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WLK, Westlake

Chemicals capital-intensive Cyclical

Westlake Corporation is a vertically integrated global manufacturer and marketer of both housing and infrastructure products and performance and essential materials that are designed to enhance the lives of people every day.

Our products include some of the most widely used materials in the world, which are fundamental to many diverse consumer and industrial markets, including residential construction, flexible and rigid packaging, automotive, healthcare, water treatment, wind turbines, coatings as well as other durable and non-durable goods.

As a global manufacturer of housing and infrastructure products and performance and essential materials, we focus on delivering value to our customers, creating sustainable shareholder value, and developing a rewarding work environment for our employees.

Latest annual: FY2025 10-K

WLK · Westlake

The business

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

Revenue · FY2025

$11.2B

−8.0% YoY · 8% 5-yr CAGR

Vital signs · TTM, with 5-yr average

Revenue $11.0B 5-yr avg $12.7B

Gross margin 6% 5-yr avg 19%

Operating margin −15.7% 5-yr avg 8.4%

ROIC −11% 5-yr avg 7%

Owner-earnings margin −5% 5-yr avg 7%

Free cash flow margin −5% 5-yr avg 7%

The business in brief

read the 10-K →

What this business is and what moves its needle, from its own SEC filings.

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 18% and operating margin about 8.1% through the cycle, a thin spread that turns the result on volume and the cost of what it sells far more than on the price it sets. The margin is cyclical, swinging between −14% and 24% 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. Capital spending runs about 8.1% of sales, so the return earned on what it sinks into that plant weighs as much as the margin. Read this kind of business on the spread and utilization. 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 rarely cleared the cost of capital (median 6%, above 15% in 3 of 10 years). By owner earnings: roughly 10% of revenue reaches owners as cash, consistently. 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 →

29% of revenue comes from outside the United States.

Revenue by geography, FY2025

United States71%$8.0B
Other10%$1.1B
Canada7%$777M
Germany5%$583M
Mexico2%$194M
China1%$162M
Other4%$422M

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
$5.1B	$8.0B	$8.6B	$8.1B	$7.5B	$11.8B	$15.8B	$12.5B	$12.1B	$11.2B	$11.0B	RevenueRevenue
19%	22%	23%	16%	14%	30%	26%	18%	16%	7%	6%	Gross marginGross mgn
5%	5%	5%	6%	6%	5%	5%	7%	7%	8%	8%	SG&A / revenueSG&A/rev
$583M	$1.2B	$1.4B	$656M	$429M	$2.8B	$3.0B	$729M	$875M	($1.6B)	($1.7B)	Operating incomeOp. inc.
11.5%	15.2%	16.3%	8.1%	5.7%	23.8%	19.3%	5.8%	7.2%	−14.1%	−15.7%	Operating marginOp. mgn
$399M	$1.3B	$996M	$421M	$330M	$2.0B	$2.2B	$479M	$602M	($1.5B)	($1.6B)	Net incomeNet inc.
26%	—	23%	20%	—	23%	22%	27%	33%	—	—	Effective tax rateTax rate
											Cash flow & returns
$867M	$1.5B	$1.4B	$1.3B	$1.3B	$2.4B	$3.4B	$2.3B	$1.3B	$465M	$448M	Operating cash flowOp. cash
$378M	$601M	$641M	$713M	$773M	$840M	$1.1B	$1.1B	$1.1B	$1.2B	$1.2B	DepreciationDeprec.
$76M	($400M)	($250M)	$142M	$165M	($492M)	$56M	$717M	($443M)	$754M	$865M	Working capital & otherWC & other
$629M	$577M	$702M	$787M	$525M	$658M	$1.1B	$1.0B	$1.0B	$995M	$956M	CapexCapex
12.4%	7.2%	8.1%	9.7%	7.0%	5.6%	7.0%	8.2%	8.3%	8.9%	8.7%	Capex / revenueCapex/rev
$489M	$951M	$707M	$514M	$772M	$1.7B	$2.3B	$1.3B	$306M	($530M)	($508M)	Owner earningsOwner earn.
9.6%	11.8%	8.2%	6.3%	10.3%	14.7%	14.5%	10.4%	2.5%	−4.7%	−4.6%	Owner earnings marginOE mgn
$238M	$951M	$707M	$514M	$772M	$1.7B	$2.3B	$1.3B	$306M	($530M)	($508M)	Free cash flowFCF
4.7%	11.8%	8.2%	6.3%	10.3%	14.7%	14.5%	10.4%	2.5%	−4.7%	−4.6%	Free cash flow marginFCF mgn
$2.4B	$13M	$0	$314M	$0	$2.6B	$1.2B	$0	$0	—	$0	AcquisitionsAcquis.
$97M	$103M	$120M	$132M	$137M	$145M	$169M	$221M	$264M	$272M	$272M	Dividends paidDiv. paid
$67M	$0	$106M	$30M	$54M	$30M	$101M	$23M	$60M	$63M	—	BuybacksBuybacks
6%	17%	14%	6%	5%	19%	19%	4%	5%	-11%	-11%	ROICROIC
11%	27%	18%	7%	5%	25%	23%	5%	6%	-17%	-19%	Return on equityROE
9%	25%	16%	5%	3%	24%	21%	3%	3%	−20%	−22%	Retained to equityRetained/eq
											Balance sheet
$459M	$1.5B	$753M	$728M	$1.3B	$1.9B	$2.2B	$3.3B	$2.9B	$2.7B	$2.4B	Cash & investmentsCash+inv
$810M	$961M	$952M	$938M	$1.1B	$1.7B	$1.7B	$1.4B	$1.3B	$1.2B	$1.4B	ReceivablesReceiv.
$801M	$900M	$1.0B	$936M	$918M	$1.4B	$1.9B	$1.6B	$1.7B	$1.7B	$1.7B	InventoryInvent.
$496M	$600M	$507M	$473M	$536M	$879M	$889M	$877M	$851M	$783M	$811M	Accounts payablePayables
$1.1B	$1.3B	$1.5B	$1.4B	$1.5B	$2.3B	$2.6B	$2.1B	$2.2B	$2.1B	$2.2B	Operating working capitalOper. WC
$2.4B	$3.5B	$2.8B	$2.7B	$3.5B	$5.3B	$6.0B	$6.6B	$6.2B	$6.2B	$6.0B	Current assetsCur. assets
$1.2B	$2.0B	$1.2B	$1.2B	$1.4B	$2.3B	$2.3B	$2.8B	$2.2B	$2.8B	$2.7B	Current liabilitiesCur. liab.
2.0×	1.8×	2.4×	2.2×	2.6×	2.2×	2.6×	2.4×	2.8×	2.2×	2.2×	Current ratioCurr. ratio
$947M	$1.0B	$1.0B	$1.1B	$1.1B	$2.0B	$2.2B	$2.0B	$2.0B	$1.3B	$1.3B	GoodwillGoodwill
$10.9B	$12.1B	$11.6B	$13.3B	$13.8B	$18.5B	$20.6B	$21.0B	$20.8B	$20.0B	$19.7B	Total assetsAssets
$3.7B	$3.8B	$2.7B	$3.4B	$3.6B	$5.2B	$4.9B	$4.9B	$4.6B	$5.6B	$5.6B	Total debtDebt
$3.2B	$2.3B	$1.9B	$2.7B	$2.3B	$3.3B	$2.7B	$1.6B	$1.6B	$2.9B	$3.2B	Net debt / (cash)Net debt
7.4×	7.7×	11.2×	5.3×	3.0×	15.9×	17.2×	4.4×	5.5×	-9.2×	-9.1×	Interest coverageInt. cov.
$3.5B	$4.9B	$5.6B	$5.9B	$6.0B	$8.0B	$9.9B	$10.2B	$10.5B	$8.8B	$8.5B	Shareholders’ equityEquity
0.3%	0.3%	0.3%	0.3%	0.4%	0.3%	0.2%	0.3%	0.3%	0.4%	0.4%	Stock comp / revenueSBC/rev
—	—	—	—	—	—	—	$128M	—	$727M	$727M	Goodwill written downGW imp.
											Per share
130M	130M	130M	129M	128M	129M	129M	129M	129M	128M	128M	Shares out (diluted)Shares
$39.05	$62.07	$66.43	$63.05	$58.58	$91.52	$122.58	$97.58	$93.97	$87.09	$85.76	Revenue / shareRev/sh
$3.07	$10.07	$7.66	$3.27	$2.58	$15.66	$17.44	$3.72	$4.66	$-11.76	$-12.79	EPS (diluted)EPS
$3.76	$7.34	$5.44	$3.99	$6.03	$13.49	$17.75	$10.12	$2.37	$-4.13	$-3.97	Owner earnings / shareOE/sh
$1.83	$7.34	$5.44	$3.99	$6.03	$13.49	$17.75	$10.12	$2.37	$-4.13	$-3.97	Free cash flow / shareFCF/sh
$0.75	$0.80	$0.92	$1.03	$1.07	$1.13	$1.31	$1.72	$2.04	$2.12	$2.13	Dividends / shareDiv/sh
$4.84	$4.45	$5.40	$6.11	$4.10	$5.11	$8.60	$8.04	$7.80	$7.76	$7.47	Cap. spending / shareCapex/sh
$27.11	$37.63	$43.00	$45.51	$47.18	$61.81	$77.08	$79.64	$81.47	$68.55	$66.78	Book value / shareBVPS

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

	9-yr	5-yr
Revenue / share	+9.3%/yr	+8.3%/yr
Dividends / share	+12.3%/yr	+14.7%/yr
Capital spending / share	+5.4%/yr	+13.6%/yr
Book value / share	+10.9%/yr	+7.8%/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.

Revenue-8.0%
“Net sales decreased by $972 million to $11,170 million in 2025 from $12,142 million in 2024, primarily due to lower sales prices for PVC resin, polyethylene, chlorine and pipe and fittings, and lower sales volumes for PVC resin, epoxy resin, polyethylene, caustic soda, chlorine, compounds and building products, which were partially offset by higher compounds sales prices and pipe and fittings sales volumes.”
✓ figure 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

128Mpeak FY2018

ROIC

−11%low FY2025

Gross margin

7%low FY2025

Net debt ÷ owner earnings

5.4×peak FY2016

Owner earnings vs. net income

Owner earningsNet income

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

($530M)owner earningsvs.($1.5B)net incomelow FY2025

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 a $1.5B loss into ($530M) 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	($1.5B)	$602M	$479M	$2.2B	$2.0B
Depreciation & amortizationnon-cash charge added back	+$1.2B	+$1.1B	+$1.1B	+$1.1B	+$840M
Stock-based compensationreal costnon-cash, but a real cost	+$41M	+$41M	+$43M	+$36M	+$31M
Working capital & othertiming of cash in and out, other non-cash items	+$754M	−$443M	+$717M	+$56M	−$492M
Cash from operations	$465M	$1.3B	$2.3B	$3.4B	$2.4B
Capital expenditurecash put back in to keep running and to grow	−$995M	−$1.0B	−$1.0B	−$1.1B	−$658M
Owner earnings	($530M)	$306M	$1.3B	$2.3B	$1.7B
Owner-earnings marginowner earnings ÷ revenue	-5%	3%	10%	14%	15%

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 $41M), owner earnings is nearer ($571M).

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? -9.2×

Does not cover its interest

Operating income ($1.6B) ÷ interest expense $171M

What this means
A full year of operating profit didn't cover the interest bill. This is the zombie zone: the business depends on refinancing, asset sales, or forbearance to service its debt.
How heavy is the debt, net of cash? $2.9B

Net debt against an operating loss

Cash $2.7B − debt $5.6B

What this means
Netting $2.7B of cash and short-term investments against $5.6B of debt leaves $2.9B owed, with no operating profit this year to measure it against — understand that combination before anything else about the company. It also holds $48M in longer-dated marketable securities; counting those, it sits at $2.8B of net debt. 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? 71d

Long (60+ days)

DSO 40 + DIO 58 − DPO 28 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 6%

Below average through the cycle

10-yr median, range -11%–19%; -11% latest = NOPAT ($1.2B) ÷ invested capital $11.7B

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 10 years (it ran -11% 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 10%

Solid through the cycle

10-yr median margin, range -5%–15%; latest ($530M) = operating cash $465M − maintenance capex $995M

Industry peers: median 9%

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 -5% of revenue this year, a 10% median across 10 years. Treating stock comp as the real expense it is (less $41M of SBC) leaves ($571M).
Are earnings backed by cash? $465M

Loss, but cash-generative

Net income ($1.5B) · cash from operations $465M

What this means
The company reported a net loss, so a conversion ratio isn't meaningful. What matters then is whether operations still threw off cash, here, they did.

How is the cash used?

Where do the earnings go? —

No surplus to allocate

What this means
The business didn't generate positive Owner Earnings this year, so any distributions came from the balance sheet or borrowing, not from operations.
Investing or harvesting? 0.84×

Maintaining

Capex $995M ÷ 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 · 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 · $11.2B

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 Pass

Current ratio ≥ 2× · 2.24×

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 · $5.6B vs $3.4B 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 Near

A 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 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 Miss

Earnings +33% over the record · −116%

What this means
At least a third more earnings than a decade ago, averaging three years at each end. Net income (not per-share), so stock splits don't distort it, buybacks and dilution show up in the share-count line instead.
Moderate price —

P/E ≤ 15 and P/E × P/B ≤ 22.5 · decided by the price

What this means
Graham's valuation gate, the wall he kept between a sound business and a sound investment. Three-year average earnings are $-1.11/share (latest year $-11.77), the averaged base the calculator's gate runs on, and book value is $68.62/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% 3 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 14% → −0% (3-yr avg ends)

In the filing’s words The filing attributes gains to higher prices but names price competition too — and the margin slipped, so the pressure is winning here.

What this means
Through the cycle the operating margin slipped — about 14% early to −0% lately, median 8% — competition or costs are biting in.
Reinvestment, incremental ROIC −20%

What this means
Reinvested capital came back at a negative incremental return over this window — the invested base grew while operating profit did not. The filings show where it went.
Worst year 2025 · −14.1% op. margin

What this means
Operations went underwater in 2025, understand why before trusting the good years.
Share count −0.1%/yr

What this means
Roughly flat share count, little dilution, little buyback.
Dividend record rising

What this means
Paid and raised the dividend across the record, the continuity Graham prized.
How management talks about it Owner’s terms

What this means
Returns have thinned, but the filing discusses it in an owner’s vocabulary rather than selling past it — candor about a hard stretch counts for more than an adjective.

Does AI threaten the moat?

Low contestability

The moat is physical, regulated or balance-sheet-funded, the kind AI cuts costs within but does not contest.

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.

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$6.0B

Cash & short-term investments$2.3B
Receivables$1.4B
Inventory$1.7B
Other current assets$646M

Current liabilities$2.7B

Debt due within a year$496M
Accounts payable$811M
Other current liabilities$1.4B

Current ratio2.17×all current assets ÷ what's due · Graham looked for 2×

Quick ratio1.56×stricter: inventory excluded

Cash ratio0.83×strictest: cash alone against what's due

Working capital$3.2Bthe cushion left after near-term bills

Debt due this year vs. cash$496M due · $2.3B 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−6.8%the freshest read on whether the business is still growing

Current ratio, recent quarters2.6× → 2.2×

Deeper floors

Tangible book value$6.4Bequity stripped of goodwill & intangibles

Net current asset value($4.7B)Graham's net-net: current assets less all liabilities

Debt incl. operating leases$6.4B$810M of it operating leases; with finance leases, “total fixed claims” below reaches $6.4B (annual-report basis)

From the company's latest filing.

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, and what it adds to the debt on the page above.

'26$166M

'27$155M

'28$138M

'29$116M

'30$92M

later$346M

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$166Ma fixed cash payment, owed whether or not the business has a good year

Total lease payments$1.0Bevery year plus the tail, undiscounted: the full cash the leases will take

On the balance sheet$826Mthe present value of those payments, the recognised lease liability

True leverage: debt plus leases

On-balance-sheet debt$5.6B

Lease obligations (present value)$826M

Total fixed claims on the business$6.4B

Counting the leases the way Buffett does, the fixed claims on this business come to $6.4B, of which the leases are 13%. 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.

How the cash was used, 2016–2025

Over the record, the business generated $16.3B of operating cash; how management split it reads as a balanced allocator, splitting cash between the business, owners, and the balance sheet.

Reinvested$8.0B · 49%
Dividends$1.7B · 10%
Buybacks$534M · 3%
Retained (debt / cash)$6.1B · 37%

Returned to owners$2.2B
26% of the owner earnings the business produced over the span, $1.7B as dividends and $534M as buybacks.
Average price paid for buybacks$102.01
Across the years where the filing reports a share count, 1M shares were bought for $123M, about $102.01 each.
Net change in share count−1.5%
The diluted count fell from 130M to 128M, so the buybacks outran the stock issued to staff.
Dividend record$2.12/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.
Return on what it retained−7%
Of the earnings it kept rather than paid out ($5.1B over the span), annual owner earnings (first three years vs last three) fell $356M, so each retained $1 gave back about 0.07 of yearly owner earnings. Buffett's test, run on owner earnings instead of market value.

Buybacks are gross of stock issued to staff; the share-count line above is the net of that, the figure that decides whether owners gained. The average price paid blends a year of purchases (and any accelerated repurchase), so it is close, not exact. The record of where the cash went and on what terms.

Acquisitions & goodwill

from the balance sheet & the 10-year cash-flow record

Goodwill grows only when a company acquires and falls only when it concedes it overpaid. The size of that bet, the cash put into buying rather than building, and how much has already been written off.

Goodwill & intangibles$2.1B10% of all assets; the premium carried on the balance sheet for businesses acquired

Against book equity15%goodwill is this share of book equity; the rest is the company’s own retained and paid-in capital

Cash spent acquiring$6.5Bover 10 years buying other businesses, against $8.0B of capital spent building

$855M written down across 2 years (2023, 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 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	Mr. Gilson	$10.4M	$14.0M	$1.7B
2022	Mr. Gilson	$12.2M	$17.7M	$2.3B
2023	Mr. Gilson	$12.0M	$22.8M	$1.3B
2024	Mr. Gilson	$10.9M	$5.0M	$306M
2024	Mr. Gilson	$4.3M	$3.6M	$306M
2025	Mr. Gilson	$6.4M	$3.7M	($530M)

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 2026 proxy: skin in the game, the first thing Munger reads.
Stock-based compensation$41M
The slice of the business handed to employees in shares this year, 0% 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.

Inverting the record

Invert: instead of why Westlake 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 hereIs it less profitable than it was?2.7% vs 9.9%
The owner-earnings margin averaged 9.9% early in the record and 2.7% across the last three years, and the latest year has not recovered. Ask the filing whether that is a structural drift or a cyclical trough — price, mix, cost, or a competitor — and whether it is permanent.
Look hereDid debt outgrow the business?$3.7B → $5.6B
Debt rose from $3.7B to $5.6B while owner earnings went from about $716M to $359M — about 5.1 years of owner earnings in debt then, about 16 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

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, Chemicals

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
LYBLyondellBasell	$30.2B	14%	11.1%	19%	9%
PPGPPG Industries Inc.	$15.9B	41%	14.7%	16%	7%
MOSMosaic Company (The)	$12.1B	16%	8.2%	6%	7%
WLKWestlake	$11.2B	19%	9.8%	6%	10%
IFFInternational Flavors & Fragrances Inc.	$10.9B	39%	8.9%	4%	8%
CECelanese	$9.5B	25%	14.1%	10%	13%
EMNEastman Chemical	$8.8B	24%	10.8%	9%	9%
NEUNewMarket Corp	$2.7B	29%	15.5%	20%	11%
Group median	—	24%	11.0%	9%	9%

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 Westlake has delivered.

Westlake’s latest year shows negative owner earnings, a cyclical trough. So the tool opens on the through-cycle base, the cash it would earn at rest; clear the toggle below to read the latest year exactly as reported.

Today’s price $

Through the cycle, Westlake earns about $1.1B on its 10.0% median owner-earnings margin. This year’s −4.7% 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 ($1.1B) Net of stock comp (−$41M)

—

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, delivered—

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 ($508M) on 128M shares outstanding, per the 10-Q cover, as of 2026-04-29; net debt $3.2B. The base opens on the through-cycle figure (the latest year sits off the record’s own median, and Graham’s averaging cuts both ways); clear Normalize to use the year as filed. 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 WLK against another business →

The owners of WLK: the meeting and the votes →

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

Manual order: ← WLFC its page in the Manual WLKP →

Industry order: ← WDFC the Chemicals chapter WLKP →