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JACK, Jack in the Box

Restaurants consumer brand Cyclical

Jack in the Box is a restaurant company that operates and franchises Jack in the Box , one of the nation's largest hamburger chains with 2,136 restaurants across 22 states, and Del Taco , one of the nation's largest Mexican-American quick service restaurants chains with 576 restaurants across 18 states.

In April, 2025, the Company announced a multi-faceted plan, which included exploring strategic alternatives for the Del Taco brand and the possible divestiture of that business.

Jack in the Box restaurants offer a broad selection of distinctive products including classic burgers like its Jumbo Jack and innovative product lines such as the Buttery Jack and Smash Jack burgers.

Latest annual: FY2025 10-K

JACK · Jack in the Box

The business

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

Revenue · FY2025

$1.5B

−6.7% YoY · 7% 5-yr CAGR

Vital signs · TTM, with 5-yr average

Revenue $1.4B 5-yr avg $1.5B

Gross margin 82%

Operating margin −3.8% 5-yr avg 12.6%

ROIC −9% 5-yr avg 18%

Owner-earnings margin 4% 5-yr avg 8%

Free cash flow margin 2% 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 Jack in the Box (79%) and Del Taco (21%).
Situation: Cyclical. Margins collapse and recover repeatedly across the record; a single year, good or bad, misstates the through-cycle earning power.
What moves the needle: Gross margin has run about 51% and operating margin about 17% 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 margin is cyclical, swinging between −1.2% and 27% over the years, so the through-cycle figure carries more than any single year — and the balance sheet at the trough more than the peak. The cash cycle has run negative through the cycle (a median of −24 days): the operation is paid before it pays, so working capital releases cash as the business grows rather than tying it up. Read this kind of business on same-store sales and unit economics. 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 in the teens (median 19%, above 15% in 8 of 10 years). Owner earnings agree: roughly 8% of revenue reaches owners as cash, consistently, and customers and suppliers fund the business through negative working capital. Returns like these are solid but short of clear franchise economics; whether they hold is what the 10-K settles, not the multiple.

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 →

Jack in the Box is 79% of revenue, with Del Taco the other meaningful segment at 21%.

Revenue by reportable segment, FY2025

Jack in the Box79%$1.2B
Del Taco21%$311M

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	TTMTTMApr 2026
											Income statement
$1.2B	$1.1B	$870M	$950M	$1.0B	$1.1B	$1.5B	$1.7B	$1.6B	$1.5B	$1.4B	RevenueRevenue
49%	51%	62%	74%	—	—	—	—	—	—	82%	Gross marginGross mgn
13%	11%	12%	8%	8%	7%	9%	10%	9%	10%	10%	SG&A / revenueSG&A/rev
$191M	$245M	$233M	$202M	$231M	$290M	$248M	$279M	$83M	($18M)	($55M)	Operating incomeOp. inc.
16.5%	22.4%	26.8%	21.3%	22.6%	25.4%	16.9%	16.5%	5.3%	−1.2%	−3.8%	Operating marginOp. mgn
$124M	$135M	$121M	$94M	$90M	$166M	$116M	$131M	($37M)	($81M)	$36M	Net incomeNet inc.
33%	36%	40%	20%	27%	25%	28%	31%	—	—	—	Effective tax rateTax rate
											Cash flow & returns
$104M	$134M	$104M	$168M	$144M	$201M	$163M	$215M	$69M	$162M	$118M	Operating cash flowOp. cash
$73M	$67M	$59M	$55M	$53M	$47M	$56M	$62M	$60M	$58M	$62M	DepreciationDeprec.
($104M)	($80M)	($86M)	$11M	($3M)	($15M)	($16M)	$11M	$32M	$177M	$9M	Working capital & otherWC & other
$43M	$39M	$38M	$48M	$20M	$41M	$46M	$60M	$91M	$88M	$83M	CapexCapex
3.7%	3.6%	4.4%	5.0%	1.9%	3.6%	3.2%	3.5%	5.8%	6.0%	5.8%	Capex / revenueCapex/rev
$61M	$95M	$66M	$121M	$124M	$160M	$116M	$155M	$9M	$104M	$56M	Owner earningsOwner earn.
5.3%	8.6%	7.6%	12.7%	12.1%	14.0%	7.9%	9.2%	0.6%	7.1%	3.9%	Owner earnings marginOE mgn
$61M	$95M	$66M	$121M	$124M	$160M	$116M	$155M	($22M)	$74M	$36M	Free cash flowFCF
5.3%	8.6%	7.6%	12.7%	12.1%	14.0%	7.9%	9.2%	−1.4%	5.1%	2.5%	Free cash flow marginFCF mgn
$20M	$2M	—	—	$0	$0	$581M	$0	$0	$7M	$7M	AcquisitionsAcquis.
$40M	$49M	$45M	$41M	$28M	$37M	$37M	$36M	$34M	$17M	$0	Dividends paidDiv. paid
$285M	$334M	$326M	$138M	$156M	$200M	$25M	$90M	$70M	$5M	—	BuybacksBuybacks
17%	19%	27%	28%	29%	48%	17%	19%	8%	-2%	-9%	ROICROIC
											Balance sheet
$73M	$60M	$57M	$45M	$78M	$74M	$104M	$100M	$84M	$90M	$120M	ReceivablesReceiv.
$8M	$3M	$2M	$2M	$2M	$2M	$5M	$4M	$4M	$4M	$2M	InventoryInvent.
$41M	$28M	$45M	$37M	$31M	$29M	$66M	$85M	$69M	$71M	$49M	Accounts payablePayables
$41M	$35M	$14M	$10M	$49M	$48M	$43M	$19M	$18M	$23M	$74M	Operating working capitalOper. WC
$155M	$139M	$95M	$227M	$336M	$169M	$283M	$326M	$181M	$220M	$227M	Current assetsCur. assets
$278M	$262M	$184M	$158M	$340M	$329M	$522M	$560M	$434M	$431M	$349M	Current liabilitiesCur. liab.
0.6×	0.5×	0.5×	1.4×	1.0×	0.5×	0.5×	0.6×	0.4×	0.5×	0.6×	Current ratioCurr. ratio
$166M	$51M	$47M	$47M	$47M	$48M	$367M	$330M	$161M	$136M	$136M	GoodwillGoodwill
$1.3B	$1.2B	$823M	$958M	$1.9B	$1.8B	$2.9B	$3.0B	$2.7B	$2.6B	$2.0B	Total assetsAssets
$995M	$1.2B	$1.1B	$1.3B	$1.4B	$1.3B	$1.8B	$1.7B	$1.7B	$1.7B	$1.6B	Total debtDebt
$995M	$1.2B	$1.1B	$1.3B	$1.4B	$1.3B	$1.8B	$1.7B	$1.7B	$1.7B	$1.6B	Net debt / (cash)Net debt
($217M)	($388M)	($592M)	($738M)	($793M)	($818M)	($736M)	($718M)	($852M)	($938M)	($922M)	Shareholders’ equityEquity
1.0%	1.0%	1.1%	0.8%	0.4%	0.4%	0.5%	0.7%	0.9%	0.6%	0.8%	Stock comp / revenueSBC/rev
—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	$163M	$32M	$32M	Goodwill written downGW imp.
											Per share
34.1M	30.9M	28.8M	26.1M	23.3M	22.5M	21.2M	20.8M	19.6M	19.1M	19.3M	Shares out (diluted)Shares
$34.04	$35.49	$30.19	$36.45	$43.90	$50.88	$69.10	$81.50	$80.28	$76.90	$74.26	Revenue / shareRev/sh
$3.63	$4.38	$4.21	$3.62	$3.86	$7.37	$5.45	$6.30	$-1.87	$-4.24	$1.85	EPS (diluted)EPS
$1.79	$3.06	$2.30	$4.63	$5.33	$7.12	$5.48	$7.47	$0.46	$5.46	$2.90	Owner earnings / shareOE/sh
$1.79	$3.06	$2.30	$4.63	$5.33	$7.12	$5.48	$7.47	$-1.14	$3.89	$1.84	Free cash flow / shareFCF/sh
$1.18	$1.58	$1.58	$1.58	$1.18	$1.66	$1.74	$1.73	$1.74	$0.87	$0.00	Dividends / shareDiv/sh
$1.27	$1.26	$1.31	$1.83	$0.84	$1.82	$2.19	$2.89	$4.66	$4.63	$4.30	Cap. spending / shareCapex/sh
$-6.36	$-12.56	$-20.54	$-28.29	$-34.10	$-36.39	$-34.65	$-34.59	$-43.52	$-49.24	$-47.81	Book value / shareBVPS

Per-share growththe realized rate an owner's share compounded

	9-yr	5-yr
Revenue / share	+9.5%/yr	+11.9%/yr
Owner earnings / share	+13.2%/yr	+0.5%/yr
Dividends / share	−3.3%/yr	−5.9%/yr
Capital spending / share	+15.5%/yr	+40.7%/yr

The record, charted

FY2016–2025

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

Share count

19Mpeak FY2016

ROIC

−2%low FY2025

Gross margin

74%low FY2016

Net debt ÷ owner earnings

16.1×peak FY2024

Owner earnings vs. net income

Owner earningsNet income

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

$104Mowner earningsvs.($81M)net incomelow FY2024

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.

FY2016FY2025

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 earned $104M of owner earnings, the operating cash left after the $58M it takes just to hold its position. It put $30M more into growth; free cash flow, after that spending, was $74M.

	FY2025	FY2024	FY2023	FY2022	FY2021
Reported net income	($81M)	($37M)	$131M	$116M	$166M
Depreciation & amortizationnon-cash charge added back	+$58M	+$60M	+$62M	+$56M	+$47M
Stock-based compensationreal costnon-cash, but a real cost	+$8M	+$13M	+$11M	+$7M	+$4M
Working capital & othertiming of cash in and out, other non-cash items	+$177M	+$32M	+$11M	−$16M	−$15M
Cash from operations	$162M	$69M	$215M	$163M	$201M
Maintenance capital expenditurethe spending needed just to hold position and volume	−$58M	−$60M	−$60M	−$46M	−$41M
Owner earnings	$104M	$9M	$155M	$116M	$160M
Growth capital expenditurediscretionary; spent to get bigger, not to stand still	−$30M	−$31M	—	—	—
Free cash flow	$74M	($22M)	$155M	$116M	$160M
Owner-earnings marginowner earnings ÷ revenue	7%	1%	9%	8%	14%

Owner earnings is the cash an owner could pull out without starving the business: operating cash less the maintenance capital it must spend to hold its position (here about $58M, roughly its depreciation, the rate its assets wear out). The other $30M of its capital spending is growth it chose, not upkeep it owed; charged only with the maintenance it must do, the business earns well more than the year's free cash flow shows. 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 $8M), owner earnings is nearer $96M.

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? —

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.
How heavy is the debt, net of cash? $1.7B

Net debt against an operating loss

Cash $18M − debt $1.7B

What this means
Netting $18M of cash and short-term investments against $1.7B of debt leaves $1.7B 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.
How long is cash tied up? -76d

Negative, funded by others

DSO 22 + DIO 6 − DPO 104 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 19%

High through the cycle

10-yr median, range -2%–48%; -2% latest = NOPAT ($14M) ÷ invested capital $718M

Industry peers: median 10%

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 10 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.
Owner-earnings margin 8%

Solid through the cycle

10-yr median margin, range 1%–14%; latest $104M = operating cash $162M − maintenance capex $58M

Industry 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 7% of revenue this year, a 8% median across 10 years. It chose to put $30M more into growth, so free cash flow this year was $74M — the gap is investment, not weakness. Treating stock comp as the real expense it is (less $8M of SBC) leaves $96M.
Are earnings backed by cash? $162M

Loss, but cash-generative

Net income ($81M) · cash from operations $162M

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?

Where do the earnings go? 21%

Reinvests most of it

Dividends + buybacks $22M ÷ Owner Earnings $104M

What this means
Of $104M Owner Earnings, $22M (21%) went back to shareholders, $17M dividends, $5M buybacks. But the buybacks barely exceed stock issued to employees ($8M SBC), net of dilution, little was truly returned. 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? 1.51×

Expanding

Capex $88M ÷ depreciation $58M

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 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 Near

Revenue ≥ $2B · $1.5B

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 Miss

Current ratio ≥ 2× · 0.51×

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 · $1.7B vs ($210M) 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 (10-yr record) · 2 loss years

What this means
Graham wanted earnings in each of the past ten years, the stability a defensive owner leans on.
Dividend record Pass

Uninterrupted dividends · paid every year (10)

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 · −96%

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 $0.23/share (latest year $-4.23), the averaged base the calculator's gate runs on, and book value is $-49.19/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 8 of 10

What this means
Lost money in 2 year(s), look at what happened there before trusting the average.
Return on capital ≥ 15% 8 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 22% → 7% (3-yr avg ends)

In the filing’s words The filing attributes gains to higher prices, but the margin in the record has not followed — the claim outruns the result here.

What this means
Through the cycle the operating margin slipped — about 22% early to 7% lately, median 17% — 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.
Owner earnings growth −4%/yr

What this means
Owner earnings shrank about 4% a year over the record.
Worst year 2025 · −1.2% op. margin

What this means
Operations went underwater in 2025, understand why before trusting the good years.
Share count −6.3%/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 10 of the years on record.

Does AI threaten the moat?

Moderate contestability

AI 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.

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, Apr 12, 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$227M

Cash & short-term investments$68M
Receivables$120M
Inventory$2M
Other current assets$36M

Current liabilities$349M

Debt due within a year$33M
Accounts payable$49M
Other current liabilities$267M

Current ratio0.65×all current assets ÷ what's due · Graham looked for 2×

Quick ratio0.64×stricter: inventory excluded

Cash ratio0.20×strictest: cash alone against what's due

Working capital($122M)the cushion left after near-term bills

Its current ratio is below 1, which usually reads as strain; here it is likely structural strength. This business collects from customers before it pays suppliers (a negative cash-conversion cycle), so the balance sheet is funded by that 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$33M due · $68M cash covered by cash on hand, no refinancing forced · both figures from the Apr 12, 2026 balance sheet

Revenue, latest quarter vs. a year ago−4.3%the freshest read on whether the business is still growing

Current ratio, recent quarters0.4× → 0.6×

Deeper floors

Tangible book value($1.1B)equity stripped of goodwill & intangibles

Debt incl. operating leases$2.7B$1.0B of it operating leases; with finance leases, “total fixed claims” below reaches $3.1B (annual-report basis)

Deferred revenue$12Mcustomer cash collected before delivery; operating float

From the company's latest filing.

Lease obligations

the lease note, SEC EDGAR →

Debt by another name. What the business owes on the property, aircraft, stores and equipment it rents rather than owns is a fixed claim due on a schedule; added back to the debt, it is the true leverage. That ladder, operating and finance leases together, and what it adds to the debt on the page above.

Operating leasesFinance leases

'26$239M

'27$240M

'28$198M

'29$160M

'30$152M

later$1.0B

Lease payments by year, scaled to the largest; “later” is everything beyond year five, shown apart. These are the contractual cash payments, before the interest the filing imputes back out to the balance-sheet liability.

Due in the next 12 months$239Ma fixed cash payment, owed whether or not the business has a good year

Total lease payments$2.0Bevery year plus the tail, undiscounted: the full cash the leases will take

On the balance sheet$1.4Bthe present value of those payments, the recognised lease liability

True leverage: debt plus leases

On-balance-sheet debt$1.7B

Lease obligations (present value)$1.4B

Total fixed claims on the business$3.1B

Counting the leases the way Buffett does, the fixed claims on this business come to $3.1B, of which the leases are 46%. The lease wall above and the debt schedule together are the calendar of what must be paid, and when.

Lease ladder read from the ASC 842 tags in the company’s Sep 28, 2025 annual report and reconciled: the yearly buckets sum to the undiscounted total, which less the imputed interest equals the balance-sheet liability; a ladder that doesn’t tie out is withheld.

How the cash was used, 2016–2025

Over the record, the business generated $1.5B of operating cash; how management split it reads as a cash returner, paying most of what it earns straight back to owners.

Reinvested$514M · 35%
Dividends$364M · 25%
Buybacks$1.6B · 111%

Returned to owners$2.0B
197% of the owner earnings the business produced over the span, $364M as dividends and $1.6B as buybacks.
Source of funding−$1.0B
Reinvestment and shareholder returns ran $1.0B beyond the operating cash the business generated, so the gap was financed off the balance sheet: debt rose from $995M to $1.6B.
Average price paid for buybacks$87.12
Across the years where the filing reports a share count, 17M shares were bought for $1.5B, about $87.12 each. Year to year the price paid ranged from $49.96 (2025) to $105.26 (2021); its heaviest year, 2017, paid $104.49 ($334M).
Net change in share count−43.5%
The diluted count fell from 34M to 19M, so the buybacks outran the stock issued to staff.
Dividend record$0.87/sh
Paid in 10 of the years on record, the per-share dividend shrinking about 3% 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$146M6% 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$610Mover 10 years buying other businesses, against $514M of capital spent building

$194M written down across 2 years (2024, 2025): goodwill the company has already conceded it overpaid for, charged against earnings. That is roughly 32% 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. Harris	$4.7M	$5.2M	$160M
2022	Mr. Harris	$4.6M	$3.6M	$116M
2023	Mr. Harris	$5.3M	$5.9M	$155M
2024	Mr. Harris	$5.3M	$2.6M	$9M

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 ownership1.4%
The stake all directors and executive officers hold together, per the 2025 proxy: skin in the game, the first thing Munger reads.
Stock-based compensation$8M
The slice of the business handed to employees in shares this year, 1% 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 Jack in the Box 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 6 tests turned up something to look into; the other 4 came back clean.

Look hereDid debt outgrow the business?$995M → $1.6B
Debt rose from $995M to $1.6B while owner earnings went from about $74M to $89M — about 13 years of owner earnings in debt then, about 18 now: measured against what the business earns, the balance sheet carries more debt than it did. Debt raised for buybacks or deals rather than growth is the kind that bites in a downturn.
Look hereAre "one-time" charges a yearly habit?5 of 10 years
Management took an impairment or write-down in 5 of the last 10 years, $217M 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?
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.

Peers, Restaurants

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
PLAYDave & Buster's Entertainment Inc.	$2.1B	83%	13.0%	15%	13%
PZZAPapa John's International Inc.	$2.1B	—	6.0%	37%	4%
JACKJack in the Box	$1.5B	56%	19.1%	19%	8%
BJRIBJ's Restaurants Inc.	$1.4B	74%	2.2%	6%	3%
FWRGFirst Watch Restaurant Group Inc.	$1.2B	—	2.3%	2%	4%
CAVACAVA Group	$1.2B	—	0.6%	10%	7%
DINDine Brands Global Inc.	$879M	63%	17.1%	9%	12%
WINGWingstop	$697M	80%	25.6%	48%	19%
Group median	—	74%	9.5%	12%	8%

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 Jack in the Box has delivered.

Today’s price $

Through the cycle, Jack in the Box earns about $121M on its 8.3% median owner-earnings margin. This year’s 7.1% margin runs in line with that. Normalize, below, values the price on that through-cycle figure rather than the latest year.

Base Normalize · through-cycle ($121M) Net of stock comp (−$11M) Steady-state · maintenance capex ($60M)

—

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→’25−20%/yr

Owner-earnings growth · ’16→’25−12%/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 $36M on 19M shares outstanding, per the 10-Q cover, as of 2026-05-06; net debt $1.6B. 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. Capex ($83M) runs well above depreciation ($62M), so this is a build-out; Steady-state swaps total capex for maintenance (≈ depreciation), lifting the base to about $60M, 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 JACK against another business →

The owners of JACK: the meeting and the votes →

Cite: Owner Scorecard, "Jack in the Box (JACK), the owner's record," https://ownerscorecard.com/c/JACK, data as of 2026-07-09.

Manual order: ← J its page in the Manual JANX →

Industry order: ← HDL the Restaurants chapter KRUS →