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MELI, MercadoLibre Inc.

Commercial Services & Supplies diversified Cyclical

The Mercado Libre Marketplace is a user-friendly online commerce platform that can be accessed through our mobile app or website.

Our e-commerce platform is the leader in the region based on gross merchandise volume ("GMV"), and our fintech platform is the leader in monthly active users ("MAUs") among fintech companies in Argentina, Chile and Mexico, and the second largest in Brazil.

Our ecosystem provides consumers and merchants with a complete portfolio of services to enable buying and selling online, and the processing of payments online and offline, as well as offering a wide array of simple day-to-day financial services.

Latest annual: FY2025 10-K

MELI · MercadoLibre Inc.

The business

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

Revenue · FY2025

$20.3B

+34.3% YoY · 39% 5-yr CAGR

Vital signs · TTM, with 5-yr average

Revenue $22.2B 5-yr avg $11.8B

Gross margin 20% 5-yr avg 26%

Operating margin 13.7% 5-yr avg 15.2%

ROIC 16% 5-yr avg 19%

Owner-earnings margin 55% 5-yr avg 39%

Free cash flow margin 53% 5-yr avg 37%

The business in brief

read the 10-K →

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

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 29% and operating margin about 7.7% through the cycle, a spread the cycle sets more than the company does. The margin is cyclical, swinging between −6.7% and 21% 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 −100 days): the operation is paid before it pays, so working capital releases cash as the business grows rather than tying it up. 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 14%, above 15% in 4 of 9 years). Owner earnings agree: roughly 23% 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.

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
$844M	$1.2B	$1.4B	$2.3B	$4.0B	$5.7B	$7.5B	$10.5B	$15.1B	$20.3B	$22.2B	RevenueRevenue
64%	59%	48%	48%	43%	29%	25%	28%	26%	21%	20%	Gross marginGross mgn
10%	10%	10%	9%	8%	8%	9%	7%	6%	5%	5%	SG&A / revenueSG&A/rev
12%	10%	10%	10%	9%	10%	15%	17%	13%	11%	11%	R&D / revenueR&D/rev
$181M	$56M	($69M)	($153M)	$128M	$441M	$1.1B	$2.2B	$2.6B	$3.2B	$3.0B	Operating incomeOp. inc.
21.4%	4.6%	−4.8%	−6.7%	3.2%	7.7%	14.3%	21.0%	17.4%	15.7%	13.7%	Operating marginOp. mgn
$136M	$14M	($37M)	($172M)	($1M)	$83M	$482M	$987M	$1.9B	$2.0B	$1.9B	Net incomeNet inc.
26%	—	—	—	—	—	38%	37%	21%	30%	29%	Effective tax rateTax rate
											Cash flow & returns
$190M	$269M	$231M	$451M	$1.2B	$965M	$2.9B	$5.1B	$7.9B	$12.1B	$13.2B	Operating cash flowOp. cash
$29M	$41M	$46M	$73M	$105M	$204M	$403M	$524M	$617M	$818M	$892M	DepreciationDeprec.
$2M	$179M	$194M	$550M	$1.1B	$678M	$2.1B	$3.6B	$5.4B	$9.3B	$10.3B	Working capital & otherWC & other
$69M	$55M	$93M	$137M	$247M	$573M	$454M	$509M	$860M	$1.3B	$1.3B	CapexCapex
8.1%	4.5%	6.5%	6.0%	6.2%	10.0%	6.1%	4.9%	5.7%	6.6%	6.0%	Capex / revenueCapex/rev
$161M	$228M	$185M	$378M	$1.1B	$761M	$2.5B	$4.6B	$7.3B	$11.3B	$12.3B	Owner earningsOwner earn.
19.1%	18.7%	12.9%	16.5%	27.1%	13.3%	33.4%	44.2%	48.2%	55.6%	55.2%	Owner earnings marginOE mgn
$122M	$214M	$138M	$314M	$935M	$392M	$2.5B	$4.6B	$7.1B	$10.8B	$11.8B	Free cash flowFCF
14.4%	17.6%	9.6%	13.7%	23.5%	6.9%	33.4%	44.2%	46.6%	53.0%	53.2%	Free cash flow marginFCF mgn
$7M	$9M	$4M	—	$7M	$51M	$0	$0	$6M	$0	$0	AcquisitionsAcquis.
$24M	$26M	$7M	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	$0	Dividends paidDiv. paid
—	—	—	$720K	$54M	$486M	$148M	$356M	$1M	$1M	—	BuybacksBuybacks
68%	—	-11%	-10%	10%	9%	14%	28%	28%	18%	16%	ROICROIC
32%	4%	-11%	-9%	-0%	5%	26%	32%	44%	30%	26%	Return on equityROE
26%	−4%	−13%	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	26%	Retained to equityRetained/eq
											Balance sheet
$487M	$598M	$902M	$3.0B	$3.1B	$3.4B	$4.2B	$6.0B	$7.1B	$6.3B	$5.7B	Cash & investmentsCash+inv
$25M	$28M	$35M	$35M	$50M	$98M	$130M	$156M	$255M	$369M	$370M	ReceivablesReceiv.
$1M	$3M	$5M	$9M	$118M	$253M	$152M	$238M	$296M	$570M	$677M	InventoryInvent.
$105M	$221M	$267M	$372M	$767M	$1.0B	$1.4B	$2.1B	$3.2B	$4.5B	$5.0B	Accounts payablePayables
($79M)	($190M)	($227M)	($328M)	($600M)	($685M)	($1.1B)	($1.7B)	($2.6B)	($3.6B)	($4.0B)	Operating working capitalOper. WC
$869M	$1.3B	$1.5B	$3.8B	$5.3B	$8.2B	$11.0B	$14.3B	$20.1B	$33.6B	$37.1B	Current assetsCur. assets
$577M	$968M	$1.2B	$1.8B	$3.6B	$5.8B	$8.6B	$11.3B	$16.6B	$28.6B	$32.0B	Current liabilitiesCur. liab.
1.5×	1.3×	1.3×	2.2×	1.5×	1.4×	1.3×	1.3×	1.2×	1.2×	1.2×	Current ratioCurr. ratio
$92M	$92M	$89M	$88M	$85M	$148M	$153M	$163M	$149M	$163M	$165M	GoodwillGoodwill
$1.4B	$1.7B	$2.2B	$4.8B	$6.5B	$10.1B	$13.7B	$17.6B	$25.2B	$42.7B	$46.9B	Total assetsAssets
—	—	$602M	$631M	$861M	$3.5B	$4.8B	$4.5B	$5.7B	$9.2B	$9.9B	Total debtDebt
—	—	($300M)	($2.4B)	($2.2B)	$123M	$509M	($1.5B)	($1.4B)	$2.9B	$4.3B	Net debt / (cash)Net debt
$429M	$326M	$337M	$2.0B	$1.7B	$1.5B	$1.8B	$3.1B	$4.4B	$6.7B	$7.3B	Shareholders’ equityEquity
2.7%	2.9%	1.9%	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	0.2%	Stock comp / revenueSBC/rev
											Per share
44.2M	44.2M	44.5M	48.7M	49.7M	49.8M	51.3M	51.0M	50.7M	50.7M	50.7M	Shares out (diluted)Shares
$19.12	$27.55	$32.33	$47.16	$79.89	$114.65	$145.12	$205.60	$298.58	$401.11	$438.07	Revenue / shareRev/sh
$3.09	$0.31	$-0.82	$-3.53	$-0.02	$1.67	$9.39	$19.35	$37.69	$39.39	$37.87	EPS (diluted)EPS
$3.65	$5.17	$4.16	$7.76	$21.65	$15.28	$48.43	$90.79	$144.01	$222.85	$241.99	Owner earnings / shareOE/sh
$2.76	$4.84	$3.09	$6.45	$18.80	$7.87	$48.43	$90.79	$139.22	$212.50	$233.11	Free cash flow / shareFCF/sh
$0.55	$0.60	$0.15	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	$0.00	Dividends / shareDiv/sh
$1.55	$1.25	$2.09	$2.81	$4.97	$11.51	$8.84	$9.98	$16.96	$26.49	$26.47	Cap. spending / shareCapex/sh
$9.71	$7.38	$7.56	$40.72	$33.19	$30.74	$35.59	$60.21	$85.82	$133.10	$143.62	Book value / shareBVPS

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

	9-yr	5-yr
Revenue / share	+40.2%/yr	+38.1%/yr
Owner earnings / share	+57.9%/yr	+59.4%/yr
EPS	+32.7%/yr	—
Dividends / share	−48.1%/yr (2-yr)	−48.1%/yr (2-yr)
Capital spending / share	+37.1%/yr	+39.8%/yr
Book value / share	+33.8%/yr	+32.0%/yr

The record, charted

FY2016–2025

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

Share count

51Mpeak FY2022

ROIC

18%low FY2018

Gross margin

21%low FY2025

Net debt ÷ owner earnings

0.3×peak FY2025

Owner earnings vs. net income

Owner earningsNet income

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

$11.3Bowner earningsvs.$2.0Bnet incomelow FY2016

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 $11.3B of owner earnings, the operating cash left after the $818M it takes just to hold its position. It put $525M more into growth; free cash flow, after that spending, was $10.8B.

Reported net income$2.0B

Owner earnings$11.3B · 56% of revenue

	FY2025	FY2024	FY2023	FY2022	FY2021
Reported net income	$2.0B	$1.9B	$987M	$482M	$83M
Depreciation & amortizationnon-cash charge added back	+$818M	+$617M	+$524M	+$403M	+$204M
Working capital & othertiming of cash in and out, other non-cash items	+$9.3B	+$5.4B	+$3.6B	+$2.1B	+$678M
Cash from operations	$12.1B	$7.9B	$5.1B	$2.9B	$965M
Maintenance capital expenditurethe spending needed just to hold position and volume	−$818M	−$617M	−$509M	−$454M	−$204M
Owner earnings	$11.3B	$7.3B	$4.6B	$2.5B	$761M
Growth capital expenditurediscretionary; spent to get bigger, not to stand still	−$525M	−$243M	—	—	−$369M
Free cash flow	$10.8B	$7.1B	$4.6B	$2.5B	$392M
Owner-earnings marginowner earnings ÷ revenue	56%	48%	44%	33%	13%

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 $818M, roughly its depreciation, the rate its assets wear out). The other $525M 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.

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? 14966.5×

Comfortable

Operating income $3.2B ÷ interest expense $214K

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? $2.9B · 0.9× operating profit

Modest net debt

Cash $3.7B + ST investments $2.6B − debt $9.2B

What this means
Netting $6.3B of cash and short-term investments against $9.2B of debt leaves $2.9B owed, about 0.9× a year's operating profit (2.9× 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? -83d

Negative, funded by others

DSO 7 + DIO 13 − DPO 102 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 14%

Solid through the cycle

9-yr median, range -11%–68%; 18% latest = NOPAT $2.2B ÷ invested capital $12.3B

Industry peers: median 6%

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 18% 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 19%

High through the cycle

10-yr median margin, range 13%–56%; latest $11.3B = operating cash $12.1B − maintenance capex $818M

Industry peers: median 19%

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 56% of revenue this year, a 19% median across 10 years. Treating stock comp as the real expense it is (less $28M of SBC) leaves $11.3B.
Are earnings backed by cash? 6.07×

Cash-backed

Cash from ops $12.1B ÷ net income $2.0B

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? 0%

Reinvests most of it

Dividends + buybacks $8M ÷ Owner Earnings $11.3B

What this means
Of $11.3B Owner Earnings, $8M (0%) went back to shareholders, $7M dividends, $1M buybacks. But the buybacks barely exceed stock issued to employees ($28M 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? 1.64×

Expanding

Capex $1.3B ÷ depreciation $818M

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 · $20.3B

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× · 1.17×

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 · $9.2B vs $4.9B 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) · 3 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 · 3 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 · +4210%

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 $32.18/share (latest year $39.39), the averaged base the calculator's gate runs on, and book value is $133.10/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 7 of 10

What this means
Lost money in 3 year(s), look at what happened there before trusting the average.
Return on capital ≥ 15% 3 of 8 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 7% → 18% (3-yr avg ends)

What this means
Through the cycle the operating margin widened — about 7% early to 18% lately, median 8% — pricing power intact or improving.
Reinvestment, incremental ROIC 25%

What this means
Every extra dollar the business reinvested came back at a high incremental return — the lens GBM read for a moat that reinvests rather than merely harvests. The record and the 10-K are where you check whether the rate holds.
Owner earnings growth +54%/yr

What this means
Owner earnings grew about 54% a year over the record.
Worst year 2019 · −6.7% op. margin

What this means
Operations went underwater in 2019, understand why before trusting the good years.
Share count +1.5%/yr

What this means
The share count is rising, dilution works against you on a per-share basis.
Dividend record paid

What this means
Paid a dividend in 3 of the years on record.

Does AI threaten the moat?

Elevated contestability

The product is software or information, the very thing capable AI now produces more cheaply, so the moat is more contestable than the record alone implies.

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.

“T able of Contents Any use of AI/ML technologies in our operations may present additional labor, legal, regulatory, and social risks, which could lead to additional costs and impact our competitive position We are expanding our investment in AI/ML across the entire Company.”

The product is the kind capable AI most directly contests: when a substitute can be built cheaply, the incumbent's pricing power is the first thing at risk. The record cannot say whether the moat outlasts that; past durability is a starting point, not a promise.

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$37.1B

Cash & short-term investments$5.7B
Receivables$370M
Inventory$677M
Other current assets$30.4B

Current liabilities$32.0B

Accounts payable$5.0B
Other current liabilities$26.9B

Current ratio1.16×all current assets ÷ what's due · Graham looked for 2×

Quick ratio1.14×stricter: inventory excluded

Cash ratio0.18×strictest: cash alone against what's due

Working capital$5.2Bthe cushion left after near-term bills

Revenue, latest quarter vs. a year ago+49.0%the freshest read on whether the business is still growing

Current ratio, recent quarters1.3× → 1.2×

Deeper floors

Tangible book value$7.1Bequity stripped of goodwill & intangibles

Net current asset value($2.5B)Graham's net-net: current assets less all liabilities

Debt incl. operating leases$12.3B$2.4B of it operating leases; with finance leases, “total fixed claims” below reaches $11.5B (annual-report basis)

Deferred revenue$133Mcustomer 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$512M

'27$486M

'28$446M

'29$381M

'30$321M

later$1.2B

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$512Ma fixed cash payment, owed whether or not the business has a good year

Total lease payments$3.4Bevery year plus the tail, undiscounted: the full cash the leases will take

On the balance sheet$2.3Bthe present value of those payments, the recognised lease liability

True leverage: debt plus leases

On-balance-sheet debt$9.2B

Lease obligations (present value)$2.3B

Total fixed claims on the business$11.5B

Counting the leases the way Buffett does, the fixed claims on this business come to $11.5B, of which the leases are 20%. 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 Dec 31, 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 $31.4B of operating cash; how management split it reads as a balanced allocator, splitting cash between the business, owners, and the balance sheet.

Reinvested$4.3B · 14%
Dividends$58M · 0%
Buybacks$1.0B · 3%
Retained (debt / cash)$26.0B · 83%

Returned to owners$1.1B
4% of the owner earnings the business produced over the span, $58M as dividends and $1.0B as buybacks.
Average price paid for buybacks—
Buybacks ran $1.0B over the span, but the filings don't tag the share count needed to deduce the average price paid.
Net change in share count14.8%
The diluted count rose from 44M to 51M: issuance (stock pay, deals) outran any buybacks, so owners were diluted on net.
Dividend record$0.15/sh
Paid in 3 of the years on record, the per-share dividend shrinking about 48% a year. It was cut at least once along the way.
Return on what it retained176%
Of the earnings it kept rather than paid out ($4.3B over the span), annual owner earnings (first three years vs last three) grew $7.6B, so each retained $1 added about 1.76 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.

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. Galperin	$16.7M	$16.7M	$761M
2022	Mr. Galperin	$8.3M	$8.3M	$2.5B
2023	Mr. Galperin	$9.6M	$9.6M	$4.6B
2024	Mr. Galperin	$13.7M	$13.7M	$7.3B
2025	Mr. Galperin	$13.1M	$13.1M	$11.3B

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.

Stock-based compensation$28M
The slice of the business handed to employees in shares this year, 0% of revenue, equal to 1% 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 MercadoLibre 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 2016–2025.

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

Look hereDid the share count rise anyway?14.8%
Diluted shares grew 14.8% over 2016–2025, even as the company spent $1.0B 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 hereDid receivables and inventory outpace sales?3% → 5% of sales
Receivables and inventory grew from $27M to $1.0B while revenue grew 2530%: working capital is climbing faster than sales (3% of revenue then, 5% now). That can mean customers paying slower, stock building up, or revenue pulled forward. The filing's cash-flow and receivables notes say which.

And these came back clean

Is it less profitable than it was?
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.

What an owner would ask, FY2025

read the 10-K →

Which reported numbers are a judgment call?
Management names Income taxes, Credit & receivables 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, Commercial Services & Supplies

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
VVisa Inc.	$40.0B	—	64.4%	28%	53%
PYPLPayPal Holdings Inc.	$33.2B	—	15.8%	16%	19%
MAMastercard Incorporated	$32.8B	—	53.2%	81%	42%
MELIMercadoLibre Inc.	$20.3B	36%	11.0%	14%	23%
AMTMAmentum Holdings Inc.	$14.4B	10%	2.5%	3%	1%
DASHDoorDash Inc.	$13.7B	—	-12.2%	-14%	8%
FISFidelity National Info	$10.7B	36%	14.3%	4%	23%
CNXCConcentrix Corporation	$9.8B	36%	6.5%	6%	7%
Group median	—	36%	12.7%	10%	21%

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 MercadoLibre Inc. has delivered.

MercadoLibre Inc.’s latest year runs above its own through-cycle margin — the reported figure may flatter a peak. So the tool opens on the through-cycle base, Graham’s averaging cutting both ways; clear the toggle below to read the latest year exactly as reported.

Today’s price $

Through the cycle, MercadoLibre Inc. earns about $4.7B on its 23.1% median owner-earnings margin. This year’s 55.6% margin runs above that; the reported figure may flatter a peak you'd be paying on. Normalize, below, values the price on that through-cycle figure rather than the latest year. It comes pre-checked here for that reason, the same rule that already normalizes a trough; clear it to price the year as filed.

Base Normalize · through-cycle ($4.7B) Net of stock comp (−$43M) Steady-state · maintenance capex ($12.3B)

—

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+55%/yr

Owner-earnings growth · ’16→’25+55%/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 $11.8B on 51M shares outstanding, per the 10-Q cover, as of 2026-05-07; net debt $4.3B. The base opens on the through-cycle figure (the latest year sits above the record’s own median, and Graham’s averaging cuts both ways); clear Normalize to use the year as filed. Net of stock comp treats option pay as the expense it is. Capex ($1.3B) runs well above depreciation ($892M), so this is a build-out; Steady-state swaps total capex for maintenance (≈ depreciation), lifting the base to about $12.3B, 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 MELI against another business →

The owners of MELI: the meeting and the votes →

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

Manual order: ← MEI its page in the Manual MERC →

Industry order: ← MAX the Commercial Services & Supplies chapter MLKN →