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MAR, Marriott International

Marriott rents out its name. It franchises, manages, and licenses hotels — along with residences and timeshares — under a stable of brands that run from budget to luxury, but it owns or leases almost none of the buildings itself. The real estate and the capital belong to third-party owners; Marriott collects fees for the brand, the reservation system, and the loyalty program, plus reimbursements for costs it lays out on those owners' behalf.

Consistent with our focus on franchising, management, and licensing, we own or lease very few of our lodging properties (less than one percent of our system).

We discuss our operations in the following reportable business segments: (1) U.S. & Canada, (2) Europe, Middle East & Africa ("EMEA"), (3) Greater China, and (4) Asia Pacific excluding China ("APEC").

Latest annual: FY2025 10-K

MAR · Marriott International

The business

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

Revenue · FY2025

$26.2B

+4.3% YoY · 20% 5-yr CAGR

Vital signs · TTM, with 5-yr average

Revenue $26.6B 5-yr avg $21.9B

Operating margin 16.0% 5-yr avg 15.3%

ROIC 26% 5-yr avg 25%

Owner-earnings margin 12% 5-yr avg 11%

Free cash flow margin 11% 5-yr avg 9%

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 Reimbursements (73%), Fee Service (20%) and Owned, Leased and Other (6%).
What moves the needle: The test is whether the brand is a franchise or a bed is just a bed: do the brands and the loyalty program let Marriott charge owners a fee they keep paying, and fill rooms at a premium over a no-name hotel down the road? Because almost no capital sits in the buildings, returns can look high — but the whole model rests on attracting and holding the owners who supply the real estate, and the filing names that dependence plainly. Lodging is also cyclical and the balance sheet carries net debt: when travel stops, fees fall with occupancy and room rates while the interest does not. See the record below for the margins, returns, and leverage.
Is it a good business?: Return on capital has run in the teens (median 17%, above 15% in 6 of 9 years). Owner earnings agree: roughly 10% of revenue reaches owners as cash, consistently. Returns like these are solid but short of clear franchise economics; whether they hold is what the 10-K settles, not the multiple.

Drafted from the company's filings and reviewed by hand; every number is shown in full in the sections below.

Where the money comes from

read the 10-K →

Reimbursements is 73% of revenue, with Fee Service the other meaningful line at 20%.

Revenue by product line, FY2025

Reimbursements73%$19.2B
Fee Service20%$5.3B
Owned, Leased and Other6%$1.7B

From the segment footnote of the company's own 10-K. Shares are of total revenue; the profit bar shows each segment's share of segment operating profit, before unallocated corporate costs.

The record

Ten years of arithmetic, read across the cycle.

The record, 2016–2025

realized figures from each filing · older years to the left

2016’16	2017’17	2018’18	2019’19	2020’20	2021’21	2022’22	2023’23	2024’24	2025’25	TTMTTMMar 2026
											Income statement
$15.4B	$20.5B	$20.8B	$21.0B	$10.6B	$13.9B	$20.8B	$23.7B	$25.1B	$26.2B	$26.6B	RevenueRevenue
5%	5%	4%	4%	7%	6%	4%	4%	4%	3%	3%	SG&A / revenueSG&A/rev
$1.4B	$2.5B	$2.4B	$1.8B	$84M	$1.8B	$3.5B	$3.9B	$3.8B	$4.1B	$4.3B	Operating incomeOp. inc.
9.2%	12.2%	11.4%	8.6%	0.8%	12.6%	16.7%	16.3%	15.0%	15.8%	16.0%	Operating marginOp. mgn
$808M	$1.5B	$1.9B	$1.3B	($267M)	$1.1B	$2.4B	$3.1B	$2.4B	$2.6B	$2.6B	Net incomeNet inc.
35%	51%	19%	20%	—	7%	24%	9%	25%	23%	26%	Effective tax rateTax rate
											Cash flow & returns
$1.6B	$2.2B	$2.4B	$1.7B	$1.6B	$1.2B	$2.4B	$3.2B	$2.7B	$3.2B	$3.4B	Operating cash flowOp. cash
$157M	$231M	$256M	$346M	$322M	$138M	$114M	$122M	$128M	$145M	$145M	DepreciationDeprec.
$442M	$356M	$10M	($121M)	$1.4B	($242M)	($301M)	($240M)	$9M	$230M	$453M	Working capital & otherWC & other
$199M	$240M	$556M	$653M	$135M	$183M	$332M	$452M	$750M	$604M	$599M	CapexCapex
1.3%	1.2%	2.7%	3.1%	1.3%	1.3%	1.6%	1.9%	3.0%	2.3%	2.3%	Capex / revenueCapex/rev
$1.5B	$2.0B	$2.1B	$1.3B	$1.5B	$1.0B	$2.2B	$3.0B	$2.6B	$3.1B	$3.3B	Owner earningsOwner earn.
9.5%	9.7%	10.1%	6.4%	14.2%	7.5%	10.8%	12.9%	10.4%	11.7%	12.3%	Owner earnings marginOE mgn
$1.4B	$2.0B	$1.8B	$1.0B	$1.5B	$994M	$2.0B	$2.7B	$2.0B	$2.6B	$2.8B	Free cash flowFCF
9.2%	9.7%	8.7%	4.9%	14.2%	7.2%	9.8%	11.5%	8.0%	10.0%	10.6%	Free cash flow marginFCF mgn
$2.4B	$0	$0	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	$0	AcquisitionsAcquis.
$374M	$482M	$543M	$612M	$156M	$0	$321M	$587M	$682M	$718M	$722M	Dividends paidDiv. paid
$568M	$3.0B	$2.9B	$2.3B	$150M	$0	$2.6B	$4.0B	$3.8B	$3.3B	—	BuybacksBuybacks
7%	11%	17%	13%	—	16%	26%	32%	26%	26%	26%	ROICROIC
16%	41%	86%	181%	-62%	78%	415%	—	—	—	—	Return on equityROE
8%	27%	61%	94%	−98%	78%	359%	—	—	—	—	Retained to equityRetained/eq
											Balance sheet
$858M	$383M	$316M	$225M	$877M	$1.4B	$507M	$338M	$396M	$358M	$454M	Cash & investmentsCash+inv
$687M	$783M	$767M	$720M	$527M	$726M	$746M	$738M	$763M	$814M	$763M	Accounts payablePayables
$3.4B	$2.7B	$2.7B	$3.1B	$2.8B	$3.6B	$3.3B	$3.3B	$3.5B	$3.6B	$3.9B	Current assetsCur. assets
$5.1B	$5.8B	$6.4B	$6.7B	$5.8B	$6.4B	$7.3B	$7.8B	$8.6B	$8.4B	$8.5B	Current liabilitiesCur. liab.
0.7×	0.5×	0.4×	0.5×	0.5×	0.6×	0.5×	0.4×	0.4×	0.4×	0.5×	Current ratioCurr. ratio
$7.6B	$9.2B	$9.0B	$9.0B	$9.2B	$9.1B	$8.9B	$8.9B	$8.7B	$8.9B	$8.9B	GoodwillGoodwill
$24.1B	$23.8B	$23.7B	$25.1B	$24.7B	$25.6B	$24.8B	$25.7B	$26.2B	$27.5B	$27.9B	Total assetsAssets
$8.5B	$8.2B	$9.3B	$10.9B	$10.4B	$10.1B	$10.1B	$11.9B	$14.4B	$16.2B	$16.5B	Total debtDebt
$7.6B	$7.9B	$9.0B	$10.7B	$9.5B	$8.7B	$9.6B	$11.5B	$14.1B	$15.8B	$16.1B	Net debt / (cash)Net debt
6.1×	8.7×	7.0×	4.6×	0.2×	4.2×	8.6×	6.8×	5.4×	5.1×	5.1×	Interest coverageInt. cov.
$5.1B	$3.6B	$2.2B	$703M	$430M	$1.4B	$568M	($682M)	($3.0B)	($3.8B)	($4.1B)	Shareholders’ equityEquity
1.4%	0.9%	0.9%	0.9%	1.9%	1.3%	0.9%	0.9%	0.9%	0.9%	0.9%	Stock comp / revenueSBC/rev
											Per share
296M	380M	354M	336M	326M	329M	326M	303M	285M	274M	267M	Shares out (diluted)Shares
$52.10	$53.84	$58.61	$62.51	$32.45	$42.08	$63.76	$78.29	$88.01	$95.71	$99.61	Revenue / shareRev/sh
$2.73	$3.84	$5.38	$3.79	$-0.82	$3.34	$7.24	$10.18	$8.33	$9.51	$9.69	EPS (diluted)EPS
$4.94	$5.23	$5.93	$3.99	$4.62	$3.16	$6.90	$10.06	$9.19	$11.21	$12.29	Owner earnings / shareOE/sh
$4.80	$5.23	$5.08	$3.08	$4.62	$3.02	$6.23	$8.97	$7.01	$9.53	$10.58	Free cash flow / shareFCF/sh
$1.26	$1.27	$1.53	$1.82	$0.48	$0.00	$0.99	$1.94	$2.39	$2.62	$2.71	Dividends / shareDiv/sh
$0.67	$0.63	$1.57	$1.95	$0.41	$0.56	$1.02	$1.49	$2.63	$2.21	$2.25	Cap. spending / shareCapex/sh
$17.32	$9.43	$6.28	$2.10	$1.32	$4.29	$1.74	$-2.25	$-10.49	$-13.78	$-15.34	Book value / shareBVPS

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

	9-yr	5-yr
Revenue / share	+7.0%/yr	+24.2%/yr
Owner earnings / share	+9.5%/yr	+19.4%/yr
EPS	+14.9%/yr	—
Dividends / share	+8.4%/yr	+40.5%/yr
Capital spending / share	+14.1%/yr	+39.7%/yr

The record, charted

FY2016–2025

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

Share count

274Mpeak FY2017

ROIC

26%low FY2016

Net debt ÷ owner earnings

5.2×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.

$3.1Bowner earningsvs.$2.6Bnet incomelow FY2021

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 $3.1B of owner earnings, the operating cash left after the $145M it takes just to hold its position. It put $459M more into growth; free cash flow, after that spending, was $2.6B.

Reported net income$2.6B

Owner earnings$3.1B · 12% of revenue

	FY2025	FY2024	FY2023	FY2022	FY2021
Reported net income	$2.6B	$2.4B	$3.1B	$2.4B	$1.1B
Depreciation & amortizationnon-cash charge added back	+$145M	+$128M	+$122M	+$114M	+$138M
Stock-based compensationreal costnon-cash, but a real cost	+$236M	+$237M	+$205M	+$192M	+$182M
Working capital & othertiming of cash in and out, other non-cash items	+$230M	+$9M	−$240M	−$301M	−$242M
Cash from operations	$3.2B	$2.7B	$3.2B	$2.4B	$1.2B
Maintenance capital expenditurethe spending needed just to hold position and volume	−$145M	−$128M	−$122M	−$114M	−$138M
Owner earnings	$3.1B	$2.6B	$3.0B	$2.2B	$1.0B
Growth capital expenditurediscretionary; spent to get bigger, not to stand still	−$459M	−$622M	−$330M	−$218M	−$45M
Free cash flow	$2.6B	$2.0B	$2.7B	$2.0B	$994M
Owner-earnings marginowner earnings ÷ revenue	12%	10%	13%	11%	7%

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 $145M, roughly its depreciation, the rate its assets wear out). The other $459M 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 $236M), owner earnings is nearer $2.8B.

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? 5.1×

Comfortable

Operating income $4.1B ÷ interest expense $809M

What this means
Operating profit covers interest with the kind of margin Graham wanted for a defensive holding. Necessary, not sufficient, it says solvent, not cheap.
How heavy is the debt, net of cash? $15.8B · 3.8× operating profit

Meaningful net debt

Cash $358M − debt $16.2B

What this means
Netting $358M of cash and short-term investments against $16.2B of debt leaves $15.8B owed, about 3.8× a year's operating profit (3.9× on the gross debt, before the cash). Net debt is the leverage figure that matters: the cash is already set against the debt. Strategic or illiquid investments aren't counted here.
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 17%

High through the cycle

9-yr median, range 7%–32%; 26% latest = NOPAT $3.2B ÷ invested capital $12.1B

Industry peers: median 9%

What this means
The rate the business earns on the money tied up in it, Buffett's north star, because over time a stock tracks the ROIC beneath it. Above ~15% sustained hints at a moat; a return below the cost of capital (~8%) erodes value as a business grows rather than building it — the test Buffett weighs most. The headline is the median of the last 9 years (it ran 26% 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 10%

Solid through the cycle

10-yr median margin, range 6%–14%; latest $3.1B = operating cash $3.2B − maintenance capex $145M

Industry peers: median 11%

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 12% of revenue this year, a 10% median across 10 years. It chose to put $459M more into growth, so free cash flow this year was $2.6B — the gap is investment, not weakness. Treating stock comp as the real expense it is (less $236M of SBC) leaves $2.8B.
Are earnings backed by cash? 1.23×

Cash-backed

Cash from ops $3.2B ÷ net income $2.6B

What this means
How much of reported profit showed up as operating cash. Above 1× is reassuring; well below suggests earnings lean on accruals. One year is noisy, growth and working-capital swings distort it, and this is operating cash, not free cash. Watch the multi-year trend.

How is the cash used?

Where do the earnings go? 131%

Returned more than it generated

Dividends + buybacks $4.0B ÷ Owner Earnings $3.1B

What this means
The company returned more than it generated: against $3.1B of Owner Earnings, $4.0B (131%) went back to shareholders, $718M dividends, $3.3B buybacks — the excess came from the balance sheet or borrowing, not the year's operations. Net of $236M stock comp, the real buyback was about $3.1B. Sustained, that pattern draws down cash or adds debt; the net-debt line above shows where it stands.
Investing or harvesting? 4.17×

Expanding

Capex $604M ÷ depreciation $145M

What this means
Descriptive, not a grade. Above ~1× means investing faster than assets wear out (growth, or, sustained for years, today's earnings carrying less depreciation than tomorrow's will). Below means spending less than it's wearing out (efficiency, or a melting asset base). The ratio won't tell you which; the filings will.

Graham’s defensive tests · 2 of 6 met

Graham’s numerical criteria for the defensive investor (The Intelligent Investor, ch. 14), run on the filings. A floor of safety, not a buy signal; many fine modern businesses fail his strictest liquidity rules by design.

Adequate size Pass

Revenue ≥ $2B · $26.2B

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× · 0.43×

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 · $16.2B vs ($4.8B) 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 Near

A profit every year (10-yr record) · 1 loss year

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

Uninterrupted dividends · 9 of 10 yrs

What this means
An unbroken dividend was Graham's mark of durability. He wanted twenty years; the filings show about ten, and a single suspension breaks the streak. Non-payers, many fine modern compounders, fall outside his defensive net by design.
Earnings growth Pass

Earnings +33% over the record · +93%

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 $10.19/share (latest year $9.86), the averaged base the calculator's gate runs on, and book value is $-14.30/share. Enter a price in “What the price implies” just below for the P/E, P/B, and whether it clears. But this is the rule Buffett outgrew: there's no hard P/E law, and a wonderful business can deserve a far richer multiple if the thesis holds, treat it as the bargain-hunter's floor, not a verdict on the price.

Durability & moat, 2016–2025

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

Profitable years 9 of 10

What this means
Lost money in 1 year(s), look at what happened there before trusting the average.
Return on capital ≥ 15% 6 of 10 yrs

What this means
A moat shows up as a high return on invested capital that holds year after year, not one good vintage.
Operating margin 11% → 16% (3-yr avg ends)

What this means
Through the cycle the operating margin widened — about 11% early to 16% lately, median 12% — pricing power intact or improving.
Reinvestment, incremental ROIC returns capital

What this means
The capital base barely grew: this business returns cash through dividends and buybacks rather than reinvesting. Judge it on the cash returned, not on compounding.
Owner earnings growth +6%/yr

What this means
Owner earnings grew about 6% a year over the record.
Worst year 2020 · 0.8% op. margin

What this means
Stayed profitable even in its hardest year, the resilience that survives recessions.
Share count −0.9%/yr

What this means
The share count is shrinking, buybacks are quietly growing your slice of the business.
Dividend record rising

What this means
Paid and raised the dividend across the record, the continuity Graham prized.
How management talks about it Owner’s terms

What this means
The record and the register agree: capital is compounding and the filing reasons in an owner’s terms — per-share value, return on capital, the long term — not a promoter’s.

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.

In its own filing A competitive risk, new this year

Its FY2025 10-K names artificial intelligence as a competitive threat, in language that was not in the prior year's filing.

“In addition, the introduction of AI capabilities by existing and emerging travel intermediaries may change the way guests plan, book, and pay for travel, which may disrupt how our products and services are marketed and distributed, potentially eroding brand loyalty, increasing distribution costs, and negatively affecti…”

The question is whether a moat the record shows as durable outlasts a technology that lowers the cost of part of what the firm sells. The durability is read in the record above, the filing's own framing of AI beside it; the industry label decides nothing on its own.

Read from the filing's own risk factors, paired with the industry's structure under its SIC code; the durability is read above, the price below.

All figures as filed; the source filing is linked above.

Current Position

as of the latest quarter, Mar 31, 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$3.9B

Cash & short-term investments$454M
Inventory$11M
Other current assets$3.4B

Current liabilities$8.5B

Debt due within a year$755M
Accounts payable$763M
Other current liabilities$7.0B

Current ratio0.46×all current assets ÷ what's due · Graham looked for 2×

Quick ratio0.46×stricter: inventory excluded

Cash ratio0.05×strictest: cash alone against what's due

Working capital($4.6B)the cushion left after near-term bills

Debt due this year vs. cash$755M due · $454M cash cash alone won't cover the maturities; it leans on refinancing or operating cash · both figures from the Mar 31, 2026 balance sheet

Revenue, latest quarter vs. a year ago+6.2%the freshest read on whether the business is still growing

Current ratio, recent quarters0.4× → 0.5×

Deeper floors

Tangible book value($23.3B)equity stripped of goodwill & intangibles

Debt incl. operating leases$1.8B$975M of it operating leases

From the company's latest filing.

Debt maturity

the debt note, SEC EDGAR →

Not how much it owes, but when it falls due, and against what. The ladder the company files, beside cash on hand and a year's owner earnings.

'26$1.2B

'27$2.6B

'28$1.5B

'29$1.3B

'30$1.5B

later$8.2B

Bars scaled to the largest single year; “later” is everything due after 2030, shown apart since it dwarfs the years.

Due in the next 12 months$1.2Bthe first rung: what must be repaid or rolled over within the year

Within two years$3.8Bthe near wall, the part most exposed to today’s credit conditions

Biggest single year$2.6Bin 2027the lumpiest maturity, where a refinancing, if needed, is largest

Total scheduled principal$16.2Bevery year plus what lies beyond, as the footnote totals it

Against what the business has and earns

Cash & short-term investments, Mar 31, 2026$454M

One year of owner earnings (FY2025)$3.1B

Together, against $1.2B due next year2.9×

Cash on hand as of Mar 31, 2026 plus a year’s owner earnings comes to $3.5B against the $1.2B due in the twelve months after the Dec 31, 2025 schedule: 2.9 times it.

Maturity schedule extracted from the company’s Dec 31, 2025 annual report and reconciled to the balance-sheet debt.

How the cash was used, 2016–2025

Over the record, the business generated $22.2B of operating cash; how management split it reads as a cash returner, paying most of what it earns straight back to owners.

Reinvested$4.1B · 18%
Dividends$4.5B · 20%
Buybacks$22.4B · 101%

Returned to owners$26.9B
132% of the owner earnings the business produced over the span, $4.5B as dividends and $22.4B as buybacks.
Source of funding−$8.8B
Reinvestment and shareholder returns ran $8.8B beyond the operating cash the business generated, so the gap was financed off the balance sheet: debt rose from $8.5B to $16.5B.
Average price paid for buybacks—
Buybacks ran $22.4B over the span, but the filings don't tag the share count needed to deduce the average price paid.
Net change in share count−9.8%
The diluted count fell from 296M to 267M, so the buybacks outran the stock issued to staff.
Dividend record$2.62/sh
Paid in 9 of the years on record, the per-share dividend growing about 8% 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$19.2B70% 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$2.4Bover 10 years buying other businesses, against $4.1B of capital spent building

None written down over the record; the goodwill is still carried at full cost. That is the deals holding their value on the books so far; whether they keep doing so is the test an owner watches, since the write-down, when it comes, is the admission the price was too high.

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	Pay, as filed	“Actually paid”	Owner earnings
2021	$18.4M	$24.5M	$1.0B
2021	$12.3M	$12.8M	$1.0B
2022	$18.7M	$18.0M	$2.2B
2023	$22.7M	$55.5M	$3.0B
2024	$21.9M	$46.0M	$2.6B
2025	$23.0M	$39.5M	$3.1B

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 ownership11.4%
The stake all directors and executive officers hold together, per the 2026 proxy: skin in the game, the first thing Munger reads.
Stock-based compensation$236M
The slice of the business handed to employees in shares this year, 1% of revenue, equal to 6% of operating profit. Buffett's oldest accounting fight: this is compensation, compensation is an expense, real whether or not the headline earnings admit it. One trap: the cash-flow statement adds SBC back, so the operating cash, and the owner earnings drawn from it, are flattered by exactly this amount; counted as the cost it is, what an owner keeps is lower.

Inverting the record

Invert: instead of why Marriott International is a good business, the question is what would make owning it a mistake, and whether those marks are in the record. Disconfirming tests across 2016–2025.

None of the 5 tests turned up a mark; each came back clean. A clean panel says only that these particular ways of being wrong are not written into the record.

Each test came back clean

Is it less profitable than it was?
Did the share count rise anyway?
Did debt outgrow the business?
Did reported profit become cash?
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, Hotels & Resorts

The same industry, side by side on owner economics. Each figure is a through-cycle median, so a peak or trough year can’t distort it; the group median at the foot is the line to read each against.

Company	Revenue	Gross margin	Op. margin	ROIC	Owner earn. margin
MARMarriott International	$26.2B	—	12.4%	17%	10%
HLTHilton Worldwide Holdings Inc.	$12.0B	—	17.5%	20%	15%
HHyatt Hotels Corporation	$7.1B	—	8.6%	7%	6%
HGVHilton Grand Vacations Inc. Common Stock	$4.5B	—	12.8%	5%	7%
BALYBally's Corporation	$2.5B	—	5.7%	5%	2%
CHHChoice Hotels International	$1.6B	—	28.9%	30%	20%
WHWyndham Hotels & Resorts	$1.4B	—	25.7%	12%	18%
Group median	—	—	12.8%	12%	10%

The price

What a price has to assume.

What the price implies

reverse-DCF

Type today's close and see the owner-earnings growth you'd have to believe to justify it, beside what Marriott International has delivered.

Today’s price $

Through the cycle, Marriott International earns about $2.7B on its 10.3% median owner-earnings margin. This year’s 11.7% 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 ($2.7B) Net of stock comp (−$241M) Steady-state · maintenance capex ($3.3B)

—

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+15%/yr

Owner-earnings growth · ’16→’25+3%/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 $2.8B on 264M shares outstanding, per the 10-Q cover, as of 2026-04-29; net debt $16.1B. 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 ($599M) runs well above depreciation ($145M), so this is a build-out; Steady-state swaps total capex for maintenance (≈ depreciation), lifting the base to about $3.3B, 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 MAR against another business →

Cite: Owner Scorecard, "Marriott International (MAR), the owner's record," https://ownerscorecard.com/c/MAR, data as of 2026-07-09.

Manual order: ← MANH its page in the Manual MARA →

Industry order: ← LVS the Hotels & Resorts chapter MCRI →