Owner Scorecard


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KLC, KinderCare Learning Companies Inc.

Education Services capital-intensive UnprofitableDistress / turnaround

KinderCare Learning Companies Inc. is a leading private provider of high-quality early education and child care services in the United States.

The market for center-based ECE services is highly fragmented according to Child Care Aware of America.

We are a leader in early childhood education and care across our three consumer-facing brands designed to address key parent demographics: KinderCare Learning Centers (" KCLC ") is a leading provider of community-based early child care and education in the United States.

Latest annual: FY2026 10-K
KLC · KinderCare Learning Companies Inc.
I

The business

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

Revenue · FY2026
$2.7B
+2.6% YoY · 8% 3-yr CAGR
Vital signs · TTM, with 4-yr average
Revenue $2.7B 4-yr avg $2.5B
Operating margin −12.5% 4-yr avg 7.8%
ROIC −21% 4-yr avg 6%
Owner-earnings margin 1% 4-yr avg 5%
Free cash flow margin 1% 4-yr avg 5%

The business in brief

read the 10-K →

What this business is and what moves its needle, from its own SEC filings.

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 run about 3.0% through the cycle, a thin margin, where volume, cost discipline and the price it gets all bear on the result. The operating margin has swung widely — from −0.7% to 18% over the years — so the through-cycle figure carries more than any single year, and the worst year more than the best. On its own account, the filing leans hardest on concentrated dependence, 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.

II

The record

Ten years of arithmetic, read across the cycle.

The record, 2022–2026

realized figures from each filing · older years to the left
2022’222023’232024’242026’26TTMTTMApr 2026
Income statement
$2.2B$2.5B$2.7B$2.7B$2.7BRevenueRevenue
11%11%16%11%11%SG&A / revenueSG&A/rev
$389M$275M$79M($20M)($341M)Operating incomeOp. inc.
18.0%11.0%3.0%−0.7%−12.5%Operating marginOp. mgn
$219M$103M($93M)($113M)($424M)Net incomeNet inc.
24%21%Effective tax rateTax rate
Cash flow & returns
$342M$304M$116M$239M$171MOperating cash flowOp. cash
$89M$109M$118M$124M$125MDepreciationDeprec.
$24M$79M($53M)$216M$459MWorking capital & otherWC & other
$139M$129M$132M$128M$135MCapexCapex
6.4%5.1%5.0%4.7%4.9%Capex / revenueCapex/rev
$202M$174M($16M)$110M$36MOwner earningsOwner earn.
9.3%7.0%−0.6%4.0%1.3%Owner earnings marginOE mgn
$202M$174M($16M)$110M$36MFree cash flowFCF
9.3%7.0%−0.6%4.0%1.3%Free cash flow marginFCF mgn
$158M$10M$11M$23M$18MAcquisitionsAcquis.
14%-1%-21%ROICROIC
54%20%-11%-15%-90%Return on equityROE
54%20%−11%−15%−90%Retained to equityRetained/eq
Balance sheet
$105M$156M$62M$133M$133MCash & investmentsCash+inv
$88M$104M$119M$107MReceivablesReceiv.
$51M$45M$49M$154MAccounts payablePayables
$37M$59M$70M($47M)Operating working capitalOper. WC
$283M$215M$358M$344MCurrent assetsCur. assets
$427M$413M$485M$468MCurrent liabilitiesCur. liab.
0.7×0.5×0.7×0.7×Current ratioCurr. ratio
$1.1B$1.1B$1.1B$965M$692MGoodwillGoodwill
$3.7B$3.6B$3.7B$3.4BTotal assetsAssets
$1.3B$926M$928M$927MTotal debtDebt
$1.1B$864M$794M$794MNet debt / (cash)Net debt
3.8×1.8×0.5×-0.2×-4.2×Interest coverageInt. cov.
$408M$507M$865M$755M$471MShareholders’ equityEquity
0.5%0.5%5.4%0.4%0.4%Stock comp / revenueSBC/rev
$178M$451MGoodwill written downGW imp.
Per share
93.5M90.4M96.3M118M118MShares out (diluted)Shares
$23.18$27.77$27.65$23.10$23.10Revenue / shareRev/sh
$2.35$1.13$-0.96$-0.95$-3.58EPS (diluted)EPS
$2.16$1.93$-0.17$0.93$0.31Owner earnings / shareOE/sh
$2.16$1.93$-0.17$0.93$0.31Free cash flow / shareFCF/sh
$1.49$1.43$1.37$1.08$1.14Cap. spending / shareCapex/sh
$4.36$5.61$8.98$6.38$3.98Book value / shareBVPS
Per-share growththe realized rate an owner's share compounded
4-yr5-yr
Revenue / share−0.1%/yr−0.1%/yr (4-yr)
Owner earnings / share−19.0%/yr−19.0%/yr (4-yr)
Capital spending / share−7.7%/yr−7.7%/yr (4-yr)
Book value / share+10.0%/yr+10.0%/yr (4-yr)

The record, charted

FY2022–2026

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

Share count
118Mpeak FY2026

Owner earnings vs. net income

Owner earningsNet income

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

$110Mowner earningsvs.($113M)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.

FY2022FY2026

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 2026 the business turned a $113M loss into $110M of owner earnings: more cash than the profit line showed, after the non-cash charges and the capital it put back in.

FY2026FY2024FY2023FY2022
Reported net income($113M)($93M)$103M$219M
Depreciation & amortizationnon-cash charge added back+$124M+$118M+$109M+$89M
Stock-based compensationreal costnon-cash, but a real cost+$12M+$144M+$13M+$10M
Working capital & othertiming of cash in and out, other non-cash items+$216M−$53M+$79M+$24M
Cash from operations$239M$116M$304M$342M
Capital expenditurecash put back in to keep running and to grow−$128M−$132M−$129M−$139M
Owner earnings$110M($16M)$174M$202M
Owner-earnings marginowner earnings ÷ revenue4%-1%7%9%

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 $12M), owner earnings is nearer $98M.

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

FY2026 10-K · source on SEC EDGAR →

Will it survive?

  • Does not cover its interest
    Operating income ($20M) ÷ interest expense $84M
    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 $133M − debt $928M
    What this means

    Netting $133M of cash and short-term investments against $928M of debt leaves $794M 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
    NOPAT ($16M) ÷ invested capital $1.5B (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 cycle
    4-yr median margin, range -1%–9%; latest $110M = operating cash $239M − maintenance capex $128M
    Industry peers: median 8%
    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 4% of revenue this year, a 4% median across 4 years. Treating stock comp as the real expense it is (less $12M of SBC) leaves $98M.

  • Loss, but cash-generative
    Net income ($113M) · cash from operations $239M

    In the filing’s words And the filing leans heavily on adjusted, non-GAAP earnings — steering you off the GAAP figure just where the cash is not backing it. Read the reconciliation in the notes before taking the adjusted number.

    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?

  • Returns about half
    Dividends + buybacks $73M ÷ Owner Earnings $110M
    What this means

    Of $110M Owner Earnings, $73M (66%) went back to shareholders, $0 dividends, $73M buybacks. Net of $12M stock comp, the real buyback was about $61M. 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? 1.03×
    Maintaining
    Capex $128M ÷ depreciation $124M
    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 Pass
    Revenue ≥ $2B · $2.7B
    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 Miss
    Current ratio ≥ 2× · 0.74×
    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 · $928M vs ($127M) 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 $-0.29/share (latest year $-0.95), the averaged base the calculator's gate runs on, and book value is $6.38/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, 2022–2026

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.

  • Return on capital ≥ 15% 0 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 14% → 1% (2-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 14% early to 1% lately, median 3% — 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 −29%/yr
    What this means

    Owner earnings shrank about 29% a year over the record.

  • Worst year 2026 · −0.7% op. margin
    What this means

    Operations went underwater in 2026, understand why before trusting the good years.

  • Share count +6.1%/yr
    What this means

    The share count is rising, dilution works against you on a per-share basis.

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 4, 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$344M
  • Cash & short-term investments$133M
  • Receivables$107M
  • Other current assets$104M
Current liabilities$468M
  • Debt due within a year$10M
  • Accounts payable$154M
  • Other current liabilities$304M
Current ratio0.73×all current assets ÷ what's due · Graham looked for 2×
Quick ratio0.73×stricter: inventory excluded
Cash ratio0.28×strictest: cash alone against what's due
Working capital($124M)the cushion left after near-term bills
Debt due this year vs. cash$10M due · $133M cash covered by cash on hand, no refinancing forced · both figures from the Apr 4, 2026 balance sheet
Revenue, latest quarter vs. a year ago+0.6%the freshest read on whether the business is still growing
Current ratio, recent quarters0.6× → 0.7×
Deeper floors
Tangible book value($640M)equity stripped of goodwill & intangibles
Net current asset value($2.6B)Graham's net-net: current assets less all liabilities
Debt incl. operating leases$2.5B$1.6B of it operating leases; with finance leases, “total fixed claims” below reaches $2.5B (annual-report basis)
Deferred revenue$50Mcustomer cash collected before delivery; operating float

From the company's latest filing.

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$286M
'27$298M
'28$278M
'29$258M
'30$239M
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$286Ma fixed cash payment, owed whether or not the business has a good year
Total lease payments$2.4Bevery year plus the tail, undiscounted: the full cash the leases will take
On the balance sheet$1.6Bthe present value of those payments, the recognised lease liability

True leverage: debt plus leases

On-balance-sheet debt$928M
Lease obligations (present value)$1.6B
Total fixed claims on the business$2.5B

Counting the leases the way Buffett does, the fixed claims on this business come to $2.5B, of which the leases are 63%, more than the debt itself. 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 Jan 3, 2026 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, 2022–2026

Over the record, the business generated $1000M of operating cash; how management split it reads as a reinvestor, most operating cash is plowed back into the business.

  • Reinvested$529M · 53%
  • Buybacks$73M · 7%
  • Retained (debt / cash)$398M · 40%
  • Returned to owners$73M

    15% of the owner earnings the business produced over the span, $0 as dividends and $73M as buybacks.

  • Average price paid for buybacks

    Buybacks ran $73M over the span, but the filings don't tag the share count needed to deduce the average price paid.

  • Net change in share count26.8%

    The diluted count rose from 93M to 118M: 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.

  • Return on what it retained−71%

    Of the earnings it kept rather than paid out ($43M over the span), annual owner earnings (first three years vs last three) fell $31M, so each retained $1 gave back about 0.71 of yearly owner earnings. Buffett's test, run on owner earnings instead of market value.

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 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$1.4B37% 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$202Mover 4 years buying other businesses, against $529M of capital spent building

$178M written down across 1 year (2026): goodwill the company has already conceded it overpaid for, charged against earnings. That is roughly 88% 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 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 yearChief executivePay, as filed“Actually paid”Owner earnings
2024Tom Wyatt$59.0M$48.0M($16M)
2024Tom Wyatt$21.4M$17.8M($16M)
2026Tom Wyatt$2.5M$1.6M$110M
2026Tom Wyatt$5.3M$2.7M$110M

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 ownership5.8%

    The stake all directors and executive officers hold together, per the 2026 proxy: skin in the game, the first thing Munger reads.

  • CEO pay ratio283:1

    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$12M

    The slice of the business handed to employees in shares this year, 0% 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 KinderCare Learning Companies 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 2022–2026.

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

  • Look hereIs it less profitable than it was?1.7% vs 8.1%

    The owner-earnings margin averaged 8.1% early in the record and 1.7% 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?26.8%

    Diluted shares grew 26.8% over 2022–2026, even as the company spent $73M on buybacks. The repurchases were outrun by issuance — to staff, in a raise, or in a deal — and the filing says which; owners' slice still shrank. Read the buyback line beside this one, not on its own.

  • Look hereAre "one-time" charges a yearly habit?4 of 4 years

    Management took an impairment or write-down in 4 of the last 4 years, $422M in all. A charge taken almost every year is not one-time; it is the business — past deals coming due, and an admission the assets were worth less than what was paid. Munger's rule: when the "one-time" keeps happening, it is the business. Read it beside the goodwill the company still carries.

And these came back clean
  • Did reported profit become cash?

Each test is read from the filings and is noisy alone; a flag can mark a cyclical trough or a year of heavy investment as easily as a problem. The filing says which.

What an owner would ask, FY2026

read the 10-K →
  • Which reported numbers are a judgment call?
    Management names Revenue recognition, Income taxes, Insurance reserves 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, nearest by economic model

No close industry peers in the catalog yet, so these are the nearest by economic model (capital-intensive), compared 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
ATKRAtkore$2.9B28%13.6%20%12%
ROADConstruction Partners$2.8B15%7.0%8%5%
AXONAxon Enterprise$2.8B61%3.3%3%11%
CPSCooper-Standard Holdings Inc.$2.7B12%3.2%7%1%
KLCKinderCare Learning Companies Inc.$2.7B7.0%-1%5%
NEUNewMarket Corp$2.7B29%15.5%20%11%
BDCBelden Inc$2.7B38%11.1%10%8%
OIIOceaneering International$2.6B12%2.6%5%4%
Group median7.0%8%7%
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 KinderCare Learning Companies Inc. has delivered.

$

Through the cycle, KinderCare Learning Companies Inc. earns about $150M on its 5.5% median owner-earnings margin. This year’s 4.0% 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 · ’22→’26−29%/yr
Owner-earnings yield
P/E (3-yr earnings ’23–’26)
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 $36M on 118M shares outstanding, per the 10-Q cover, as of 2026-05-11; net debt $794M. 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, "KinderCare Learning Companies Inc. (KLC), the owner's record," https://ownerscorecard.com/c/KLC, data as of 2026-07-09.

Manual order: ← KLAC its page in the Manual KLIC →

Industry order: ← GOTU the Education Services chapter LAUR →