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WMB, Williams Companies Inc. (The)

Pipelines & Midstream capital-intensive Capital build-outCyclical

Williams has operations in 11 supply areas that provide natural gas gathering and processing, transmission and storage services; NGL fractionation, transportation, and storage services; and marketing services to approximately 800 customers.

Williams is an energy company committed to being the leader in providing infrastructure that safely delivers natural gas products to reliably fuel the clean energy economy.

Transco owns and operates an approximately 9,600-mile natural gas pipeline system extending from Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi and the Gulf of America through Alabama, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, Virginia, Maryland, Delaware, Pennsylvania and New Jersey to the New York City metropolitan area.

Latest annual: FY2025 10-K

WMB · Williams Companies Inc. (The)

The business

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

Revenue · FY2025

$11.9B

+13.8% YoY · 9% 5-yr CAGR

Vital signs · TTM, with 5-yr average

Revenue $12.2B 5-yr avg $11.0B

Gross margin 74%

Operating margin 38.2% 5-yr avg 31.7%

ROIC 8% 5-yr avg 7%

Owner-earnings margin 30% 5-yr avg 27%

Free cash flow margin −1% 5-yr avg 22%

Next report Est. 11/2–11/5 · the 10-Q for the quarter ended late September · due within 40 days of period end · has filed ~35 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.

Situation: Capital build-out. Capital spending has surged to 41% of sales, today's earnings are charged less depreciation than tomorrow's will be. 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 26% through the cycle, a wide margin for the work it does — whether that reflects a durable edge or one that can fade is what the record weighs. The margin is cyclical, swinging between 8.8% and 40% 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 24% 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 rate base and the allowed return. 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 0 of 8 years). By owner earnings: roughly 25% of revenue reaches owners as cash, consistently. Modest returns here are the design, not a verdict: a regulated utility's prices are set by commission, so the questions are the return the regulator allows, how fast the invested base it earns that return on is growing, and the health of the relationship with the commissions that decide both — all of which live in the 10-K, not the multiple.

Every line is arithmetic on the company's filings, shown in full in the sections below.

The record

Ten years of arithmetic, read across the cycle.

The record, 2016–2025

realized figures from each filing · older years to the left

2016’16	2017’17	2018’18	2019’19	2020’20	2021’21	2022’22	2023’23	2024’24	2025’25	TTMTTMJun 2026
											Income statement
$7.5B	$8.0B	$8.7B	$8.2B	$7.7B	$10.6B	$11.0B	$10.9B	$10.5B	$11.9B	$12.2B	RevenueRevenue
10%	7%	7%	7%	6%	5%	6%	6%	7%	6%	6%	SG&A / revenueSG&A/rev
$689M	$927M	$768M	$1.9B	$2.2B	$2.6B	$3.0B	$4.3B	$3.3B	$4.2B	$4.7B	Operating incomeOp. inc.
9.2%	11.5%	8.8%	23.4%	28.5%	24.8%	27.5%	39.5%	31.8%	35.1%	38.2%	Operating marginOp. mgn
($375M)	$535M	$331M	$1.1B	$277M	$2.1B	$2.5B	$4.4B	$3.0B	$3.6B	—	Pretax incomePretax
($424M)	$2.2B	($155M)	$850M	$211M	$1.5B	$2.0B	$3.2B	$2.2B	$2.6B	$3.1B	Net incomeNet inc.
—	—	42%	31%	29%	25%	17%	23%	21%	24%	24%	Effective tax rateTax rate
											Cash flow & returns
$4.2B	$3.1B	$3.3B	$3.7B	$3.5B	$3.9B	$4.9B	$5.9B	$5.0B	$5.9B	$6.0B	Operating cash flowOp. cash
$1.8B	$1.7B	$1.7B	$1.7B	$1.7B	$1.8B	$2.0B	$2.1B	$2.2B	$2.3B	$2.3B	Depreciation & amortizationD&A
$2.7B	($899M)	$1.7B	$1.1B	$1.5B	$505M	$758M	$611M	$431M	$840M	$505M	Working capital & otherWC & other
$2.1B	$2.4B	$3.3B	$2.1B	$1.2B	$1.2B	$2.3B	$2.5B	$2.6B	$4.9B	$6.1B	CapexCapex
27.4%	29.9%	37.5%	25.7%	16.1%	11.7%	20.5%	23.1%	24.5%	40.9%	50.0%	Capex / revenueCapex/rev
$2.1B	$1.4B	$1.6B	$1.6B	$2.3B	$2.7B	$2.6B	$3.4B	$2.4B	$3.6B	$3.7B	Owner earningsOwner earn.
28.1%	16.8%	18.1%	19.3%	29.2%	25.5%	24.0%	31.4%	22.9%	29.7%	30.0%	Owner earnings marginOE mgn
$2.1B	$690M	$37M	$1.6B	$2.3B	$2.7B	$2.6B	$3.4B	$2.4B	$1.0B	($108M)	Free cash flowFCF
28.1%	8.6%	0.4%	19.3%	29.2%	25.5%	24.0%	31.4%	22.9%	8.4%	−0.9%	Free cash flow marginFCF mgn
$0	$0	$0	$728M	$0	$151M	$933M	$1.6B	$2.2B	$1M	$1M	AcquisitionsAcquis.
$1.3B	$992M	$1.4B	$1.8B	$1.9B	$2.0B	$2.1B	$2.2B	$2.3B	$2.4B	$2.5B	Dividends paidDiv. paid
—	—	—	—	—	$0	$9M	$130M	$0	$0	—	BuybacksBuybacks
($891M)	$100M	($2.7B)	($2.8B)	($1.6B)	($1.5B)	($3.4B)	($3.9B)	($4.9B)	($5.5B)	—	Investing cash flowInv. cash
($3.2B)	($2.5B)	($1.3B)	($745M)	($2.1B)	($942M)	($3.0B)	($49M)	($2.2B)	($406M)	—	Financing cash flowFin. cash
$70M	$729M	($731M)	$121M	($147M)	$1.5B	($1.5B)	$2.0B	($2.1B)	$3M	—	Change in cashΔ cash
—	3%	2%	4%	—	6%	7%	9%	7%	8%	8%	ROICROIC
-9%	23%	-1%	6%	2%	13%	18%	26%	18%	20%	23%	Return on equityROE
−36%	12%	−11%	−7%	−15%	−4%	−0%	8%	−1%	1%	4%	Retained to equityRetained/eq
											Balance sheet
$170M	$899M	$168M	$289M	$142M	$1.7B	$152M	$2.1B	$60M	$63M	$203M	Cash & investmentsCash+inv
$938M	$976M	$992M	$996M	$999M	$2.0B	$2.7B	$1.7B	$1.9B	$2.1B	$2.0B	ReceivablesReceiv.
$138M	$113M	$130M	$125M	$136M	$379M	$320M	$274M	$279M	$314M	$335M	InventoryInvent.
$623M	$978M	$662M	$552M	$482M	$1.7B	$2.3B	$1.4B	$1.6B	$2.2B	$2.2B	Accounts payablePayables
$453M	$111M	$460M	$569M	$653M	$611M	$716M	$550M	$529M	$174M	$83M	Operating working capitalOper. WC
$1.5B	$2.2B	$1.5B	$1.6B	$1.4B	$4.5B	$3.8B	$4.5B	$2.7B	$3.2B	$3.1B	Current assetsCur. assets
$2.9B	$2.6B	$1.8B	$4.0B	$2.3B	$5.0B	$4.9B	$5.8B	$5.3B	$6.1B	$6.5B	Current liabilitiesCur. liab.
0.5×	0.8×	0.8×	0.4×	0.6×	0.9×	0.8×	0.8×	0.5×	0.5×	0.5×	Current ratioCurr. ratio
$28.4B	$28.2B	$27.5B	$29.2B	$28.9B	$29.3B	$30.9B	$34.3B	$38.7B	$42.0B	—	Net PP&ENet PP&E
$478M	$478M	$598M	$538M	$506M	$526M	$597M	$622M	—	—	—	Regulatory assetsReg. assets
$509M	$1.3B	$1.3B	$1.3B	$1.4B	$1.4B	$1.4B	$1.4B	—	—	—	Regulatory liabilitiesReg. liab.
—	$47M	$0	$188M	—	$0	$0	$463M	$466M	$466M	$466M	GoodwillGoodwill
$46.8B	$46.4B	$45.3B	$46.0B	$44.2B	$47.6B	$48.4B	$52.6B	$54.5B	$58.6B	$60.6B	Total assetsAssets
$23.4B	$20.9B	$22.4B	$22.3B	$22.3B	$23.7B	$22.6B	$25.7B	$26.5B	$28.7B	$28.7B	Total debtDebt
$23.2B	$20.0B	$22.2B	$22.0B	$22.2B	$22.0B	$22.4B	$23.6B	$26.4B	$28.6B	$28.5B	Net debt / (cash)Net debt
$1.2B	$1.1B	$1.1B	$1.2B	$1.2B	$1.2B	$1.1B	$1.2B	$1.4B	$1.4B	$1.5B	Interest expenseInt. exp.
0.6×	0.9×	0.7×	1.6×	1.9×	2.2×	2.6×	3.5×	2.4×	2.9×	3.1×	Interest coverageInt. cov.
$9.4B	$6.5B	$1.3B	$3.0B	$2.8B	$2.7B	$2.6B	$2.5B	$2.4B	$2.2B	—	Noncontrolling interestsNCI
$4.6B	$9.7B	$14.7B	$13.4B	$11.8B	$11.4B	$11.5B	$12.4B	$12.4B	$12.8B	$13.2B	Shareholders’ equityEquity
1.0%	1.0%	0.6%	0.7%	0.7%	0.8%	0.7%	0.7%	0.9%	0.8%	0.7%	Stock comp / revenueSBC/rev
											Per share
751M	829M	974M	1.21B	1.22B	1.22B	1.22B	1.22B	1.22B	1.23B	1.23B	Shares out (diluted)Shares
$9.99	$9.69	$8.92	$6.76	$6.35	$8.72	$8.97	$8.92	$8.59	$9.76	$9.95	Revenue / shareRev/sh
$-0.56	$2.62	$-0.16	$0.70	$0.17	$1.25	$1.68	$2.60	$1.82	$2.14	$2.51	EPS (diluted)EPS
$2.80	$1.63	$1.61	$1.30	$1.86	$2.22	$2.16	$2.80	$1.96	$2.90	$2.99	Owner earnings / shareOE/sh
$2.80	$0.83	$0.04	$1.30	$1.86	$2.22	$2.16	$2.80	$1.96	$0.82	$-0.09	Free cash flow / shareFCF/sh
$1.68	$1.20	$1.42	$1.52	$1.60	$1.64	$1.69	$1.78	$1.89	$1.99	$2.04	Dividends / shareDiv/sh
$2.73	$2.90	$3.34	$1.74	$1.02	$1.02	$1.84	$2.06	$2.10	$3.99	$4.98	Cap. spending / shareCapex/sh
$6.19	$11.65	$15.06	$11.01	$9.69	$9.38	$9.39	$10.14	$10.17	$10.45	$10.76	Book value / shareBVPS

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

	9-yr	5-yr
Revenue / share	−0.3%/yr	+9.0%/yr
Owner earnings / share	+0.4%/yr	+9.3%/yr
EPS	—	+65.2%/yr
Dividends / share	+1.9%/yr	+4.5%/yr
Capital spending / share	+4.3%/yr	+31.4%/yr
Book value / share	+6.0%/yr	+1.5%/yr

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 earned $3.6B of owner earnings, the operating cash left after the $2.3B it takes just to hold its position. It put $2.5B more into growth; free cash flow, after that spending, was $1.0B.

Reported net income$2.6B

Owner earnings$3.6B · 30% of revenue

	FY2025	FY2024	FY2023	FY2022	FY2021
Reported net income	$2.6B	$2.2B	$3.2B	$2.0B	$1.5B
Depreciation & amortizationnon-cash charge added back	+$2.3B	+$2.2B	+$2.1B	+$2.0B	+$1.8B
Stock-based compensationreal costnon-cash, but a real cost	+$93M	+$99M	+$77M	+$73M	+$81M
Working capital & othertiming of cash in and out, other non-cash items	+$840M	+$431M	+$611M	+$758M	+$505M
Cash from operations	$5.9B	$5.0B	$5.9B	$4.9B	$3.9B
Maintenance capital expenditurethe spending needed just to hold position and volume	−$2.3B	−$2.6B	−$2.5B	−$2.3B	−$1.2B
Owner earnings	$3.6B	$2.4B	$3.4B	$2.6B	$2.7B
Growth capital expenditurediscretionary; spent to get bigger, not to stand still	−$2.5B	—	—	—	—
Free cash flow	$1.0B	$2.4B	$3.4B	$2.6B	$2.7B
Owner-earnings marginowner earnings ÷ revenue	30%	23%	31%	24%	25%

Owner earnings is the cash an owner could pull out without starving the business: operating cash less the maintenance capital it must spend to hold its position (here about $2.3B, roughly its depreciation, the rate its assets wear out). The other $2.5B of its capital spending is growth it chose, not upkeep it owed; charged only with the maintenance it must do, the business earns well more than the year's free cash flow shows. 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 $93M), owner earnings is nearer $3.5B.

A regulated utility reads differently here. What it spends above depreciation goes into rate base, where the commission lets it earn the allowed return and recover the capital, with interest, over decades — growth that is financed, not taken out of owners' pockets this year. So the truth sits between the bridge's two ends: owner earnings excuses the build-out entirely, free cash flow charges it entirely, and the scorecard's utility-plant figure shows how fast the base earning that return is compounding.

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 →

The allowed return, earned and credited

Earned return on equity 15.6%

Above the typical allowed band

Median over 10 readable years · latest FY2025: 20.4% (net income $2.6B ÷ equity $12.8B)

What this means
A commission caps what a regulated utility may earn on shareholders' capital, so the question is not whether the return is high but whether the company actually earns what it is allowed — persistent under-earning means costs the regulator will not put in rates, and a return above the band usually means unregulated businesses in the mix. Read through the record, because a single year carries rate-case timing noise.
AFUDC in earnings —

Not enough data

What this means
The equity allowance for funds used during construction is not tagged in this filer's structured data — the construction credit, if any, lives in the 10-K's rate-matters note.

The invested base and the regulatory ledger

Net utility plant —

Not enough data

What this means
No undimensioned utility-plant figure is tagged in this filer's structured data.
Net regulatory position −$99M

Owes ratepayers

Net regulatory assets as filed: $99M owed back to ratepayers (this filer tags only the net figure)

What this means
The ledger of the regulatory relationship, which this filer reports only as a net figure: positive means costs the commissions have agreed may be collected in future rates, negative means amounts owed back to ratepayers. A promise whose worth depends on the commissions that made it, shown as filed.

Graham’s defensive tests · 3 of 5 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 · $11.9B

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× (waived for utilities) · exempt

What this means
Graham exempted public utilities from this test: their working capital “takes care of itself” through the continuous bond-and-share financing of growth, so a thin current ratio is the industry's structure, not a warning. His substitute test — debt no more than twice book equity — is the next line.
Conservative debt Near

Debt ≤ 2× equity (Graham's utility test) · $28.7B vs $12.8B equity

What this means
Graham's own substitution for public utilities: debt not exceeding twice the stock equity at book value, in place of the working-capital tests an industrial faces. A utility finances its plant with bonds by design; the question is whether the borrowing stays inside the equity behind it.
Earnings stability Miss

A profit every year (10-yr record) · 2 loss years

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 · +403%

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 $2.19/share (latest year $2.14), the averaged base the calculator's gate runs on, and book value is $10.47/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 8 of 10

What this means
Lost money in 2 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 10% → 35% (3-yr avg ends)

In the filing’s words The record and the words agree: the margin widened and the filing attributes the gain to its own pricing, not volume alone.

What this means
Through the cycle the operating margin widened — about 10% early to 35% lately, median 25% — 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 +6%/yr

What this means
Owner earnings grew about 6% a year over the record.
Worst year 2018 · 8.8% op. margin

What this means
Stayed profitable even in its hardest year, the resilience that survives recessions.
Share count +5.6%/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.

All figures as filed; the source filing is linked above.

Rate cases, in the filing’s words

FY2025 10-Kthe filing, SEC EDGAR →

A regulated utility does not set its own price. It asks a commission for one, case by case, and the commission grants some part of it. Below are the proceedings this filing puts on the record, quoted verbatim, largest dollars first. Nothing here is computed; every figure is the filer’s own sentence.

No rate case on this record, and the filer says why

“During the third quarter of 2025, Transco reached an agreement in principle with its customers and the other participants to settle all aspects of the rate case and has accrued a related liability for rate refunds.”

Sentences from the Regulatory Matters and Pending Proceedings disclosures and the MD&A of the latest 10-K, largest dollars first, at most six. “Granted” marks a sentence in which the commission itself is the subject of the approving verb; everything else renders as a request, never as a decided outcome. A return on equity is shown only where the filer states one between 8 and 13 percent — the same figure in these filings also carries equity ratios and fair-value returns, and a number that must be interpreted before it can be believed is not shown at all. Nothing here says whether a case is still pending: filings state timings that are already past by the time they are read.

Current Position

as of the latest quarter, Jun 30, 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$3.1B

Cash & short-term investments$203M
Receivables$2.0B
Inventory$335M
Other current assets$617M

Current liabilities$6.5B

Accounts payable$2.2B
Other current liabilities$4.3B

Current ratio0.48×all current assets ÷ what's due · Graham looked for 2×

Quick ratio0.43×stricter: inventory excluded

Cash ratio0.03×strictest: cash alone against what's due

Working capital($3.4B)the cushion left after near-term bills

Revenue, latest quarter vs. a year ago+9.8%the freshest read on whether the business is still growing

Current ratio, recent quarters0.6× → 0.5×

Deeper floors

Tangible book value$12.7Bequity stripped of goodwill & intangibles

Debt incl. operating leases$151M$151M of it operating leases

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.

'26$1.3B

'27$2.0B

'28$1.4B

'29$1.6B

'30$2.5B

later$19.8B

Bars scaled to the largest single year; “later” is everything due after 2030, shown apart since it dwarfs the years.

Due in the next 12 months$1.3Bthe first rung: what must be repaid or rolled over within the year

Within two years$3.3Bthe near wall, the part most exposed to today’s credit conditions

Biggest single year$2.5Bin 2030the lumpiest maturity, where a refinancing, if needed, is largest

Total scheduled principal$28.7Bevery year plus what lies beyond, as the footnote totals it

Against what the business has and earns

Cash & short-term investments, Jun 30, 2026$203M

One year of owner earnings (FY2025)$3.6B

Together, against $1.3B due next year2.8×

Cash on hand as of Jun 30, 2026 plus a year’s owner earnings comes to $3.8B against the $1.3B due in the twelve months after the Dec 31, 2025 schedule: 2.8 times it.

Maturity schedule extracted from the company’s Dec 31, 2025 annual report and reconciled to the total the table states.

How the cash was used, 2016–2025

Over the record, the business generated $43.4B of operating cash; how management split it reads as a reinvestor, most operating cash is plowed back into the business.

Reinvested$24.5B · 57%
Dividends$18.4B · 42%
Buybacks$139M · 0%
Retained (debt / cash)$281M · 1%

Returned to owners$18.6B
79% of the owner earnings the business produced over the span, $18.4B as dividends and $139M as buybacks.
Average price paid for buybacks—
Buybacks ran $139M over the span, but the filings don't tag the share count needed to deduce the average price paid.
Net change in share count63.3%
The diluted count rose from 751M to 1226M: issuance (stock pay, deals) outran any buybacks, so owners were diluted on net.
Dividend record$1.99/sh
Paid in 10 of the years on record, the per-share dividend growing about 2% a year. 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”	Owner earnings
2021	Mr. Armstrong	$13.8M	$32.3M	$2.7B
2022	—	$13.9M	$36.7M	$2.6B
2023	—	$17.5M	$18.5M	$3.4B
2024	—	$16.3M	$44.8M	$2.4B
2025	—	$17.9M	$31.8M	$3.6B
2025	—	$8.7M	$12.4M	$3.6B

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. 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.
CEO pay ratio61:1
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$93M
The slice of the business handed to employees in shares in fiscal 2025, 0.8% of revenue, equal to 2.2% 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.

What an owner would ask, FY2025

read the 10-K →

Which reported numbers are a judgment call?
Management names Income taxes, Contingencies 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, nearest by economic model

No close industry peers in the catalog yet, so these are the nearest by economic model (capital-intensive), compared on owner economics. Each column names the period it is read over; the group median at the foot is the line to read each figure against.

Company	Revenuelatest FY, USD	ROEmedian over the record	Plant growthannualized over the record	Dividend / cashmedian over the record
KMIKinder Morgan Inc.	$16.9B	6%	—	43%
ESEversource Energy (D/B/A)	$13.5B	9%	8.9%	35%
ETREntergy Corporation	$12.9B	10%	7.3%	25%
AESAES Corp.	$12.2B	6%	—	15%
PEGPublic Service Enterprise Group Incorporated	$12.2B	11%	4.1%	32%
WMBWilliams Companies Inc. (The)	$11.9B	16%	—	42%
WECWEC Energy Group Inc.	$9.8B	11%	—	33%
PPLPPL Corporation	$9.0B	9%	1.5%	42%
Group median	—	9%	—	34%

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 Companies Inc. (The) has delivered.

Williams Companies Inc. (The)’s latest year shows negative owner earnings, the mark of a build-out: total capital spending outruns the cash the business throws off today. So the tool opens on the steady-state base (maintenance capex in place of the build-out spend), 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, Williams Companies Inc. (The) earns about $3.0B on its 24.8% median owner-earnings margin. This year’s 29.7% 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 ($3.0B) Net of stock comp (−$83M TTM) Steady-state · maintenance capex ($3.6B)

—

The assumptions Required return 9% Years of high growth 10 Terminal growth 2.5%

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.

Implied by the price—

Owner-earnings growth · ’21→’25+3%/yr

Owner-earnings growth · ’16→’25+6%/yr

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 (4.65%, 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.

Free cash flow ($108M) on 1223M shares outstanding, per the 10-Q cover, as of 2026-07-30; net debt $28.5B. 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. Capex ($6.1B) runs well above depreciation ($2.3B), so this is a build-out; Steady-state swaps total capex for maintenance (≈ depreciation), lifting the base to about $3.6B, the cash it would throw off if it stopped expanding. The dials set the multiple a growth belief justifies; the price, and every dollar on this page, is yours.

Weigh WMB against another business →

The owners of WMB: the meeting and the votes →

Cite: Owner Scorecard, "Williams Companies Inc. (The) (WMB), the owner's record," https://ownerscorecard.com/c/WMB, data as of 2026-08-17.

Manual order: ← WM its page in the Manual WMG →

Industry order: ← WES the Pipelines & Midstream chapter