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MTZ, MasTec

Construction & Engineering capital-intensive

We offer our services under the MasTec and other service marks and we are ranked among the top five contractors within Engineering News-Record's Top 400 Contractors.

We provide integrated, solutions-based services to a diversified base of customers and a significant portion of our services are provided under master service and other service agreements, which are generally multi-year agreements.

The remainder of our work is generated pursuant to contracts for specific projects or jobs that require the construction or installation of an entire infrastructure system or specified units within an infrastructure system.

Latest annual: FY2025 10-K

MTZ · MasTec

The business

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

Revenue · FY2025

$14.3B

+16.2% YoY · 18% 5-yr CAGR

Vital signs · TTM, with 5-yr average

Revenue $15.3B 5-yr avg $11.3B

Operating margin 3.9% 5-yr avg 2.1%

ROIC 9% 5-yr avg 4%

Owner-earnings margin 2% 5-yr avg 5%

Free cash flow margin 2% 5-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.

What moves the needle: Operating margin has run about 4.3% 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 7.1% 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 customer concentration, set against the numbers in what the filing emphasizes, below.
Is it a good business?: Return on capital has sat near the cost of capital (median 8%). By owner earnings: roughly 5% of revenue reaches owners as cash, consistently. 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, 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
$5.1B	$6.6B	$6.9B	$7.2B	$6.3B	$8.0B	$9.8B	$12.0B	$12.3B	$14.3B	$15.3B	RevenueRevenue
5%	4%	4%	4%	5%	4%	6%	6%	6%	5%	5%	SG&A / revenueSG&A/rev
$223M	$370M	$366M	$509M	$425M	$428M	$43M	($85M)	$214M	$492M	$604M	Operating incomeOp. inc.
4.3%	5.6%	5.3%	7.1%	6.7%	5.4%	0.4%	−0.7%	1.7%	3.4%	3.9%	Operating marginOp. mgn
$131M	$347M	$260M	$392M	$323M	$329M	$33M	($50M)	$163M	$399M	$450M	Net incomeNet inc.
41%	6%	29%	23%	24%	23%	22%	—	24%	19%	21%	Effective tax rateTax rate
											Cash flow & returns
$206M	$144M	$530M	$550M	$937M	$793M	$352M	$687M	$1.1B	$546M	$566M	Operating cash flowOp. cash
$165M	$188M	$213M	$236M	$298M	$423M	$507M	$603M	$507M	$427M	$440M	DepreciationDeprec.
($106M)	($407M)	$44M	($94M)	$295M	$17M	($216M)	$101M	$420M	($314M)	($359M)	Working capital & otherWC & other
$117M	$123M	$180M	$126M	$214M	$170M	$263M	$193M	$149M	$260M	$309M	CapexCapex
2.3%	1.9%	2.6%	1.8%	3.4%	2.1%	2.7%	1.6%	1.2%	1.8%	2.0%	Capex / revenueCapex/rev
$88M	$21M	$350M	$424M	$724M	$623M	$89M	$494M	$973M	$286M	$257M	Owner earningsOwner earn.
1.7%	0.3%	5.1%	5.9%	11.4%	7.8%	0.9%	4.1%	7.9%	2.0%	1.7%	Owner earnings marginOE mgn
$88M	$21M	$350M	$424M	$724M	$623M	$89M	$494M	$973M	$286M	$257M	Free cash flowFCF
1.7%	0.3%	5.1%	5.9%	11.4%	7.8%	0.9%	4.1%	7.9%	2.0%	1.7%	Free cash flow marginFCF mgn
$4M	$116M	$7M	$179M	$25M	$1.2B	$636M	$69M	$80M	$71M	$333M	AcquisitionsAcquis.
$0	$2M	$314M	$6M	$120M	$0	$81M	$0	$0	$77M	—	BuybacksBuybacks
6%	13%	9%	12%	11%	8%	1%	-1%	3%	8%	9%	ROICROIC
12%	24%	19%	22%	16%	13%	1%	-2%	6%	12%	14%	Return on equityROE
12%	24%	19%	22%	16%	13%	1%	−2%	6%	12%	14%	Retained to equityRetained/eq
											Balance sheet
$39M	$40M	$27M	$71M	$423M	$361M	$371M	$530M	$400M	$396M	$287M	Cash & investmentsCash+inv
$1.2B	$1.6B	$671M	$850M	$784M	$1.0B	$1.4B	$1.4B	$1.4B	$1.5B	$1.6B	ReceivablesReceiv.
$111M	$77M	$114M	$100M	$90M	$93M	$118M	$108M	$107M	$112M	$117M	InventoryInvent.
$364M	$378M	$670M	$535M	$571M	$663M	$1.1B	$1.2B	$1.1B	$1.3B	$1.3B	Accounts payablePayables
$903M	$1.3B	$115M	$415M	$303M	$449M	$408M	$236M	$383M	$372M	$395M	Operating working capitalOper. WC
$1.4B	$1.9B	$2.2B	$2.2B	$2.4B	$2.9B	$3.9B	$4.0B	$3.7B	$4.3B	$4.5B	Current assetsCur. assets
$840M	$964M	$1.3B	$1.2B	$1.4B	$1.8B	$2.5B	$2.8B	$3.0B	$3.3B	$3.4B	Current liabilitiesCur. liab.
1.7×	1.9×	1.7×	1.8×	1.7×	1.6×	1.5×	1.4×	1.2×	1.3×	1.3×	Current ratioCurr. ratio
$996M	$1.1B	$1.1B	$1.2B	$1.2B	$1.5B	$2.0B	$2.1B	$2.2B	$2.2B	$2.4B	GoodwillGoodwill
$3.2B	$4.1B	$4.4B	$5.0B	$5.2B	$7.1B	$9.3B	$9.4B	$9.0B	$9.9B	$10.4B	Total assetsAssets
$1.0B	$1.4B	$1.4B	$1.4B	$1.3B	$2.0B	$3.2B	$3.1B	$2.2B	$2.3B	$2.5B	Total debtDebt
$987M	$1.3B	$1.4B	$1.4B	$880M	$1.7B	$2.9B	$2.5B	$1.8B	$1.9B	$2.2B	Net debt / (cash)Net debt
$1.1B	$1.4B	$1.4B	$1.8B	$2.0B	$2.5B	$2.7B	$2.7B	$2.9B	$3.3B	$3.3B	Shareholders’ equityEquity
0.3%	0.2%	0.2%	0.2%	0.3%	0.3%	0.3%	0.3%	0.3%	0.2%	0.2%	Stock comp / revenueSBC/rev
											Per share
81.4M	82.3M	79.8M	75.8M	73.7M	73.9M	76.2M	77.5M	78.9M	78.7M	78.8M	Shares out (diluted)Shares
$63.08	$80.25	$86.61	$94.71	$85.75	$107.54	$128.35	$154.72	$155.98	$181.71	$193.95	Revenue / shareRev/sh
$1.61	$4.22	$3.26	$5.17	$4.38	$4.45	$0.44	$-0.64	$2.06	$5.07	$5.71	EPS (diluted)EPS
$1.09	$0.25	$4.38	$5.59	$9.81	$8.43	$1.17	$6.38	$12.33	$3.63	$3.26	Owner earnings / shareOE/sh
$1.09	$0.25	$4.38	$5.59	$9.81	$8.43	$1.17	$6.38	$12.33	$3.63	$3.26	Free cash flow / shareFCF/sh
$1.44	$1.50	$2.26	$1.67	$2.90	$2.30	$3.46	$2.49	$1.89	$3.30	$3.93	Cap. spending / shareCapex/sh
$13.47	$17.38	$17.42	$23.56	$27.16	$34.35	$35.93	$34.90	$36.92	$41.42	$42.01	Book value / shareBVPS

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

	9-yr	5-yr
Revenue / share	+12.5%/yr	+16.2%/yr
Owner earnings / share	+14.3%/yr	−18.0%/yr
EPS	+13.6%/yr	+3.0%/yr
Capital spending / share	+9.7%/yr	+2.6%/yr
Book value / share	+13.3%/yr	+8.8%/yr

The record, charted

FY2016–2025

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

Share count

79Mpeak FY2017

ROIC

8%low FY2023

Net debt ÷ owner earnings

6.8×peak FY2017

Owner earnings vs. net income

Owner earningsNet income

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

$286Mowner earningsvs.$399Mnet incomelow FY2017

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 reported $399M of profit but $286M of owner earnings: $113M less than the profit line, taken out by capital spending and the timing of cash.

Reported net income$399M

Owner earnings$286M · 2% of revenue

	FY2025	FY2024	FY2023	FY2022	FY2021
Reported net income	$399M	$163M	($50M)	$33M	$329M
Depreciation & amortizationnon-cash charge added back	+$427M	+$507M	+$603M	+$507M	+$423M
Stock-based compensationreal costnon-cash, but a real cost	+$34M	+$33M	+$33M	+$27M	+$25M
Working capital & othertiming of cash in and out, other non-cash items	−$314M	+$420M	+$101M	−$216M	+$17M
Cash from operations	$546M	$1.1B	$687M	$352M	$793M
Capital expenditurecash put back in to keep running and to grow	−$260M	−$149M	−$193M	−$263M	−$170M
Owner earnings	$286M	$973M	$494M	$89M	$623M
Owner-earnings marginowner earnings ÷ revenue	2%	8%	4%	1%	8%

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 $34M), owner earnings is nearer $252M.

Much of fiscal 2025's profit didn't arrive as operating cash; it sits in “working capital & other” above. That can be a real inventory or timing swing, or profit that doesn't run through operating cash at all: a heavy tax year, equity-method earnings, or investment income booked through investing. For a year like this, owner earnings understates the cash earned; the full cash-flow statement carries the rest.

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? 15.1×

Comfortable

Operating income $527M ÷ interest expense $35M

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? $1.9B · 3.7× operating profit

Meaningful net debt

Cash $396M − debt $2.3B

What this means
Netting $396M of cash and short-term investments against $2.3B of debt leaves $1.9B owed, about 3.7× a year's operating profit (4.4× on the gross debt, before the cash). It also holds $14M in longer-dated marketable securities; counting those, it sits at $1.9B of net debt. 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 8%

Below average through the cycle

10-yr median, range -1%–13%; 8% latest = NOPAT $427M ÷ invested capital $5.2B

Industry peers: median 10%

What this means
The rate the business earns on the money tied up in it, Buffett's north star, because over time a stock tracks the ROIC beneath it. Above ~15% sustained hints at a moat; a return below the cost of capital (~8%) erodes value as a business grows rather than building it — the test Buffett weighs most. The headline is the median of the last 10 years (it ran 8% 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 4%

Thin through the cycle

10-yr median margin, range 0%–11%; latest $286M = operating cash $546M − maintenance capex $260M

Industry peers: median 3%

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 2% of revenue this year, a 4% median across 10 years. Treating stock comp as the real expense it is (less $34M of SBC) leaves $252M.
Are earnings backed by cash? 1.37×

Cash-backed

Cash from ops $546M ÷ net income $399M

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? 27%

Reinvests most of it

Dividends + buybacks $77M ÷ Owner Earnings $286M

What this means
Of $286M Owner Earnings, $77M (27%) went back to shareholders, $0 dividends, $77M buybacks. Net of $34M stock comp, the real buyback was about $43M. 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? 0.61×

Harvesting

Capex $260M ÷ depreciation $427M

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

Graham’s defensive tests · 1 of 6 met

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

Adequate size Pass

Revenue ≥ $2B · $14.3B

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× · 1.32×

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 · $2.3B vs $1.1B 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 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 Miss

Earnings +33% over the record · −31%

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 $2.16/share (latest year $5.05), the averaged base the calculator's gate runs on, and book value is $41.25/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% 0 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 5% → 1% (3-yr avg ends)

In the filing’s words The words explain the slip: the filing names price competition rather than pricing actions of its own — a business that looks to take its price, not set it.

What this means
Through the cycle the operating margin slipped — about 5% early to 1% lately, median 4% — competition or costs are biting in.
Reinvestment, incremental ROIC −3%

What this means
Reinvested capital came back at a negative incremental return over this window — the invested base grew while operating profit did not. The filings show where it went.
Owner earnings growth +31%/yr

What this means
Owner earnings grew about 31% a year over the record.
Worst year 2023 · −0.7% op. margin

What this means
Operations went underwater in 2023, understand why before trusting the good years.
Share count −0.4%/yr

What this means
Roughly flat share count, little dilution, little buyback.

Does AI threaten the moat?

Low contestability

The moat is physical, regulated or balance-sheet-funded, the kind AI cuts costs within but does not contest.

In its own filing Raised, but not as a competitor

The filing raises AI among its risks, but in other terms (security, regulation, energy or the like), not as a competitor to its product; it frames AI mainly as a capability.

AI is unlikely to contest a moat that is physical, regulated or balance-sheet-funded; here it reads more as a cost tool than a threat, and the company is using it that way.

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$4.5B

Cash & short-term investments$274M
Receivables$1.6B
Inventory$117M
Other current assets$2.5B

Current liabilities$3.4B

Debt due within a year$43M
Accounts payable$1.3B
Other current liabilities$2.1B

Current ratio1.32×all current assets ÷ what's due · Graham looked for 2×

Quick ratio1.28×stricter: inventory excluded

Cash ratio0.08×strictest: cash alone against what's due

Working capital$1.1Bthe cushion left after near-term bills

Debt due this year vs. cash$43M due · $274M cash covered by cash on hand, no refinancing forced · both figures from the Mar 31, 2026 balance sheet

Revenue, latest quarter vs. a year ago+34.5%the freshest read on whether the business is still growing

Current ratio, recent quarters1.3× → 1.3×

Deeper floors

Tangible book value$197Mequity stripped of goodwill & intangibles

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

Debt incl. operating leases$991M$488M of it operating leases; with finance leases, “total fixed claims” below reaches $3.1B (annual-report basis)

Deferred revenue$800Mcustomer 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$337M

'27$247M

'28$169M

'29$82M

'30$24M

later$28M

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$337Ma fixed cash payment, owed whether or not the business has a good year

Total lease payments$887Mevery year plus the tail, undiscounted: the full cash the leases will take

On the balance sheet$812Mthe present value of those payments, the recognised lease liability

True leverage: debt plus leases

On-balance-sheet debt$2.3B

Lease obligations (present value)$812M

Total fixed claims on the business$3.1B

Counting the leases the way Buffett does, the fixed claims on this business come to $3.1B, of which the leases are 26%. 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 $5.9B of operating cash; how management split it reads as a balanced allocator, splitting cash between the business, owners, and the balance sheet.

Reinvested$1.8B · 31%
Buybacks$600M · 10%
Retained (debt / cash)$3.5B · 59%

Returned to owners$600M
15% of the owner earnings the business produced over the span, $0 as dividends and $600M as buybacks.
Source of fundingOperating cash
Operating cash covered reinvestment and returns; over the span debt rose $1.5B and cash and short-term investments rose $235M.
Average price paid for buybacks$46.95
Across the years where the filing reports a share count, 13M shares were bought for $593M, about $46.95 each. Year to year the price paid ranged from $33.40 (2020) to $110.07 (2025); its heaviest year, 2018, paid $43.60 ($314M).
Net change in share count−3.2%
The diluted count fell from 81M to 79M, so the buybacks outran the stock issued to staff.
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 retained25%
Of the earnings it kept rather than paid out ($1.7B over the span), annual owner earnings (first three years vs last three) grew $431M, so each retained $1 added about 0.25 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 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$2.9B29% of all assets; the premium carried on the balance sheet for businesses acquired

Against book equity69%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 $1.8B of capital spent building

$51M written down across 2 years (2018, 2019): goodwill the company has already conceded it overpaid for, charged against earnings. A write-down costs no cash (the cash went out when the deal was signed), but it is management marking its own past judgment to market.

Goodwill, acquired intangibles and equity from the latest balance sheet; acquisition spend and write-downs summed across the 10-year record, from the company's own filings.

Management, ownership & pay

read the proxy →

From the proxy: how much of the business the people running it own, and how they are paid, beside what the business earned for its owners in the same years.

Fiscal year	Chief executive	Pay, as filed	“Actually paid”	Owner earnings
2021	Jose R. Mas	$9.1M	$18.0M	$623M
2022	Jose R. Mas	$9.6M	$6.3M	$89M
2023	Jose R. Mas	$9.6M	$7.2M	$494M
2024	Jose R. Mas	$10.8M	$25.4M	$973M
2025	Jose R. Mas	$11.5M	$26.0M	$286M

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 ownership21.4%
The stake all directors and executive officers hold together, per the 2026 proxy: skin in the game, the first thing Munger reads.
CEO pay ratio144:1
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$34M
The slice of the business handed to employees in shares this year, 0% 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 MasTec 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 6 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?
Did receivables and inventory outpace sales?
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 Revenue recognition, Income taxes, Acquisitions, 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, Construction & Engineering

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
FLRFluor Corporation	$15.5B	3%	1.2%	8%	0%
MTZMasTec	$14.3B	—	4.8%	8%	5%
JJacobs Solutions	$12.0B	25%	4.4%	6%	5%
KBRKbr, Inc.	$7.8B	12%	6.4%	13%	4%
PRIMPrimoris Services	$7.6B	11%	4.5%	12%	2%
DYDycom Industries	$5.5B	—	6.4%	10%	3%
GVAGranite Construction	$4.4B	11%	2.2%	4%	1%
MYRGMYR Group	$3.7B	11%	3.5%	12%	3%
Group median	—	—	4.5%	9%	3%

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 MasTec has delivered.

Today’s price $

Through the cycle, MasTec earns about $656M on its 4.6% median owner-earnings margin. This year’s 2.0% 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 Normalize · through-cycle ($656M) Net of stock comp (−$35M) Steady-state · maintenance capex ($306M)

—

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+31%/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 $257M on 79M shares outstanding, per the 10-Q cover, as of 2026-04-27; net debt $2.2B. 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 ($309M) runs well above depreciation ($440M), so this is a build-out; Steady-state swaps total capex for maintenance (≈ depreciation), lifting the base to about $306M, 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 MTZ against another business →

The owners of MTZ: the meeting and the votes →

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

Manual order: ← MTX its page in the Manual MU →

Industry order: ← MTRX the Construction & Engineering chapter MYRG →