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CNK, Cinemark Holdings, Inc.
Revenue is Us Operating (80%) and International Operating (20%).
The business
What it sells, where the money comes from, the kind of company it is.
Next report Est. 10/27–11/6 · the 10-Q for the quarter ended late September · due within 40 days of period end · has filed ~32 days after · the wire records it on arrival
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
- A diversified business; where the profit really comes from, and whether it is earned or bought, is what the segment detail settles.
- 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
- Operating margin has run about 10% through the cycle, a thin margin, where volume, cost discipline and the price it gets all bear on the result. The operating margin has swung widely — from −110% to 14% over the years — so the through-cycle figure carries more than any single year, and the worst year more than the best. Capital spending runs about 11% of sales, so the return earned on what it sinks into that plant weighs as much as the margin. On its own account, the filing leans hardest on pricing power & competition, set against the numbers in what the filing emphasizes, below.
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 →Us Operating is 80% of revenue, with International Operating the other meaningful segment at 20%.
- Us Operating80%$2.5B
- International Operating20%$613M
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 | TTMTTMJun 2026 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Income statement | |||||||||||
| $2.9B | $3.0B | $3.2B | $3.3B | $686M | $1.5B | $2.5B | $3.1B | $3.0B | $3.1B | $3.4B | RevenueRevenue |
| 5% | 5% | 5% | 5% | 19% | 11% | — | — | — | — | 5% | SG&A / revenueSG&A/rev |
| $423M | $392M | $388M | $338M | ($755M) | ($252M) | ($424M) | $68M | $394M | $293M | ($49M) | Operating incomeOp. inc. |
| 14.5% | 13.1% | 12.1% | 10.3% | −110.0% | −16.7% | −17.3% | 2.2% | 12.9% | 9.4% | −1.5% | Operating marginOp. mgn |
| $361M | $345M | $311M | $274M | ($927M) | ($439M) | ($265M) | $221M | $253M | $154M | — | Pretax incomePretax |
| $255M | $264M | $214M | $191M | ($617M) | ($423M) | ($271M) | $188M | $310M | $138M | $217M | Net incomeNet inc. |
| 29% | 23% | 31% | 29% | — | — | — | 14% | — | 8% | 5% | Effective tax rateTax rate |
| Cash flow & returns | |||||||||||
| $463M | $529M | $557M | $562M | ($330M) | $166M | — | — | — | — | $236M | Operating cash flowOp. cash |
| $209M | $238M | $261M | $261M | $260M | $265M | $238M | $210M | $198M | $202M | $206M | Depreciation & amortizationD&A |
| ($15M) | $15M | $68M | $95M | $8M | $294M | — | — | — | — | ($221M) | Working capital & otherWC & other |
| $327M | $381M | $346M | $304M | $84M | $96M | $111M | — | — | — | — | CapexCapex |
| 11.2% | 12.7% | 10.7% | 9.2% | 12.2% | 6.3% | 4.5% | — | — | — | — | Capex / revenueCapex/rev |
| $254M | $291M | $296M | $258M | ($414M) | $71M | — | — | — | — | — | Owner earningsOwner earn. |
| 8.7% | 9.7% | 9.2% | 7.9% | −60.3% | 4.7% | — | — | — | — | — | Owner earnings marginOE mgn |
| $136M | $148M | $211M | $258M | ($414M) | $71M | — | — | — | — | — | Free cash flowFCF |
| 4.7% | 5.0% | 6.5% | 7.9% | −60.3% | 4.7% | — | — | — | — | — | Free cash flow marginFCF mgn |
| $15M | $41M | $11M | $10M | $0 | $0 | — | — | — | — | $0 | AcquisitionsAcquis. |
| $125M | $135M | $149M | $159M | $42M | $0 | — | — | — | — | $0 | Dividends paidDiv. paid |
| ($328M) | ($410M) | ($451M) | ($311M) | ($83M) | ($89M) | — | — | — | — | — | Investing cash flowInv. cash |
| ($164M) | ($158M) | ($193M) | ($187M) | $584M | ($20M) | — | — | — | — | — | Financing cash flowFin. cash |
| $1M | $798K | ($9M) | ($3M) | ($4M) | ($5M) | — | — | — | — | — | Exchange-rate effectFX |
| ($27M) | ($39M) | ($96M) | $62M | $167M | $52M | — | — | — | — | — | Change in cashΔ cash |
| 20% | 19% | 15% | 13% | -78% | -131% | — | — | — | — | — | Return on equityROE |
| 10% | 9% | 5% | 2% | −84% | −131% | — | — | — | — | — | Retained to equityRetained/eq |
| Balance sheet | |||||||||||
| $561M | $523M | $426M | $488M | $655M | $707M | $15M | $11M | $0 | $0 | $0 | Cash & investmentsCash+inv |
| $75M | $89M | $95M | $84M | $25M | $69M | — | — | — | — | — | ReceivablesReceiv. |
| $17M | $18M | $19M | $22M | $13M | $15M | — | — | — | — | — | InventoryInvent. |
| $110M | $110M | $105M | $92M | $71M | $76M | — | — | — | — | — | Accounts payablePayables |
| ($18M) | ($3M) | $10M | $14M | ($33M) | $8M | — | — | — | — | — | Operating working capitalOper. WC |
| $676M | $658M | $559M | $635M | $893M | $874M | — | — | — | — | — | Current assetsCur. assets |
| $443M | $469M | $475M | $709M | $606M | $769M | — | — | — | — | — | Current liabilitiesCur. liab. |
| 1.5× | 1.4× | 1.2× | 0.9× | 1.5× | 1.1× | — | — | — | — | — | Current ratioCurr. ratio |
| $1.7B | $1.8B | $1.8B | $1.7B | $1.6B | $1.4B | $1.2B | $1.2B | $1.1B | $1.2B | — | Net PP&ENet PP&E |
| $1.3B | $1.3B | $1.3B | $1.3B | $1.3B | $1.2B | $1.3B | $1.3B | $1.2B | $1.2B | $1.2B | GoodwillGoodwill |
| $4.3B | $4.5B | $4.5B | $5.8B | $5.6B | $5.2B | — | — | — | — | — | Total assetsAssets |
| 3.9× | 3.7× | 3.5× | 3.4× | -5.8× | — | — | — | 2.7× | 2.1× | -0.4× | Interest coverageInt. cov. |
| $11M | $12M | $12M | $13M | $11M | $12M | $9M | $9M | $9M | $9M | — | Noncontrolling interestsNCI |
| $1.3B | $1.4B | $1.4B | $1.4B | $788M | $323M | — | — | — | — | — | Shareholders’ equityEquity |
| 0.5% | 0.4% | 0.4% | 0.4% | 2.8% | 1.9% | 0.9% | 0.8% | 1.1% | 1.2% | 1.0% | Stock comp / revenueSBC/rev |
| Per share | |||||||||||
| 116M | 116M | 116M | 117M | 117M | 117M | 118M | 152M | 155M | 134M | 116M | Shares out (diluted)Shares |
| $25.21 | $25.78 | $27.69 | $28.16 | $5.88 | $12.88 | $20.77 | $20.18 | $19.69 | $23.19 | $28.89 | Revenue / shareRev/sh |
| $2.20 | $2.28 | $1.84 | $1.64 | $-5.29 | $-3.60 | $-2.29 | $1.24 | $2.00 | $1.03 | $1.86 | EPS (diluted)EPS |
| $2.19 | $2.51 | $2.54 | $2.22 | $-3.55 | $0.60 | — | — | — | — | — | Owner earnings / shareOE/sh |
| $1.17 | $1.28 | $1.81 | $2.22 | $-3.55 | $0.60 | — | — | — | — | — | Free cash flow / shareFCF/sh |
| $1.08 | $1.16 | $1.28 | $1.37 | $0.36 | $0.00 | — | — | — | — | $0.00 | Dividends / shareDiv/sh |
| $2.82 | $3.28 | $2.97 | $2.60 | $0.72 | $0.81 | $0.94 | — | — | — | — | Cap. spending / shareCapex/sh |
| $10.90 | $12.01 | $12.00 | $12.31 | $6.75 | $2.75 | — | — | — | — | — | Book value / shareBVPS |
| 9-yr | 5-yr | |
|---|---|---|
| Revenue / share | −0.9%/yr | +31.6%/yr |
| Owner earnings / share | −22.8%/yr (5-yr) | −22.8%/yr |
| EPS | −8.1%/yr | — |
| Capital spending / share | −16.8%/yr (6-yr) | −22.2%/yr |
| Book value / share | −24.1%/yr (5-yr) | −24.1%/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 check out against the filed numbers on this page. The words are the company's; the arithmetic is the record's.
- Concession+2.5%
“Concession revenue per patron increased 5.2% to $8.30 during 2025 compared with $7.89 during 2024 driven by strategic pricing actions, increased incidence rates, and a higher mix of merchandise.”
✓ direction matches the filed record
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.
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 2021 the business turned a $423M loss into $71M of owner earnings: more cash than the profit line showed, after the non-cash charges and the capital it put back in.
| FY2021 | FY2020 | FY2019 | FY2018 | FY2017 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Reported net income | ($423M) | ($617M) | $191M | $214M | $264M |
| Depreciation & amortizationnon-cash charge added back | +$265M | +$260M | +$261M | +$261M | +$238M |
| Stock-based compensationreal costnon-cash, but a real cost | +$29M | +$19M | +$15M | +$14M | +$13M |
| Working capital & othertiming of cash in and out, other non-cash items | +$294M | +$8M | +$95M | +$68M | +$15M |
| Cash from operations | $166M | ($330M) | $562M | $557M | $529M |
| Maintenance capital expenditurethe spending needed just to hold position and volume | −$96M | −$84M | −$304M | −$261M | −$238M |
| Owner earnings | $71M | ($414M) | $258M | $296M | $291M |
| Growth capital expenditurediscretionary; spent to get bigger, not to stand still | — | — | — | −$85M | −$143M |
| Free cash flow | $71M | ($414M) | $258M | $211M | $148M |
| Owner-earnings marginowner earnings ÷ revenue | 5% | -60% | 8% | 9% | 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 $29M), owner earnings is nearer $41M.
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
Will it survive?
- Can it pay its interest? -1.8×Does not cover its interestOperating income ($252M) ÷ interest expense $142M
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.
- Net debt against an operating lossCash $0 − debt $2.5B
What this means
Netting $0 of cash and short-term investments against $2.5B of debt leaves $2.5B owed, with no operating profit this year to measure it against — understand that combination before anything else about the company. 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?
- Not enough dataIndustry peers: median -3%
What this means
The filing data didn't include the inputs for this check.
- Not enough dataIndustry peers: median 6%
What this means
The filing data didn't include the inputs for this check.
- Not enough data
What this means
The filing data didn't include the inputs for this check.
How is the cash used?
- Not enough data
What this means
The filing data didn't include the inputs for this check.
- Investing or harvesting? —Not enough data
What this means
The filing data didn't include the inputs for this check.
The promise and the pay packet
- Is the buyback buying ownership, or mopping up? 1.2%The count is risingStock compensation $37M (fiscal 2025), 1.2% of revenue · no repurchases · diluted shares +13.6% since 2022
What this means
Stock handed to employees is a real cost paid in the owner's own currency: it is charged against profit, but the shares it creates are permanent. Many companies repurchase stock at the same time, which looks like a return of capital and often is not — if the count barely moves, the cash merely cancelled the pay packet and bought the owner nothing. The three states worth telling apart are a count genuinely shrinking, a count standing still despite large repurchases, and a count rising because the issuance was never offset at all.
Graham’s defensive tests · 1 of 4 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 PassRevenue ≥ $2B · $3.1B
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 —Current ratio ≥ 2× · —
What this means
Current assets / liabilities not in the data yet.
- Earnings stability MissA profit every year (10-yr record) · 3 loss years
What this means
Graham wanted earnings in each of the past ten years, the stability a defensive owner leans on.
- Dividend record MissUninterrupted dividends · 5 of 10 yrs
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 MissEarnings +33% over the record · −13%
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 $1.84/share (latest year $1.20), the averaged base the calculator's gate runs on. 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 7 of 10
What this means
Lost money in 3 year(s), look at what happened there before trusting the average.
- Operating margin 13% → 8% (3-yr avg ends)
In the filing’s words The filing attributes gains to higher prices, but the margin in the record has not followed — the claim outruns the result here.
What this means
Through the cycle the operating margin slipped — about 13% early to 8% lately, median 9% — competition or costs are biting in.
- Worst year 2020 · −110.0% op. margin
What this means
Operations went underwater in 2020, understand why before trusting the good years.
- Share count +1.7%/yr
What this means
The share count is rising, dilution works against you on a per-share basis.
- Dividend record paid
What this means
Paid a dividend in 5 of the years on record.
All figures as filed; the source filing is linked above.
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; “later” is everything due after 2030, shown apart since it dwarfs the years.
Maturity schedule extracted from the company’s Dec 31, 2025 annual report and reconciled to the total the table states.
Lease obligations
the lease note, SEC EDGAR →Debt by another name. What the business owes on the property, aircraft, stores and equipment it rents rather than owns is a fixed claim due on a schedule; added back to the debt, it is the true leverage. That ladder, operating and finance leases together, and what it adds to the debt on the page above.
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.
True leverage: debt plus leases
Counting the leases the way Buffett does, the fixed claims on this business come to $3.6B, of which the leases are 31%. 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, 2016–2021
Over the record, the business generated $1.9B of operating cash; how management split it reads as a reinvestor, most operating cash is plowed back into the business.
- Reinvested$1.5B · 79%
- Dividends$612M · 31%
- Returned to owners$612M
81% of the owner earnings the business produced over the span, $612M as dividends and $0 as buybacks.
- Source of funding−$202M
Reinvestment and shareholder returns ran $202M beyond the operating cash the business generated, so the gap was financed off the balance sheet: cash and short-term investments drew down $561M.
- Net change in share count0.5%
The diluted count barely moved (116M to 116M): buybacks roughly offset the stock issued to staff.
- Dividend record$0.00/sh
Paid in 5 of the years on record. It was cut at least once along the way.
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” | Net income |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2021 | Mark Zoradi | $7.8M | $6.8M | ($423M) |
| 2022 | — | $6.0M | $3.3M | ($271M) |
| 2023 | — | $8.8M | $12.2M | $188M |
| 2024 | — | $9.8M | $27.3M | $310M |
| 2025 | Sean Gamble | $10.8M | −$2.7M | $138M |
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. Net income is the whole business's, as filed, for the same fiscal years. A dash under the name means the filing tags the figure without naming the officer.
- 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$37M
The slice of the business handed to employees in shares in fiscal 2025, 1.2% 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 →- Does management own its misses?1 plain admission in this year's filing
“We recorded asset impairment charges of $6.5 million during 2025 related to four domestic theaters and 13 international theaters that have underperformed relative to the rest of our theater circuit.”verify →
The questions the record and the charts do not answer on their own; each carries the figure and the place to look.
Peers, Entertainment & Studios
The same industry, side by side on owner economics. Each column names the period it is read over, and a median resting on fewer than three years carries that count beside it; the group median at the foot is the line to read each figure against.
| Company | Revenuelatest FY, USD | Gross marginmedian over the record | Op. marginmedian over the record | ROICmedian over the record | Owner earn. marginmedian over the record |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| AMCAMC Entertainment Holdings Inc. | $4.8B | 66%1y | -1.0% | -3% | -7% |
| IQiQIYI Inc. | $4.0B | 8% | -17.5% | — | 9% |
| CNKCinemark Holdings, Inc. | $3.1B | — | 9.9% | 9% | 8% |
| FUNCedar Fair | $3.1B | 91% | 14.2% | 2% | 6% |
| LIONLionsgate Studios Corp | $2.6B | — | 1.5% | -2%2y | 6% |
| FUBOFuboTV Inc. | $1.6B | 48%4y | -51.4% | -49% | -31% |
| STRZStarz Entertainment Corp. | $1.4B | — | 0.1% | -5% | -1% |
| MCSMarcus Corporation (The) | $758M | — | 3.4% | 5% | 8% |
| Group median | — | — | 0.8% | -2% | 6% |
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 Cinemark Holdings, Inc. has delivered.
Cinemark Holdings, Inc.’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.
Through the cycle, Cinemark Holdings, Inc. earns about $258M on its 8.3% median owner-earnings margin. This year’s — 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.
—
9.0% = the 4.65% 10-year Treasury (Aug 19, 2026) + 4.35 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.
Prefilled with the 10-year Treasury (4.65%, as of Aug 19, 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 — on 115M shares outstanding (a weighted basic average, the only count this filer tags); net debt $0. 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.
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