Owner Scorecard


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IEP, Icahn Enterprises L.P.

Refining & Marketing capital-intensive UnprofitableDistress / turnaround

We are a diversified holding company owning subsidiaries currently engaged in the following continuing operating businesses: Investment, Energy, Automotive, Food Packaging, Real Estate, Home Fashion and Pharma.

Latest annual: FY2025 10-K
IEP · Icahn Enterprises L.P.
I

The business

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

Revenue · FY2025
$9.7B
−3.6% YoY · 10% 5-yr CAGR
Vital signs · TTM, with 5-yr average
Revenue $10.0B 5-yr avg $11.2B
Operating margin −3.0% 5-yr avg −4.5%
ROIC −2%
Owner-earnings margin −1% 5-yr avg 7%
Free cash flow margin −1% 5-yr avg 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 led by Energy (74%) and Automotive (15%), with 4 more segments behind.
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. 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.
What moves the needle
Operating margin has reached 15% at its best but run negative through the cycle (median −5.7%) — so the question is which reading is truer: whether the median was pulled below zero by one-off charges, by the cycle, or by spending it is still growing into, and whether it settles back at a profit. Inventory runs near 13% of sales, so how fast it turns back into cash — and the risk of writing it down when demand softens — sits alongside the margin. Read this kind of business on the commodity price, and the cost to lift a barrel. On its own account, the filing leans hardest on customer concentration, 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 2%, above 15% in 1 of 3 years). Owner earnings, the cash-based check, have been thin too. This is price-taker territory, where the balance sheet and the cycle matter more than any multiple; 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 →

Energy is 74% of revenue, with Automotive the other meaningful segment at 15%.

Revenue by reportable segment, FY2025
  • Energy74%$7.2B
  • Automotive15%$1.4B
  • Food Packaging4%$362M
  • Real Estate3%$336M
  • Home Fashion2%$171M
  • Pharma1%$105M
  • Other1%$73M

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.

II

The record

Ten years of arithmetic, read across the cycle.

The record, 2016–2025

realized figures from each filing · older years to the left
2016’162017’172018’182019’192020’202021’212022’222023’232024’242025’25TTMTTMMar 2026
Income statement
$7.4B$12.6B$11.8B$9.0B$6.1B$11.3B$14.2B$10.9B$10.0B$9.7B$10.0BRevenueRevenue
14%10%12%15%19%11%9%8%8%9%8%SG&A / revenueSG&A/rev
($2.4B)$1.9B$223M($1.7B)($2.6B)($578M)$9M($922M)($567M)($345M)($303M)Operating incomeOp. inc.
−32.2%14.8%1.9%−19.3%−42.2%−5.1%0.1%−8.4%−5.7%−3.6%−3.0%Operating marginOp. mgn
($1.1B)$2.5B$1.5B($1.1B)($1.7B)($518M)($183M)($684M)($445M)($299M)($336M)Net incomeNet inc.
Cash flow & returns
$1.2B($1.3B)$923M($1.5B)($416M)$321M$1.1B$3.7B$832M($313M)$266MOperating cash flowOp. cash
$526M$518M$508M$519M$510M$517M$509M$518M$511M$603M$608MDepreciationDeprec.
$1.8B($4.3B)($1.1B)($881M)$727M$322M$729M$3.9B$766M($617M)($6M)Working capital & otherWC & other
$247M$316M$272M$250M$199M$305M$338M$303M$280M$341M$367MCapexCapex
3.3%2.5%2.3%2.8%3.3%2.7%2.4%2.8%2.8%3.5%3.7%Capex / revenueCapex/rev
$971M($1.7B)$651M($1.7B)($615M)$16M$717M$3.4B$552M($654M)($101M)Owner earningsOwner earn.
13.2%−13.2%5.5%−19.0%−10.0%0.1%5.1%31.4%5.5%−6.8%−1.0%Owner earnings marginOE mgn
$971M($1.7B)$651M($1.7B)($615M)$16M$717M$3.4B$552M($654M)($101M)Free cash flowFCF
13.2%−13.2%5.5%−19.0%−10.0%0.1%5.1%31.4%5.5%−6.8%−1.0%Free cash flow marginFCF mgn
$1.0B$249M$15M$39M$8M$20M$20M$2M$2MAcquisitionsAcquis.
$103M$81M$97M$112M$526M$526MDividends paidDiv. paid
-16%16%2%-2%ROICROIC
-52%48%23%-6%Return on equityROE
−57%46%21%−15%Retained to equityRetained/eq
Balance sheet
$1.8B$1.2B$2.7B$3.8B$1.7B$2.3B$2.3B$3.0B$2.6B$1.4B$1.3BCash & investmentsCash+inv
$1.6B$473M$474M$483M$501M$546M$606M$485M$479M$393M$481MReceivablesReceiv.
$3.0B$1.7B$1.8B$1.8B$1.6B$1.5B$1.5B$1.0B$897M$845M$927MInventoryInvent.
$4.6B$2.2B$2.3B$2.3B$2.1B$2.0B$2.1B$1.5B$1.4B$1.2B$1.4BOperating working capitalOper. WC
$1.1B$327M$247M$282M$294M$290M$288M$288M$288M$290M$290MGoodwillGoodwill
$33.4B$31.8B$23.5B$24.6B$25.0B$27.7B$27.9B$20.9B$16.3B$14.2B$12.9BTotal assetsAssets
$11.1B$7.4B$7.3B$8.2B$8.1B$7.7B$7.1B$7.2B$6.8B$6.6B$6.4BTotal debtDebt
$9.3B$6.2B$4.7B$4.4B$6.4B$5.4B$4.8B$4.3B$4.2B$5.2B$5.1BNet debt / (cash)Net debt
-3.4×2.8×0.4×-2.9×-3.8×-0.9×0.0×-1.7×-1.1×-0.7×-0.6×Interest coverageInt. cov.
$2.2B$5.1B$6.5B$5.7BShareholders’ equityEquity
$577M$87M$3M$3MGoodwill written downGW imp.
Per share
137M161M180M200M221M260M316M382M466M562M637MShares out (diluted)Shares
$53.86$78.38$65.43$44.97$27.71$43.61$44.92$28.62$21.50$17.19$15.69Revenue / shareRev/sh
$-8.23$15.24$8.23$-5.49$-7.48$-1.99$-0.58$-1.79$-0.95$-0.53$-0.53EPS (diluted)EPS
$7.09$-10.34$3.62$-8.55$-2.78$0.06$2.27$8.99$1.18$-1.16$-0.16Owner earnings / shareOE/sh
$7.09$-10.34$3.62$-8.55$-2.78$0.06$2.27$8.99$1.18$-1.16$-0.16Free cash flow / shareFCF/sh
$0.75$0.50$0.54$0.56$2.38$0.83Dividends / shareDiv/sh
$1.80$1.96$1.51$1.25$0.90$1.17$1.07$0.79$0.60$0.61$0.58Cap. spending / shareCapex/sh
$15.72$31.71$36.27$8.93Book value / shareBVPS
Per-share growththe realized rate an owner's share compounded
9-yr5-yr
Revenue / share−11.9%/yr−9.1%/yr
Dividends / share+33.4%/yr (4-yr)+33.4%/yr (4-yr)
Capital spending / share−11.4%/yr−7.6%/yr
Book value / share+51.9%/yr (2-yr)+51.9%/yr (2-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.

  • Revenue-3.6%
    “Net sales for the year ended December 31, 2025 decreased by $6 million (3%) compared to the comparable prior year period mostly due to lower demand from our retail business.”
    ✓ figure matches the filed record

The record, charted

FY2016–2025

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

Share count
562Mpeak FY2025
ROIC
2%low FY2016
Net debt ÷ owner earnings
7.6×peak FY2021

Owner earnings vs. net income

Owner earningsNet income

The accountant's number, and the cash an owner can take; the gap is the tell.

($654M)owner earningsvs.($299M)net incomelow FY2019

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.

FY2016FY2024

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 reported a $299M loss but ($654M) of owner earnings: $355M less than the profit line, taken out by capital spending and the timing of cash.

FY2025FY2024FY2023FY2022FY2021
Reported net income($299M)($445M)($684M)($183M)($518M)
Depreciation & amortizationnon-cash charge added back+$603M+$511M+$518M+$509M+$517M
Working capital & othertiming of cash in and out, other non-cash items−$617M+$766M+$3.9B+$729M+$322M
Cash from operations($313M)$832M$3.7B$1.1B$321M
Capital expenditurecash put back in to keep running and to grow−$341M−$280M−$303M−$338M−$305M
Owner earnings($654M)$552M$3.4B$717M$16M
Owner-earnings marginowner earnings ÷ revenue-7%6%31%5%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 .

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?

  • Does not cover its interest
    Operating income ($345M) ÷ interest expense $504M
    What this means

    A full year of operating profit didn't cover the interest bill. This is the zombie zone: the business depends on refinancing, asset sales, or forbearance to service its debt.

  • Net debt against an operating loss
    Cash $1.4B − debt $6.6B
    What this means

    Netting $1.4B of cash and short-term investments against $6.6B of debt leaves $5.2B 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.

  • Not enough data
    What this means

    The filing data didn't include the inputs for this check.

Is it a good business?

  • Below average through the cycle
    3-yr median, range -16%–16%; -2% latest = NOPAT ($273M) ÷ invested capital $11.7B
    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. The headline is the median of the last 3 years (it ran -2% 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.

  • Thin through the cycle
    10-yr median margin, range -19%–31%; latest ($654M) = operating cash ($313M) − maintenance capex $341M
    Industry peers: median 2%
    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 -7% of revenue this year, a 0% median across 10 years.

  • Loss, and burning cash
    Net income ($299M) · cash from operations ($313M)
    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 not.

How is the cash used?

  • No surplus to allocate
    What this means

    The business didn't generate positive Owner Earnings this year, so any distributions came from the balance sheet or borrowing, not from operations.

  • Investing or harvesting? 0.57×
    Harvesting
    Capex $341M ÷ depreciation $603M
    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 4 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 · $9.7B
    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
    Current ratio ≥ 2× ·
    What this means

    Current assets / liabilities not in the data yet.

  • Earnings stability Miss
    A profit every year (10-yr record) · 8 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 · 5 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 Miss
    Earnings +33% over the record · −151%
    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 $-0.71/share (latest year $-0.44), the averaged base the calculator's gate runs on, and book value is $9.72/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 2 of 10
    What this means

    Lost money in 8 year(s), look at what happened there before trusting the average.

  • Return on capital ≥ 15% 1 of 3 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 −5% → −6% (3-yr avg ends)
    What this means

    Through the cycle the operating margin held roughly steady — about −5% early, −6% lately, median −6%.

  • 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 2020 · −42.2% op. margin
    What this means

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

  • Dividend record rising
    What this means

    Paid and raised the dividend across the record, the continuity Graham prized.

Does AI threaten the moat?

Low contestability

The 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.

How the cash was used, 2016–2025

Over the record, the business generated $4.5B of operating cash; how management split it reads as a reinvestor, most operating cash is plowed back into the business.

  • Reinvested$2.9B · 63%
  • Dividends$919M · 20%
  • Retained (debt / cash)$778M · 17%
  • Returned to owners$919M

    54% of the owner earnings the business produced over the span, $919M as dividends and $0 as buybacks.

  • Source of fundingOperating cash

    Operating cash covered reinvestment and returns; over the span debt fell $4.7B and cash and short-term investments fell $534M.

  • Net change in share count365.0%

    The diluted count rose from 137M to 637M: issuance (stock pay, deals) outran any buybacks, so owners were diluted on net.

  • Dividend record$2.38/sh

    Paid in 5 of the years on record, the per-share dividend growing about 33% 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 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$639M4% of all assets; the premium carried on the balance sheet for businesses acquired
Against book equity4%goodwill is this share of book equity; the rest is the company’s own retained and paid-in capital
Cash spent acquiring$1.4Bover 10 years buying other businesses, against $2.9B of capital spent building

$667M written down across 3 years (2016, 2018, 2020): goodwill the company has already conceded it overpaid for, charged against earnings. That is roughly 49% 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.

Inverting the record

Invert: instead of why Icahn Enterprises L.P. 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.

2 of the 5 tests turned up something to look into; the other 3 came back clean.

  • Look hereDid the share count rise anyway?365.0%

    Diluted shares grew 365.0% over 2016–2025. 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.

  • Look hereAre "one-time" charges a yearly habit?7 of 10 years

    Management took an impairment or write-down in 7 of the last 10 years, $1.5B 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 debt outgrow the business?
  • Did receivables and inventory outpace sales?

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 →
  • How much of the revenue rides on one buyer?
    ≈$1.2B · 12% of revenue on the largest customers (TTM)
    “The refining business's top customer represented 12% and 13% of its net sales for the years ended December 31, 2025 and 2024, respectively, and its top two customers represented 27% of its net sales for the year ended December 31, 2023.”verify →
  • Which reported numbers are a judgment call?
    Management names Income taxes 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, Refining & Marketing

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.

CompanyRevenueGross marginOp. marginROICOwner earn. margin
PBFPBF Energy$29.3B4%2.4%9%2%
SUNSunoco LP Common$25.2B8%2.8%2%
SUNCSunocoCorp LLC Common$25.2B9%3.5%2%
HESHess Corporation$12.9B2.9%1%-5%
DKDelek US Holdings$10.7B4%1.9%7%2%
IEPIcahn Enterprises L.P.$9.7B-5.4%2%3%
CVICVR Energy Inc.$7.2B5%2.5%9%3%
CLMTCalumet Inc.$4.1B7%2.7%-5%
Group median2.6%7%2%
IV

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 Icahn Enterprises L.P. has delivered.

Icahn Enterprises L.P.’s latest year shows negative owner earnings, below the record’s own through-cycle owner earnings. So the tool opens on the through-cycle base, the cash it would earn at rest; clear the toggle below to read the latest year exactly as reported.

$

Through the cycle, Icahn Enterprises L.P. earns about $251M on its 2.6% median owner-earnings margin. This year’s −6.8% 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.

Implied by the price
Owner-earnings growth, delivered
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.

Owner earnings ($101M) on 672M shares outstanding, per the 10-Q cover, as of 2026-05-06; net debt $5.1B. The base opens on the through-cycle figure (the latest year sits off 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. The dials set the multiple a growth belief justifies; the price, and every dollar on this page, is yours.

Cite: Owner Scorecard, "Icahn Enterprises L.P. (IEP), the owner's record," https://ownerscorecard.com/c/IEP, data as of 2026-07-09.

Manual order: ← IE its page in the Manual IESC →

Industry order: ← HES the Refining & Marketing chapter MPC →