← All companies ← WSFS Manual WSO → ← WSHP Specialty Retail ZUMZ →

WSM, Williams-Sonoma

Williams Sonoma products offer everything for cooking, dining and entertaining, including: cookware, tools, electrics, cutlery, tabletop and bar, food, outdoor, furniture and a vast library of cookbooks.

Chuck's business, which set a standard for customer service, took off and helped fuel a revolution in American cooking and entertaining that continues today.

Through our e-commerce platform, our in-house marketing and data analytics teams optimize our digital spend and customer connections.

Latest annual: FY2026 10-K

WSM · Williams-Sonoma

The business

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

Revenue · FY2026

$7.8B

+1.2% YoY · 3% 5-yr CAGR

Vital signs · TTM, with 5-yr average

Revenue $7.9B 5-yr avg $8.0B

Gross margin 46% 5-yr avg 45%

Operating margin 18.0% 5-yr avg 17.5%

ROIC 87% 5-yr avg 109%

Owner-earnings margin 14% 5-yr avg 14%

Free cash flow margin 14% 5-yr avg 14%

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 Pottery Barn (38%) and West Elm (24%), with 3 more segments behind.
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 46% and operating margin about 13% through the cycle, a solid spread between what it charges and what the product costs to make. The operating margin has swung widely — from 7.7% to 19% — on a steadier 46% gross margin, so what moves it sits below the gross line, in operating spend and one-off charges more than in the cost of the product itself. Inventory runs near 17% of sales, so how fast it turns back into cash — and the risk of writing it down when demand softens — sits alongside the margin. 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 run high across the record (median 88%, above 15% in 10 of 10 years), though buybacks and expensed R&D and brands shrink the capital base, so the figure overstates the underlying economics. The steadier read is owner earnings: roughly 12% of revenue reaches owners as cash, consistently. Whether these returns reflect real pricing power or an accounting artifact is the judgment the 10-K is for.

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 5 segments, the largest Pottery Barn at 38%.

Revenue by reportable segment, FY2026

Pottery Barn38%$3.0B
West Elm24%$1.9B
Williams Sonoma 217%$1.4B
Pottery Barn Kids and Teen15%$1.1B
Other6%$448M

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, 2017–2026

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	2026’26	TTMTTMMay 2026
											Income statement
$5.1B	$5.3B	$5.7B	$5.9B	$6.8B	$8.2B	$8.7B	$7.8B	$7.7B	$7.8B	$7.9B	RevenueRevenue
—	—	—	—	—	—	—	43%	46%	46%	46%	Gross marginGross mgn
28%	28%	29%	28%	25%	26%	25%	27%	28%	28%	28%	SG&A / revenueSG&A/rev
$473M	$454M	$436M	$466M	$911M	$1.5B	$1.5B	$1.2B	$1.4B	$1.4B	$1.4B	Operating incomeOp. inc.
9.3%	8.6%	7.7%	7.9%	13.4%	17.6%	17.3%	16.1%	18.5%	18.1%	18.0%	Operating marginOp. mgn
$305M	$260M	$334M	$356M	$681M	$1.1B	$1.1B	$950M	$1.1B	$1.1B	$1.1B	Net incomeNet inc.
35%	43%	22%	22%	24%	22%	25%	25%	24%	25%	25%	Effective tax rateTax rate
											Cash flow & returns
$525M	$500M	$586M	$607M	$1.3B	$1.4B	$1.1B	$1.7B	$1.4B	$1.3B	$1.4B	Operating cash flowOp. cash
$173M	$183M	$189M	$188M	$189M	$196M	$214M	$233M	$230M	$231M	$231M	DepreciationDeprec.
($5M)	$14M	$4M	($690K)	$332M	($47M)	($380M)	$413M	($94M)	($112M)	($83M)	Working capital & otherWC & other
$197M	$190M	$190M	$186M	$170M	$227M	$354M	$188M	$222M	$259M	$259M	CapexCapex
3.9%	3.6%	3.4%	3.2%	2.5%	2.7%	4.1%	2.4%	2.9%	3.3%	3.3%	Capex / revenueCapex/rev
$327M	$310M	$396M	$421M	$1.1B	$1.1B	$839M	$1.5B	$1.1B	$1.1B	$1.1B	Owner earningsOwner earn.
6.4%	5.9%	7.0%	7.1%	16.3%	13.9%	9.7%	19.2%	14.8%	13.5%	13.9%	Owner earnings marginOE mgn
$327M	$310M	$396M	$421M	$1.1B	$1.1B	$699M	$1.5B	$1.1B	$1.1B	$1.1B	Free cash flowFCF
6.4%	5.9%	7.0%	7.1%	16.3%	13.9%	8.1%	19.2%	14.8%	13.5%	13.9%	Free cash flow marginFCF mgn
—	$81M	$0	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	$0	AcquisitionsAcquis.
$134M	$135M	$140M	$151M	$158M	$188M	$217M	$232M	$280M	$316M	$327M	Dividends paidDiv. paid
$151M	$196M	$295M	$149M	$150M	$899M	$880M	$313M	$807M	$854M	—	BuybacksBuybacks
30%	23%	30%	33%	92%	139%	84%	107%	117%	100%	87%	ROICROIC
24%	22%	29%	29%	41%	68%	66%	45%	53%	52%	58%	Return on equityROE
14%	10%	17%	17%	32%	56%	54%	34%	39%	37%	41%	Retained to equityRetained/eq
											Balance sheet
$214M	$390M	$339M	$432M	$1.2B	$850M	$367M	$1.3B	$1.2B	$1.0B	$652M	Cash & investmentsCash+inv
$89M	$90M	$107M	$112M	$144M	$132M	$116M	$123M	$118M	$127M	$139M	ReceivablesReceiv.
$978M	$1.1B	$1.1B	$1.1B	$1.0B	$1.2B	$1.5B	$1.2B	$1.3B	$1.5B	$1.5B	InventoryInvent.
$454M	$457M	$527M	$521M	$543M	$613M	$508M	$608M	$646M	$638M	$561M	Accounts payablePayables
$613M	$695M	$705M	$691M	$607M	$766M	$1.1B	$761M	$804M	$952M	$1.0B	Operating working capitalOper. WC
$1.4B	$1.6B	$1.7B	$1.8B	$2.5B	$2.3B	$2.0B	$2.7B	$2.8B	$2.7B	$2.3B	Current assetsCur. assets
$961M	$1.0B	$1.1B	$1.6B	$1.8B	$1.8B	$1.6B	$1.9B	$1.9B	$2.0B	$1.8B	Current liabilitiesCur. liab.
1.4×	1.6×	1.6×	1.1×	1.3×	1.3×	1.2×	1.4×	1.4×	1.4×	1.3×	Current ratioCurr. ratio
$19M	$19M	$85M	$85M	$85M	$85M	$77M	$77M	$77M	$77M	$77M	GoodwillGoodwill
$2.5B	$2.8B	$2.8B	$4.1B	$4.7B	$4.6B	$4.7B	$5.3B	$5.3B	$5.4B	$5.1B	Total assetsAssets
—	$299M	$300M	$300M	$299M	$0	—	—	—	—	$7M	Total debtDebt
—	($91M)	($39M)	($132M)	($901M)	($850M)	—	—	—	—	($645M)	Net debt / (cash)Net debt
$1.2B	$1.2B	$1.2B	$1.2B	$1.7B	$1.7B	$1.7B	$2.1B	$2.1B	$2.1B	$1.9B	Shareholders’ equityEquity
1.0%	0.8%	1.1%	1.1%	1.1%	1.2%	1.0%	1.1%	1.3%	1.4%	1.5%	Stock comp / revenueSBC/rev
											Per share
179M	172M	165M	158M	158M	153M	138M	131M	128M	123M	120M	Shares out (diluted)Shares
$28.41	$30.74	$34.44	$37.22	$42.90	$54.00	$62.77	$59.37	$60.23	$63.39	$65.74	Revenue / shareRev/sh
$1.71	$1.51	$2.03	$2.25	$4.31	$7.38	$8.16	$7.28	$8.79	$8.84	$9.08	EPS (diluted)EPS
$1.83	$1.80	$2.40	$2.66	$6.99	$7.50	$6.07	$11.43	$8.89	$8.57	$9.12	Owner earnings / shareOE/sh
$1.83	$1.80	$2.40	$2.66	$6.99	$7.50	$5.06	$11.43	$8.89	$8.57	$9.12	Free cash flow / shareFCF/sh
$0.75	$0.78	$0.85	$0.95	$1.00	$1.23	$1.57	$1.78	$2.19	$2.57	$2.73	Dividends / shareDiv/sh
$1.10	$1.10	$1.15	$1.18	$1.07	$1.48	$2.56	$1.44	$1.73	$2.11	$2.16	Cap. spending / shareCapex/sh
$6.98	$6.99	$7.02	$7.80	$10.44	$10.90	$12.31	$16.30	$16.73	$16.91	$15.60	Book value / shareBVPS

Share counts before 2023 are restated ×2 for a stock split, so per-share figures sit on one basis.

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

	9-yr	5-yr
Revenue / share	+9.3%/yr	+8.1%/yr
Owner earnings / share	+18.7%/yr	+4.2%/yr
EPS	+20.0%/yr	+15.5%/yr
Dividends / share	+14.7%/yr	+20.8%/yr
Capital spending / share	+7.5%/yr	+14.5%/yr
Book value / share	+10.3%/yr	+10.1%/yr

The record, charted

FY2017–2026

Each measure over its full record; the current point and the worst year marked. Share counts on the current split basis.

Share count

123Mpeak FY2017

ROIC

100%low FY2018

Gross margin

46%low FY2024

Owner earnings vs. net income

Owner earningsNet income

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

$1.1Bowner earningsvs.$1.1Bnet incomelow FY2018

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.

FY2017FY2026

Owner-earnings bridge

FY2022–FY2026cash-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 2026 the business reported $1.1B of profit but $1.1B of owner earnings: $33M less than the profit line, taken out by capital spending and the timing of cash.

Reported net income$1.1B

Owner earnings$1.1B · 14% of revenue

	FY2026	FY2025	FY2024	FY2023	FY2022
Reported net income	$1.1B	$1.1B	$950M	$1.1B	$1.1B
Depreciation & amortizationnon-cash charge added back	+$231M	+$230M	+$233M	+$214M	+$196M
Stock-based compensationreal costnon-cash, but a real cost	+$107M	+$99M	+$85M	+$90M	+$95M
Working capital & othertiming of cash in and out, other non-cash items	−$112M	−$94M	+$413M	−$380M	−$47M
Cash from operations	$1.3B	$1.4B	$1.7B	$1.1B	$1.4B
Maintenance capital expenditurethe spending needed just to hold position and volume	−$259M	−$222M	−$188M	−$214M	−$227M
Owner earnings	$1.1B	$1.1B	$1.5B	$839M	$1.1B
Growth capital expenditurediscretionary; spent to get bigger, not to stand still	—	—	—	−$140M	—
Free cash flow	$1.1B	$1.1B	$1.5B	$699M	$1.1B
Owner-earnings marginowner earnings ÷ revenue	14%	15%	19%	10%	14%

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 $107M), owner earnings is nearer $949M.

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

FY2026 10-K · source on SEC EDGAR →

Will it survive?

Can it pay its interest? —

No meaningful interest burden

Little or no interest expense reported

What this means
Little or no interest expense reported, the business isn't leaning on lenders to operate.
How heavy is the debt, net of cash? +$720M

Net cash

Cash $1.0B − debt $300M

What this means
Cash and short-term investments exceed every dollar of debt by $720M, 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.
How long is cash tied up? 78d

Long (60+ days)

DSO 6 + DIO 127 − DPO 55 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 84%

Very high (≥25%) through the cycle

10-yr median, range 23%–139%; 78% latest = NOPAT $1.1B ÷ invested capital $1.4B

Industry peers: median 29%

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 78% 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 6%–19%; latest $1.1B = operating cash $1.3B − maintenance capex $259M

Industry peers: median 5%

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 14% of revenue this year, a 10% median across 10 years. Treating stock comp as the real expense it is (less $107M of SBC) leaves $949M.
Are earnings backed by cash? 1.21×

Cash-backed

Cash from ops $1.3B ÷ net income $1.1B

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? 111%

Returned more than it generated

Dividends + buybacks $1.2B ÷ Owner Earnings $1.1B

What this means
The company returned more than it generated: against $1.1B of Owner Earnings, $1.2B (111%) went back to shareholders, $316M dividends, $854M buybacks — the excess came from the balance sheet or borrowing, not the year's operations. Net of $107M stock comp, the real buyback was about $747M. Sustained, that pattern draws down cash or adds debt; the net-debt line above shows where it stands.
Investing or harvesting? 1.12×

Maintaining

Capex $259M ÷ depreciation $231M

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 · 5 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 · $7.8B

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 Miss

Current ratio ≥ 2× · 1.39×

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 Pass

Debt ≤ working capital · $300M vs $759M WC

What this means
Graham's rule that borrowings not exceed net current assets. Capital-heavy and buyback-heavy firms routinely fail it, read it next to interest coverage, not alone.
Earnings stability Pass

A profit every year (10-yr record) · no losses

What this means
Graham wanted earnings in each of the past ten years, the stability a defensive owner leans on.
Dividend record Pass

Uninterrupted dividends · paid every year (10)

What this means
An unbroken dividend was Graham's mark of durability. He wanted twenty years; the filings show about ten, and a single suspension breaks the streak. Non-payers, many fine modern compounders, fall outside his defensive net by design.
Earnings growth Pass

Earnings +33% over the record · +252%

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 $8.96/share (latest year $9.24), the averaged base the calculator's gate runs on, and book value is $17.69/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, 2017–2026

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

Profitable years 10 of 10

What this means
Never lost money over the record, the earnings stability Graham insisted on.
Return on capital ≥ 15% 5 of 5 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 9% → 18% (3-yr avg ends)

In the filing’s words The words confirm the number: the filing says price increases held their volume, and the margin widened with them — Buffett’s strongest mark of pricing power.

What this means
Through the cycle the operating margin widened — about 9% early to 18% lately, median 13% — pricing power intact or improving.
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 +15%/yr

What this means
Owner earnings grew about 15% a year over the record.
Worst year 2019 · 7.7% op. margin

What this means
Stayed profitable even in its hardest year, the resilience that survives recessions.
Share count +3.6%/yr

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

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

What this means
The record is compounding, but the filing leans on a promoter’s vocabulary rather than the per-share, return-on-capital terms an owner uses. The results back the talk here; the register is still worth noting.

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 FY2026 10-K names artificial intelligence as a competitive threat.

“We must keep up to date with competitive technology trends and opportunities that are emerging throughout the retail environment, including the use of new or improved technology (such as AI and generative AI), evolving creative user interfaces and other e-commerce advertising changes as it relates to paid search, re-ta…”

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, May 3, 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$2.3B

Cash & short-term investments$652M
Receivables$139M
Inventory$1.5B
Other current assets$100M

Current liabilities$1.8B

Accounts payable$561M
Other current liabilities$1.2B

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

Quick ratio0.51×stricter: inventory excluded

Cash ratio0.37×strictest: cash alone against what's due

Working capital$583Mthe cushion left after near-term bills

Revenue, latest quarter vs. a year ago+4.4%the freshest read on whether the business is still growing

Current ratio, recent quarters1.6× → 1.3×

Deeper floors

Tangible book value$1.8Bequity stripped of goodwill & intangibles

Net current asset value($844M)Graham's net-net: current assets less all liabilities

Debt incl. operating leases$1.5B$1.5B of it operating leases; with finance leases, “total fixed claims” below reaches $1.8B (annual-report basis)

Deferred revenue$622Mcustomer cash collected before delivery; operating float

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$326M

'27$301M

'28$257M

'29$216M

'30$178M

later$466M

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$326Ma fixed cash payment, owed whether or not the business has a good year

Total lease payments$1.7Bevery year plus the tail, undiscounted: the full cash the leases will take

On the balance sheet$1.5Bthe present value of those payments, the recognised lease liability

True leverage: debt plus leases

On-balance-sheet debt$300M

Lease obligations (present value)$1.5B

Total fixed claims on the business$1.8B

Counting the leases the way Buffett does, the fixed claims on this business come to $1.8B, of which the leases are 83%, more than the debt itself. 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 Feb 1, 2026 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, 2017–2026

Over the record, the business generated $10.3B of operating cash; how management split it reads as a cash returner, paying most of what it earns straight back to owners.

Reinvested$2.2B · 21%
Dividends$2.0B · 19%
Buybacks$4.7B · 46%
Retained (debt / cash)$1.4B · 14%

Returned to owners$6.6B
81% of the owner earnings the business produced over the span, $2.0B as dividends and $4.7B as buybacks.
Average price paid for buybacks$65.77
Across the years where the filing reports a share count, 71M shares were bought for $4.7B, about $65.77 each. Year to year the price paid ranged from $24.22 (2018) to $174.70 (2026); its heaviest year, 2022, paid $88.13 ($899M).
Net change in share count−33.0%
The diluted count fell from 179M to 120M, so the buybacks outran the stock issued to staff.
Dividend record$2.57/sh
Paid in 10 of the years on record, the per-share dividend growing about 15% a year. It was never cut over the span.
Return on what it retained—
Not read here: owner earnings are negative over the span, or the company returned nearly all its earnings rather than retaining them, so there is too little retained to measure a return on.

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.

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
2022	Laura Alber	$21.3M	$78.8M	$1.1B
2023	Laura Alber	$17.3M	−$164k	$839M
2024	Laura Alber	$23.7M	$65.3M	$1.5B
2025	Laura Alber	$27.7M	$132.5M	$1.1B
2026	Laura Alber	$33.3M	$56.2M	$1.1B

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 ownership1.1%
The stake all directors and executive officers hold together, per the 2026 proxy: skin in the game, the first thing Munger reads.
CEO pay ratio1,335:1
What the chief earns for every dollar the median employee makes, per the 2026 proxy. A high ratio alone settles nothing; some businesses are genuinely top-heavy in scarce skill. A runaway figure is where Buffett starts asking whether the board is doing its job.
Stock-based compensation$107M
The slice of the business handed to employees in shares this year, 1% of revenue, equal to 8% 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 Williams-Sonoma 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 2017–2026.

1 of the 5 tests turned up something to look into; the other 4 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, $55M 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 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, FY2026

read the 10-K →

Which reported numbers are a judgment call?
Management names Income taxes, Inventory 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, Specialty Retail

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
BBYBest Buy Co. Inc.	$41.7B	23%	4.4%	44%	4%
WSMWilliams-Sonoma	$7.8B	46%	14.7%	88%	12%
GMEGameStop Corp.	$3.6B	28%	-2.7%	-59%	2%
RHRH	$3.4B	44%	11.7%	29%	9%
ARHSArhaus Inc.	$1.4B	39%	6.4%	45%	8%
HVTHaverty Furniture Companies Inc.	$759M	56%	5.7%	12%	5%
Group median	—	42%	6.1%	36%	7%

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 Williams-Sonoma has delivered.

Williams-Sonoma’s latest year runs above its own through-cycle margin — the reported figure may flatter a peak. So the tool opens on the through-cycle base, Graham’s averaging cutting both ways; clear the toggle below to read the latest year exactly as reported.

Today’s price $

Through the cycle, Williams-Sonoma earns about $905M on its 11.6% median owner-earnings margin. This year’s 13.5% margin runs above that; the reported figure may flatter a peak you'd be paying on. Normalize, below, values the price on that through-cycle figure rather than the latest year. It comes pre-checked here for that reason, the same rule that already normalizes a trough; clear it to price the year as filed.

Base Normalize · through-cycle ($905M) Net of stock comp (−$116M)

—

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 · ’22→’26+3%/yr

Owner-earnings growth · ’17→’26+15%/yr

Owner-earnings yield—

P/E (3-yr earnings ’24–’26)—

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 $1.1B on 118M shares outstanding, per the 10-Q cover, as of 2026-05-17; net cash $645M. The base opens on the through-cycle figure (the latest year sits above 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 WSM against another business →

The owners of WSM: the meeting and the votes →

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

Manual order: ← WSFS its page in the Manual WSO →

Industry order: ← WSHP the Specialty Retail chapter ZUMZ →