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SPGI, S&P Global Inc.

Financial Exchanges & Data asset-light Serial acquirer

S&P Global sells the scorekeeping of finance: credit ratings on bonds and the borrowers that issue them, the stock-market benchmarks that bear its name, and subscriptions to data, analytics and workflow tools for capital, energy and commodity, and automotive markets. Its customers are the bond issuers, banks, investors, asset managers and commodity- and car-market participants who need a trusted number or a place to look it up. It is paid in three main ways — recurring subscriptions to its data and tools, a fee each time a piece of debt is rated, and royalties when a fund or product tracks one of its indices.

We serve our global customers through a broad range of products and services available through both third-party and proprietary distribution channels.

Our operations consist of five businesses: S&P Global Market Intelligence ("Market Intelligence"), S&P Global Ratings ("Ratings"), S&P Global Energy ("Energy"), S&P Global Mobility ("Mobility") and S&P Dow Jones Indices ("Indices").

Latest annual: FY2025 10-K

SPGI · S&P Global Inc.

The business

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

Revenue · FY2025

$15.3B

+7.9% YoY · 16% 5-yr CAGR

Vital signs · TTM, with 5-yr average

Revenue $15.7B 5-yr avg $12.3B

Gross margin 70% 5-yr avg 69%

Operating margin 43.9% 5-yr avg 41.8%

ROIC 12% 5-yr avg 9%

Owner-earnings margin 35% 5-yr avg 34%

Free cash flow margin 35% 5-yr avg 34%

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 led by Subscription (51%) and Non-subscription / Transaction (21%), with 4 more lines behind.
Situation: Serial acquirer. Goodwill and acquired intangibles are 86% 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: The test here is whether these are toll bridges or merely services. A franchise would show up as getting paid whenever debt is issued or a fund tracks the benchmark without having to win on price each time, and as customers who leave the data and workflow tools in place because pulling them out is more trouble than it is worth — watch the subscription renewal and the rating fee for that. The bad case is plain, and the filing names much of it: rating volumes ride the debt cycle and can go quiet; the work invites regulators, litigation and claims against its intellectual property; and the company carries borrowed money against goodwill from past dealmaking. The figures for margins, returns on capital and the debt load are in the record below.
Is it a good business?: Return on capital has run high across the record (median 91%, above 15% in 5 of 9 years), though buybacks and expensed R&D and brands shrink the capital base, so the figure overstates the underlying economics. The steadier read is owner earnings: roughly 33% of revenue reaches owners as cash, consistently. Whether these returns reflect real pricing power or an accounting artifact is the judgment the 10-K is for.

Drafted from the company's filings and reviewed by hand; every number is shown in full in the sections below.

Where the money comes from

read the 10-K →

Revenue spreads across 6 lines, the largest Subscription at 51%.

Revenue by product line, FY2025

Subscription51%$7.9B
Non-subscription / Transaction21%$3.1B
Non-transaction13%$2.1B
Asset-linked fees8%$1.2B
Recurring variable4%$623M
Sales usage-based royalties3%$444M

By geographyUnited States61%Europe23%Asia11%Rest Of World5%

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
$5.7B	$6.1B	$6.3B	$6.7B	$7.4B	$8.3B	$11.2B	$12.5B	$14.2B	$15.3B	$15.7B	RevenueRevenue
69%	72%	71%	71%	72%	74%	66%	67%	69%	70%	70%	Gross marginGross mgn
26%	26%	23%	20%	21%	21%	30%	25%	22%	22%	22%	SG&A / revenueSG&A/rev
$3.3B	$2.6B	$2.8B	$3.2B	$3.6B	$4.2B	$4.9B	$4.0B	$5.6B	$6.5B	$6.9B	Operating incomeOp. inc.
59.0%	42.6%	44.6%	48.2%	48.6%	50.9%	44.2%	32.2%	39.3%	42.2%	43.9%	Operating marginOp. mgn
$2.1B	$1.5B	$2.0B	$2.1B	$2.3B	$3.0B	$3.2B	$2.6B	$3.9B	$4.5B	$4.8B	Net incomeNet inc.
31%	35%	22%	23%	23%	23%	27%	23%	23%	24%	24%	Effective tax rateTax rate
											Cash flow & returns
$1.6B	$2.0B	$2.1B	$2.8B	$3.6B	$3.6B	$2.6B	$3.7B	$5.7B	$5.7B	$5.7B	Operating cash flowOp. cash
$181M	$180M	$206M	$204M	$206M	$178M	$1.0B	$1.1B	$1.2B	$1.2B	$1.2B	DepreciationDeprec.
($803M)	$241M	($194M)	$371M	$932M	$274M	($1.9B)	($230M)	$417M	($235M)	($454M)	Working capital & otherWC & other
$115M	$123M	$113M	$115M	$76M	$35M	$89M	$143M	$124M	$195M	$179M	CapexCapex
2.0%	2.0%	1.8%	1.7%	1.0%	0.4%	0.8%	1.1%	0.9%	1.3%	1.1%	Capex / revenueCapex/rev
$1.4B	$1.9B	$2.0B	$2.7B	$3.5B	$3.6B	$2.5B	$3.6B	$5.6B	$5.5B	$5.6B	Owner earningsOwner earn.
25.5%	31.2%	31.2%	39.7%	46.9%	42.9%	22.5%	28.5%	39.2%	35.6%	35.3%	Owner earnings marginOE mgn
$1.4B	$1.9B	$2.0B	$2.7B	$3.5B	$3.6B	$2.5B	$3.6B	$5.6B	$5.5B	$5.6B	Free cash flowFCF
25.5%	31.2%	31.2%	39.7%	46.9%	42.9%	22.5%	28.5%	39.2%	35.6%	35.3%	Free cash flow marginFCF mgn
$177M	$83M	—	$91M	$201M	$99M	$0	$296M	$305M	$2.0B	$2.0B	AcquisitionsAcquis.
$380M	$421M	$503M	$560M	$645M	$743M	$1.0B	$1.1B	$1.1B	$1.2B	$1.2B	Dividends paidDiv. paid
$1.1B	$1.0B	$1.7B	$1.2B	$1.2B	$0	$12.0B	$3.3B	$3.3B	$5.0B	—	BuybacksBuybacks
126%	111%	91%	160%	546%	—	8%	7%	10%	12%	12%	ROICROIC
324%	211%	312%	443%	460%	149%	9%	8%	12%	14%	15%	Return on equityROE
266%	152%	232%	326%	333%	112%	6%	4%	8%	11%	12%	Retained to equityRetained/eq
											Balance sheet
$2.4B	$2.8B	$1.9B	$2.9B	$4.1B	$6.5B	$1.3B	$1.3B	$1.7B	$1.8B	$1.9B	Cash & investmentsCash+inv
$1.1B	$1.3B	$1.4B	$1.6B	$1.6B	$1.6B	$2.5B	$2.8B	$2.9B	$3.4B	$3.5B	ReceivablesReceiv.
$183M	$195M	$211M	$190M	$233M	$205M	$450M	$557M	$553M	$610M	$510M	Accounts payablePayables
$939M	$1.1B	$1.2B	$1.4B	$1.4B	$1.4B	$2.0B	$2.3B	$2.3B	$2.8B	$3.2B	Operating working capitalOper. WC
$3.7B	$4.3B	$3.6B	$4.7B	$6.0B	$8.8B	$5.7B	$5.1B	$5.5B	$6.3B	$6.3B	Current assetsCur. assets
$2.6B	$3.2B	$2.6B	$3.1B	$3.6B	$3.8B	$6.0B	$6.1B	$6.4B	$7.6B	$9.3B	Current liabilitiesCur. liab.
1.4×	1.3×	1.4×	1.5×	1.7×	2.3×	0.9×	0.8×	0.9×	0.8×	0.7×	Current ratioCurr. ratio
$2.9B	$3.0B	$3.5B	$3.6B	$3.7B	$3.5B	$34.5B	$34.9B	$34.9B	$36.5B	$36.4B	GoodwillGoodwill
$8.7B	$9.4B	$9.4B	$11.3B	$12.5B	$15.0B	$61.8B	$60.6B	$60.2B	$61.2B	$60.8B	Total assetsAssets
$3.6B	$3.6B	$3.7B	$3.9B	$4.1B	$4.1B	$11.0B	$11.5B	$11.4B	$13.1B	$13.3B	Total debtDebt
$1.2B	$780M	$1.7B	$1.1B	($7M)	($2.4B)	$9.7B	$10.1B	$9.7B	$11.3B	$11.5B	Net debt / (cash)Net debt
18.5×	17.3×	20.8×	22.9×	25.7×	35.5×	16.3×	12.0×	18.8×	22.6×	22.6×	Interest coverageInt. cov.
$650M	$709M	$628M	$479M	$509M	$2.0B	$36.4B	$34.2B	$33.2B	$31.1B	$31.2B	Shareholders’ equityEquity
1.3%	1.6%	1.5%	1.2%	1.2%	1.5%	1.9%	1.4%	1.7%	1.5%	1.4%	Stock comp / revenueSBC/rev
											Per share
265M	259M	253M	247M	242M	242M	319M	319M	312M	305M	298M	Shares out (diluted)Shares
$21.35	$23.42	$24.72	$27.13	$30.74	$34.31	$35.11	$39.19	$45.55	$50.27	$52.86	Revenue / shareRev/sh
$7.94	$5.78	$7.73	$8.60	$9.66	$12.51	$10.20	$8.23	$12.35	$14.65	$16.05	EPS (diluted)EPS
$5.45	$7.31	$7.71	$10.78	$14.42	$14.74	$7.89	$11.19	$17.84	$17.88	$18.67	Owner earnings / shareOE/sh
$5.45	$7.31	$7.71	$10.78	$14.42	$14.74	$7.89	$11.19	$17.84	$17.88	$18.67	Free cash flow / shareFCF/sh
$1.43	$1.63	$1.99	$2.27	$2.66	$3.07	$3.22	$3.60	$3.64	$3.83	$3.91	Dividends / shareDiv/sh
$0.43	$0.48	$0.45	$0.47	$0.31	$0.14	$0.28	$0.45	$0.40	$0.64	$0.60	Cap. spending / shareCapex/sh
$2.45	$2.74	$2.48	$1.94	$2.10	$8.40	$114.25	$107.24	$106.31	$102.02	$104.75	Book value / shareBVPS

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

	9-yr	5-yr
Revenue / share	+10.0%/yr	+10.3%/yr
Owner earnings / share	+14.1%/yr	+4.4%/yr
EPS	+7.0%/yr	+8.7%/yr
Dividends / share	+11.6%/yr	+7.6%/yr
Capital spending / share	+4.4%/yr	+15.3%/yr
Book value / share	+51.3%/yr	+117.4%/yr

The year, in the company's words

the filing →

Verbatim from the 10-K's management discussion. Each sentence is shown only because its subject, direction check out against the filed numbers on this page. The words are the company's; the arithmetic is the record's.

Recurring variable+7.6%
“Recurring variable revenue at Market Intelligence increased due to increased volumes.”
✓ direction matches the filed record

The record, charted

FY2016–2025

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

Share count

305Mpeak FY2023

ROIC

12%low FY2023

Gross margin

70%low FY2022

Net debt ÷ owner earnings

2.1×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.

$5.5Bowner earningsvs.$4.5Bnet 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 $4.5B of profit into $5.5B 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$4.5B

Owner earnings$5.5B · 36% of revenue

	FY2025	FY2024	FY2023	FY2022	FY2021
Reported net income	$4.5B	$3.9B	$2.6B	$3.2B	$3.0B
Depreciation & amortizationnon-cash charge added back	+$1.2B	+$1.2B	+$1.1B	+$1.0B	+$178M
Stock-based compensationreal costnon-cash, but a real cost	+$236M	+$247M	+$171M	+$214M	+$122M
Working capital & othertiming of cash in and out, other non-cash items	−$235M	+$417M	−$230M	−$1.9B	+$274M
Cash from operations	$5.7B	$5.7B	$3.7B	$2.6B	$3.6B
Capital expenditurecash put back in to keep running and to grow	−$195M	−$124M	−$143M	−$89M	−$35M
Owner earnings	$5.5B	$5.6B	$3.6B	$2.5B	$3.6B
Owner-earnings marginowner earnings ÷ revenue	36%	39%	29%	22%	43%

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 . 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 $236M), owner earnings is nearer $5.2B.

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? 22.6×

Comfortable

Operating income $6.5B ÷ interest expense $287M

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? $11.3B · 1.7× operating profit

Modest net debt

Cash $1.7B + ST investments $56M − debt $13.1B

What this means
Netting $1.8B of cash and short-term investments against $13.1B of debt leaves $11.3B owed, about 1.7× a year's operating profit (2.0× 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? 54d

Tight

DSO 82 + DIO 21 − DPO 49 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 91%

Very high (≥25%) through the cycle

9-yr median, range 7%–546%; 12% latest = NOPAT $4.9B ÷ invested capital $42.5B

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 9 years (it ran 12% 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 31%

High through the cycle

10-yr median margin, range 22%–47%; latest $5.5B = operating cash $5.7B − maintenance capex $195M

Industry peers: median 8%

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 36% of revenue this year, a 31% median across 10 years. Treating stock comp as the real expense it is (less $236M of SBC) leaves $5.2B.
Are earnings backed by cash? 1.26×

Cash-backed

Cash from ops $5.7B ÷ net income $4.5B

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? 113%

Returned more than it generated

Dividends + buybacks $6.2B ÷ Owner Earnings $5.5B

What this means
The company returned more than it generated: against $5.5B of Owner Earnings, $6.2B (113%) went back to shareholders, $1.2B dividends, $5.0B buybacks — the excess came from the balance sheet or borrowing, not the year's operations. Net of $236M stock comp, the real buyback was about $4.8B. Sustained, that pattern draws down cash or adds debt; the net-debt line above shows where it stands.
Investing or harvesting? 0.17×

Harvesting

Capex $195M ÷ depreciation $1.2B

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 · $15.3B

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× · 0.82×

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 · $13.1B vs ($1.3B) 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 · +97%

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 $12.33/share (latest year $15.10), the averaged base the calculator's gate runs on, and book value is $105.16/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% 5 of 9 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 49% → 38% (3-yr avg ends)

In the filing’s words Input costs rose and the filing says it could not fully pass them on — which is where this margin compressed.

What this means
Through the cycle the operating margin slipped — about 49% early to 38% lately, median 44% — competition or costs are biting in.
Reinvestment, incremental ROIC 5%

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 +14%/yr

What this means
Owner earnings grew about 14% a year over the record.
Worst year 2023 · 32.2% op. margin

What this means
Stayed profitable even in its hardest year, the resilience that survives recessions.
Share count +1.6%/yr

What this means
The share count is rising, dilution works against you on a per-share basis.
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.

In its own filing A competitive risk, new this year

Its FY2025 10-K names artificial intelligence as a competitive threat, in language that was not in the prior year's filing.

“While we have established a Company-wide AI strategy to drive our approach to data protection, licensing and AI integration in our processes, products and services, AI creates a number of evolving risks and opportunities and can exacerbate other risks, including those described herein: In order to remain competitive, w…”

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$6.3B

Cash & short-term investments$1.9B
Receivables$3.5B
Inventory$258M
Other current assets$703M

Current liabilities$9.3B

Debt due within a year$2.7B
Accounts payable$510M
Other current liabilities$6.1B

Current ratio0.68×all current assets ÷ what's due · Graham looked for 2×

Quick ratio0.65×stricter: inventory excluded

Cash ratio0.20×strictest: cash alone against what's due

Working capital($3.0B)the cushion left after near-term bills

Debt due this year vs. cash$2.7B due · $1.9B 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+10.4%the freshest read on whether the business is still growing

Current ratio, recent quarters1.0× → 0.7×

Deeper floors

Tangible book value($21.2B)equity stripped of goodwill & intangibles

Net current asset value($18.3B)Graham's net-net: current assets less all liabilities

Debt incl. operating leases$13.9B$582M of it operating leases

Deferred revenue$4.0Bcustomer 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 $33.2B of operating cash; how management split it reads as a cash returner, paying most of what it earns straight back to owners.

Reinvested$1.1B · 3%
Dividends$7.7B · 23%
Buybacks$29.8B · 90%

Returned to owners$37.5B
117% of the owner earnings the business produced over the span, $7.7B as dividends and $29.8B as buybacks.
Source of funding−$5.4B
Reinvestment and shareholder returns ran $5.4B beyond the operating cash the business generated, so the gap was financed off the balance sheet: debt rose from $3.6B to $13.3B.
Average price paid for buybacks$201.79
Across the years where the filing reports a share count, 25M shares were bought for $5.1B, about $201.79 each. Year to year the price paid ranged from $147.21 (2017) to $291.00 (2020); its heaviest year, 2018, paid $197.62 ($1.7B).
Net change in share count12.2%
The diluted count rose from 265M to 298M: issuance (stock pay, deals) outran any buybacks, so owners were diluted on net.
Dividend record$3.83/sh
Paid in 10 of the years on record, the per-share dividend growing about 12% a year. It was never cut over the span.

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$52.7B86% of all assets; the premium carried on the balance sheet for businesses acquired

Against book equityexceeds itgoodwill alone is larger than the company’s entire book equity; stripped of the acquisition premium, there is no net book worth

Cash spent acquiring$3.5Bover 10 years buying other businesses, against $1.1B 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	Martina Cheung	$16.1M	$45.6M	$3.6B
2022	Martina Cheung	$28.6M	−$9.2M	$2.5B
2023	Martina Cheung	$19.5M	$31.0M	$3.6B
2024	Martina Cheung	$7.6M	$15.2M	$5.6B
2024	Martina Cheung	$24.0M	$54.9M	$5.6B
2025	Martina Cheung	$12.8M	$16.6M	$5.5B

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 ratio320:1
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$236M
The slice of the business handed to employees in shares this year, 2% of revenue, equal to 4% 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 S&P Global 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.

2 of the 6 tests turned up something to look into; the other 4 came back clean.

Look hereDid the share count rise anyway?12.2%
Diluted shares grew 12.2% over 2016–2025, even as the company spent $29.8B 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 debt outgrow the business?$3.6B → $13.3B
Debt rose from $3.6B to $13.3B while owner earnings went from about $1.8B to $4.9B — about 2.0 years of owner earnings in debt then, about 2.7 now: measured against what the business earns, the balance sheet carries more debt than it did. Debt raised for buybacks or deals rather than growth is the kind that bites in a downturn.

And these came back clean

Is it less profitable than it was?
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.

What an owner would ask, FY2025

read the 10-K →

Which reported numbers are a judgment call?
Management names Revenue recognition, Pension & retirement, Income taxes, Credit & receivables as critical estimates
each rests partly on management's judgment; the filing's note sets out the assumptionsverify →

The questions the record and the charts do not answer on their own; each carries the figure and the place to look.

Peers, Financial Exchanges & Data

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
INTUIntuit Inc.	$18.8B	99%	26.0%	35%	32%
LDOSLeidos Holdings Inc.	$17.1B	14%	7.5%	10%	7%
FLUTFlutter Entertainment plc	$16.4B	48%	-0.4%	-0%	8%
SPGIS&P Global Inc.	$15.3B	70%	44.4%	91%	33%
KDKyndryl Holdings Inc.	$15.1B	15%	-2.5%	-7%	-0%
DXCDXC Technology Company Common Stock	$12.6B	—	8.0%	12%	8%
MCOMoody's Corporation	$7.7B	72%	41.7%	27%	32%
TRUTransUnion	$4.6B	66%	19.3%	7%	16%
Group median	—	66%	13.6%	11%	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 S&P Global Inc. has delivered.

Today’s price $

Through the cycle, S&P Global Inc. earns about $5.1B on its 33.4% median owner-earnings margin. This year’s 35.6% 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 ($5.1B) Net of stock comp (−$228M)

—

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+16%/yr

Owner-earnings growth · ’16→’25+14%/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 $5.6B on 296M shares outstanding, per the 10-Q cover, as of 2026-04-24; net debt $11.5B. 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 SPGI against another business →

The owners of SPGI: the meeting and the votes →

Cite: Owner Scorecard, "S&P Global Inc. (SPGI), the owner's record," https://ownerscorecard.com/c/SPGI, data as of 2026-07-09.

Manual order: ← SPG its page in the Manual SPH →

Industry order: ← MCO the Financial Exchanges & Data chapter TRU →