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KRUS, Kura Sushi USA Inc.

Restaurants consumer brand Unprofitable

Kura Sushi USA, Inc. is a technology-enabled Japanese restaurant concept that provides guests with a distinctive dining experience by serving authentic Japanese cuisine through an engaging revolving sushi service model, which we refer to as the "Kura Experience."

Latest annual: FY2025 10-K

KRUS · Kura Sushi USA Inc.

The business

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

Revenue · FY2025

$283M

+18.9% YoY · 44% 5-yr CAGR

Vital signs · TTM, with 5-yr average

Revenue $319M 5-yr avg $183M

Operating margin −1.4% 5-yr avg −4.5%

ROIC −2% 5-yr avg −5%

Owner-earnings margin 4% 5-yr avg 1%

Free cash flow margin −8% 5-yr avg −13%

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.
What moves the needle: Operating margin has run around −1.7% through the cycle, the operating line deeply negative — so the lever is the path to a margin at all: revenue growth against the cost curve and the cash runway, not the level of a margin that isn't there yet. Capital spending runs about 19% of sales, well above depreciation, so the return earned on what it sinks into that plant weighs as much as the margin. Read this kind of business on same-store sales and unit economics. On its own account, the filing leans hardest on debt terms & refinancing, 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 0 of 8 years). By owner earnings: roughly 5% of revenue reaches owners as cash, though it swings. 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.

The record

Ten years of arithmetic, read across the cycle.

The record, 2018–2025

realized figures from each filing · older years to the left

2018’18	2019’19	2020’20	2021’21	2022’22	2023’23	2024’24	2025’25	TTMTTMMay 2026
									Income statement
$52M	$64M	$45M	$65M	$141M	$187M	$238M	$283M	$319M	RevenueRevenue
12%	12%	27%	24%	16%	15%	16%	13%	13%	SG&A / revenueSG&A/rev
$2M	$2M	($16M)	($10M)	($754K)	$332K	($12M)	($5M)	($4M)	Operating incomeOp. inc.
3.6%	2.6%	−36.5%	−15.4%	−0.5%	0.2%	−4.8%	−1.7%	−1.4%	Operating marginOp. mgn
$2M	$1M	($17M)	($10M)	($764K)	$2M	($9M)	($2M)	($2M)	Net incomeNet inc.
0%	4%	—	—	—	13%	—	—	—	Effective tax rateTax rate
									Cash flow & returns
$5M	$6M	($13M)	($7M)	$24M	$18M	$16M	$25M	$28M	Operating cash flowOp. cash
$2M	$2M	$3M	$5M	$6M	$8M	$12M	$14M	$17M	DepreciationDeprec.
$2M	$2M	$334K	($3M)	$16M	$5M	$8M	$8M	$8M	Working capital & otherWC & other
$7M	$11M	$14M	$14M	$27M	$39M	$44M	$46M	$53M	CapexCapex
13.7%	16.7%	31.9%	21.7%	19.0%	20.8%	18.6%	16.3%	16.5%	Capex / revenueCapex/rev
$4M	$4M	($16M)	($12M)	$18M	$10M	$4M	$11M	$11M	Owner earningsOwner earn.
6.9%	6.0%	−35.8%	−18.0%	12.8%	5.5%	1.6%	3.8%	3.5%	Owner earnings marginOE mgn
($2M)	($5M)	($27M)	($21M)	($3M)	($21M)	($29M)	($21M)	($25M)	Free cash flowFCF
−3.6%	−7.4%	−60.7%	−32.7%	−2.2%	−11.2%	−12.0%	−7.6%	−7.8%	Free cash flow marginFCF mgn
9%	7%	-36%	-16%	-1%	0%	-8%	-2%	-2%	ROICROIC
8%	2%	-38%	-11%	-1%	1%	-5%	-1%	-1%	Return on equityROE
8%	2%	−38%	−11%	−1%	1%	−5%	−1%	−1%	Retained to equityRetained/eq
									Balance sheet
—	$38M	$9M	$40M	$36M	$78M	$51M	$62M	$44M	Cash & investmentsCash+inv
—	$948K	$2M	—	—	—	—	—	$2M	ReceivablesReceiv.
—	$539K	$367K	$733K	$1M	$2M	$2M	$2M	$3M	InventoryInvent.
—	$4M	$5M	$5M	$6M	$7M	$9M	$12M	$12M	Accounts payablePayables
—	($2M)	($2M)	($4M)	($4M)	($6M)	($7M)	($9M)	($7M)	Operating working capitalOper. WC
—	$42M	$15M	$57M	$42M	$89M	$61M	$75M	$59M	Current assetsCur. assets
—	$8M	$14M	$20M	$25M	$29M	$34M	$43M	$47M	Current liabilitiesCur. liab.
—	5.0×	1.1×	2.9×	1.7×	3.1×	1.8×	1.8×	1.3×	Current ratioCurr. ratio
—	$76M	$118M	$178M	$201M	$305M	$329M	$431M	$472M	Total assetsAssets
—	($38M)	($9M)	($40M)	($36M)	($78M)	($51M)	($62M)	($44M)	Net debt / (cash)Net debt
14.6×	8.8×	-121.3×	-45.4×	-8.7×	4.8×	-244.8×	-68.0×	-70.0×	Interest coverageInt. cov.
$22M	$62M	$46M	$91M	$93M	$165M	$163M	$231M	$231M	Shareholders’ equityEquity
0.2%	0.9%	1.9%	2.2%	1.7%	1.9%	1.8%	1.7%	1.5%	Stock comp / revenueSBC/rev
									Per share
5.0M	5.5M	8.3M	8.5M	9.7M	10.6M	11.2M	11.9M	12.1M	Shares out (diluted)Shares
$10.25	$11.66	$5.42	$7.61	$14.52	$17.62	$21.23	$23.73	$26.29	Revenue / shareRev/sh
$0.34	$0.26	$-2.08	$-1.21	$-0.08	$0.14	$-0.79	$-0.16	$-0.17	EPS (diluted)EPS
$0.71	$0.69	$-1.94	$-1.37	$1.86	$0.96	$0.34	$0.90	$0.92	Owner earnings / shareOE/sh
$-0.37	$-0.86	$-3.29	$-2.49	$-0.32	$-1.97	$-2.56	$-1.80	$-2.06	Free cash flow / shareFCF/sh
$1.40	$1.95	$1.73	$1.65	$2.75	$3.67	$3.95	$3.87	$4.35	Cap. spending / shareCapex/sh
$4.26	$11.28	$5.48	$10.65	$9.60	$15.47	$14.51	$19.39	$19.04	Book value / shareBVPS

The diluted share count moved ×1.51 into 2020 — shares issued, not a split the totals corroborate — and the per-share figures carry the counts as filed.

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

	7-yr	5-yr
Revenue / share	+12.7%/yr	+34.4%/yr
Owner earnings / share	+3.4%/yr	—
Capital spending / share	+15.6%/yr	+17.5%/yr
Book value / share	+24.2%/yr	+28.7%/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+18.9%
“Sales were $282.8 million for fiscal year 2025 compared to $237.9 million for fiscal year 2024, representing an increase of $44.9 million, or 18.9%. The increase in sales was primarily driven by the sales resulting from 15 new restaurants opened during fiscal year 2025, as well as increases in menu prices during the same period.”
✓ figure matches the filed record

The record, charted

FY2018–2025

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

Share count

12Mpeak FY2025

ROIC

−2%low FY2020

Owner earnings vs. net income

Owner earningsNet income

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

$11Mowner earningsvs.($2M)net incomelow FY2020

Where the cash went

ReinvestBuybacksDividendsAcquisitionsRetained

Each year's operating cash, by what management did with it: the mix, and how it drifts.

FY2018FY2025

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 $11M of owner earnings, the operating cash left after the $14M it takes just to hold its position. It put $32M more into growth; free cash flow, after that spending, was ($21M).

	FY2025	FY2024	FY2023	FY2022	FY2021
Reported net income	($2M)	($9M)	$2M	($764K)	($10M)
Depreciation & amortizationnon-cash charge added back	+$14M	+$12M	+$8M	+$6M	+$5M
Stock-based compensationreal costnon-cash, but a real cost	+$5M	+$4M	+$4M	+$2M	+$1M
Working capital & othertiming of cash in and out, other non-cash items	+$8M	+$8M	+$5M	+$16M	−$3M
Cash from operations	$25M	$16M	$18M	$24M	($7M)
Maintenance capital expenditurethe spending needed just to hold position and volume	−$14M	−$12M	−$8M	−$6M	−$5M
Owner earnings	$11M	$4M	$10M	$18M	($12M)
Growth capital expenditurediscretionary; spent to get bigger, not to stand still	−$32M	−$32M	−$31M	−$21M	−$10M
Free cash flow	($21M)	($29M)	($21M)	($3M)	($21M)
Owner-earnings marginowner earnings ÷ revenue	4%	2%	5%	13%	-18%

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 $14M, roughly its depreciation, the rate its assets wear out). The other $32M 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 $5M), owner earnings is nearer $6M.

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? -68.0×

Does not cover its interest

Operating income ($5M) ÷ interest expense $70K

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.
How heavy is the debt, net of cash? +$62M

Net cash, debt-free

Cash $47M + ST investments $15M − debt $0

What this means
Cash and short-term investments exceed every dollar of debt by $62M, on net the company owes nothing, and can act from strength when others can't. 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? —

Not enough data

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

Is it a good business?

Return on invested capital —

Not enough data

Industry peers: median 5%

What this means
The filing data didn't include the inputs for this check.
Owner-earnings margin 4%

Thin, recently turned positive

latest $11M = operating cash $25M − maintenance capex $14M; positive each of the last 3 years, after an earlier loss stretch (8-yr median 4%)

Industry peers: median 6%

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 8 years. It chose to put $32M more into growth, so free cash flow this year was ($21M) — the gap is investment, not weakness. Treating stock comp as the real expense it is (less $5M of SBC) leaves $6M.
Are earnings backed by cash? $25M

Loss, but cash-generative

Net income ($2M) · cash from operations $25M

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?

Where do the earnings go? —

Not enough data

What this means
The filing data didn't include the inputs for this check.
Investing or harvesting? 3.29×

Expanding

Capex $46M ÷ depreciation $14M

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 · 0 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 Miss

Revenue ≥ $2B · $283M

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 Near

Current ratio ≥ 2× · 1.76×

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.
Earnings stability Miss

A profit every year (8-yr record) · 5 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 · none paid

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 —

Earnings +33% over the record · —

What this means
Earnings were negative early in the record, a growth rate isn't meaningful.
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 $-0.25/share (latest year $-0.16), the averaged base the calculator's gate runs on, and book value is $19.06/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, 2018–2025

Whether the record’s returns held, and what the capital reinvested earned.

Profitable years 3 of 8

What this means
Lost money in 5 year(s), look at what happened there before trusting the average.
Operating margin −10% → −2% (3-yr avg ends)

In the filing’s words The record and the words agree: the margin widened and the filing attributes the gain to its own pricing, not volume alone.

What this means
Through the cycle the operating margin widened — about −10% early to −2% lately, median −2% — pricing power intact or improving.
Owner earnings growth +10%/yr

What this means
Owner earnings grew about 10% a year over the record.
Worst year 2020 · −36.5% op. margin

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

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, May 31, 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$59M

Cash & short-term investments$44M
Receivables$2M
Inventory$3M
Other current assets$10M

Current liabilities$47M

Accounts payable$12M
Other current liabilities$35M

Current ratio1.26×all current assets ÷ what's due · Graham looked for 2×

Quick ratio1.20×stricter: inventory excluded

Cash ratio0.95×strictest: cash alone against what's due

Working capital$12Mthe cushion left after near-term bills

Revenue, latest quarter vs. a year ago+16.2%the freshest read on whether the business is still growing

Current ratio, recent quarters1.8× → 1.3×

Deeper floors

Tangible book value$231Mequity stripped of goodwill & intangibles

Net current asset value($182M)Graham's net-net: current assets less all liabilities

Debt incl. operating leases$208M$208M of it operating leases

From the company's latest filing.

How the cash was used, 2018–2025

Over the record, the business generated $73M of operating cash; how management split it reads as a reinvestor, most operating cash is plowed back into the business.

Reinvested$203M · 277%

Source of funding−$129M
Reinvestment and shareholder returns ran $129M beyond the operating cash the business generated, so the gap was financed off the balance sheet.
Net change in share count140.1%
The diluted count rose from 5M to 12M: issuance (stock pay, deals) outran any buybacks, so owners were diluted on net.
Dividend record—
No dividend line was reported in the filing data over the span; the record here neither confirms nor rules out a payout.

Buybacks are gross of stock issued to staff; the share-count line above is the net of that, the figure that decides whether owners gained. The average price paid blends a year of purchases (and any accelerated repurchase), so it is close, not exact. The record of where the cash went and on what terms.

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
2022	Hajime Uba	$650k	$1.1M	$18M
2023	Hajime Uba	$1.1M	$1.3M	$10M
2024	Hajime Uba	$931k	$611k	$4M
2025	Hajime Uba	$1.2M	$1.3M	$11M

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 ownership2.5%
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$5M
The slice of the business handed to employees in shares this year, 2% of revenue. Buffett's oldest accounting fight: this is compensation, compensation is an expense, real whether or not the headline earnings admit it. One trap: the cash-flow statement adds SBC back, so the operating cash, and the owner earnings drawn from it, are flattered by exactly this amount; counted as the cost it is, what an owner keeps is lower.

Inverting the record

Invert: instead of why Kura Sushi USA 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 2018–2025.

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

Look hereDid the share count rise anyway?140.1%
Diluted shares grew 140.1% over 2018–2025. Owners were diluted on net; each share owns less of the business than it did. Read the buyback line beside this one, not on its own.

And these came back clean

Is it less profitable than it was?
Are "one-time" charges a yearly habit?

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

Peers, 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
PTLOPortillo's Inc.	$732M	—	8.2%	7%	6%
WINGWingstop	$697M	80%	25.6%	48%	19%
SGSweetgreen Inc.	$679M	—	-30.2%	-43%	-16%
LOCOEl Pollo Loco Holdings Inc.	$490M	—	8.5%	8%	6%
BHBiglari Holdings Inc.	$395M	57%	5.8%	3%	16%
KRUSKura Sushi USA Inc.	$283M	—	-1.1%	-2%	5%
BRCBBlack Rock Coffee Bar Inc.	$200M	—	1.5%	1%	-3%
NATHNathan's Famous Inc.	$162M	43%	26.2%	—	14%
Group median	—	—	7.0%	3%	6%

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 Kura Sushi USA Inc. has delivered.

Kura Sushi USA Inc.’s latest year shows negative owner earnings, the mark of a build-out: total capital spending outruns the cash the business throws off today. So the tool opens on the steady-state base (maintenance capex in place of the build-out spend), the cash it would earn at rest; clear the toggle below to read the latest year exactly as reported.

Today’s price $

Through the cycle, Kura Sushi USA Inc. earns about $13M on its 4.6% median owner-earnings margin. This year’s 3.8% 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 Normalize · through-cycle ($13M) Net of stock comp (−$5M) Steady-state · maintenance capex ($14M)

—

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+23%/yr

Owner-earnings growth · ’18→’25+10%/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 ($25M) on 12M shares outstanding (a weighted basic average, the only count this filer tags); net cash $44M. The base opens on the steady-state figure (the latest year is negative on total capex mid-build-out); clear Steady-state to use the year as filed. Net of stock comp treats option pay as the expense it is. Capex ($53M) runs well above depreciation ($17M), so this is a build-out; Steady-state swaps total capex for maintenance (≈ depreciation), lifting the base to about $14M, 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 KRUS against another business →

The owners of KRUS: the meeting and the votes →

Cite: Owner Scorecard, "Kura Sushi USA Inc. (KRUS), the owner's record," https://ownerscorecard.com/c/KRUS, data as of 2026-07-09.

Manual order: ← KRT its page in the Manual KRYS →

Industry order: ← JACK the Restaurants chapter LOCO →