Situation: Serial acquirer. Goodwill and acquired intangibles are 45% of assets, with meaningful acquisition spending in 5 of the record's 10 years; much of what this business is was bought, at prices the record carries.
What moves the needle: Operating margin has run about 3.9% through the cycle, a thin margin, where volume, cost discipline and the price it gets all bear on the result. The operating margin has swung widely — from 2.1% to 8.7% over the years — so the through-cycle figure carries more than any single year, and the worst year more than the best. On its own account, the filing leans hardest on customer concentration, set against the numbers in what the filing emphasizes, below.

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
$1.2B	$1.3B	$1.7B	$1.8B	$1.5B	$1.5B	$2.0B	$2.0B	$1.8B	$1.8B	$1.9B	RevenueRevenue
54%	49%	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	51%	Gross marginGross mgn
2%	2%	1%	2%	2%	2%	1%	1%	2%	2%	2%	SG&A / revenueSG&A/rev
$87M	$55M	$66M	$37M	$93M	$130M	$60M	$63M	$61M	$114M	$151M	Operating incomeOp. inc.
7.5%	4.2%	3.9%	2.1%	6.3%	8.7%	3.0%	3.2%	3.5%	6.4%	8.1%	Operating marginOp. mgn
$45M	$27M	$56M	$18M	$56M	$88M	$35M	$32M	$35M	$73M	$99M	Net incomeNet inc.
43%	43%	12%	30%	27%	28%	28%	30%	27%	29%	29%	Effective tax rateTax rate
											Cash flow & returns
$102M	$21M	$57M	$97M	$176M	$69M	$34M	$124M	$111M	$71M	$26M	Operating cash flowOp. cash
$28M	$29M	$33M	$34M	$36M	$34M	$34M	$33M	$32M	$36M	$37M	DepreciationDeprec.
$29M	($35M)	($31M)	$46M	$84M	($53M)	($35M)	$58M	$43M	($39M)	($110M)	Working capital & otherWC & other
$10M	$12M	$14M	$11M	$14M	$15M	$19M	$9M	$11M	$15M	$16M	CapexCapex
0.9%	0.9%	0.8%	0.6%	1.0%	1.0%	0.9%	0.5%	0.6%	0.8%	0.9%	Capex / revenueCapex/rev
$92M	$9M	$44M	$86M	$162M	$54M	$15M	$115M	$100M	$56M	$10M	Owner earningsOwner earn.
7.9%	0.7%	2.6%	4.9%	11.0%	3.6%	0.8%	5.9%	5.7%	3.1%	0.5%	Owner earnings marginOE mgn
$92M	$9M	$44M	$86M	$162M	$54M	$15M	$115M	$100M	$56M	$10M	Free cash flowFCF
7.9%	0.7%	2.6%	4.9%	11.0%	3.6%	0.8%	5.9%	5.7%	3.1%	0.5%	Free cash flow marginFCF mgn
$10M	$43M	$24M	$61M	$4M	$41M	$13M	$20M	$49M	$88M	$10M	AcquisitionsAcquis.
$23M	$24M	$26M	$26M	$24M	$23M	$23M	$24M	$25M	$26M	$26M	Dividends paidDiv. paid
											Balance sheet
$139M	$52M	$15M	$5M	$57M	$5M	$15M	$45M	$117M	$25M	$12M	Cash & investmentsCash+inv
$79M	$97M	$133M	$120M	$84M	$100M	$138M	$114M	$95M	$102M	$262M	ReceivablesReceiv.
$46M	$60M	$56M	$65M	$50M	$61M	$84M	$56M	$42M	$47M	$81M	InventoryInvent.
$26M	$27M	$36M	$34M	$31M	$37M	$49M	$36M	$32M	$34M	$44M	Accounts payablePayables
$99M	$129M	$153M	$151M	$103M	$124M	$173M	$135M	$105M	$115M	$299M	Operating working capitalOper. WC
$295M	$241M	$257M	$227M	$226M	$222M	$288M	$255M	$281M	$207M	$442M	Current assetsCur. assets
$290M	$272M	$283M	$326M	$345M	$345M	$381M	$365M	$374M	$349M	$447M	Current liabilitiesCur. liab.
1.0×	0.9×	0.9×	0.7×	0.7×	0.6×	0.8×	0.7×	0.8×	0.6×	1.0×	Current ratioCurr. ratio
$213M	$226M	$228M	$245M	$240M	$253M	$254M	$262M	$276M	$293M	$294M	GoodwillGoodwill
$692M	$674M	$730M	$753M	$839M	$854M	$912M	$875M	$940M	$937M	$1.2B	Total assetsAssets
$92M	$76M	$99M	$129M	$123M	$110M	$164M	$148M	$209M	$188M	$178M	Total debtDebt
($48M)	$23M	$85M	$125M	$66M	$105M	$149M	$103M	$91M	$163M	$166M	Net debt / (cash)Net debt
											Per share
57.0M	55.9M	54.8M	50.8M	45.7M	40.6M	37.4M	35.7M	35.3M	34.3M	33.0M	Shares out (diluted)Shares
$20.37	$23.68	$30.64	$34.52	$32.14	$36.92	$53.67	$54.71	$50.07	$52.06	$56.37	Revenue / shareRev/sh
$0.79	$0.48	$1.01	$0.35	$1.22	$2.16	$0.94	$0.89	$1.00	$2.14	$2.99	EPS (diluted)EPS
$1.61	$0.16	$0.80	$1.69	$3.54	$1.33	$0.41	$3.21	$2.84	$1.63	$0.29	Owner earnings / shareOE/sh
$1.61	$0.16	$0.80	$1.69	$3.54	$1.33	$0.41	$3.21	$2.84	$1.63	$0.29	Free cash flow / shareFCF/sh
$0.40	$0.44	$0.47	$0.50	$0.54	$0.58	$0.62	$0.67	$0.71	$0.76	$0.80	Dividends / shareDiv/sh
$0.18	$0.22	$0.25	$0.22	$0.31	$0.37	$0.50	$0.25	$0.30	$0.44	$0.49	Cap. spending / shareCapex/sh

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

	9-yr	5-yr
Revenue / share	+11.0%/yr	+10.1%/yr
Owner earnings / share	+0.2%/yr	−14.3%/yr
EPS	+11.8%/yr	+11.9%/yr
Dividends / share	+7.3%/yr	+7.3%/yr
Capital spending / share	+10.5%/yr	+7.1%/yr

The record, charted

FY2016–2025

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

Share count

34Mpeak FY2016

Net debt ÷ owner earnings

2.9×peak FY2022

Owner earnings vs. net income

Owner earningsNet income

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

$56Mowner earningsvs.$73Mnet incomelow FY2017

Where the cash went

ReinvestBuybacksDividendsAcquisitionsRetainedBeyond op. cash

Each year's outlays against its operating cash: the mix, and how it drifts. The hatched cap is spending beyond that year's operating cash — financed from the balance sheet or borrowing, not operations.

FY2016FY2025

Owner-earnings bridge

FY2021–FY2025cash-flow statement, SEC EDGAR →

Net income is the accountant's number; owner earnings is the cash an owner could take out. The walk between them, off the cash-flow statement, and whether the gap is widening or holding.

In fiscal 2025 the business reported $73M of profit but $56M of owner earnings: $17M less than the profit line, taken out by capital spending and the timing of cash.

Reported net income$73M

Owner earnings$56M · 3% of revenue

	FY2025	FY2024	FY2023	FY2022	FY2021
Reported net income	$73M	$35M	$32M	$35M	$88M
Depreciation & amortizationnon-cash charge added back	+$36M	+$32M	+$33M	+$34M	+$34M
Working capital & othertiming of cash in and out, other non-cash items	−$39M	+$43M	+$58M	−$35M	−$53M
Cash from operations	$71M	$111M	$124M	$34M	$69M
Capital expenditurecash put back in to keep running and to grow	−$15M	−$11M	−$9M	−$19M	−$15M
Owner earnings	$56M	$100M	$115M	$15M	$54M
Owner-earnings marginowner earnings ÷ revenue	3%	6%	6%	1%	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 .

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

Maintenance capex is estimated as depreciation where a growing business invests above it; free cash flow is the figure the scorecard's free-cash margin reads.

III

Quality & stewardship

Returns, the balance sheet, capital allocation, and pay.

Owner’s Scorecard

FY2025 10-K · source on SEC EDGAR →

Will it survive?

Can it pay its interest? 6.8×

Comfortable

Operating income $114M ÷ interest expense $17M

What this means
Operating profit covers interest with the kind of margin Graham wanted for a defensive holding. Necessary, not sufficient, it says solvent, not cheap.
How heavy is the debt, net of cash? $163M · 1.4× operating profit

Modest net debt

Cash $25M − debt $188M

What this means
Netting $25M of cash and short-term investments against $188M of debt leaves $163M owed, about 1.4× a year's operating profit (1.6× 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? 28d

Tight

DSO 21 + DIO 25 − DPO 18 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

Industry peers: median 8%

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%–11%; latest $56M = operating cash $71M − maintenance capex $15M

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 3% of revenue this year, a 4% median across 10 years.
Are earnings backed by cash? 0.97×

Mostly cash-backed

Cash from ops $71M ÷ net income $73M

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? 47%

Returns about half

Dividends + buybacks $26M ÷ Owner Earnings $56M

What this means
Of $56M Owner Earnings, $26M (47%) went back to shareholders, $26M 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? 0.41×

Harvesting

Capex $15M ÷ depreciation $36M

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 Near

Revenue ≥ $2B · $1.8B

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× · 0.59×

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 · $188M vs ($142M) 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 Near

Earnings +33% over the record · +10%

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 $1.43/share (latest year $2.24), 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 10 of 10

What this means
Never lost money over the record, the earnings stability Graham insisted on.
Operating margin 5% → 4% (3-yr avg ends)

In the filing’s words The filing ties gains to its own pricing, but names price competition too — pricing power that is real yet contested, not unopposed. The margin shows who is winning.

What this means
The recent-years average (4%) sits below the early years (5%), but the latest year (6%) is back near the early level: a cyclical trough dragging the window down, not a one-way slide. The through-cycle median is 4% — read it across the cycle, not on the dip.
Owner earnings growth +5%/yr

What this means
Owner earnings grew about 5% a year over the record.
Worst year 2019 · 2.1% op. margin

What this means
Stayed profitable even in its hardest year, the resilience that survives recessions.
Share count −5.5%/yr

What this means
The share count is shrinking, buybacks are quietly growing your slice of the business.
Dividend record rising

What this means
Paid and raised the dividend across the record, the continuity Graham prized.

Does AI threaten the moat?

Moderate contestability

AI is likely to reshape costs and some products here without clearly contesting or sparing the core moat; how the company itself frames it is the tell.

The question is whether a moat the record shows as durable outlasts a technology that lowers the cost of part of what the firm sells. The durability is read in the record above, the filing's own framing of AI beside it; the industry label decides nothing on its own.

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$442M

Cash & short-term investments$12M
Receivables$262M
Inventory$81M
Other current assets$86M

Current liabilities$447M

Debt due within a year$21M
Accounts payable$44M
Other current liabilities$382M

Current ratio0.99×all current assets ÷ what's due · Graham looked for 2×

Quick ratio0.81×stricter: inventory excluded

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

Working capital($6M)the cushion left after near-term bills

Debt due this year vs. cash$21M due · $12M 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+3.2%the freshest read on whether the business is still growing

Current ratio, recent quarters0.7× → 1.0×

Deeper floors

Debt incl. operating leases$274M$96M of it operating leases

Deferred revenue$76Mcustomer cash collected before delivery; operating float

From the company's latest filing.

How the cash was used, 2016–2025

Over the record, the business generated $862M of operating cash; how management split it reads as a balanced allocator, splitting cash between the business, owners, and the balance sheet.

Reinvested$130M · 15%
Dividends$245M · 28%
Retained (debt / cash)$488M · 57%

Returned to owners$245M
33% of the owner earnings the business produced over the span, $245M as dividends and $0 as buybacks.
Net change in share count−42.2%
The diluted count fell from 57M to 33M, so the buybacks outran the stock issued to staff.
Dividend record$0.76/sh
Paid in 10 of the years on record, the per-share dividend growing about 7% a year. It was never cut over the span.
Return on what it retained19%
Of the earnings it kept rather than paid out ($220M over the span), annual owner earnings (first three years vs last three) grew $42M, so each retained $1 added about 0.19 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$418M45% 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$353Mover 10 years buying other businesses, against $130M 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.

Insider ownership20.4%
The stake all directors and executive officers hold together, per the 2017 proxy: skin in the game, the first thing Munger reads.

Inverting the record

Invert: instead of why Star Group L.P. 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 5 tests turned up something to look into; the other 4 came back clean.

Look hereDid receivables and inventory outpace sales?11% → 18% of sales
Receivables and inventory grew from $125M to $343M while revenue grew 60%: working capital is climbing faster than sales (11% of revenue then, 18% 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 the share count rise anyway?
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, Specialty Retail

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
BBWIBath & Body Works	$7.3B	44%	17.3%	56%	11%
WOOFPetco Health and Wellness	$6.0B	40%	2.5%	4%	2%
SBHSally Beauty Holdings	$3.7B	50%	9.8%	20%	5%
TITNTitan Machinery Inc.	$2.4B	18%	1.9%	7%	5%
SGUStar Group L.P.	$1.8B	62%	4.1%	—	4%
FCFSFirstCash Holdings Inc.	$1.7B	39%	21.7%	8%	19%
BNEDBarnes & Noble Education Inc	$1.6B	23%	-2.3%	-8%	1%
LESLLeslie's	$1.2B	41%	13.1%	38%	3%
Group median	—	41%	6.9%	—	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 Star Group L.P. has delivered.

Today’s price $

Through the cycle, Star Group L.P. earns about $76M on its 4.3% median owner-earnings margin. This year’s 3.1% 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 ($76M) Net of stock comp

—

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+23%/yr

Owner-earnings growth · ’16→’25+5%/yr

Owner-earnings yield—

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 $10M on 33M shares outstanding, per the 10-Q cover, as of 2026-04-30; net debt $166M. 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 SGU against another business →

Cite: Owner Scorecard, "Star Group L.P. (SGU), the owner's record," https://ownerscorecard.com/c/SGU, data as of 2026-07-09.

Manual order: ← SGRY its page in the Manual SHAK →

Industry order: ← SCVL the Specialty Retail chapter SHOE →