Share count
36Mpeak FY2021
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WEX, WEX Inc.
WEX is a global commerce platform that provides seamlessly embedded, personalized payments solutions across three business segments: Mobility, Benefits, and Corporate Payments.
That purpose has become increasingly relevant as organizations face rising complexity driven by fragmented systems, manual workflows, increasing costs, and greater compliance demands.
Leveraging our deep industry expertise, WEX has developed platforms and proprietary networks that address these issues by delivering the technologies and services that enable our customers to achieve greater speed and efficiency, cost savings, accuracy, and insight across financial and administrative workflows.
The business
What it sells, where the money comes from, the kind of company it is.
Revenue · FY2025
$1.8B
−1.2% YoY · 10% 5-yr CAGR
Vital signs · TTM, with 5-yr average
Revenue $1.9B 5-yr avg $1.7B
Revenue $674M +5.8% vs yr-ago qtr
Operating margin 23.5% yr-ago 24.7%
Net income $78M yr-ago $72M
Net margin 11.5% yr-ago 11.2%
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 Mobility (43%), Benefits (33%) and Corporate Payments (25%).
- Situation
- Cyclical. Margins collapse and recover repeatedly across the record; a single year, good or bad, misstates the through-cycle earning power.
- What moves the needle
- Gross margin has run about 45% and operating margin about 28% through the cycle, a spread the cycle sets more than the company does. The margin is cyclical, swinging between −8.1% and 38% over the years, so the through-cycle figure carries more than any single year — and the balance sheet at the trough more than the peak. Stock-based pay runs about 5.4% of sales, a real and recurring claim on owners that the GAAP margin understates. On its own account, the filing leans hardest on pricing power & competition, set against the numbers in what the filing emphasizes, below.
- Is it a good business?
- Return on capital has sat near the cost of capital (median 7%). By owner earnings: roughly 25% of revenue reaches owners as cash, though it swings. The cycle and the balance sheet decide this one; the worst year tells more than the median, and the rest is in the 10-K.
Every line is arithmetic on the company's filings, shown in full in the sections below.
Where the money comes from
read the 10-K →Revenue spreads across 3 segments, the largest Mobility at 43%.
Revenue by reportable segment, FY2025
- Mobility43%$785M
- Benefits33%$601M
- Corporate Payments25%$459M
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 | |||||||||||
| $1.0B | $1.2B | $997M | $1.2B | $1.1B | $1.3B | $1.7B | $1.8B | $1.9B | $1.8B | $1.9B | RevenueRevenue |
| 55% | 59% | 45% | 45% | 40% | 48% | 45% | 47% | 44% | 40% | 40% | Gross marginGross mgn |
| 18% | 15% | 21% | 23% | 26% | 24% | 20% | 23% | 20% | 18% | 18% | SG&A / revenueSG&A/rev |
| $159M | $233M | $381M | $386M | ($92M) | $342M | $470M | $647M | $686M | $664M | $665M | Operating incomeOp. inc. |
| 15.7% | 18.7% | 38.2% | 32.0% | −8.1% | 25.4% | 27.8% | 35.2% | 36.8% | 36.0% | 35.7% | Operating marginOp. mgn |
| $61M | $160M | $168M | $156M | ($284M) | $135M | $167M | $267M | $310M | $304M | $310M | Net incomeNet inc. |
| 32% | 9% | 29% | 28% | — | 33% | 36% | 28% | 26% | 28% | 28% | Effective tax rateTax rate |
| Cash flow & returns | |||||||||||
| ($141M) | $135M | $400M | $663M | $737M | ($43M) | $679M | $908M | $481M | $454M | $605M | Operating cash flowOp. cash |
| $142M | $204M | $200M | $237M | $262M | $273M | $264M | $276M | $321M | $331M | $331M | DepreciationDeprec. |
| ($363M) | ($259M) | ($2M) | $224M | $695M | ($525M) | $150M | $238M | ($262M) | ($281M) | ($152M) | Working capital & otherWC & other |
| $62M | $79M | $87M | $103M | $80M | $86M | $113M | $144M | $147M | $141M | $64M | CapexCapex |
| 6.1% | 6.3% | 8.7% | 8.5% | 7.1% | 6.4% | 6.7% | 7.8% | 7.9% | 7.6% | 3.4% | Capex / revenueCapex/rev |
| ($203M) | $56M | $313M | $560M | $656M | ($129M) | $567M | $764M | $334M | $314M | $542M | Owner earningsOwner earn. |
| −20.0% | 4.5% | 31.4% | 46.4% | 58.1% | −9.6% | 33.5% | 41.6% | 17.9% | 17.0% | 29.1% | Owner earnings marginOE mgn |
| ($203M) | $56M | $313M | $560M | $656M | ($129M) | $567M | $764M | $334M | $314M | $542M | Free cash flowFCF |
| −20.0% | 4.5% | 31.4% | 46.4% | 58.1% | −9.6% | 33.5% | 41.6% | 17.9% | 17.0% | 29.1% | Free cash flow marginFCF mgn |
| $1.1B | $114M | $163M | $882M | $221M | $559M | $0 | $402M | $900K | $0 | $0 | AcquisitionsAcquis. |
| $0 | $0 | — | — | $0 | $0 | $283M | $303M | $652M | $800M | — | BuybacksBuybacks |
| 6% | 6% | 8% | 7% | -2% | 5% | 9% | 13% | 13% | 12% | 11% | ROICROIC |
| 4% | 10% | 9% | 8% | -15% | 7% | 10% | 15% | 21% | 25% | 24% | Return on equityROE |
| 4% | 10% | 9% | 8% | −15% | 7% | 10% | 15% | 21% | 25% | 24% | Retained to equityRetained/eq |
| Balance sheet | |||||||||||
| $191M | $504M | $541M | $811M | $852M | $1.5B | $2.3B | $4.0B | $4.4B | $5.2B | $5.4B | Cash & investmentsCash+inv |
| $2.1B | $2.5B | $2.6B | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | $3.2B | ReceivablesReceiv. |
| $2.1B | $2.5B | $2.6B | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | $3.2B | Operating working capitalOper. WC |
| — | $3.2B | $3.4B | $3.8B | $3.5B | $5.3B | $6.8B | $8.9B | $8.5B | $9.7B | $10.7B | Current assetsCur. assets |
| — | $2.6B | $2.3B | $3.0B | $2.7B | $4.4B | $6.3B | $8.5B | $8.3B | $9.3B | $10.2B | Current liabilitiesCur. liab. |
| — | 1.2× | 1.5× | 1.3× | 1.3× | 1.2× | 1.1× | 1.0× | 1.0× | 1.0× | 1.0× | Current ratioCurr. ratio |
| $1.8B | $1.9B | $1.8B | $2.4B | $2.7B | $2.9B | $2.7B | $3.0B | $3.0B | $3.0B | $3.0B | GoodwillGoodwill |
| $6.0B | $6.7B | $6.8B | $8.3B | $8.2B | $10.3B | $11.5B | $13.9B | $13.3B | $14.4B | $15.4B | Total assetsAssets |
| $396M | $2.4B | $2.4B | $2.9B | $3.0B | $2.9B | $2.8B | $2.9B | $3.1B | $3.6B | $3.7B | Total debtDebt |
| $205M | $1.9B | $1.8B | $2.1B | $2.2B | $1.4B | $452M | ($1.1B) | ($1.2B) | ($1.7B) | ($1.8B) | Net debt / (cash)Net debt |
| — | — | 3.6× | 2.9× | -0.6× | 2.7× | 3.6× | — | — | — | 5.1× | Interest coverageInt. cov. |
| $1.5B | $1.6B | $1.8B | $1.9B | $1.9B | $1.8B | $1.6B | $1.8B | $1.5B | $1.2B | $1.3B | Shareholders’ equityEquity |
| 1.9% | 2.4% | 3.4% | 3.8% | 5.7% | 5.6% | 5.8% | 6.9% | 6.0% | 5.4% | 6.2% | Stock comp / revenueSBC/rev |
| — | — | $3M | — | $53M | — | $137M | — | — | — | $137M | Goodwill written downGW imp. |
| Per share | |||||||||||
| 40.9M | 43.1M | 43.6M | 43.8M | 43.8M | 45.3M | 44.7M | 43.3M | 41.3M | 35.9M | 35.0M | Shares out (diluted)Shares |
| $24.75 | $28.97 | $22.88 | $27.59 | $25.75 | $29.71 | $37.80 | $42.46 | $45.21 | $51.40 | $53.24 | Revenue / shareRev/sh |
| $1.48 | $3.71 | $3.86 | $3.57 | $-6.48 | $2.99 | $3.74 | $6.16 | $7.50 | $8.47 | $8.87 | EPS (diluted)EPS |
| $-4.96 | $1.30 | $7.18 | $12.80 | $14.97 | $-2.84 | $12.67 | $17.65 | $8.09 | $8.74 | $15.47 | Owner earnings / shareOE/sh |
| $-4.96 | $1.30 | $7.18 | $12.80 | $14.97 | $-2.84 | $12.67 | $17.65 | $8.09 | $8.74 | $15.47 | Free cash flow / shareFCF/sh |
| $1.51 | $1.84 | $2.00 | $2.35 | $1.84 | $1.90 | $2.53 | $3.32 | $3.57 | $3.92 | $1.81 | Cap. spending / shareCapex/sh |
| $36.59 | $37.60 | $40.98 | $44.03 | $43.45 | $40.59 | $36.90 | $42.05 | $36.05 | $34.39 | $36.41 | Book value / shareBVPS |
Per-share growththe realized rate an owner's share compounded
| 9-yr | 5-yr | |
|---|---|---|
| Revenue / share | +8.5%/yr | +14.8%/yr |
| Owner earnings / share | — | −10.2%/yr |
| EPS | +21.4%/yr | — |
| Capital spending / share | +11.2%/yr | +16.4%/yr |
| Book value / share | −0.7%/yr | −4.6%/yr |
The record, charted
FY2016–2025Each measure over its full record; the current point and the worst year marked.
ROIC
12%low FY2020
Gross margin
40%low FY2025
Owner earnings vs. net income
Owner earningsNet incomeThe accountant's number, and the cash an owner can take; the gap is the tell.
$314Mowner earningsvs.$304Mnet incomelow FY2016
Where the cash went
ReinvestBuybacksDividendsAcquisitionsRetainedBeyond op. cashEach 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
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 $304M of profit into $314M of owner earnings: more cash than the profit line showed, after the non-cash charges and the capital it put back in.
| FY2025 | FY2024 | FY2023 | FY2022 | FY2021 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Reported net income | $304M | $310M | $267M | $167M | $135M |
| Depreciation & amortizationnon-cash charge added back | +$331M | +$321M | +$276M | +$264M | +$273M |
| Stock-based compensationreal costnon-cash, but a real cost | +$100M | +$112M | +$127M | +$98M | +$75M |
| Working capital & othertiming of cash in and out, other non-cash items | −$281M | −$262M | +$238M | +$150M | −$525M |
| Cash from operations | $454M | $481M | $908M | $679M | ($43M) |
| Capital expenditurecash put back in to keep running and to grow | −$141M | −$147M | −$144M | −$113M | −$86M |
| Owner earnings | $314M | $334M | $764M | $567M | ($129M) |
| Owner-earnings marginowner earnings ÷ revenue | 17% | 18% | 42% | 34% | -10% |
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 $100M), owner earnings is nearer $213M.
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.
Quality & stewardship
Returns, the balance sheet, capital allocation, and pay.
Owner’s Scorecard
FY2025 10-K · source on SEC EDGAR →
Will it survive?
- ComfortableOperating income $664M ÷ interest expense $131M
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.
- Net cashCash $906M + ST investments $4.3B − debt $3.6B
What this means
Cash and short-term investments exceed every dollar of debt by $1.7B, on net the company owes nothing, and can act from strength when others can't. Net debt is the leverage figure that matters: the cash is already set against the debt. Strategic or illiquid investments aren't counted here.
- Not enough data
What this means
The filing data didn't include the inputs for this check.
Is it a good business?
- Below average through the cycle10-yr median, range -2%–13%; 12% latest = NOPAT $480M ÷ invested capital $3.9BIndustry peers: median -0%
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 10 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.
- High through the cycle10-yr median margin, range -20%–58%; latest $314M = operating cash $454M − maintenance capex $141MIndustry peers: median 7%
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 17% of revenue this year, a 18% median across 10 years. Treating stock comp as the real expense it is (less $100M of SBC) leaves $213M.
- Cash-backedCash from ops $454M ÷ net income $304M
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?
- Returned more than it generatedDividends + buybacks $800M ÷ Owner Earnings $314M
What this means
The company returned more than it generated: against $314M of Owner Earnings, $800M (255%) went back to shareholders, $0 dividends, $800M buybacks — the excess came from the balance sheet or borrowing, not the year's operations. Net of $100M stock comp, the real buyback was about $700M. Sustained, that pattern draws down cash or adds debt; the net-debt line above shows where it stands.
- Investing or harvesting? 0.42×HarvestingCapex $141M ÷ depreciation $331M
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 · 1 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 NearRevenue ≥ $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 MissCurrent ratio ≥ 2× · 1.05×
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 MissDebt ≤ working capital · $3.6B vs $426M 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 NearA profit every year (10-yr record) · 1 loss year
What this means
Graham wanted earnings in each of the past ten years, the stability a defensive owner leans on.
- Dividend record MissUninterrupted dividends · none paid
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 PassEarnings +33% over the record · +126%
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 $8.46/share (latest year $8.77), the averaged base the calculator's gate runs on, and book value is $35.61/share. Enter a price in “What the price implies” just below for the P/E, P/B, and whether it clears. But this is the rule Buffett outgrew: there's no hard P/E law, and a wonderful business can deserve a far richer multiple if the thesis holds, treat it as the bargain-hunter's floor, not a verdict on the price.
Durability & moat, 2016–2025
Whether the record’s returns held, and what the capital reinvested earned.
- Profitable years 9 of 10
What this means
Lost money in 1 year(s), look at what happened there before trusting the average.
- Return on capital ≥ 15% 0 of 10 yrs
What this means
A moat shows up as a high return on invested capital that holds year after year, not one good vintage.
- Operating margin 24% → 36% (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
Through the cycle the operating margin widened — about 24% early to 36% lately, median 28% — pricing power intact or improving.
- Reinvestment, incremental ROIC 31%
What this means
Every extra dollar the business reinvested came back at a high incremental return — the lens GBM read for a moat that reinvests rather than merely harvests. The record and the 10-K are where you check whether the rate holds.
- Worst year 2020 · −8.1% op. margin
What this means
Operations went underwater in 2020, understand why before trusting the good years.
- Share count −1.4%/yr
What this means
The share count is shrinking, buybacks are quietly growing your slice of the business.
Does AI threaten the moat?
Elevated contestabilityThe product is software or information, the very thing capable AI now produces more cheaply, so the moat is more contestable than the record alone implies.
In its own filing Framed as a capability
Despite the structural exposure, the filing positions AI as something it uses, not a threat to its product.
“Our ability to expand the customer segments we serve and the features we offer is enabled by continued advancement of our shared platforms for data, AI, security, and development pipelines, where improvements to a singular platform can benefit multiple product suites.”
The product is the kind capable AI most directly contests: when a substitute can be built cheaply, the incumbent's pricing power is the first thing at risk. The record cannot say whether the moat outlasts that; past durability is a starting point, not a promise.
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, 2026Can 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$10.7B
- Cash & short-term investments$5.4B
- Receivables$3.2B
- Other current assets$2.1B
Current liabilities$10.2B
- Debt due within a year$55M
- Other current liabilities$10.2B
Current ratio1.05×all current assets ÷ what's due · Graham looked for 2×
Quick ratio1.05×stricter: inventory excluded
Cash ratio0.53×strictest: cash alone against what's due
Working capital$496Mthe cushion left after near-term bills
Debt due this year vs. cash$55M due · $5.4B cash
covered by cash on hand, no refinancing forced · both figures from the Mar 31, 2026 balance sheet
Revenue, latest quarter vs. a year ago+5.8%the freshest read on whether the business is still growing
Current ratio, recent quarters1.0× → 1.0×
Deeper floors
Tangible book value($2.8B)equity stripped of goodwill & intangibles
Net current asset value($3.4B)Graham's net-net: current assets less all liabilities
Debt incl. operating leases$3.7B$64M of it operating leases
Deferred revenue$86Mcustomer cash collected before delivery; operating float
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.
Bars scaled to the largest single year.
Due in the next 12 months$1.3Bthe first rung: what must be repaid or rolled over within the year
Within two years$1.4Bthe near wall, the part most exposed to today’s credit conditions
Biggest single year$1.4Bin 2028the lumpiest maturity, where a refinancing, if needed, is largest
Due over the next five years$3.9Bthe near slice; the balance sheet carries $3.6B of debt in all
Against what the business has and earns
Cash & short-term investments, Mar 31, 2026$5.4B
One year of owner earnings (FY2025)$314M
Together, against $1.3B due next year4.3×
Cash on hand as of Mar 31, 2026 plus a year’s owner earnings comes to $5.7B against the $1.3B due in the twelve months after the Dec 31, 2025 schedule: 4.3 times it.
Maturity schedule extracted from the company’s Dec 31, 2025 annual report and reconciled to the balance-sheet debt.
How the cash was used, 2016–2025
Over the record, the business generated $4.3B of operating cash; how management split it reads as a cash builder, a large share of cash simply built up on the balance sheet.
- Reinvested$1.0B · 24%
- Buybacks$2.0B · 48%
- Retained (debt / cash)$1.2B · 28%
- Returned to owners$2.0B
63% of the owner earnings the business produced over the span, $0 as dividends and $2.0B as buybacks.
- Source of fundingOperating cash
Operating cash covered reinvestment and returns; over the span debt rose $3.3B and cash and short-term investments rose $5.2B.
- Average price paid for buybacks$162.83
Across the years where the filing reports a share count, 4M shares were bought for $586M, about $162.83 each.
- Net change in share count−14.5%
The diluted count fell from 41M to 35M, so the buybacks outran the stock issued to staff.
- Dividend record—
No dividend line was reported in the filing data over the span; the record here neither confirms nor rules out a payout.
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 recordGoodwill 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$4.1B28% 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$3.4Bover 10 years buying other businesses, against $1.0B of capital spent building
$193M written down across 3 years (2018, 2020, 2022): 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 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2020 | Ms. Smith | $20.1M | $17.2M | $656M |
| 2021 | Ms. Smith | $9.6M | −$11.1M | ($129M) |
| 2022 | Ms. Smith | $10.2M | $16.1M | $567M |
| 2023 | Ms. Smith | $11.7M | $20.8M | $764M |
| 2024 | Ms. Smith | $12.6M | $7.7M | $334M |
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 ownership1.4%
The stake all directors and executive officers hold together, per the 2025 proxy: skin in the game, the first thing Munger reads.
- CEO pay ratio103:1
What the chief earns for every dollar the median employee makes, per the 2025 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$100M
The slice of the business handed to employees in shares this year, 5% of revenue, equal to 15% 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 WEX 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.
1 of the 6 tests turned up something to look into; the other 5 came back clean.
- Look hereAre "one-time" charges a yearly habit?5 of 10 years
Management took an impairment or write-down in 5 of the last 10 years, $443M in all. Taken across the majority of the record, the "one-time" label is wearing thin — ask whether these are past deals coming due rather than genuinely isolated events. Read it beside the goodwill the company still carries.
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?
- Did receivables and inventory outpace sales?
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 Income taxes, Credit & receivables, Acquisitions, Insurance reserves 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, Commercial Services & Supplies
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| CBZCBIZ | $2.8B | 14% | 8.5% | 5% | 9% |
| ALITAlight Inc. | $2.3B | — | -3.6% | -1% | 9% |
| WEXWEX Inc. | $1.8B | 45% | 29.9% | 7% | 25% |
| RELYRemitly Global Inc. | $1.6B | — | -11.4% | -27% | 5% |
| TICTIC Solutions Inc. | $1.5B | 29% | -1.1% | -0% | 4% |
| WNSWNS Holdings | $1.3B | 35% | 12.8% | 15% | 11% |
| PAYPaymentus Holdings Inc. | $1.2B | 30% | 5.1% | 13% | 7% |
| MAXMediaAlpha Inc. | $1.1B | 16% | 2.7% | -12% | 6% |
| Group median | — | 30% | 3.9% | 3% | 8% |
The price
What a price has to assume.
What the price implies
reverse-DCFType today's close and see the owner-earnings growth you'd have to believe to justify it, beside what WEX Inc. has delivered.
$
Through the cycle, WEX Inc. earns about $455M on its 24.7% median owner-earnings margin. This year’s 17.0% 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
—
The assumptions
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.
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.
Implied by the price—
Owner-earnings growth · ’21→’25+10%/yr
Owner-earnings growth · since FY2022−18%/yr
Owner-earnings growth · since FY2022−18%/yr
Owner-earnings yield—
What a growth belief costs, in multiples
The growth each return requires, at your price
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 yield—
High-grade bond yield—
Margin over the bond—
Owner earnings $542M on 35M shares outstanding, per the 10-Q cover, as of 2026-04-17; net cash $1.8B. 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.
Cite: Owner Scorecard, "WEX Inc. (WEX), the owner's record," https://ownerscorecard.com/c/WEX, data as of 2026-07-09.
Manual order: ← WEST its page in the Manual WEYS →
Industry order: ← VVX the Commercial Services & Supplies chapter WNS →