash-backedCash from ops $2.1B ÷ net income $1.5B
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?
- Returned more than it generatedDividends + buybacks $3.3B ÷ Owner Earnings $2.0B
What this means
The company returned more than it generated: against $2.0B of Owner Earnings, $3.3B (164%) went back to shareholders, $143M dividends, $3.2B buybacks — the excess came from the balance sheet or borrowing, not the year's operations. Net of $170M stock comp, the real buyback was about $3.0B. Sustained, that pattern draws down cash or adds debt; the net-debt line above shows where it stands.
- Investing or harvesting? 0.57×HarvestingCapex $101M ÷ depreciation $177M
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 6 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 · $12.0B
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× · 0.66×
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 MissDebt ≤ working capital · $12.3B vs ($1.5B) 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 NearA profit every year (10-yr record) · 1 loss year
What this means
Graham wanted earnings in each of the past ten years, the stability a defensive owner leans on.
- Dividend record NearUninterrupted dividends · 9 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 PassEarnings +33% over the record · +89%
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 $6.05/share (latest year $6.40), the averaged base the calculator's gate runs on, and book value is $-23.67/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, 2016–2025
Whether the record’s returns held, and what the capital reinvested earned.
- Profitable years 9 of 10
What this means
Lost money in 1 year(s), look at what happened there before trusting the average.
- Return on capital ≥ 15% 6 of 10 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 14% → 22% (3-yr avg ends)
What this means
Through the cycle the operating margin widened — about 14% early to 22% lately, median 17% — pricing power intact or improving.
- 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.
- Owner earnings growth +9%/yr
What this means
Owner earnings grew about 9% a year over the record.
- Worst year 2020 · −9.7% op. margin
What this means
Operations went underwater in 2020, understand why before trusting the good years.
- Share count −3.5%/yr
What this means
The share count is shrinking, buybacks are quietly growing your slice of the business.
- Dividend record paid
What this means
Paid a dividend in 9 of the years on record.
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 A competitive risk, new this year
Its FY2025 10-K names artificial intelligence as a competitive threat, in language that was not in the prior year's filing.
“Our competitors or other third parties may incorporate AI into their operations more quickly or successfully than us, or develop superior offerings with the aid of AI, which could impair our ability to compete effectively and adversely affect our results of operations.”
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 31, 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$2.8B
- Cash & short-term investments$564M
- Receivables$1.7B
- Inventory$541M
Current liabilities$4.6B
- Debt due within a year$11M
- Accounts payable$2.4B
- Other current liabilities$2.2B
Current ratio0.61×all current assets ÷ what's due · Graham looked for 2×
Quick ratio0.49×stricter: inventory excluded
Cash ratio0.12×strictest: cash alone against what's due
Working capital($1.8B)the cushion left after near-term bills
Its current ratio is below 1, which usually reads as strain; here it is likely structural strength. What it owes in the near term is money to suppliers and customers (payables and deferred revenue), not to lenders, so the balance sheet is funded by operating float, the way Costco's and Amazon's are. The low ratio can be the edge, not the risk; the cash-conversion cycle and the debt due above say which.
Debt due this year vs. cash$11M due · $564M 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+9.0%the freshest read on whether the business is still growing
Current ratio, recent quarters0.6× → 0.6×
Deeper floors
Tangible book value($11.4B)equity stripped of goodwill & intangibles
Net current asset value($19.5B)Graham's net-net: current assets less all liabilities
Debt incl. operating leases$831M$820M of it operating leases
Deferred revenue$2.5Bcustomer 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.
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$25Mthe first rung: what must be repaid or rolled over within the year
Within two years$644Mthe near wall, the part most exposed to today’s credit conditions
Biggest single year$4.1Bin 2030the lumpiest maturity, where a refinancing, if needed, is largest
Total scheduled principal$12.5Bevery year plus what lies beyond, as the footnote totals it
Against what the business has and earns
Cash & short-term investments, Mar 31, 2026$564M
One year of owner earnings (FY2025)$2.0B
Together, against $25M due next year103.7×
Cash on hand as of Mar 31, 2026 plus a year’s owner earnings comes to $2.6B against the $25M due in the twelve months after the Dec 31, 2025 schedule: 104 times it.
Maturity schedule extracted from the company’s Dec 31, 2025 annual report and reconciled to the balance-sheet debt.
How the cash was used, 2016–2025
Over the record, the business generated $13.4B of operating cash; how management split it reads as a cash returner, paying most of what it earns straight back to owners.
- Reinvested$996M · 7%
- Dividends$1.4B · 11%
- Buybacks$14.4B · 108%
- Returned to owners$15.9B
128% of the owner earnings the business produced over the span, $1.4B as dividends and $14.4B as buybacks.
- Source of funding−$3.5B
Reinvestment and shareholder returns ran $3.5B beyond the operating cash the business generated, so the gap was financed off the balance sheet: debt rose from $6.6B to $12.3B.
- Average price paid for buybacks—
Buybacks ran $14.4B over the span, but the filings don't tag the share count needed to deduce the average price paid.
- Net change in share count−29.5%
The diluted count fell from 329M to 232M, so the buybacks outran the stock issued to staff.
- Dividend record$0.60/sh
Paid in 9 of the years on record, the per-share dividend shrinking about 4% a year. It was cut at least once along the way.
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 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$5.5B33% 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$240Mover 10 years buying other businesses, against $996M of capital spent building
$104M written down across 1 year (2020): goodwill the company has already conceded it overpaid for, charged against earnings. That is roughly 43% of the cash it put into acquisitions over the span. 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” | Owner earnings |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2021 | Mr. Nassetta | $23.3M | $78.7M | $74M |
| 2022 | Mr. Nassetta | $23.5M | $8.4M | $1.6B |
| 2023 | Mr. Nassetta | $26.6M | $56.8M | $1.8B |
| 2024 | Mr. Nassetta | $28.0M | $58.8M | $1.9B |
| 2025 | Mr. Nassetta | $27.7M | $38.0M | $2.0B |
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 ownership<1%
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$170M
The slice of the business handed to employees in shares this year, 1% of revenue, equal to 6% 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 Hilton Worldwide Holdings Inc. 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 2016–2025.
None of the 6 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 debt outgrow the business?
- Did reported profit become cash?
- Did receivables and inventory outpace sales?
- 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.
What an owner would ask, FY2025
read the 10-K →- Which reported numbers are a judgment call?Management names Revenue recognition, Income taxes, Contingencies 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, Hotels & Resorts
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| MARMarriott International | $26.2B | — | 12.4% | 17% | 10% |
| HLTHilton Worldwide Holdings Inc. | $12.0B | — | 17.5% | 20% | 15% |
| HHyatt Hotels Corporation | $7.1B | — | 8.6% | 7% | 6% |
| HGVHilton Grand Vacations Inc. Common Stock | $4.5B | — | 12.8% | 5% | 7% |
| BALYBally's Corporation | $2.5B | — | 5.7% | 5% | 2% |
| CHHChoice Hotels International | $1.6B | — | 28.9% | 30% | 20% |
| WHWyndham Hotels & Resorts | $1.4B | — | 25.7% | 12% | 18% |
| Group median | — | — | 12.8% | 12% | 10% |
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 Hilton Worldwide Holdings Inc. has delivered.
$
Through the cycle, Hilton Worldwide Holdings Inc. earns about $1.8B on its 15.2% median owner-earnings margin. This year’s 16.8% 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.
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 · ’21→’25+23%/yr
Owner-earnings growth · ’16→’25+9%/yr
Owner-earnings growth · ’16→’25+9%/yr
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 $2.2B on 228M shares outstanding, per the 10-Q cover, as of 2026-04-23; net debt $11.8B. 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, "Hilton Worldwide Holdings Inc. (HLT), the owner's record," https://ownerscorecard.com/c/HLT, data as of 2026-07-09.
Manual order: ← HLNE its page in the Manual HLX →
Industry order: ← HGV the Hotels & Resorts chapter HTHT →