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OKE, ONEOK Inc.

ONEOK runs midstream plumbing for the oil and gas business: a pipeline network spanning tens of thousands of miles that gathers, processes, fractionates, transports, stores, and exports natural gas, natural gas liquids, refined products, and crude oil. It does not drill or sell the molecules; it charges producers, refiners, and shippers fees to move and treat what they pull out of the ground. The customer is the energy industry, and the product is the toll for using the pipes and plants.

We deliver energy products and services vital to an advancing world.

Through our approximately 60,000-mile pipeline network, we transport the natural gas, NGLs, Refined Products and crude oil that help meet domestic and international energy demand, contribute to energy security and provide safe, reliable and responsible energy solutions needed today and into the future.

Latest annual: FY2025 10-K

OKE · ONEOK Inc.

The business

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

Revenue · FY2025

$33.6B

+55.0% YoY · 32% 5-yr CAGR

Vital signs · TTM, with 5-yr average

Revenue $35.2B 5-yr avg $22.4B

Gross margin 30% 5-yr avg 30%

Operating margin 16.9% 5-yr avg 18.3%

ROIC 8% 5-yr avg 9%

Owner-earnings margin 12% 5-yr avg 14%

Free cash flow margin 6% 5-yr avg 11%

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: The question that governs this business is whether the network behaves like a toll road with real pricing power or a price-taker chained to its customers' drill bits. ONEOK's own filing names the dependence plainly: the ability to maintain or expand the business hinges on the level of drilling and production by third parties in the regions it serves, so the test is how much of the take is fee-based and contracted versus exposed to commodity swings and producer whim. The other two tests are the cost position on a capital-hungry asset base carrying meaningful debt, and the discipline of a reinvestment-and-acquisition record that must earn back more than it spends. In the bad case, demand softens, refining or processing turns uneconomic, volumes fall, and the leverage that magnifies returns magnifies the losses instead; the figures for margins, returns, and debt are in the record below.
Is it a good business?: Return on capital has sat near the cost of capital (median 8%). By owner earnings: roughly 13% 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.

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
$8.9B	$12.2B	$12.6B	$10.2B	$8.5B	$16.5B	$22.4B	$17.7B	$21.7B	$33.6B	$35.2B	RevenueRevenue
27%	22%	25%	33%	40%	26%	20%	33%	39%	30%	30%	Gross marginGross mgn
$1.3B	$1.4B	$1.8B	$1.9B	$1.4B	$2.6B	$2.8B	$4.1B	$5.0B	$5.7B	$5.9B	Operating incomeOp. inc.
14.5%	11.4%	14.6%	18.8%	15.9%	15.7%	12.5%	23.0%	23.0%	17.1%	16.9%	Operating marginOp. mgn
$352M	$388M	$1.2B	$1.3B	$613M	$1.5B	$1.7B	$2.7B	$3.0B	$3.4B	$3.5B	Net incomeNet inc.
38%	54%	24%	23%	24%	24%	23%	24%	25%	23%	23%	Effective tax rateTax rate
											Cash flow & returns
$1.4B	$1.3B	$2.2B	$1.9B	$1.9B	$2.5B	$2.9B	$4.4B	$4.9B	$5.6B	$5.6B	Operating cash flowOp. cash
$392M	$406M	$429M	$477M	$579M	$622M	$626M	$769M	$1.1B	$1.5B	$1.5B	DepreciationDeprec.
$569M	$495M	$575M	$155M	$708M	$425M	$558M	$993M	$719M	$692M	$549M	Working capital & otherWC & other
$625M	$512M	$2.1B	$3.8B	$2.2B	$697M	$1.2B	$1.6B	$2.0B	$3.2B	$3.4B	CapexCapex
7.0%	4.2%	17.0%	37.9%	25.7%	4.2%	5.4%	9.0%	9.3%	9.4%	9.6%	Capex / revenueCapex/rev
$962M	$909M	$1.8B	$1.5B	$1.3B	$1.8B	$2.3B	$3.7B	$3.8B	$4.1B	$4.1B	Owner earningsOwner earn.
10.8%	7.5%	14.0%	14.5%	15.5%	11.2%	10.2%	20.7%	17.3%	12.1%	11.7%	Owner earnings marginOE mgn
$729M	$803M	$45M	($1.9B)	($296M)	$1.8B	$1.7B	$2.8B	$2.9B	$2.4B	$2.2B	Free cash flowFCF
8.2%	6.6%	0.4%	−18.7%	−3.5%	11.2%	7.6%	16.0%	13.2%	7.3%	6.4%	Free cash flow marginFCF mgn
$0	—	—	—	—	$0	$0	$5.0B	$5.8B	$25M	$25M	AcquisitionsAcquis.
$518M	$829M	$1.3B	$1.5B	$1.6B	$1.7B	$1.7B	$1.8B	$2.3B	$2.6B	$2.6B	Dividends paidDiv. paid
—	—	—	—	—	—	$0	$0	$159M	$75M	—	BuybacksBuybacks
10%	5%	9%	8%	5%	10%	11%	8%	8%	8%	8%	ROICROIC
187%	7%	18%	21%	10%	25%	27%	16%	18%	15%	16%	Return on equityROE
−88%	−8%	−3%	−3%	−16%	−3%	1%	5%	4%	4%	4%	Retained to equityRetained/eq
											Balance sheet
$249M	$37M	$12M	$21M	$524M	$146M	$220M	$338M	$733M	$78M	$172M	Cash & investmentsCash+inv
$872M	$1.2B	$819M	$835M	$830M	$1.4B	$1.5B	$1.7B	$2.3B	$3.0B	$3.7B	ReceivablesReceiv.
$140M	$342M	$297M	$305M	$228M	$428M	$432M	$639M	$748M	$948M	$1.1B	InventoryInvent.
$875M	$1.1B	$1.1B	$1.2B	$719M	$1.3B	$1.4B	$1.6B	$2.2B	$2.8B	$3.6B	Accounts payablePayables
$138M	$405M	($712K)	($70M)	$338M	$537M	$605M	$780M	$887M	$1.1B	$1.2B	Operating working capitalOper. WC
$1.4B	$1.8B	$1.4B	$1.5B	$1.9B	$2.4B	$2.5B	$3.1B	$4.2B	$4.5B	$5.5B	Current assetsCur. assets
$2.8B	$2.7B	$2.1B	$2.0B	$1.3B	$3.2B	$3.1B	$3.5B	$4.7B	$6.4B	$7.8B	Current liabilitiesCur. liab.
0.5×	0.7×	0.7×	0.7×	1.4×	0.7×	0.8×	0.9×	0.9×	0.7×	0.7×	Current ratioCurr. ratio
$526M	$681M	$681M	$681M	$528M	$528M	$528M	$5.0B	$8.1B	$8.1B	$8.1B	GoodwillGoodwill
$16.1B	$16.8B	$18.2B	$21.8B	$23.1B	$23.6B	$24.4B	$44.3B	$64.1B	$66.6B	$68.2B	Total assetsAssets
$8.3B	$8.5B	$9.4B	$12.5B	$14.2B	$13.6B	$13.6B	$21.7B	$32.1B	$32.0B	$32.0B	Total debtDebt
$8.1B	$8.5B	$9.4B	$12.5B	$13.7B	$13.5B	$13.4B	$21.3B	$31.3B	$31.9B	$31.8B	Net debt / (cash)Net debt
2.8×	2.9×	3.9×	3.9×	1.9×	3.5×	4.2×	4.7×	3.6×	3.2×	3.3×	Interest coverageInt. cov.
$189M	$5.5B	$6.6B	$6.2B	$6.0B	$6.0B	$6.5B	$16.5B	$17.0B	$22.5B	$22.4B	Shareholders’ equityEquity
0.5%	0.2%	0.3%	0.4%	—	—	—	—	—	—	0.1%	Stock comp / revenueSBC/rev
											Per share
212M	300M	414M	415M	432M	447M	448M	485M	587M	626M	632M	Shares out (diluted)Shares
$42.00	$40.61	$30.40	$24.47	$19.78	$36.97	$49.93	$36.42	$37.00	$53.73	$55.74	Revenue / shareRev/sh
$1.66	$1.29	$2.78	$3.08	$1.42	$3.35	$3.84	$5.48	$5.17	$5.42	$5.59	EPS (diluted)EPS
$4.53	$3.03	$4.24	$3.54	$3.06	$4.13	$5.08	$7.52	$6.40	$6.53	$6.52	Owner earnings / shareOE/sh
$3.43	$2.68	$0.11	$-4.58	$-0.69	$4.13	$3.80	$5.82	$4.89	$3.91	$3.55	Free cash flow / shareFCF/sh
$2.44	$2.77	$3.22	$3.51	$3.72	$3.73	$3.73	$3.79	$3.94	$4.13	$4.14	Dividends / shareDiv/sh
$2.94	$1.71	$5.17	$9.26	$5.08	$1.56	$2.68	$3.29	$3.45	$5.04	$5.36	Cap. spending / shareCapex/sh
$0.89	$18.44	$15.89	$14.99	$14.00	$13.45	$14.48	$33.96	$29.05	$35.92	$35.40	Book value / shareBVPS

The diluted share count moved ×1.41 into 2017 — shares issued, not a split the totals corroborate — and the per-share figures carry the counts as filed.

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

	9-yr	5-yr
Revenue / share	+2.8%/yr	+22.1%/yr
Owner earnings / share	+4.1%/yr	+16.4%/yr
EPS	+14.1%/yr	+30.7%/yr
Dividends / share	+6.0%/yr	+2.1%/yr
Capital spending / share	+6.2%/yr	−0.2%/yr
Book value / share	+50.8%/yr	+20.7%/yr

The record, charted

FY2016–2025

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

Share count

626Mpeak FY2025

ROIC

8%low FY2017

Gross margin

30%low FY2022

Net debt ÷ owner earnings

7.8×peak FY2020

Owner earnings vs. net income

Owner earningsNet income

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

$4.1Bowner earningsvs.$3.4Bnet 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 earned $4.1B of owner earnings, the operating cash left after the $1.5B it takes just to hold its position. It put $1.6B more into growth; free cash flow, after that spending, was $2.4B.

Reported net income$3.4B

Owner earnings$4.1B · 12% of revenue

	FY2025	FY2024	FY2023	FY2022	FY2021
Reported net income	$3.4B	$3.0B	$2.7B	$1.7B	$1.5B
Depreciation & amortizationnon-cash charge added back	+$1.5B	+$1.1B	+$769M	+$626M	+$622M
Working capital & othertiming of cash in and out, other non-cash items	+$692M	+$719M	+$993M	+$558M	+$425M
Cash from operations	$5.6B	$4.9B	$4.4B	$2.9B	$2.5B
Maintenance capital expenditurethe spending needed just to hold position and volume	−$1.5B	−$1.1B	−$769M	−$626M	−$697M
Owner earnings	$4.1B	$3.8B	$3.7B	$2.3B	$1.8B
Growth capital expenditurediscretionary; spent to get bigger, not to stand still	−$1.6B	−$887M	−$826M	−$576M	—
Free cash flow	$2.4B	$2.9B	$2.8B	$1.7B	$1.8B
Owner-earnings marginowner earnings ÷ revenue	12%	17%	21%	10%	11%

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 $1.5B, roughly its depreciation, the rate its assets wear out). The other $1.6B 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? 3.2×

Adequate

Operating income $5.7B ÷ interest expense $1.8B

What this means
Comfortable in a normal year, but below the margin of safety Graham looked for. Worth checking how stable the coverage has been across a full cycle.
How heavy is the debt, net of cash? $31.9B · 5.6× operating profit

Heavy net debt

Cash $78M − debt $32.0B

What this means
Netting $78M of cash and short-term investments against $32.0B of debt leaves $31.9B owed, about 5.6× a year's operating profit. 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? 3d

Tight

DSO 33 + DIO 15 − DPO 44 days

What this means
Days cash is tied up between paying suppliers and collecting from customers. Lower is better; a long cycle means growth itself eats cash.

Is it a good business?

Return on invested capital 8%

Solid through the cycle

10-yr median, range 5%–11%; 8% latest = NOPAT $4.4B ÷ invested capital $54.4B

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 12%

Solid through the cycle

10-yr median margin, range 7%–21%; latest $4.1B = operating cash $5.6B − maintenance capex $1.5B

Industry peers: median 12%

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 12% median across 10 years. It chose to put $1.6B more into growth, so free cash flow this year was $2.4B — the gap is investment, not weakness. Treating stock comp as the real expense it is (less $37M of SBC) leaves $4.0B.
Are earnings backed by cash? 1.65×

Cash-backed

Cash from ops $5.6B ÷ net income $3.4B

In the filing’s words The filing leans on adjusted, non-GAAP earnings, but the GAAP profit is itself cash-backed — the adjustments are not papering over a cash shortfall here.

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? 65%

Returns about half

Dividends + buybacks $2.7B ÷ Owner Earnings $4.1B

What this means
Of $4.1B Owner Earnings, $2.7B (65%) went back to shareholders, $2.6B dividends, $75M buybacks. Net of $37M stock comp, the real buyback was about $38M. 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? 2.08×

Expanding

Capex $3.2B ÷ depreciation $1.5B

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 · 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 Pass

Revenue ≥ $2B · $33.6B

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× · 0.71×

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 · $32.0B vs ($1.9B) 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 Pass

A 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 Pass

Uninterrupted 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 Pass

Earnings +33% over the record · +380%

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 $4.81/share (latest year $5.39), the averaged base the calculator's gate runs on, and book value is $35.69/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 14% → 21% (3-yr avg ends)

What this means
Through the cycle the operating margin widened — about 14% early to 21% lately, median 16% — pricing power intact or improving.
Reinvestment, incremental ROIC 8%

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.
Owner earnings growth +17%/yr

What this means
Owner earnings grew about 17% a year over the record.
Worst year 2017 · 11.4% 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 contestability

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

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.

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$5.5B

Cash & short-term investments$172M
Receivables$3.7B
Inventory$1.1B
Other current assets$565M

Current liabilities$7.8B

Debt due within a year$1.2B
Accounts payable$3.6B
Other current liabilities$3.0B

Current ratio0.71×all current assets ÷ what's due · Graham looked for 2×

Quick ratio0.56×stricter: inventory excluded

Cash ratio0.02×strictest: cash alone against what's due

Working capital($2.3B)the cushion left after near-term bills

Its current ratio is below 1, which usually reads as strain; here it is likely structural strength. What it owes in the near term is money to suppliers and customers (payables and deferred revenue), not to lenders, so the balance sheet is funded by operating float, the way Costco's and Amazon's are. The low ratio can be the edge, not the risk; the cash-conversion cycle and the debt due above say which.

Debt due this year vs. cash$1.2B due · $172M 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+19.6%the freshest read on whether the business is still growing

Current ratio, recent quarters0.6× → 0.7×

Deeper floors

Tangible book value$11.4Bequity stripped of goodwill & intangibles

Debt incl. operating leases$32.2B$237M of it operating leases

Deferred revenue$150Mcustomer cash collected before delivery; operating float

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$1.8B

'28$2.1B

'29$2.5B

'30$2.8B

Bars scaled to the largest single year.

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

Within two years$3.0Bthe near wall, the part most exposed to today’s credit conditions

Biggest single year$2.8Bin 2030the lumpiest maturity, where a refinancing, if needed, is largest

Due over the next five years$10.4Bthe near slice; the balance sheet carries $32.0B of debt in all

Against what the business has and earns

Cash & short-term investments, Mar 31, 2026$172M

One year of owner earnings (FY2025)$4.1B

Together, against $1.2B due next year3.4×

Cash on hand as of Mar 31, 2026 plus a year’s owner earnings comes to $4.3B against the $1.2B due in the twelve months after the Dec 31, 2025 schedule: 3.4 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 $29.1B of operating cash; how management split it reads as a reinvestor, most operating cash is plowed back into the business.

Reinvested$18.0B · 62%
Dividends$15.8B · 54%
Buybacks$234M · 1%

Returned to owners$16.1B
73% of the owner earnings the business produced over the span, $15.8B as dividends and $234M as buybacks.
Source of funding−$5.0B
Reinvestment and shareholder returns ran $5.0B beyond the operating cash the business generated, so the gap was financed off the balance sheet: debt rose from $8.3B to $32.0B.
Average price paid for buybacks—
Buybacks ran $234M over the span, but the filings don't tag the share count needed to deduce the average price paid.
Net change in share count197.4%
The diluted count rose from 212M to 632M: issuance (stock pay, deals) outran any buybacks, so owners were diluted on net.
Dividend record$4.13/sh
Paid in 10 of the years on record, the per-share dividend growing about 6% a year. It was never cut over the span.
Return on what it retained—
Not read here: owner earnings are negative over the span, or the company returned nearly all its earnings rather than retaining them, so there is too little retained to measure a return on.

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$11.0B16% of all assets; the premium carried on the balance sheet for businesses acquired

Against book equity36%goodwill is this share of book equity; the rest is the company’s own retained and paid-in capital

Cash spent acquiring$10.9Bover 10 years buying other businesses, against $18.0B 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	Chief executive	Pay, as filed	“Actually paid”	Owner earnings
2021	Mr. Norton	$7.2M	$8.2M	$1.8B
2021	Mr. Spencer	$9.3M	$5.1M	$1.8B
2022	Mr. Norton	$8.1M	$7.4M	$2.3B
2023	Mr. Norton	$9.5M	$6.6M	$3.7B
2024	Mr. Norton	$13.2M	$21.0M	$3.8B
2025	Mr. Norton	$12.0M	−$10.2M	$4.1B

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 ownership<1%
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$37M
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 ONEOK 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 6 tests turned up something to look into; the other 5 came back clean.

Look hereDid the share count rise anyway?197.4%
Diluted shares grew 197.4% over 2016–2025, even as the company spent $234M 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.

And these came back clean

Is it less profitable than it was?
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.

Peers, Pipelines & Midstream

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
ETEnergy Transfer LP Common	$85.5B	25%	10.3%	8%	8%
EPDEnterprise Products Partners L.P.	$52.6B	27%	14.4%	—	12%
OKEONEOK Inc.	$33.6B	29%	15.8%	8%	13%
NRGNRG Energy	$30.3B	24%	7.6%	13%	9%
WMWaste Management Inc.	$25.2B	38%	17.3%	12%	13%
LNGCheniere Energy Inc.	$19.5B	45%	25.7%	19%	18%
TRGPTarga Resources Inc.	$17.0B	19%	4.0%	5%	8%
KMIKinder Morgan Inc.	$15.2B	68%	27.8%	5%	20%
Group median	—	28%	15.1%	8%	12%

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 ONEOK Inc. has delivered.

Today’s price $

Through the cycle, ONEOK Inc. earns about $4.4B on its 13.1% median owner-earnings margin. This year’s 12.1% 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 ($4.4B) Net of stock comp (−$37M) Steady-state · maintenance capex ($4.1B)

—

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+17%/yr

Owner-earnings growth · ’16→’25+15%/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 $2.2B on 630M shares outstanding, per the 10-Q cover, as of 2026-04-20; net debt $31.8B. 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 ($3.4B) runs well above depreciation ($1.5B), so this is a build-out; Steady-state swaps total capex for maintenance (≈ depreciation), lifting the base to about $4.1B, 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 OKE against another business →

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

Manual order: ← OIS its page in the Manual OKTA →

Industry order: ← NGL the Pipelines & Midstream chapter PAA →