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WU, Western Union

Commercial Services & Supplies diversified Cyclical

A diversified business; where the profit really comes from, and whether it is earned or bought, is what the segment detail settles.

Latest annual: FY2025 10-K

WU · Western Union

The business

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

Revenue · FY2025

$4.1B

−3.8% YoY · −3% 5-yr CAGR

Vital signs · TTM, with 5-yr average

Revenue $3.9B 5-yr avg $4.4B

Gross margin 32% 5-yr avg 40%

Operating margin 16.6% 5-yr avg 19.3%

ROIC 16% 5-yr avg 36%

Owner-earnings margin 15% 5-yr avg 14%

Free cash flow margin 15% 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.

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 40% and operating margin about 19% through the cycle, a solid spread between what it charges and what the product costs to make. The operating margin has swung widely — from 8.6% to 22% — on a steadier 40% 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. 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 42%, above 15% in 8 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 14% 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 regions, the largest North America at 37%.

Revenue by geography, FY2025

North America37%$1.4B
Europe and CIS29%$1.1B
Latin America And Caribbean15%$571M
Middle East Africa And South Asia14%$544M
Asia Pacific5%$196M

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.

Most recent quarterly filing 10-Q filed Jul 30, 2026 Source at SEC EDGAR →

Revenue down 1.2% year over year; operating income down 31.4%

figures computed from the filing's XBRL

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
$5.4B	$5.5B	$5.6B	$5.3B	$4.8B	$5.1B	$4.5B	$4.4B	$4.2B	$4.1B	$3.9B	RevenueRevenue
$2.2B	$2.2B	$2.3B	$2.2B	$2.0B	$2.2B	$1.8B	$1.7B	$1.6B	$1.5B	$1.3B	Gross profitGross prof.
40%	39%	41%	42%	42%	43%	41%	39%	38%	37%	32%	Gross marginGross mgn
31%	22%	21%	24%	22%	21%	22%	20%	21%	18%	20%	SG&A / revenueSG&A/rev
$487M	$476M	$1.1B	$934M	$967M	$1.1B	$885M	$818M	$726M	$757M	$642M	Operating incomeOp. inc.
9.0%	8.6%	20.1%	17.6%	20.0%	22.1%	19.8%	18.8%	17.2%	18.7%	16.6%	Operating marginOp. mgn
$342M	$348M	$991M	$1.3B	$855M	$935M	$1.0B	$746M	$619M	$626M	—	Pretax incomePretax
$253M	($557M)	$852M	$1.1B	$744M	$806M	$911M	$626M	$934M	$500M	$395M	Net incomeNet inc.
26%	—	14%	20%	13%	14%	10%	16%	—	20%	22%	Effective tax rateTax rate
											Cash flow & returns
$1.0B	$742M	$821M	$915M	$878M	$1.0B	$582M	$783M	$406M	$544M	$610M	Operating cash flowOp. cash
$263M	$263M	$265M	$258M	$226M	$50M	$43M	$39M	$37M	$35M	$35M	DepreciationDeprec.
$526M	$1.0B	($295M)	($401M)	($92M)	$190M	($372M)	$118M	($565M)	$9M	$139M	Working capital & otherWC & other
$69M	$69M	$137M	$48M	$37M	$38M	$32M	$23M	$37M	$39M	$44M	CapexCapex
1.3%	1.3%	2.4%	0.9%	0.8%	0.7%	0.7%	0.5%	0.9%	1.0%	1.1%	Capex / revenueCapex/rev
$973M	$673M	$685M	$867M	$841M	$1.0B	$550M	$760M	$369M	$505M	$565M	Owner earningsOwner earn.
17.9%	12.2%	12.2%	16.4%	17.4%	19.9%	12.3%	17.4%	8.8%	12.5%	14.6%	Owner earnings marginOE mgn
$973M	$673M	$685M	$867M	$841M	$1.0B	$550M	$760M	$369M	$505M	$565M	Free cash flowFCF
17.9%	12.2%	12.2%	16.4%	17.4%	19.9%	12.3%	17.4%	8.8%	12.5%	14.6%	Free cash flow marginFCF mgn
$0	$25M	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	$25M	AcquisitionsAcquis.
$312M	$326M	$342M	$341M	$370M	$382M	$364M	$349M	$322M	$309M	$303M	Dividends paidDiv. paid
$502M	$503M	$412M	$553M	$240M	$410M	$370M	$308M	$186M	$235M	—	BuybacksBuybacks
($271M)	($205M)	($329M)	$167M	($374M)	$192M	$526M	($141M)	($16M)	($230M)	—	Investing cash flowInv. cash
($1.2B)	($571M)	($357M)	($1.5B)	($186M)	($1.3B)	($1.2B)	($897M)	($69M)	($783M)	—	Financing cash flowFin. cash
($438M)	($33M)	$135M	($403M)	$318M	($32M)	($70M)	($255M)	$321M	($469M)	—	Change in cashΔ cash
13%	14%	45%	43%	46%	45%	44%	40%	30%	23%	16%	ROICROIC
28%	—	—	—	399%	227%	191%	131%	96%	52%	43%	Return on equityROE
−7%	—	—	—	200%	119%	114%	58%	63%	20%	10%	Retained to equityRetained/eq
											Balance sheet
$878M	$838M	$973M	$1.5B	$1.4B	$1.2B	$1.3B	$1.3B	$1.5B	$1.2B	$920M	Cash & investmentsCash+inv
—	—	—	—	—	$1.2B	$1.5B	$1.7B	$1.4B	$1.6B	$1.5B	ReceivablesReceiv.
—	—	—	—	—	$1.2B	$1.5B	$1.7B	$1.4B	$1.6B	$1.5B	Operating working capitalOper. WC
$221M	$214M	$270M	$236M	$150M	$129M	$110M	$91M	$84M	$95M	—	Net PP&ENet PP&E
$3.2B	$2.7B	$2.7B	$2.6B	$2.6B	$2.0B	$2.0B	$2.0B	$2.1B	$2.1B	$2.1B	GoodwillGoodwill
$9.4B	$9.2B	$9.0B	$8.8B	$9.5B	$8.8B	$8.5B	$8.2B	$8.4B	$8.3B	$8.0B	Total assetsAssets
$2.8B	$3.0B	$3.4B	$3.2B	$3.1B	$3.0B	$2.6B	$2.5B	$3.0B	$2.9B	$3.2B	Total debtDebt
$1.9B	$2.2B	$2.5B	$1.8B	$1.6B	$1.8B	$1.3B	$1.2B	$1.5B	$1.7B	$2.3B	Net debt / (cash)Net debt
$8.5B	$9.7B	$9.3B	$8.8B	$9.3B	$8.5B	$8.0B	$7.7B	$7.4B	$7.3B	—	Total liabilitiesTotal liab.
$902M	($491M)	($310M)	($40M)	$187M	$356M	$478M	$479M	$969M	$958M	$915M	Shareholders’ equityEquity
											Per share
494M	468M	454M	431M	415M	409M	388M	372M	341M	328M	315M	Shares out (diluted)Shares
$10.99	$11.81	$12.30	$12.28	$11.64	$12.40	$11.52	$11.72	$12.34	$12.36	$12.30	Revenue / shareRev/sh
$0.51	$-1.19	$1.87	$2.46	$1.79	$1.97	$2.34	$1.68	$2.74	$1.53	$1.25	EPS (diluted)EPS
$1.97	$1.44	$1.51	$2.01	$2.03	$2.46	$1.42	$2.04	$1.08	$1.54	$1.79	Owner earnings / shareOE/sh
$1.97	$1.44	$1.51	$2.01	$2.03	$2.46	$1.42	$2.04	$1.08	$1.54	$1.79	Free cash flow / shareFCF/sh
$0.63	$0.70	$0.75	$0.79	$0.89	$0.93	$0.94	$0.94	$0.94	$0.94	$0.96	Dividends / shareDiv/sh
$0.14	$0.15	$0.30	$0.11	$0.09	$0.09	$0.08	$0.06	$0.11	$0.12	$0.14	Cap. spending / shareCapex/sh
$1.83	$-1.05	$-0.68	$-0.09	$0.45	$0.87	$1.23	$1.29	$2.84	$2.92	$2.90	Book value / shareBVPS

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

	9-yr	5-yr
Revenue / share	+1.3%/yr	+1.2%/yr
Owner earnings / share	−2.7%/yr	−5.3%/yr
EPS	+12.9%/yr	−3.2%/yr
Dividends / share	+4.5%/yr	+1.1%/yr
Capital spending / share	−1.9%/yr	+6.0%/yr
Book value / share	+5.4%/yr	+45.4%/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 turned $500M of profit into $505M of owner earnings: more cash than the profit line showed, after the non-cash charges and the capital it put back in.

Reported net income$500M

Owner earnings$505M · 12% of revenue

	FY2025	FY2024	FY2023	FY2022	FY2021
Reported net income	$500M	$934M	$626M	$911M	$806M
Depreciation & amortizationnon-cash charge added back	+$35M	+$37M	+$39M	+$43M	+$50M
Working capital & othertiming of cash in and out, other non-cash items	+$9M	−$565M	+$118M	−$372M	+$190M
Cash from operations	$544M	$406M	$783M	$582M	$1.0B
Capital expenditurecash put back in to keep running and to grow	−$39M	−$37M	−$23M	−$32M	−$38M
Owner earnings	$505M	$369M	$760M	$550M	$1.0B
Owner-earnings marginowner earnings ÷ revenue	12%	9%	17%	12%	20%

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 .

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? —

Interest expense not tagged in the data

What this means
No usable interest-expense line was tagged in the filing data, but the balance sheet carries real net debt — so the interest burden here is unknown, not absent. Read the debt on the net-debt check below.
How heavy is the debt, net of cash? $2.4B · 3.1× operating profit

Meaningful net debt

Cash $1.2B − debt $3.6B

What this means
Netting $1.2B of cash and short-term investments against $3.6B of debt leaves $2.4B owed, about 3.1× a year's operating profit (4.7× on the gross debt, before the cash). 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? —

Not enough data

What this means
The filing data didn't include the inputs for this check.

Is it a good business?

Return on invested capital 42%

Very high (≥25%) through the cycle

10-yr median, range 13%–46%; 18% latest = NOPAT $605M ÷ invested capital $3.3B

Industry peers: median 8%

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 18% 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 14%

Solid through the cycle

10-yr median margin, range 9%–20%; latest $505M = operating cash $544M − maintenance capex $39M

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 12% of revenue this year, a 14% median across 10 years.
Are earnings backed by cash? 1.09×

Cash-backed

Cash from ops $544M ÷ net income $500M

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? 108%

Returned more than it generated

Dividends + buybacks $544M ÷ Owner Earnings $505M — this fiscal year

What this means
The company returned more than it generated: against $505M of Owner Earnings, $544M (108%) went back to shareholders, $309M dividends, $235M buybacks — the excess came from the balance sheet or borrowing, not the year's operations. Sustained, that pattern draws down cash or adds debt; the net-debt line above shows where it stands. This year's proportion is 108%; across the record (2016–2025) it is 99%, the capital-allocation section below.
Investing or harvesting? 1.09×

Maintaining

Capex $39M ÷ depreciation $35M

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 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 Pass

Revenue ≥ $2B · $4.1B

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 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 Pass

Earnings +33% over the record · +276%

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 $2.20/share (latest year $1.60), the averaged base the calculator's gate runs on, and book value is $3.07/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% 8 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 13% → 18% (3-yr avg ends)

In the filing’s words The margin widened even though the filing names price competition — the gain came from volume or cost, not pricing power. Read where.

What this means
Through the cycle the operating margin widened — about 13% early to 18% lately, median 19% — 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 −7%/yr

What this means
Owner earnings shrank about 7% a year over the record.
Worst year 2017 · 8.6% op. margin

What this means
Stayed profitable even in its hardest year, the resilience that survives recessions.
Share count −4.5%/yr

What this means
The share count is shrinking, buybacks are quietly growing your slice of the business.
Dividend record paid

What this means
Paid a dividend in 10 of the years on record.

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

How the cash was used, 2016–2025

Over the record, the business generated $7.8B of operating cash; how management split it reads as a cash returner, paying most of what it earns straight back to owners.

Reinvested$528M · 7%
Dividends$3.4B · 44%
Buybacks$3.7B · 48%
Retained (debt / cash)$96M · 1%

Returned to owners$7.1B
99% of the owner earnings the business produced over the span, $3.4B as dividends and $3.7B as buybacks.
Average price paid for buybacks—
Buybacks ran $3.7B over the span, but the filings don't tag the share count needed to deduce the average price paid.
Net change in share count−36.1%
The diluted count fell from 494M to 315M, so the buybacks outran the stock issued to staff.
Dividend record$0.94/sh
Paid in 10 of the years on record, the per-share dividend growing about 5% a year. It was never cut over the span.

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$2.5B30% of all assets; the premium carried on the balance sheet for businesses acquired

Against book equityexceeds itgoodwill alone is larger than the company’s entire book equity; stripped of the acquisition premium, there is no net book worth

Cash spent acquiring$25Mover 10 years buying other businesses, against $528M of capital spent building

$464M written down across 1 year (2017): 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	Pay, as filed	“Actually paid”	Owner earnings
2021	$14.1M	$9.9M	$1.0B
2021	$10.8M	$639k	$1.0B
2022	$7.2M	$782k	$550M
2023	$10.0M	$7.6M	$760M
2024	$13.3M	$11.6M	$369M
2025	$10.7M	$14.7M	$505M

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.

What an owner would ask, FY2025

read the 10-K →

Which reported numbers are a judgment call?
Management names 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, Commercial Services & Supplies

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
TNETTriNet Group Inc.	$5.0B	—	7.1%	38%	7%
RBARB Global Inc.	$4.6B	36%2y	16.4%	8%	17%
CPAYCorpay Inc.	$4.5B	95%2y	43.9%	11%	37%
FOURShift4 Payments	$4.2B	23%	1.9%	-1%	9%
WUWestern Union	$4.1B	40%	18.7%	42%	14%
CARTMaplebear Inc.	$3.7B	74%	2.4%	21%	18%
ADVAdvantage Solutions Inc.	$3.5B	—	-1.2%	-8%	3%
GRABGrab Holdings Limited	$3.4B	36%	-22.0%	-7%	0%
Group median	—	38%	4.7%	10%	12%

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 Western Union has delivered.

Today’s price $

Through the cycle, Western Union earns about $584M on its 14.4% median owner-earnings margin. This year’s 12.5% margin runs in line with that. Normalize, below, values the price on that through-cycle figure rather than the latest year.

Base Normalize · through-cycle ($584M) Net of stock comp (−$41M TTM) Steady-state · maintenance capex ($571M)

—

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

9.0% = the 4.68% 10-year Treasury (Jul 30, 2026) + 4.32 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→’25−13%/yr

Owner-earnings growth · ’16→’25−7%/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 (4.68%, as of Jul 30, 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 $565M on 312M shares outstanding, per the 10-Q cover, as of 2026-07-22; net debt $2.3B. The base is the latest year by default; Normalize values it on the through-cycle median owner-earnings margin (to avoid paying on a peak year). Net of stock comp treats option pay as the expense it is. Capex ($44M) runs well above depreciation ($35M), so this is a build-out; Steady-state swaps total capex for maintenance (≈ depreciation), lifting the base to about $571M, 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 WU against another business →

The owners of WU: the meeting and the votes →

Cite: Owner Scorecard, "Western Union (WU), the owner's record," https://ownerscorecard.com/c/WU, data as of 2026-07-18.

Manual order: ← WTW its page in the Manual WULF →

Industry order: ← WSE the Commercial Services & Supplies chapter XMTR →