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PPL, PPL Corporation

Electric Utilities capital-intensive Regulated utility

PPL, through its regulated utility subsidiaries, delivers electricity to customers in Pennsylvania, Kentucky, Virginia, and Rhode Island; delivers natural gas to customers in Kentucky and Rhode Island; and generates electricity from power plants in Kentucky.

PPL Electric , headquartered in Allentown, Pennsylvania, is a wholly-owned subsidiary of PPL and a regulated public utility that is an electricity transmission and distribution service provider in eastern and central Pennsylvania.

PPL Electric delivers electricity in its Pennsylvania service area and provides electricity supply to retail customers in that area as a PLR under the Customer Choice Act.

Latest annual: FY2025 10-K

PPL · PPL Corporation

The business

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

Revenue · FY2025

$9.0B

+6.9% YoY · 11% 5-yr CAGR

Vital signs · TTM, with 5-yr average

Revenue $9.3B 5-yr avg $7.9B

Operating margin 23.6% 5-yr avg 21.1%

ROIC 5% 5-yr avg 5%

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

Free cash flow margin −17% 5-yr avg −6%

The business in brief

read the 10-K →

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

What it is: Revenue is Kentucky Regulated (41%), Pennsylvania Regulated (34%) and Rhode Island Regulated (24%).
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: Operating margin has run about 25% through the cycle, a solid margin the cost base and competition set as much as the price does. Capital spending runs about 39% of sales, well above depreciation, so the return earned on what it sinks into that plant weighs as much as the margin. Read this kind of business on rate base and the allowed return. 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 rarely cleared the cost of capital (median 5%, above 15% in 0 of 9 years). By owner earnings: roughly 20% 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.

Where the money comes from

read the 10-K →

Revenue spreads across 4 segments, the largest Kentucky Regulated at 41%.

Revenue by reportable segment, FY2025

Kentucky Regulated41%$3.8B
Pennsylvania Regulated34%$3.1B
Rhode Island Regulated24%$2.2B
Corporate0%$1M

From the segment footnote of the company's own 10-K. Shares are of total revenue; the profit bar shows each segment's share of segment operating profit, before unallocated corporate costs.

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
$7.5B	$7.4B	$7.8B	$5.6B	$5.5B	$5.8B	$7.9B	$8.3B	$8.5B	$9.0B	$9.3B	RevenueRevenue
$2.9B	$2.9B	$2.9B	$1.5B	$1.6B	$1.4B	$1.4B	$1.6B	$1.7B	$2.1B	$2.2B	Operating incomeOp. inc.
39.1%	39.0%	36.6%	27.2%	29.0%	24.6%	17.4%	19.6%	20.6%	23.5%	23.6%	Operating marginOp. mgn
$1.9B	$1.1B	$1.8B	$1.7B	$1.5B	($1.5B)	$756M	$740M	$888M	$1.2B	$1.2B	Net incomeNet inc.
25%	41%	20%	9%	18%	—	21%	20%	20%	20%	20%	Effective tax rateTax rate
											Cash flow & returns
$2.9B	$2.5B	$2.8B	$2.4B	$2.7B	$2.3B	$1.7B	$1.8B	$2.3B	$2.6B	$2.7B	Operating cash flowOp. cash
$926M	$1.0B	$1.1B	$949M	$1.0B	$1.1B	$1.2B	$1.3B	$1.3B	$1.3B	$1.3B	DepreciationDeprec.
$34M	$287M	($126M)	($304M)	$226M	$2.6B	($244M)	($269M)	$127M	$87M	$60M	Working capital & otherWC & other
$2.9B	$3.1B	$3.2B	$2.2B	$2.3B	$2.0B	$2.2B	$2.4B	$2.8B	$4.0B	$4.3B	CapexCapex
38.8%	42.1%	41.6%	40.0%	41.5%	34.1%	27.3%	28.8%	33.1%	44.6%	46.1%	Capex / revenueCapex/rev
$2.0B	$1.5B	$1.7B	$1.5B	$1.7B	$1.2B	$549M	$504M	$1.1B	$1.3B	$1.3B	Owner earningsOwner earn.
26.1%	19.5%	22.2%	26.4%	31.5%	20.5%	6.9%	6.1%	12.5%	14.6%	14.3%	Owner earnings marginOE mgn
($30M)	($672M)	($417M)	$184M	$476M	$297M	($425M)	($632M)	($465M)	($1.4B)	($1.6B)	Free cash flowFCF
−0.4%	−9.0%	−5.4%	3.3%	8.7%	5.1%	−5.4%	−7.6%	−5.5%	−15.5%	−17.4%	Free cash flow marginFCF mgn
—	—	—	—	$0	$0	$3.7B	$0	$0	—	$0	AcquisitionsAcquis.
$1.0B	$1.1B	$1.1B	$1.2B	$1.3B	$1.3B	$787M	$704M	$747M	$794M	$806M	Dividends paidDiv. paid
—	—	—	$0	$0	$1.0B	$0	$0	—	—	—	BuybacksBuybacks
8%	6%	7%	4%	5%	—	4%	5%	5%	5%	5%	ROICROIC
19%	10%	16%	13%	11%	-11%	5%	5%	6%	8%	8%	Return on equityROE
9%	1%	6%	4%	1%	−20%	−0%	0%	1%	3%	3%	Retained to equityRetained/eq
											Balance sheet
$341M	$485M	$621M	$815M	$442M	$3.6B	$356M	$331M	$306M	$1.1B	$1.2B	Cash & investmentsCash+inv
$666M	$681M	$663M	$687M	$603M	$583M	$896M	$950M	$961M	$1.1B	$1.3B	ReceivablesReceiv.
$356M	$320M	$303M	$332M	$302M	$322M	$443M	$505M	$511M	$551M	$536M	InventoryInvent.
$820M	$924M	$989M	$956M	$745M	$679M	$1.2B	$1.1B	$1.2B	$1.6B	$1.4B	Accounts payablePayables
$202M	$77M	($23M)	$63M	$160M	$226M	$138M	$351M	$276M	$100M	$464M	Operating working capitalOper. WC
$2.1B	$2.3B	$2.4B	$2.8B	$20.9B	$5.0B	$2.8B	$2.9B	$2.9B	$3.9B	$4.3B	Current assetsCur. assets
$3.8B	$4.0B	$4.6B	$4.9B	$15.1B	$2.3B	$3.8B	$3.3B	$3.3B	$4.5B	$4.3B	Current liabilitiesCur. liab.
0.5×	0.6×	0.5×	0.6×	1.4×	2.2×	0.7×	0.9×	0.9×	0.9×	1.0×	Current ratioCurr. ratio
$3.1B	$3.3B	$3.2B	$3.2B	$716M	$716M	$2.2B	$2.2B	$2.2B	$2.2B	$2.2B	GoodwillGoodwill
$38.3B	$41.5B	$43.4B	$45.7B	$48.1B	$33.2B	$37.8B	$39.2B	$41.1B	$45.2B	$46.3B	Total assetsAssets
$18.3B	$20.2B	$20.6B	$21.9B	$14.7B	$11.1B	$13.2B	$14.6B	$16.5B	$18.9B	$20.0B	Total debtDebt
$18.0B	$19.7B	$20.0B	$21.1B	$14.2B	$7.6B	$12.9B	$14.3B	$16.2B	$17.8B	$18.8B	Net debt / (cash)Net debt
3.3×	3.2×	3.0×	2.5×	2.5×	1.6×	2.7×	2.4×	2.4×	2.6×	2.6×	Interest coverageInt. cov.
$9.9B	$10.8B	$11.7B	$13.0B	$13.4B	$13.7B	$13.9B	$13.9B	$14.1B	$14.9B	$15.0B	Shareholders’ equityEquity
0.4%	0.5%	0.3%	0.6%	0.5%	0.6%	0.5%	0.4%	0.5%	0.5%	0.6%	Stock comp / revenueSBC/rev
											Per share
680M	687M	709M	737M	769M	765M	737M	738M	740M	743M	757M	Shares out (diluted)Shares
$11.05	$10.83	$10.99	$7.60	$7.11	$7.56	$10.72	$11.26	$11.44	$12.16	$12.30	Revenue / shareRev/sh
$2.80	$1.64	$2.58	$2.37	$1.91	$-1.94	$1.03	$1.00	$1.20	$1.59	$1.61	EPS (diluted)EPS
$2.89	$2.11	$2.44	$2.01	$2.24	$1.55	$0.75	$0.68	$1.43	$1.77	$1.76	Owner earnings / shareOE/sh
$-0.04	$-0.98	$-0.59	$0.25	$0.62	$0.39	$-0.58	$-0.86	$-0.63	$-1.88	$-2.14	Free cash flow / shareFCF/sh
$1.51	$1.56	$1.60	$1.62	$1.66	$1.67	$1.07	$0.95	$1.01	$1.07	$1.06	Dividends / shareDiv/sh
$4.29	$4.56	$4.57	$3.04	$2.95	$2.58	$2.92	$3.24	$3.79	$5.42	$5.67	Cap. spending / shareCapex/sh
$14.55	$15.66	$16.45	$17.63	$17.38	$17.94	$18.88	$18.88	$19.03	$20.02	$19.84	Book value / shareBVPS

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

	9-yr	5-yr
Revenue / share	+1.1%/yr	+11.3%/yr
Owner earnings / share	−5.3%/yr	−4.6%/yr
EPS	−6.1%/yr	−3.6%/yr
Dividends / share	−3.8%/yr	−8.4%/yr
Capital spending / share	+2.6%/yr	+12.9%/yr
Book value / share	+3.6%/yr	+2.9%/yr

The record, charted

FY2016–2025

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

Share count

743Mpeak FY2020

ROIC

5%low FY2022

Net debt ÷ owner earnings

13.5×peak FY2023

Owner earnings vs. net income

Owner earningsNet income

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

$1.3Bowner earningsvs.$1.2Bnet incomelow FY2023

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 $1.3B of owner earnings, the operating cash left after the $1.3B it takes just to hold its position. It put $2.7B more into growth; free cash flow, after that spending, was ($1.4B).

Reported net income$1.2B

Owner earnings$1.3B · 15% of revenue

	FY2025	FY2024	FY2023	FY2022	FY2021
Reported net income	$1.2B	$888M	$740M	$756M	($1.5B)
Depreciation & amortizationnon-cash charge added back	+$1.3B	+$1.3B	+$1.3B	+$1.2B	+$1.1B
Stock-based compensationreal costnon-cash, but a real cost	+$49M	+$46M	+$33M	+$37M	+$37M
Working capital & othertiming of cash in and out, other non-cash items	+$87M	+$127M	−$269M	−$244M	+$2.6B
Cash from operations	$2.6B	$2.3B	$1.8B	$1.7B	$2.3B
Maintenance capital expenditurethe spending needed just to hold position and volume	−$1.3B	−$1.3B	−$1.3B	−$1.2B	−$1.1B
Owner earnings	$1.3B	$1.1B	$504M	$549M	$1.2B
Growth capital expenditurediscretionary; spent to get bigger, not to stand still	−$2.7B	−$1.5B	−$1.1B	−$974M	−$891M
Free cash flow	($1.4B)	($465M)	($632M)	($425M)	$297M
Owner-earnings marginowner earnings ÷ revenue	15%	13%	6%	7%	21%

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 $1.3B, roughly its depreciation, the rate its assets wear out). The other $2.7B 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. 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 $49M), owner earnings is nearer $1.3B.

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? 2.6×

Adequate

Operating income $2.1B ÷ interest expense $808M

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? $17.8B · 8.4× operating profit

Heavy net debt

Cash $1.1B − debt $18.9B

What this means
Netting $1.1B of cash and short-term investments against $18.9B of debt leaves $17.8B owed, about 8.4× a year's operating profit (8.9× 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? —

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 5%

Below average through the cycle

9-yr median, range 4%–8%; 5% latest = NOPAT $1.7B ÷ invested capital $32.7B

Industry peers: median 5%

What this means
The rate the business earns on the money tied up in it, Buffett's north star, because over time a stock tracks the ROIC beneath it. Above ~15% sustained hints at a moat; a return below the cost of capital (~8%) erodes value as a business grows rather than building it — the test Buffett weighs most. The headline is the median of the last 9 years (it ran 5% 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 20%

High through the cycle

10-yr median margin, range 6%–31%; latest $1.3B = operating cash $2.6B − maintenance capex $1.3B

Industry peers: median 11%

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 15% of revenue this year, a 20% median across 10 years. It chose to put $2.7B more into growth, so free cash flow this year was ($1.4B) — the gap is investment, not weakness. Treating stock comp as the real expense it is (less $49M of SBC) leaves $1.3B.
Are earnings backed by cash? 2.23×

Cash-backed

Cash from ops $2.6B ÷ net income $1.2B

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? 60%

Returns about half

Dividends + buybacks $794M ÷ Owner Earnings $1.3B

What this means
Of $1.3B Owner Earnings, $794M (60%) went back to shareholders, $794M dividends, $0 buybacks. 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? 3.07×

Expanding

Capex $4.0B ÷ depreciation $1.3B

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

Graham’s defensive tests · 2 of 6 met

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

Adequate size Pass

Revenue ≥ $2B · $9.0B

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× · 0.86×

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 · $18.9B vs ($615M) 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 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 Miss

Earnings +33% over the record · −42%

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 $1.24/share (latest year $1.57), the averaged base the calculator's gate runs on, and book value is $19.78/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 38% → 21% (3-yr avg ends)

In the filing’s words The filing attributes gains to higher prices, but the margin in the record has not followed — the claim outruns the result here.

What this means
Through the cycle the operating margin slipped — about 38% early to 21% lately, median 25% — competition or costs are biting in.
Reinvestment, incremental ROIC returns capital

What this means
The capital base barely grew: this business returns cash through dividends and buybacks rather than reinvesting. Judge it on the cash returned, not on compounding.
Owner earnings growth −4%/yr

What this means
Owner earnings shrank about 4% a year over the record.
Worst year 2022 · 17.4% op. margin

What this means
Stayed profitable even in its hardest year, the resilience that survives recessions.
Share count +1.0%/yr

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

What this means
Paid a dividend in 10 of the years on record.

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$4.3B

Cash & short-term investments$1.2B
Receivables$1.3B
Inventory$536M
Other current assets$1.2B

Current liabilities$4.3B

Debt due within a year$994M
Accounts payable$1.4B
Other current liabilities$1.9B

Current ratio1.00×all current assets ÷ what's due · Graham looked for 2×

Quick ratio0.88×stricter: inventory excluded

Cash ratio0.29×strictest: cash alone against what's due

Working capital$14Mthe cushion left after near-term bills

Debt due this year vs. cash$994M due · $1.2B 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+9.4%the freshest read on whether the business is still growing

Current ratio, recent quarters1.1× → 1.0×

Deeper floors

Tangible book value$12.4Bequity stripped of goodwill & intangibles

Debt incl. operating leases$20.0Bno operating-lease liability tagged this quarter, so debt alone

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$904M

'27$428M

'28$1.4B

'29$116M

'30$2.2B

later$14.1B

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$904Mthe first rung: what must be repaid or rolled over within the year

Within two years$1.3Bthe near wall, the part most exposed to today’s credit conditions

Biggest single year$2.2Bin 2030the lumpiest maturity, where a refinancing, if needed, is largest

Total scheduled principal$19.1Bevery year plus what lies beyond, as the footnote totals it

Against what the business has and earns

Cash & short-term investments, Mar 31, 2026$1.2B

One year of owner earnings (FY2025)$1.3B

Together, against $904M due next year2.8×

Cash on hand as of Mar 31, 2026 plus a year’s owner earnings comes to $2.6B against the $904M due in the twelve months after the Dec 31, 2025 schedule: 2.8 times it.

Maturity schedule extracted from the company’s Dec 31, 2025 annual report and reconciled to the total the table states.

How the cash was used, 2016–2025

Over the record, the business generated $24.1B of operating cash; how management split it reads as a reinvestor, most operating cash is plowed back into the business.

Reinvested$27.2B · 113%
Dividends$10.0B · 42%
Buybacks$1.0B · 4%

Returned to owners$11.0B
85% of the owner earnings the business produced over the span, $10.0B as dividends and $1.0B as buybacks.
Source of funding−$14.1B
Reinvestment and shareholder returns ran $14.1B beyond the operating cash the business generated, so the gap was financed off the balance sheet.
Average price paid for buybacks—
Buybacks ran $1.0B over the span, but the filings don't tag the share count needed to deduce the average price paid.
Net change in share count11.3%
The diluted count rose from 680M to 757M: issuance (stock pay, deals) outran any buybacks, so owners were diluted on net.
Dividend record$1.07/sh
Paid in 10 of the years on record, the per-share dividend shrinking about 4% a year. It was cut at least once along the way.

Buybacks are gross of stock issued to staff; the share-count line above is the net of that, the figure that decides whether owners gained. The average price paid blends a year of purchases (and any accelerated repurchase), so it is close, not exact. The record of where the cash went and on what terms.

Management, ownership & pay

read the proxy →

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

Fiscal year	Chief executive	Pay, as filed	“Actually paid”	Owner earnings
2021	Mr. Sorgi	$11.4M	$11.5M	$1.2B
2022	Mr. Sorgi	$9.1M	$9.1M	$549M
2023	Mr. Sorgi	$12.0M	$10.7M	$504M
2024	Mr. Sorgi	$11.4M	$21.1M	$1.1B
2025	Mr. Sorgi	$13.2M	$15.9M	$1.3B

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.

CEO pay ratio74:1
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$49M
The slice of the business handed to employees in shares this year, 1% of revenue, equal to 2% 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 PPL Corporation 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.

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

Look hereIs it less profitable than it was?11.1% vs 22.6%
The owner-earnings margin averaged 22.6% early in the record and 11.1% across the last three years, and the latest year has not recovered. Ask the filing whether that is a structural drift or a cyclical trough — price, mix, cost, or a competitor — and whether it is permanent.
Look hereDid the share count rise anyway?11.3%
Diluted shares grew 11.3% over 2016–2025, even as the company spent $1.0B on buybacks. The repurchases were outrun by issuance — to staff, in a raise, or in a deal — and the filing says which; owners' slice still shrank. Read the buyback line beside this one, not on its own.
Look hereDid receivables and inventory outpace sales?14% → 20% of sales
Receivables and inventory grew from $1.0B to $1.9B while revenue grew 24%: working capital is climbing faster than sales (14% of revenue then, 20% 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

Did debt outgrow the business?
Did reported profit become cash?

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, 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
DDominion Energy Inc.	$16.5B	—	23.1%	4%	21%
DTBDTE Energy Co	$15.8B	—	13.6%	6%	—
FEFirstEnergy Corp.	$15.1B	—	18.4%	5%	11%
ESEversource Energy (D/B/A)	$13.5B	—	20.2%	5%	8%
ETREntergy Corporation	$12.9B	—	15.3%	5%	13%
CNPCenterPoint Energy Inc (Holding Co)	$9.3B	—	17.4%	5%	9%
PPLPPL Corporation	$9.0B	—	25.9%	5%	20%
PNWPinnacle West	$5.3B	71%	20.5%	6%	11%
Group median	—	—	19.3%	5%	11%

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 PPL Corporation has delivered.

PPL Corporation’s latest year shows negative owner earnings, the mark of a build-out: total capital spending outruns the cash the business throws off today. So the tool opens on the steady-state base (maintenance capex in place of the build-out spend), the cash it would earn at rest; clear the toggle below to read the latest year exactly as reported.

Today’s price $

Through the cycle, PPL Corporation earns about $1.8B on its 20.0% median owner-earnings margin. This year’s 14.6% 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 ($1.8B) Net of stock comp (−$53M) Steady-state · maintenance capex ($1.4B)

—

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+8%/yr

Owner-earnings growth · ’16→’25−4%/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 ($1.6B) on 752M shares outstanding, per the 10-Q cover, as of 2026-04-30; net debt $18.8B. The base opens on the steady-state figure (the latest year is negative on total capex mid-build-out); clear Steady-state to use the year as filed. Net of stock comp treats option pay as the expense it is. Capex ($4.3B) runs well above depreciation ($1.3B), so this is a build-out; Steady-state swaps total capex for maintenance (≈ depreciation), lifting the base to about $1.4B, 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 PPL against another business →

The owners of PPL: the meeting and the votes →

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

Manual order: ← PPG its page in the Manual PPLC →

Industry order: ← POR the Electric Utilities chapter PPLC →