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SYY, Sysco Corporation

Sysco buys food and kitchen supplies from makers and farms, warehouses them, and trucks them to restaurants, schools, hospitals, and cafeterias that cook for others. It is the middleman between the producer and the professional kitchen, earning a thin markup on each case it carries. Most of the money comes from delivering a broad line of products to a long list of customers across many routes, day after day, on its own fleet.

We provided products and related services to approximately 730,000 customer locations, including restaurants, healthcare and educational facilities, lodging establishments and other foodservice customers during fiscal 2025.

Broadline operations, which distribute a full line of food products, including custom-cut meat, seafood, produce, specialty Italian, specialty imports and a wide variety of non-food products and (b) our U.S.

Latest annual: FY2025 10-K

SYY · Sysco Corporation

The business

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

Revenue · FY2025

$81.4B

+3.2% YoY · 9% 5-yr CAGR

Vital signs · TTM, with 5-yr average

Revenue $83.6B 5-yr avg $71.3B

Gross margin 19% 5-yr avg 18%

Operating margin 3.6% 5-yr avg 3.6%

ROIC 17% 5-yr avg 17%

Owner-earnings margin 2% 5-yr avg 2%

Free cash flow margin 2% 5-yr avg 2%

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 US Foodservice Operations (70%) and International Foodservice Operations (18%), with 2 more segments behind.
What moves the needle: This is a logistics business dressed as a food company: it takes a slim cut on goods that other distributors carry too, so the lever is cost per case delivered. That turns on route density — how many drops a truck makes per mile — and on working capital, since Sysco pays for stock before its customers pay for meals. Pack the routes tightly and the same truck and driver carry more, and the fixed cost spreads. It tilts toward franchise where reach and service lock in a kitchen, toward commodity where a hungry rival undercuts on price. The bad case: kitchens close in a downturn, fuel and labor eat the margin, and a price war on cases leaves the owner little. Margin, returns on capital, and debt sit in the record below.
Is it a good business?: Return on capital has run in the teens (median 16%, above 15% in 6 of 9 years), though buybacks and expensed R&D and brands shrink the capital base, so the figure overstates the underlying economics. Owner earnings, the cash-based check, have been thin too. Returns like these are solid but short of clear franchise economics; whether they hold is what the 10-K settles, not the multiple.

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 →

US Foodservice Operations is 70% of revenue, with International Foodservice Operations the other meaningful segment at 18%.

Revenue by reportable segment, FY2025

US Foodservice Operations70%$57.0B
International Foodservice Operations18%$14.9B
SYGMA10%$8.4B
Other1%$1.1B

By geographyUnited States81%Canada8%United Kingdom5%Other4%France2%

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, 2017–2025

realized figures from each filing · older years to the left

2017’17	2018’18	2019’19	2020’20	2021’21	2022’22	2023’23	2024’24	2025’25	TTMTTMMar 2026
										Income statement
$55.4B	$58.7B	$60.1B	$52.9B	$51.3B	$68.6B	$76.3B	$78.8B	$81.4B	$83.6B	RevenueRevenue
19%	19%	19%	19%	18%	18%	18%	19%	18%	19%	Gross marginGross mgn
$2.1B	$2.3B	$2.3B	$750M	$1.4B	$2.3B	$3.0B	$3.2B	$3.1B	$3.0B	Operating incomeOp. inc.
3.7%	3.9%	3.9%	1.4%	2.8%	3.4%	4.0%	4.1%	3.8%	3.6%	Operating marginOp. mgn
$1.1B	$1.4B	$1.7B	$215M	$524M	$1.4B	$1.8B	$2.0B	$1.8B	$1.7B	Net incomeNet inc.
35%	27%	17%	27%	10%	22%	23%	24%	24%	24%	Effective tax rateTax rate
										Cash flow & returns
$2.2B	$2.2B	$2.4B	$1.6B	$1.9B	$1.8B	$2.9B	$3.0B	$2.5B	$2.7B	Operating cash flowOp. cash
$902M	$765M	$764M	$806M	$738M	$773M	$776M	$873M	$945M	$960M	DepreciationDeprec.
$104M	($135M)	($132M)	$555M	$546M	($463M)	$226M	$57M	($356M)	($155M)	Working capital & otherWC & other
$686M	$688M	$692M	$720M	$471M	$633M	$793M	$832M	$906M	$835M	CapexCapex
1.2%	1.2%	1.2%	1.4%	0.9%	0.9%	1.0%	1.1%	1.1%	1.0%	Capex / revenueCapex/rev
$1.5B	$1.5B	$1.7B	$898M	$1.4B	$1.2B	$2.1B	$2.2B	$1.6B	$1.8B	Owner earningsOwner earn.
2.8%	2.5%	2.9%	1.7%	2.8%	1.7%	2.7%	2.7%	2.0%	2.2%	Owner earnings marginOE mgn
$1.5B	$1.5B	$1.7B	$898M	$1.4B	$1.2B	$2.1B	$2.2B	$1.6B	$1.8B	Free cash flowFCF
2.8%	2.5%	2.9%	1.7%	2.8%	1.7%	2.7%	2.7%	2.0%	2.2%	Free cash flow marginFCF mgn
$2.9B	$248M	$107M	$143M	$0	$1.3B	$37M	$1.2B	$40M	$189M	AcquisitionsAcquis.
$699M	$722M	$775M	$856M	$918M	$959M	$996M	$1.0B	$1.0B	$1.0B	Dividends paidDiv. paid
$1.9B	$979M	$1.0B	$845M	$0	$500M	$500M	$1.2B	$1.3B	—	BuybacksBuybacks
14%	16%	19%	6%	13%	16%	20%	19%	17%	17%	ROICROIC
48%	57%	67%	19%	34%	98%	88%	105%	100%	76%	Return on equityROE
19%	28%	36%	−55%	−25%	29%	39%	51%	45%	31%	Retained to equityRetained/eq
										Balance sheet
$870M	$552M	$513M	$6.1B	$3.0B	$867M	$745M	$696M	$1.1B	$1.9B	Cash & investmentsCash+inv
$3.0B	$3.1B	$3.2B	$3.1B	$3.7B	$4.4B	$4.5B	$4.7B	$5.1B	$5.3B	InventoryInvent.
$4.0B	$4.1B	$4.3B	$3.4B	$4.9B	$5.8B	$6.0B	$6.3B	$6.5B	$6.4B	Accounts payablePayables
($976M)	($1.0B)	($1.1B)	($352M)	($1.2B)	($1.3B)	($1.5B)	($1.6B)	($1.5B)	$1.8B	Operating working capitalOper. WC
$8.0B	$8.0B	$8.1B	$12.3B	$10.7B	$10.5B	$10.6B	$11.0B	$12.0B	$13.4B	Current assetsCur. assets
$6.1B	$6.6B	$6.1B	$6.7B	$7.3B	$8.8B	$8.5B	$9.2B	$9.9B	$10.1B	Current liabilitiesCur. liab.
1.3×	1.2×	1.3×	1.8×	1.5×	1.2×	1.2×	1.2×	1.2×	1.3×	Current ratioCurr. ratio
$3.9B	$4.0B	$3.9B	$3.7B	$3.9B	$4.5B	$4.6B	$5.2B	$5.2B	$5.2B	GoodwillGoodwill
$17.8B	$18.1B	$18.0B	$22.6B	$21.4B	$22.1B	$22.8B	$24.9B	$26.8B	$28.0B	Total assetsAssets
$8.2B	$8.3B	$8.2B	$14.4B	$11.1B	$10.6B	$10.4B	$12.0B	$13.3B	$13.3B	Total debtDebt
$7.3B	$7.8B	$7.6B	$8.4B	$8.1B	$9.8B	$9.7B	$11.3B	$12.2B	$11.4B	Net debt / (cash)Net debt
$2.4B	$2.5B	$2.5B	$1.2B	$1.6B	$1.4B	$2.0B	$1.9B	$1.8B	$2.3B	Shareholders’ equityEquity
0.2%	0.2%	0.2%	0.1%	0.2%	0.2%	0.1%	0.1%	0.1%	0.1%	Stock comp / revenueSBC/rev
—	—	—	$203M	—	—	—	—	$92M	$92M	Goodwill written downGW imp.
										Per share
549M	529M	523M	514M	514M	514M	510M	503M	490M	481M	Shares out (diluted)Shares
$100.94	$111.00	$114.86	$102.90	$99.89	$133.53	$149.74	$156.72	$166.12	$173.83	Revenue / shareRev/sh
$2.08	$2.70	$3.20	$0.42	$1.02	$2.64	$3.47	$3.89	$3.73	$3.61	EPS (diluted)EPS
$2.82	$2.77	$3.28	$1.75	$2.79	$2.25	$4.07	$4.29	$3.27	$3.79	Owner earnings / shareOE/sh
$2.82	$2.77	$3.28	$1.75	$2.79	$2.25	$4.07	$4.29	$3.27	$3.79	Free cash flow / shareFCF/sh
$1.27	$1.36	$1.48	$1.67	$1.79	$1.87	$1.95	$2.00	$2.04	$2.13	Dividends / shareDiv/sh
$1.25	$1.30	$1.32	$1.40	$0.92	$1.23	$1.56	$1.65	$1.85	$1.74	Cap. spending / shareCapex/sh
$4.34	$4.74	$4.78	$2.25	$3.02	$2.69	$3.94	$3.70	$3.74	$4.78	Book value / shareBVPS

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

	8-yr	5-yr
Revenue / share	+6.4%/yr	+10.1%/yr
Owner earnings / share	+1.9%/yr	+13.4%/yr
EPS	+7.6%/yr	+54.8%/yr
Dividends / share	+6.1%/yr	+4.2%/yr
Capital spending / share	+5.0%/yr	+5.7%/yr
Book value / share	−1.9%/yr	+10.6%/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, and stated figures check out against the filed numbers on this page. The words are the company's; the arithmetic is the record's.

Net income-6.5%
“Net Earnings Net earnings decreased 6.5% in fiscal 2025, as compared to fiscal 2024, due primarily to the items noted previously for operating income and interest expense, as well as items impacting our income taxes that are discussed in Note 19, “Income Taxes,” in the Notes to Consolidated Financial Statements in Item 8.”
✓ figure matches the filed record

The record, charted

FY2017–2025

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

Share count

490Mpeak FY2017

ROIC

17%low FY2020

Gross margin

18%low FY2022

Net debt ÷ owner earnings

7.6×peak FY2020

Owner earnings vs. net income

Owner earningsNet income

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

$1.6Bowner earningsvs.$1.8Bnet incomelow FY2020

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.

FY2017FY2025

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 $1.8B of profit but $1.6B of owner earnings: $224M less than the profit line, taken out by capital spending and the timing of cash.

Reported net income$1.8B

Owner earnings$1.6B · 2% of revenue

	FY2025	FY2024	FY2023	FY2022	FY2021
Reported net income	$1.8B	$2.0B	$1.8B	$1.4B	$524M
Depreciation & amortizationnon-cash charge added back	+$945M	+$873M	+$776M	+$773M	+$738M
Stock-based compensationreal costnon-cash, but a real cost	+$93M	+$104M	+$96M	+$122M	+$96M
Working capital & othertiming of cash in and out, other non-cash items	−$356M	+$57M	+$226M	−$463M	+$546M
Cash from operations	$2.5B	$3.0B	$2.9B	$1.8B	$1.9B
Capital expenditurecash put back in to keep running and to grow	−$906M	−$832M	−$793M	−$633M	−$471M
Owner earnings	$1.6B	$2.2B	$2.1B	$1.2B	$1.4B
Owner-earnings marginowner earnings ÷ revenue	2%	3%	3%	2%	3%

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 $93M), owner earnings is nearer $1.5B.

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? 24.0×

Comfortable

Operating income $3.1B ÷ interest expense $128M

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? $12.2B · 4.0× operating profit

Meaningful net debt

Cash $1.1B − debt $13.3B

What this means
Netting $1.1B of cash and short-term investments against $13.3B of debt leaves $12.2B owed, about 4.0× a year's operating profit (4.3× 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? 5d

Tight

DSO 13 + DIO 28 − DPO 36 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 16%

High through the cycle

9-yr median, range 6%–20%; 17% latest = NOPAT $2.3B ÷ invested capital $14.1B

Industry peers: median 8%

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 17% 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 3%

Thin through the cycle

9-yr median margin, range 2%–3%; latest $1.6B = operating cash $2.5B − maintenance capex $906M

Industry peers: median 1%

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 2% of revenue this year, a 3% median across 9 years. Treating stock comp as the real expense it is (less $93M of SBC) leaves $1.5B.
Are earnings backed by cash? 1.37×

Cash-backed

Cash from ops $2.5B ÷ net income $1.8B

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

What this means
How much of reported profit showed up as operating cash. Above 1× is reassuring; well below suggests earnings lean on accruals. One year is noisy, growth and working-capital swings distort it, and this is operating cash, not free cash. Watch the multi-year trend.

How is the cash used?

Where do the earnings go? 140%

Returned more than it generated

Dividends + buybacks $2.3B ÷ Owner Earnings $1.6B

What this means
The company returned more than it generated: against $1.6B of Owner Earnings, $2.3B (140%) went back to shareholders, $1.0B dividends, $1.3B buybacks — the excess came from the balance sheet or borrowing, not the year's operations. Net of $93M stock comp, the real buyback was about $1.2B. Sustained, that pattern draws down cash or adds debt; the net-debt line above shows where it stands.
Investing or harvesting? 0.96×

Maintaining

Capex $906M ÷ depreciation $945M

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 · 3 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 · $81.4B

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× · 1.21×

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 · $13.3B vs $2.1B 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 (9-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 (9)

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 · +31%

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 $3.87/share (latest year $3.82), the averaged base the calculator's gate runs on, and book value is $3.83/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, 2017–2025

Whether the record’s returns held, and what the capital reinvested earned.

Profitable years 9 of 9

What this means
Never lost money over the record, the earnings stability Graham insisted on.
Return on capital ≥ 15% 6 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 4% → 4% (3-yr avg ends)

In the filing’s words The filing claims pricing power in its strongest form — price raised, volume held — yet the margin here has not widened to match. The claim leads the record; weigh them together.

What this means
Through the cycle the operating margin held roughly steady — about 4% early, 4% lately, median 4%.
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 +3%/yr

What this means
Owner earnings grew about 3% a year over the record.
Worst year 2020 · 1.4% op. margin

What this means
Stayed profitable even in its hardest year, the resilience that survives recessions.
Share count −1.4%/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.

In its own filing Named as a competitive risk

Its FY2025 10-K names artificial intelligence as a competitive threat.

“Additionally, increased competition from non-traditional sources (such as club stores and commercial wholesale outlets with lower cost structures), online direct food wholesalers, cash and carry operations, and competitors that are utilizing technology, including artificial intelligence and machine learning technologie…”

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 28, 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$13.4B

Cash & short-term investments$1.9B
Receivables$2.9B
Inventory$5.3B
Other current assets$3.3B

Current liabilities$10.1B

Debt due within a year$486M
Accounts payable$6.4B
Other current liabilities$3.2B

Current ratio1.33×all current assets ÷ what's due · Graham looked for 2×

Quick ratio0.80×stricter: inventory excluded

Cash ratio0.19×strictest: cash alone against what's due

Working capital$3.3Bthe cushion left after near-term bills

Debt due this year vs. cash$486M due · $1.9B cash covered by cash on hand, no refinancing forced · both figures from the Mar 28, 2026 balance sheet

Revenue, latest quarter vs. a year ago+4.7%the freshest read on whether the business is still growing

Current ratio, recent quarters1.2× → 1.3×

Deeper floors

Tangible book value($3.9B)equity stripped of goodwill & intangibles

Debt incl. operating leases$12.4B$1.4B of it operating leases; with finance leases, “total fixed claims” below reaches $14.9B (annual-report basis)

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$1.0B

'28$750M

'29$655M

'30$1.5B

later$6.1B

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$750Mthe first rung: what must be repaid or rolled over within the year

Within two years$1.8Bthe near wall, the part most exposed to today’s credit conditions

Biggest single year$1.5Bin 2030the lumpiest maturity, where a refinancing, if needed, is largest

Total scheduled principal$10.8Bevery year plus what lies beyond, as the footnote totals it

Against what the business has and earns

Cash & short-term investments, Mar 28, 2026$1.9B

One year of owner earnings (FY2025)$1.6B

Together, against $750M due next year4.7×

Cash on hand as of Mar 28, 2026 plus a year’s owner earnings comes to $3.5B against the $750M due in the twelve months after the Jun 28, 2025 schedule: 4.7 times it.

Maturity schedule extracted from the company’s Jun 28, 2025 annual report and reconciled to the total the table states.

Lease obligations

the lease note, SEC EDGAR →

Debt by another name. What the business owes on the property, aircraft, stores and equipment it rents rather than owns is a fixed claim due on a schedule; added back to the debt, it is the true leverage. That ladder, operating and finance leases together, and what it adds to the debt on the page above.

Operating leasesFinance leases

'26$271M

'27$265M

'28$216M

'29$178M

'30$158M

later$1.0B

Lease payments by year, scaled to the largest; “later” is everything beyond year five, shown apart. These are the contractual cash payments, before the interest the filing imputes back out to the balance-sheet liability.

Due in the next 12 months$271Ma fixed cash payment, owed whether or not the business has a good year

Total lease payments$2.1Bevery year plus the tail, undiscounted: the full cash the leases will take

On the balance sheet$1.6Bthe present value of those payments, the recognised lease liability

True leverage: debt plus leases

On-balance-sheet debt$13.3B

Lease obligations (present value)$1.6B

Total fixed claims on the business$14.9B

Counting the leases the way Buffett does, the fixed claims on this business come to $14.9B, of which the leases are 11%. The lease wall above and the debt schedule together are the calendar of what must be paid, and when.

Lease ladder read from the ASC 842 tags in the company’s Jun 28, 2025 annual report and reconciled: the yearly buckets sum to the undiscounted total, which less the imputed interest equals the balance-sheet liability; a ladder that doesn’t tie out is withheld.

How the cash was used, 2017–2025

Over the record, the business generated $20.5B of operating cash; how management split it reads as a cash returner, paying most of what it earns straight back to owners.

Reinvested$6.4B · 31%
Dividends$7.9B · 39%
Buybacks$8.2B · 40%

Returned to owners$16.1B
115% of the owner earnings the business produced over the span, $7.9B as dividends and $8.2B as buybacks.
Source of funding−$2.1B
Reinvestment and shareholder returns ran $2.1B beyond the operating cash the business generated, so the gap was financed off the balance sheet: debt rose from $8.2B to $13.3B.
Average price paid for buybacks—
Buybacks ran $8.2B over the span, but the filings don't tag the share count needed to deduce the average price paid.
Net change in share count−12.4%
The diluted count fell from 549M to 481M, so the buybacks outran the stock issued to staff.
Dividend record$2.04/sh
Paid in 9 of the years on record, the per-share dividend growing about 6% 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 9-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$6.3B24% 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$6.0Bover 9 years buying other businesses, against $6.4B of capital spent building

$295M written down across 2 years (2020, 2025): goodwill the company has already conceded it overpaid for, charged against earnings. 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 9-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	Kevin P. Hourican	$23.2M	$41.0M	$1.4B
2022	Kevin P. Hourican	$13.7M	$24.7M	$1.2B
2023	Kevin P. Hourican	$14.3M	$8.6M	$2.1B
2024	Kevin P. Hourican	$15.6M	$14.2M	$2.2B
2025	Kevin P. Hourican	$16.2M	$13.0M	$1.6B

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 ownership0.6%
The stake all directors and executive officers hold together, per the 2025 proxy: skin in the game, the first thing Munger reads.
Stock-based compensation$93M
The slice of the business handed to employees in shares this year, 0% of revenue, equal to 3% 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 Sysco 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 2017–2025.

1 of the 6 tests turned up something to look into; the other 5 came back clean.

Look hereDid debt outgrow the business?$8.2B → $13.3B
Debt rose from $8.2B to $13.3B while owner earnings went from about $1.6B to $1.9B — about 5.2 years of owner earnings in debt then, about 6.8 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 the share count rise anyway?
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 Pension & retirement, Income taxes, Acquisitions 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, Food & Drug Retailing

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
CORCencora Inc.	$321.3B	3%	0.8%	38%	1%
CAHCardinal Health Inc.	$222.6B	4%	0.5%	14%	1%
SYYSysco Corporation	$81.4B	19%	3.8%	16%	3%
PFGCPerformance Food	$63.3B	12%	1.3%	6%	1%
USFDUS Foods	$39.4B	17%	2.7%	8%	2%
WKCWorld Kinect	$36.9B	3%	0.5%	6%	0%
CHSCOCHS Inc.	$35.5B	3%	1.2%	4%	2%
DPZDomino's Pizza Inc.	$4.9B	39%	18.0%	91%	12%
Group median	—	8%	1.2%	11%	2%

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 Sysco Corporation has delivered.

Today’s price $

Through the cycle, Sysco Corporation earns about $2.2B on its 2.7% median owner-earnings margin. This year’s 2.0% 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 ($2.2B) Net of stock comp (−$114M)

—

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+10%/yr

Owner-earnings growth · ’17→’25+3%/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 $1.8B on 478M shares outstanding, per the 10-Q cover, as of 2026-04-10; net debt $11.4B. 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 SYY against another business →

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

Manual order: ← SYNA its page in the Manual T →

Industry order: ← SFM the Food & Drug Retailing chapter TBBB →