What moves the needle: Gross margin has run about 8.7% and operating margin about 2.6% through the cycle, a thin spread that turns the result on volume and the cost of what it sells far more than on the price it sets. On a spread this thin the operating result swings hard on small moves in cost or volume — it has ranged from −10% to 6.7% over the years, so the cost line is where the needle moves. Read this kind of business on throughput and the contracts behind it. On its own account, the filing leans hardest on concentrated dependence, set against the numbers in what the filing emphasizes, below.

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
$20.2B	$26.2B	$34.1B	$33.7B	$23.3B	$42.1B	$57.3B	$47.3B	$48.9B	$44.3B	$45.3B	RevenueRevenue
15%	12%	13%	13%	12%	8%	7%	7%	8%	9%	8%	Gross marginGross mgn
1%	1%	1%	1%	1%	1%	1%	1%	1%	1%	1%	SG&A / revenueSG&A/rev
$990M	$1.1B	$2.3B	$2.0B	($2.4B)	$842M	$1.3B	$1.2B	$862M	$1.4B	$1.5B	Operating incomeOp. inc.
4.9%	4.4%	6.7%	5.9%	−10.2%	2.0%	2.2%	2.6%	1.8%	3.2%	3.3%	Operating marginOp. mgn
$94M	($731M)	$334M	$331M	($568M)	$60M	$168M	$198M	$103M	$260M	$196M	Net incomeNet inc.
45%	—	47%	35%	—	—	59%	39%	55%	26%	26%	Effective tax rateTax rate
											Cash flow & returns
$718M	$2.5B	$2.6B	$2.5B	$1.5B	$2.0B	$2.4B	$2.7B	$2.5B	$2.9B	$2.7B	Operating cash flowOp. cash
$515M	$519M	$521M	$604M	$656M	$777M	$968M	$912M	$901M	$953M	$964M	DepreciationDeprec.
$109M	$2.7B	$1.7B	$1.6B	$1.4B	$1.2B	$1.3B	$1.6B	$1.5B	$1.7B	$1.5B	Working capital & otherWC & other
$1.3B	$1.0B	$1.6B	$1.2B	$738M	$336M	$455M	$408M	$448M	$643M	$633M	CapexCapex
6.6%	3.9%	4.8%	3.5%	3.2%	0.8%	0.8%	0.9%	0.9%	1.5%	1.4%	Capex / revenueCapex/rev
$203M	$2.0B	$2.1B	$1.9B	$772M	$1.7B	$1.9B	$2.3B	$2.0B	$2.3B	$2.1B	Owner earningsOwner earn.
1.0%	7.5%	6.1%	5.6%	3.3%	3.9%	3.4%	4.9%	4.2%	5.2%	4.6%	Owner earnings marginOE mgn
($616M)	$1.5B	$970M	$1.3B	$772M	$1.7B	$1.9B	$2.3B	$2.0B	$2.3B	$2.1B	Free cash flowFCF
−3.1%	5.6%	2.8%	3.9%	3.3%	3.9%	3.4%	4.9%	4.2%	5.2%	4.6%	Free cash flow marginFCF mgn
$282M	$1.3B	—	$50M	$310M	$32M	$149M	$425M	$248M	$2.7B	$2.1B	AcquisitionsAcquis.
											Balance sheet
$50M	$40M	$69M	$47M	$25M	$452M	$404M	$453M	$349M	$329M	$172M	Cash & investmentsCash+inv
$2.3B	$3.0B	$2.5B	$3.6B	$2.6B	$4.7B	$3.9B	$3.8B	$3.7B	$3.6B	$4.8B	ReceivablesReceiv.
$1.3B	$713M	$640M	$604M	$647M	$783M	$729M	$548M	$261M	$211M	$380M	InventoryInvent.
$2.6B	$3.3B	$2.7B	$3.7B	$2.4B	$4.8B	$4.0B	$3.8B	$3.6B	$3.5B	$4.9B	Accounts payablePayables
$1.0B	$418M	$389M	$531M	$775M	$677M	$591M	$463M	$293M	$352M	$273M	Operating working capitalOper. WC
$4.3B	$4.0B	$3.5B	$4.6B	$3.7B	$6.1B	$5.4B	$4.9B	$4.8B	$4.7B	$6.2B	Current assetsCur. assets
$4.7B	$4.5B	$3.5B	$5.0B	$4.3B	$6.2B	$5.9B	$5.0B	$4.9B	$4.9B	$6.5B	Current liabilitiesCur. liab.
0.9×	0.9×	1.0×	0.9×	0.9×	1.0×	0.9×	1.0×	1.0×	1.0×	0.9×	Current ratioCurr. ratio
$2.3B	$2.6B	$2.5B	$2.5B	$0	—	—	—	—	—	$0	GoodwillGoodwill
$26.1B	$26.8B	$26.8B	$30.0B	$26.0B	$30.0B	$29.2B	$28.6B	$27.8B	$31.3B	$32.8B	Total assetsAssets
$11.8B	$9.9B	$9.2B	$9.7B	$10.2B	$9.2B	$8.4B	$7.8B	$7.6B	$11.3B	$11.4B	Total debtDebt
$11.8B	$9.9B	$9.1B	$9.6B	$10.2B	$8.8B	$8.0B	$7.3B	$7.3B	$10.9B	$11.2B	Net debt / (cash)Net debt
2.1×	2.2×	5.3×	4.7×	-5.5×	2.0×	3.2×	3.2×	2.3×	3.1×	2.9×	Interest coverageInt. cov.

The record, charted

FY2016–2025

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

Gross margin

9%low FY2023

Net debt ÷ owner earnings

4.8×peak FY2016

Owner earnings vs. net income

Owner earningsNet income

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

$2.3Bowner earningsvs.$260Mnet 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 turned $260M of profit into $2.3B of owner earnings: more cash than the profit line showed, after the non-cash charges and the capital it put back in.

Reported net income$260M

Owner earnings$2.3B · 5% of revenue

	FY2025	FY2024	FY2023	FY2022	FY2021
Reported net income	$260M	$103M	$198M	$168M	$60M
Depreciation & amortizationnon-cash charge added back	+$953M	+$901M	+$912M	+$968M	+$777M
Working capital & othertiming of cash in and out, other non-cash items	+$1.7B	+$1.5B	+$1.6B	+$1.3B	+$1.2B
Cash from operations	$2.9B	$2.5B	$2.7B	$2.4B	$2.0B
Capital expenditurecash put back in to keep running and to grow	−$643M	−$448M	−$408M	−$455M	−$336M
Owner earnings	$2.3B	$2.0B	$2.3B	$1.9B	$1.7B
Owner-earnings marginowner earnings ÷ revenue	5%	4%	5%	3%	4%

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 .

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? 3.1×

Adequate

Operating income $1.4B ÷ interest expense $467M

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? $10.9B · 7.7× operating profit

Heavy net debt

Cash $329M − debt $11.3B

What this means
Netting $329M of cash and short-term investments against $11.3B of debt leaves $10.9B owed, about 7.7× a year's operating profit (7.9× 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? 0d

Tight

DSO 30 + DIO 2 − DPO 31 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 —

Not enough data

What this means
The filing data didn't include the inputs for this check.
Owner-earnings margin 4%

Thin through the cycle

10-yr median margin, range 1%–8%; latest $2.3B = operating cash $2.9B − maintenance capex $643M

Industry peers: median 5%

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 5% of revenue this year, a 4% median across 10 years. Treating stock comp as the real expense it is (less $99M of SBC) leaves $2.2B.
Are earnings backed by cash? 11.27×

Cash-backed

Cash from ops $2.9B ÷ net income $260M

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 $2.3B

What this means
Of $2.3B Owner Earnings, $8M (0%) went back to shareholders, $0 dividends, $8M buybacks. But the buybacks barely exceed stock issued to employees ($99M 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? 0.67×

Harvesting

Capex $643M ÷ depreciation $953M

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 5 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 · $44.3B

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× · 0.96×

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 · $11.3B vs ($198M) 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) · 2 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 · 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 —

Earnings +33% over the record · —

What this means
Earnings were negative early in the record, a growth rate isn't meaningful.
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 $0.94/share (latest year $1.31), the averaged base the calculator's gate runs on. 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 8 of 10

What this means
Lost money in 2 year(s), look at what happened there before trusting the average.
Operating margin 5% → 3% (3-yr avg ends)

What this means
Through the cycle the operating margin slipped — about 5% early to 3% lately, median 3% — competition or costs are biting in.
Owner earnings growth +8%/yr

What this means
Owner earnings grew about 8% a year over the record.
Worst year 2020 · −10.2% op. margin

What this means
Operations went underwater in 2020, understand why before trusting the good years.

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.

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$6.2B

Cash & short-term investments$172M
Receivables$4.8B
Inventory$380M
Other current assets$785M

Current liabilities$6.5B

Debt due within a year$420M
Accounts payable$4.9B
Other current liabilities$1.2B

Current ratio0.94×all current assets ÷ what's due · Graham looked for 2×

Quick ratio0.88×stricter: inventory excluded

Cash ratio0.03×strictest: cash alone against what's due

Working capital($378M)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$420M 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+8.7%the freshest read on whether the business is still growing

Current ratio, recent quarters1.0× → 0.9×

Deeper floors

Tangible book value($2.4B)equity stripped of goodwill & intangibles

Debt incl. operating leases$1.7B$229M of it operating leases

From the company's latest filing.

Debt maturity

the debt note, SEC EDGAR →

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

'26$750M

'27$0

'28$0

'29$1.0B

'30$750M

later$6.7B

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

Due in the next 12 months$750Mthe first rung: what must be repaid or rolled over within the year

Within two years$750Mthe near wall, the part most exposed to today’s credit conditions

Biggest single year$1.0Bin 2029the lumpiest maturity, where a refinancing, if needed, is largest

Total scheduled principal$9.2Bevery year plus what lies beyond, as the footnote totals it

Against what the business has and earns

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

One year of owner earnings (FY2025)$2.3B

Together, against $750M due next year3.3×

Cash on hand as of Mar 31, 2026 plus a year’s owner earnings comes to $2.5B against the $750M due in the twelve months after the Dec 31, 2025 schedule: 3.3 times it.

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

How the cash was used, 2016–2025

Over the record, the business generated $22.4B of operating cash; how management split it reads as a balanced allocator, splitting cash between the business, owners, and the balance sheet.

Reinvested$8.2B · 37%
Buybacks$8M · 0%
Retained (debt / cash)$14.2B · 63%

Returned to owners$8M
0% of the owner earnings the business produced over the span, $0 as dividends and $8M as buybacks.
Average price paid for buybacks—
Buybacks ran $8M over the span, but the filings don't tag the share count needed to deduce the average price paid.
Net change in share count—
No continuous share count across the span.
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 retained328%
Of the earnings it kept rather than paid out ($241M over the span), annual owner earnings (first three years vs last three) grew $792M, so each retained $1 added about 3.28 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$1.8B6% of all assets; the premium carried on the balance sheet for businesses acquired

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

Cash spent acquiring$5.4Bover 10 years buying other businesses, against $8.2B of capital spent building

$2.5B written down across 1 year (2020): goodwill the company has already conceded it overpaid for, charged against earnings. That is roughly 46% of the cash it put into acquisitions over the span. 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	Willie Chiang	$4.4M	$4.8M	$1.7B
2022	Willie Chiang	$8.3M	$14.5M	$1.9B
2023	Willie Chiang	$7.5M	$16.4M	$2.3B
2024	Willie Chiang	$8.5M	$11.9M	$2.0B
2025	Willie Chiang	$12.3M	$18.6M	$2.3B

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.

Insider ownership2.8%
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$99M
The slice of the business handed to employees in shares this year, 0% of revenue, equal to 7% 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 Plains GP Holdings L.P. Class A is a good business, the question is what would make owning it a mistake, and whether those marks are in the record. Disconfirming tests across 2016–2025.

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

Each test came back clean

Is it less profitable than it was?
Did 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
PAGPPlains GP Holdings L.P. Class A	$44.3B	10%	2.9%	—	5%
PAAPlains All American Pipeline L.P. Common	$44.3B	10%	2.9%	—	5%
DINOHF Sinclair	$26.9B	19%	3.8%	7%	3%
MPLXMPLX LP Common	$9.7B	—	40.3%	18%	47%
GELGenesis Energy	$1.6B	—	10.9%	—	3%
DKLDelek Logistics Partners L.P. Common	$1.0B	25%	20.9%	—	17%
Group median	—	15%	7.3%	—	5%

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 Plains GP Holdings L.P. Class A has delivered.

Today’s price $

Through the cycle, Plains GP Holdings L.P. Class A earns about $2.0B on its 4.5% median owner-earnings margin. This year’s 5.2% margin runs in line with that. Normalize, below, values the price on that through-cycle figure rather than the latest year.

Base Normalize · through-cycle ($2.0B) Net of stock comp (−$99M)

—

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+5%/yr

Owner-earnings growth · ’16→’25+20%/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.

Owner earnings $2.1B on 198M shares outstanding (a weighted cover-text, the only count this filer tags); net debt $11.2B. The if-converted diluted count is 220M, 11% above the shares outstanding: the dilution overhang (convertibles, options) a buyer inherits. 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. The dials set the multiple a growth belief justifies; the price, and every dollar on this page, is yours.

Weigh PAGP against another business →

The owners of PAGP: the meeting and the votes →

Cite: Owner Scorecard, "Plains GP Holdings L.P. Class A (PAGP), the owner's record," https://ownerscorecard.com/c/PAGP, data as of 2026-07-09.

Manual order: ← PAG its page in the Manual PAHC →

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