Share count
680Mpeak FY2025
← All companies ← WEC Manual WEN → ← VTR REITs — Specialty & Diversified WPC →
WELL, Welltower Inc.
Our properties include stand-alone properties that provide one level of service, combination properties that provide multiple levels of service and communities or campuses that provide a wide range of services.
Through our disciplined approach to capital allocation powered by our Data Science platform and superior operating results driven by the Welltower Business System - our end-to-end platform - we aspire to deliver long-term compounding of per share growth for our existing investors.
Wellness housing communities generally do not offer additional services such as meals.
The business
What it sells, where the money comes from, the kind of company it is.
Revenue · FY2025
$10.8B
+35.6% YoY · 19% 5-yr CAGR
Vital signs · TTM, with 5-yr average
Revenue $11.8B 5-yr avg $7.2B
Revenue $2.8B +49.1% vs yr-ago qtr
Net income $752M yr-ago $257M
Net margin 27.1% yr-ago 13.8%
The business in brief
read the 10-K →What this business is and what moves its needle, from its own SEC filings.
- What moves the needle
- Occupancy, rents, and the cost of debt. Read on funds from operations and net asset value, because GAAP depreciation distorts the earnings, and a property downturn meets a balance sheet built on leverage. On its own account, the filing leans hardest on concentrated dependence, set against the numbers in what the filing emphasizes, below.
- Is it a good business?
- Funds from operations per share have been roughly flat (0% a year). The dividend takes 58% of FFO, and is covered. Debt is 27% of assets, conservative for a REIT. The quality and location of the properties, the lease terms and occupancy, and the cost of the debt are what the 10-K settles, and no single ratio captures them.
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 | |||||||||||
| $4.3B | $4.3B | $4.7B | $5.1B | $4.6B | $4.7B | $5.9B | $6.6B | $8.0B | $10.8B | $11.8B | RevenueRevenue |
| $1.0B | $464M | $758M | $1.2B | $979M | $336M | $141M | $340M | $952M | $937M | $1.4B | Net incomeNet inc. |
| Cash flow & returns | |||||||||||
| $1.5B | $1.0B | $1.3B | $1.5B | $929M | $1.1B | $1.4B | $1.7B | $2.6B | $3.0B | $3.4B | Funds from operationsFFO |
| Balance sheet | |||||||||||
| 80% | 123% | 101% | 93% | 121% | 91% | 79% | 75% | 60% | 62% | 58% | Dividend payout (FFO)Payout |
| $30.0B | $30.6B | $33.6B | $36.0B | $33.7B | $37.6B | $41.0B | $46.3B | $51.3B | $63.8B | $63.8B | Real estate (gross)RE gross |
| $28.9B | $27.9B | $30.3B | $33.4B | $32.5B | $34.9B | $37.9B | $44.0B | $51.0B | $67.3B | $67.2B | Total assetsAssets |
| 41% | 39% | 40% | 40% | 42% | 40% | 39% | 36% | 30% | 29% | 27% | Debt / assetsDebt/assets |
| $11.7B | $11.0B | $12.2B | $13.4B | $13.8B | $13.9B | $14.7B | $15.7B | $15.5B | $19.2B | $17.9B | Total debtDebt |
| $11.3B | $10.8B | $11.8B | $13.1B | $12.3B | $13.6B | $14.1B | $13.7B | $12.0B | $14.2B | $13.2B | Net debt / (cash)Net debt |
| $14.8B | $14.4B | $14.6B | $15.5B | $16.0B | $17.6B | $20.3B | $25.4B | $32.0B | $42.1B | $43.8B | Shareholders’ equityEquity |
| Per share | |||||||||||
| 360M | 369M | 375M | 404M | 417M | 427M | 465M | 519M | 609M | 680M | 726M | Shares out (diluted)Shares |
| $4.30 | $2.82 | $3.45 | $3.74 | $2.23 | $2.67 | $3.09 | $3.23 | $4.24 | $4.45 | $4.67 | FFO / shareFFO/sh |
| $3.42 | $3.46 | $3.46 | $3.48 | $2.68 | $2.43 | $2.44 | $2.43 | $2.54 | $2.76 | $2.71 | Dividends / shareDiv/sh |
| $41.10 | $39.09 | $38.99 | $38.48 | $38.27 | $41.32 | $43.63 | $48.98 | $52.49 | $62.00 | $60.30 | Book value / shareBVPS |
Per-share growththe realized rate an owner's share compounded
| 9-yr | 5-yr | |
|---|---|---|
| Revenue / share | +3.3%/yr | +7.6%/yr |
| Owner earnings / share | −4.1%/yr | +0.1%/yr |
| EPS | −7.6%/yr | −10.1%/yr |
| Dividends / share | −2.4%/yr | +0.6%/yr |
| Capital spending / share | +10.9%/yr | +21.4%/yr |
| Book value / share | +4.7%/yr | +10.1%/yr |
The record, charted
FY2016–2025Each measure over its full record; the current point and the worst year marked.
Revenue
$10.8Blow FY2016
Quality & stewardship
Returns, the balance sheet, capital allocation, and pay.
Owner’s Scorecard
FY2025 10-K · source on SEC EDGAR →
Is it a good business?
- about $4.35 per shareNet income $937M + depreciation $2.1B − gains on sale $68M
What this means
GAAP net income with property depreciation added back, because the buildings a REIT charges against earnings usually hold or grow their value. This, not net income, is what a REIT is actually priced on. It is an approximation here: where a filing reports gains on property sales, we remove them, the way the NAREIT definition does.
- CoveredDividends $1.9B ÷ FFO $3.0BIndustry peers: median 84%
What this means
A REIT must distribute most of its taxable income, so a high payout is normal and the question is whether FFO covers it. Above 100%, the trust is funding the dividend with debt or asset sales, and a cut usually follows.
Is it sound?
- Debt / assets 29%ConservativeTotal debt $19.2B ÷ assets $67.3BIndustry peers: median 44%
What this means
Every REIT runs on leverage; how much is the question. Heavy debt is what turns a property downturn into a wipeout, as 2008 showed, so a conservative balance sheet is part of the moat here, not a drag on it.
- Not enough data
What this means
Operating income or interest is missing, or operating income sits far below net income (a triple-net REIT's lease income bypasses the operating line), so an EBITDA coverage would mislead — read it on net income against the interest bill, and on debt / assets, instead.
Does AI threaten the moat?
Low contestabilityThe moat is physical, regulated or balance-sheet-funded, the kind AI cuts costs within but does not contest.
In its own filing Named as a competitive risk
Its FY2025 10-K names artificial intelligence as a competitive threat.
“Our competitors or other third parties may incorporate AI in their business operations more quickly or more successfully than we do.”
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, and the company is using it that way.
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.
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
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$147Ma fixed cash payment, owed whether or not the business has a good year
Total lease payments$4.5Bevery year plus the tail, undiscounted: the full cash the leases will take
On the balance sheet$2.2Bthe present value of those payments, the recognised lease liability
True leverage: debt plus leases
On-balance-sheet debt$19.2B
Lease obligations (present value)$2.2B
Total fixed claims on the business$21.4B
Counting the leases the way Buffett does, the fixed claims on this business come to $21.4B, of which the leases are 10%. 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 Dec 31, 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.
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 | Shankh Mitra | $12.8M | $22.9M | $993M |
| 2022 | Shankh Mitra | $14.3M | $6.0M | $853M |
| 2023 | Shankh Mitra | $17.3M | $40.8M | $1.1B |
| 2024 | Shankh Mitra | $20.2M | $106.6M | $1.4B |
| 2025 | Shankh Mitra | $821.1M | $999.6M | $1.8B |
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 ownership<1%
The stake all directors and executive officers hold together, per the 2026 proxy: skin in the game, the first thing Munger reads.
- Stock-based compensation$1.6B
The slice of the business handed to employees in shares this year, 14% of revenue. 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.
What an owner would ask, FY2025
read the 10-K →- Which reported numbers are a judgment call?Management names Credit & receivables, Stock compensation 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, Healthcare REITs
The same industry, side by side on the REIT lens. 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 | FFO margin | FFO / assets | Payout (FFO) | Debt / assets |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| WELLWelltower Inc. | $10.8B | 26% | 4.0% | 85% | 40% |
| VTRVentas Inc. | $5.8B | 32% | 5.6% | 65% | 49% |
| DOCHealthpeak | $2.8B | 46% | 5.6% | 85% | 44% |
| AHRAmerican Healthcare REIT Inc. | $2.3B | 8% | 2.8% | 59% | 24% |
| DHCDiversified Healthcare Trust | $1.5B | 3% | 0.9% | 98% | 40% |
| OHIOmega Healthcare | $1.2B | 59% | 6.1% | 103% | 53% |
| HRHealthcare Realty Trust | $1.2B | 39% | 3.6% | 82% | 42% |
| MPTMedical Properties Trust Inc. | $972M | 52% | 3.8% | — | 53% |
| Group median | — | 36% | 3.9% | 85% | 43% |
The price
What a price has to assume.
What the price implies
price / FFOA REIT is priced on a multiple of its funds from operations (FFO), the cash it earns once the depreciation on its buildings is added back. Type today’s price; we show the multiple you would pay and the income and growth it implies.
$
The assumptions
FFO / share, delivered15%/yr’20→’25
The justified multiple is 1 ÷ (required return − growth), a perpetuity on FFO. At an 8% required return and 3% growth, a REIT is worth about 20× FFO.
Enter a price above to run it.
Price / FFO—
Justified by growth—
Dividend yield—
A dated snapshot of the price you typed, the assumptions you set, and what the page showed for them. A snapshot is never edited after it is saved. Your notebook is yours alone — the commitment states what is stored and what we will never do.
FFO about $4.67 per share on 706M shares. The dials set the multiple they justify; your price sets the multiple you are paying. FFO here adds back depreciation and removes property-sale gains, the NAREIT method; it does not net out maintenance capex (AFFO), occupancy or lease terms, which the 10-K does.
Cite: Owner Scorecard, "Welltower Inc. (WELL), the owner's record," https://ownerscorecard.com/c/WELL, data as of 2026-07-09.
Manual order: ← WEC its page in the Manual WEN →
Industry order: ← VTR the REITs — Specialty & Diversified chapter WPC →