Share count
2.1Bpeak FY2025
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NEE, NextEra Energy Inc.
NextEra is an electric utility holding company built from two parts. One is Florida Power & Light, a rate-regulated utility that delivers electricity to homes and businesses in Florida and earns a return, set by state regulators, on the poles, wires, and power plants it is allowed to build into its rate base. The other is its competitive arm, which builds and operates wind, solar, and battery generation and sells the power, much of it under long-term contracts.
The business
What it sells, where the money comes from, the kind of company it is.
Revenue · FY2025
$27.4B
+10.7% YoY · 9% 5-yr CAGR
Vital signs · TTM, with 5-yr average
Revenue $6.1B +1.7% vs yr-ago qtr
Operating margin 36.2% yr-ago 37.6%
Net income $1.7B yr-ago $464M
Net margin 27.7% yr-ago 7.7%
The business in brief
read the 10-K →What this business is and what moves its needle, from its own SEC filings.
- Situation
- Regulated utility. Returns are set by regulation on an approved rate base; the capital spending regulators approve becomes the growth, recovered through allowed rates.
- What moves the needle
- The regulated side holds an exclusive service territory granted by the state, and its earnings ride on the rate base regulators permit and on Florida's customer count — so the tests are whether that regulatory bargain stays constructive and whether capital can be put to work at returns above its cost. The competitive renewables arm is a different animal: its economics lean on contract prices, construction cost, an international supply chain for panels and batteries, and clean-energy tax credits that an act of Congress can curtail — so the question is the cost position and how much of the return depends on subsidy. The whole machine runs on borrowed money, which serves it while regulators are fair and credit is cheap and turns against it when neither holds; the record below carries the leverage, the returns on capital, and the margins.
- Is it a good business?
- Return on capital has rarely cleared the cost of capital (median 6%, above 15% in 0 of 10 years). This is price-taker territory, where the balance sheet and the cycle matter more than any multiple; the rest is in the 10-K.
Drafted from the company's filings and reviewed by hand; every number is 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 | |||||||||||
| $16.1B | $17.2B | $16.7B | $19.2B | $18.0B | $17.1B | $21.0B | $28.1B | $24.8B | $27.4B | $27.9B | RevenueRevenue |
| $4.5B | $5.2B | $4.3B | $5.4B | $5.1B | $2.9B | $4.1B | $10.2B | $7.5B | $8.3B | $8.2B | Operating incomeOp. inc. |
| 27.6% | 30.1% | 25.6% | 27.9% | 28.4% | 17.1% | 19.5% | 36.4% | 30.2% | 30.2% | 29.5% | Operating marginOp. mgn |
| $2.9B | $5.4B | $6.6B | $3.8B | $2.9B | $3.6B | $4.1B | $7.3B | $6.9B | $6.8B | $8.2B | Net incomeNet inc. |
| 32% | — | 19% | 11% | 1% | 9% | 12% | 12% | 5% | — | — | Effective tax rateTax rate |
| Cash flow & returns | |||||||||||
| $6.4B | $6.5B | $6.6B | $8.2B | $8.0B | $7.6B | $8.3B | $11.3B | $13.3B | $12.5B | $12.3B | Operating cash flowOp. cash |
| $3.1B | $2.4B | $3.9B | $4.2B | $4.1B | $3.9B | $4.5B | $5.9B | $5.5B | $6.6B | $6.9B | DepreciationDeprec. |
| $343M | ($1.3B) | ($4.0B) | $170M | $1.0B | $56M | ($388M) | ($1.9B) | $852M | ($930M) | ($2.7B) | Working capital & otherWC & other |
| $1.6B | $1.8B | $2.1B | $2.4B | $2.7B | $3.0B | $3.4B | $3.8B | $4.2B | $4.7B | $4.8B | Dividends paidDiv. paid |
| 6% | 9% | 5% | 6% | 6% | 3% | 4% | 8% | 6% | 6% | 5% | ROICROIC |
| 12% | 19% | 19% | 10% | 8% | 10% | 11% | 15% | 14% | 13% | 15% | Return on equityROE |
| 5% | 13% | 13% | 4% | 0% | 1% | 2% | 7% | 5% | 4% | 6% | Retained to equityRetained/eq |
| Balance sheet | |||||||||||
| $1.3B | $1.7B | $638M | $600M | $1.1B | $639M | $1.6B | $2.7B | $1.5B | $2.8B | $2.0B | Cash & investmentsCash+inv |
| $1.8B | $2.2B | $2.3B | $2.3B | $2.3B | $3.4B | $4.3B | $3.6B | $3.3B | $4.0B | $4.1B | ReceivablesReceiv. |
| $1.3B | $1.3B | $1.2B | $1.3B | $1.6B | $1.6B | $1.9B | $2.1B | $2.2B | $2.4B | $2.6B | InventoryInvent. |
| $3.1B | $3.5B | $3.5B | $3.6B | $3.8B | $4.9B | $6.3B | $5.7B | $5.5B | $6.4B | $6.7B | Operating working capitalOper. WC |
| $7.4B | $7.2B | $6.4B | $7.4B | $7.4B | $9.3B | $13.5B | $15.4B | $12.0B | $13.6B | $13.9B | Current assetsCur. assets |
| $10.9B | $11.2B | $17.6B | $13.9B | $15.6B | $17.4B | $26.7B | $28.0B | $25.4B | $22.8B | $25.6B | Current liabilitiesCur. liab. |
| 0.7× | 0.6× | 0.4× | 0.5× | 0.5× | 0.5× | 0.5× | 0.5× | 0.5× | 0.6× | 0.5× | Current ratioCurr. ratio |
| $779M | $764M | $891M | $4.2B | $4.3B | $4.8B | $4.9B | $5.1B | $4.9B | $4.8B | $5.2B | GoodwillGoodwill |
| $90.5B | $98.0B | $103.7B | $117.7B | $127.7B | $140.9B | $158.9B | $177.5B | $190.1B | $212.7B | $221.4B | Total assetsAssets |
| $30.4B | $33.1B | $29.5B | $39.7B | $46.1B | $52.7B | $61.9B | $68.3B | $80.4B | $93.1B | $97.8B | Total debtDebt |
| $29.1B | $31.4B | $28.9B | $39.1B | $45.0B | $52.1B | $60.3B | $65.6B | $79.0B | $90.2B | $95.8B | Net debt / (cash)Net debt |
| $24.3B | $28.2B | $34.1B | $37.0B | $36.5B | $37.2B | $39.2B | $47.5B | $50.1B | $54.6B | $55.2B | Shareholders’ equityEquity |
| Per share | |||||||||||
| 1.86B | 1.89B | 1.91B | 1.94B | 1.97B | 1.97B | 1.98B | 2.03B | 2.06B | 2.07B | 2.09B | Shares out (diluted)Shares |
| $8.66 | $9.09 | $8.77 | $9.89 | $9.14 | $8.65 | $10.59 | $13.84 | $12.02 | $13.24 | $13.32 | Revenue / shareRev/sh |
| $1.56 | $2.85 | $3.48 | $1.94 | $1.48 | $1.81 | $2.10 | $3.60 | $3.37 | $3.30 | $3.91 | EPS (diluted)EPS |
| $0.87 | $0.98 | $1.10 | $1.24 | $1.39 | $1.53 | $1.69 | $1.86 | $2.06 | $2.26 | $2.30 | Dividends / shareDiv/sh |
| $13.06 | $14.94 | $17.90 | $19.06 | $18.55 | $18.86 | $19.83 | $23.37 | $24.33 | $26.37 | $26.39 | Book value / shareBVPS |
Share counts before 2018 are restated ×4 for a stock split, so per-share figures sit on one basis.
Per-share growththe realized rate an owner's share compounded
| 9-yr | 5-yr | |
|---|---|---|
| Revenue / share | +4.8%/yr | +7.7%/yr |
| EPS | +8.7%/yr | +17.4%/yr |
| Dividends / share | +11.3%/yr | +10.2%/yr |
| Book value / share | +8.1%/yr | +7.3%/yr |
The record, charted
FY2016–2025Each measure over its full record; the current point and the worst year marked. Share counts on the current split basis.
ROIC
6%low FY2021
Where the cash went
ReinvestBuybacksDividendsAcquisitionsRetainedEach year's operating cash, by what management did with it: the mix, and how it drifts.
FY2016FY2025
Quality & stewardship
Returns, the balance sheet, capital allocation, and pay.
Owner’s Scorecard
FY2025 10-K · source on SEC EDGAR →
Will it survive?
- Interest expense not tagged in the data
What this means
No usable interest-expense line was tagged in the filing data, but the balance sheet carries real net debt — so the interest burden here is unknown, not absent. Read the debt on the net-debt check below.
- How heavy is the debt, net of cash? $90.2B · 10.9× operating profitHeavy net debtCash $2.8B − debt $93.1B
What this means
Netting $2.8B of cash and short-term investments against $93.1B of debt leaves $90.2B owed, about 10.9× a year's operating profit (11.2× 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.
- Not enough data
What this means
The filing data didn't include the inputs for this check.
Is it a good business?
- Below average through the cycle10-yr median, range 3%–9%; 6% latest = NOPAT $8.3B ÷ invested capital $144.9BIndustry 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 10 years (it ran 6% 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.
- Not enough dataIndustry peers: median 12%
What this means
The filing data didn't include the inputs for this check.
- Cash-backedCash from ops $12.5B ÷ net income $6.8B
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?
- Not enough data
What this means
The filing data didn't include the inputs for this check.
- Investing or harvesting? —Not enough data
What this means
The filing data didn't include the inputs for this check.
Graham’s defensive tests · 4 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 PassRevenue ≥ $2B · $27.4B
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 MissCurrent ratio ≥ 2× · 0.60×
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 MissDebt ≤ working capital · $93.1B vs ($9.2B) 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 PassA profit every year (10-yr record) · no losses
What this means
Graham wanted earnings in each of the past ten years, the stability a defensive owner leans on.
- Dividend record PassUninterrupted dividends · paid every year (10)
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 PassEarnings +33% over the record · +41%
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 $3.37/share (latest year $3.28), the averaged base the calculator's gate runs on, and book value is $26.19/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 10 of 10
What this means
Never lost money over the record, the earnings stability Graham insisted on.
- 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 28% → 32% (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 28% early to 32% lately, median 28% — pricing power intact or improving.
- Reinvestment, incremental ROIC 6%
What this means
Reinvested capital came back at only a modest incremental return — near the cost of capital, where extra growth adds little per dollar. The record shows whether it is a soft stretch or a thinning moat.
- Worst year 2021 · 17.1% op. margin
What this means
Stayed profitable even in its hardest year, the resilience that survives recessions.
- Dividend record rising
What this means
Paid and raised the dividend across the record, the continuity Graham prized.
Does AI threaten the moat?
Low contestabilityThe moat is physical, regulated or balance-sheet-funded, the kind AI cuts costs within but does not contest.
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.
“NEE and its subsidiaries, with employees totaling approximately 17,400 as of December 31, 2025, continue to develop and implement enterprise-wide initiatives, including deploying advanced technologies such as artificial intelligence and proprietary tools, focused on improving processes, lowering costs and driving growt…”
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, 2026Can 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$13.9B
- Cash & short-term investments$2.0B
- Receivables$4.1B
- Inventory$2.6B
- Other current assets$5.2B
Current liabilities$25.6B
- Debt due within a year$3.8B
- Other current liabilities$21.7B
Current ratio0.54×all current assets ÷ what's due · Graham looked for 2×
Quick ratio0.44×stricter: inventory excluded
Cash ratio0.08×strictest: cash alone against what's due
Working capital($11.7B)the cushion left after near-term bills
Debt due this year vs. cash$3.8B due · $2.0B 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+1.7%the freshest read on whether the business is still growing
Current ratio, recent quarters0.5× → 0.5×
Deeper floors
Tangible book value$48.4Bequity stripped of goodwill & intangibles
Net current asset value($140.9B)Graham's net-net: current assets less all liabilities
Debt incl. operating leases$97.8Bno operating-lease liability tagged this quarter, so debt alone
Deferred revenue$731Mcustomer cash collected before delivery; operating float
From the company's latest filing.
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” | Net income |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2021 | Mr. Ketchum | $25.3M | $55.3M | $3.6B |
| 2022 | Mr. Ketchum | $40.4M | $34.4M | $4.1B |
| 2022 | Mr. Ketchum | $17.4M | $18.9M | $4.1B |
| 2023 | Mr. Ketchum | $20.6M | $7.2M | $7.3B |
| 2024 | Mr. Ketchum | $21.1M | $35.2M | $6.9B |
| 2025 | Mr. Ketchum | $24.2M | $38.0M | $6.8B |
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. Net income is the whole business's, as filed, for the same fiscal years.
Inverting the record
Invert: instead of why NextEra Energy 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.
1 of the 4 tests turned up something to look into; the other 3 came back clean.
- Look hereDid receivables and inventory outpace sales?19% → 24% of sales
Receivables and inventory grew from $3.1B to $6.7B while revenue grew 73%: working capital is climbing faster than sales (19% of revenue then, 24% 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 Pension & retirement 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, Electric Utilities
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| NRGNRG Energy | $30.3B | 24% | 7.6% | 13% | 9% |
| SOSouthern Company (The) | $29.6B | — | 22.8% | 6% | 12% |
| NEENextEra Energy Inc. | $27.4B | — | 28.2% | 6% | — |
| CEGConstellation Energy | $22.7B | — | 5.0% | 8% | -17% |
| AEPAmerican Electric Power Company Inc. | $21.7B | — | 19.2% | 6% | 26% |
| EIXEdison International | $19.3B | — | 13.1% | 4% | 7% |
| VSTVistra | $17.6B | — | 10.8% | 7% | 17% |
| DDominion Energy Inc. | $16.5B | — | 23.1% | 4% | 21% |
| Group median | — | — | 16.1% | 6% | — |
The price
What a price has to assume.
What the price implies
reverse-DCFNextEra Energy Inc. is profitable, but its owner-earnings base could not be formed from this filing’s tagged data (operating cash flow or capital spending is missing), so the owner-earnings reverse-DCF has no base to grow. We read the price from both ends instead: type a price to see the profitability it demands, then set the mature margin you would believe and weigh the two against each other. Nothing leaves your browser unless you enter it in your notebook.
$
The assumptions
Revenue, delivered11%/yr’20→’25
Enter a price to run it.
Owner earnings it must reach—
Margin the price demands—
Owner-earnings margin today—
A dated snapshot of the price you typed, the assumptions you set, and what the page showed for them. A snapshot is never edited after it is saved. Your notebook is yours alone — the commitment states what is stored and what we will never do.
Two reads of one future. From your price: the owner earnings the company must reach, valued at a mature multiple and discounted back at your rate, expressed as the margin it implies on revenue grown at your rate. From your belief: the mature margin you would credit, set on the dial above. When the margin the price demands runs above the one you would believe, you are paying for a future taken on faith. For a deep cyclical at a trough, normalized through-cycle earnings are the better lens; this mode is for the genuinely unprofitable, and for the profitable business whose capital spending currently outruns its cash.
Cite: Owner Scorecard, "NextEra Energy Inc. (NEE), the owner's record," https://ownerscorecard.com/c/NEE, data as of 2026-07-09.
Manual order: ← NECB its page in the Manual NEM →
Industry order: ← KEP the Electric Utilities chapter NRG →