# Moelis & Co. (MC.US)

Canonical: https://gigainvestors.com/s/MC

Analysis as of: 2026-10-16T07:30:05.781Z. Financial observations: FY2011–FY2026.

Listing currency: USD. Reporting currency: USD.

## Verdict

Not a wonderful business

Quality tests for Buy: not passed (profit record: pass; earnings resilience is evidence only). Published buy qualification: no.

Share price: $55.32 per share; close as of 2026-10-15.

Estimated value: low $35.68 per share, central $40.60 per share, high $47.15 per share. Buy at or below the central value $40.60 per share. Valuation as of 2026-10-16T07:30:05.781Z; scenarios are not confidence intervals.

Expected annual return: 8.1% at the stated quote. About 8.1% a year at today's price (required return 10.0%). required return 10.0% a year (10% floor; US 10-year bond 5.1% + 4 points).

## Checklist

### understandable: fail

- 3 revenue declines in the last 10 years (informational)

- operating margin variation exceeds 0.35

- Financial history: 10 years

- Years with declining revenue: 3

- Years with a net loss: 1

- Operating margin variation: 0.50×

Chart: Operating margin; fiscal year observations.

- FY2017: 0.24×

- FY2018: 0.26×

- FY2019: 0.15×

- FY2020: 0.28×

- FY2021: 0.32×

- FY2022: 0.22×

- FY2023: -0.05×

- FY2024: 0.14×

- FY2025: 0.18×

- LTM to Jun 2026: 0.18×

### moat: fail

- Years with nonpositive invested capital use equity plus debt and leases; positive earnings with no positive capital are shown above 100%.

- Recent gross margin fell 10.1pp below the typical margin (limit 4pp)

- ROIC, median of available years: 58.5%

- ROIC, second-lowest year: 30.6%

- Typical minus recent gross margin: 10.1 pp

- Typical gross margin (annual median): 40.6%

- Recent gross margin (lower of latest and 3-year median): 30.5%

- Years with nonpositive capital: 4

- Capital spending / revenue: 0.9%

- ROIC including acquisitions, ten-year median: 33.8%

Chart: ROIC excluding acquisitions; fiscal year observations.

- FY2016: 59.6%

- FY2017: 30.6%

- FY2018: 46.1%

- FY2019: >100%

- FY2020: >100%

- FY2021: 57.4%

- FY2022: >100%

- FY2023: -8.7%

- FY2024: 53.0%

- FY2025: 66.4%

### economics: pass

- Owner earnings / net income, 5-yr: 0.99×

- Cash conversion uses consolidated totals: No

- Owner earnings, five-year total: $854M

- Net income, five-year total: $860M

- Return on incremental invested capital: 77.3%

- Working capital / revenue, annual change: 0.0 pp

- Working capital / revenue, change between three-year averages: 6.5 pp

- Working capital / revenue, final three-year average: 11.1%

Chart: Annual owner cash / profit; fiscal year observations.

- FY2021: 1.00×

- FY2022: 1.01×

- FY2023: 1.34×

- FY2024: 1.00×

- FY2025: 1.00×

### management: fail

- Historical market-dollar context (not the management verdict): 2016 to 2025 (9 years)

- potential debt-funded buybacks (informational)

- buybacks leaned toward cheaper years (informational)

- ROIC first 3 years vs last 3 years: 46.1% vs 53.0%

- Per-share earnings: 1.49 to 1.78 (three-year endpoint medians)

- five-year and ten-year diluted share growth both above threshold

- Management verdict uses per-share economic progress: Yes

- Ordinary dilution, 10-year annual growth: 13.6%

- Ordinary dilution, 5-year annual growth: 4.2%

- Market cap gain: $4.6B

- Cumulative retained earnings: -$733M

- Diluted shares, 10-year annual growth: 13.6%

- Diluted shares, 5-year annual growth: 4.2%

- $1 test, starting fiscal year: FY2016

- $1 test, ending fiscal year: FY2025

- Per-share value growth: 2.2%

- Per-share value change: $0.29

- Per-share value, starting three-year median: $1.49

- Per-share value, ending three-year median: $1.78

- Buybacks concentrated in cheaper years (correlation): 0.66

- Average buyback yield: 1.8%

- Buyback history: 10 years

- Debt-funded buybacks: Yes

- Acquisition spending: $453M

- Cumulative net income, 10 years: $1.4B

- ROIC, first three-year median: 46.1%

- ROIC, last three-year median: 53.0%

Chart: Earnings per share; fiscal year observations.

- FY2016: $1.49

- FY2017: $0.85

- FY2018: $2.58

- FY2019: $1.87

- FY2020: $2.78

- FY2021: $5.20

- FY2022: $2.14

- FY2023: -$0.36

- FY2024: $1.78

- FY2025: $2.94

### accounting: pass

- stock compensation exceeds 15% of operating cash flow

- Sloan accruals: -18.9%

- Receivables to sales index (DSRI): 1.19×

- Restructuring years, last five: 0

- Stock compensation / operating cash flow: 40.0%

- Earnings backed by cash: Yes

- Operating cash / earnings: 2.47×

- Accounting red flags: 1

- Goodwill and intangibles / equity: 0.00×

Chart: Sloan accruals; fiscal year observations.

- FY2016: -32.2%

- FY2017: -29.2%

- FY2018: -27.4%

- FY2019: -9.7%

- FY2020: -20.9%

- FY2021: -36.8%

- FY2022: 9.6%

- FY2023: -15.5%

- FY2024: -21.1%

- FY2025: -18.9%

## Holders

- [Matthew McLennan](https://gigainvestors.com/FE): tracked 13F investor; follow the investor page for holding quarter and amounts.

## Price story

Down 29% since Jan 2025 · sales +3.8%

Story as of 2026-10-16T09:59:08.099Z; price observation 2026-10-15.

Price needs cash profits to grow 4.8% a year for ten years

- 2025-07-25: Moelis Q2 2025 presentation slides: Revenue hits $1.2B as global expansion continues ([investing.com](https://www.investing.com/news/company-news/moelis-q2-2025-presentation-slides-revenue-hits-12b-as-global-expansion-continues-93CH-4153905))

- 2025-11-29: Did Moelis' (MC) Earnings Beat and Rising Costs Just Shift Its Medium-Term Investment Narrative? ([finance.yahoo.com](https://finance.yahoo.com/news/did-moelis-mc-earnings-beat-141150603.html))

### Sales · FY2025–2026

sales +3.8%; source https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1596967/000119312526076747/mc-20251231.htm; observed 2026-02-26.

- FY2017: $685M 

- FY2018: $886M 

- FY2019: $747M 

- FY2020: $943M 

- FY2021: $1.5B 

- FY2022: $985M 

- FY2023: $855M 

- FY2024: $1.2B 

- FY2025: $1.5B 

- FY2026: $1.6B 

### Gross margin · FY2025

gross margin 99.2%; source https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1596967/000119312526076747/mc-20251231.htm; observed 2026-02-26.

- FY2016: 41.2% 

- FY2017: 41.4% 

- FY2018: 42.0% 

- FY2019: 34.6% 

- FY2020: 40.5% 

- FY2021: 40.7% 

- FY2022: 37.3% 

- FY2023: 16.4% 

- FY2024: 30.5% 

- FY2025: 99.2% 

## Owner memo

Memo as of 2026-10-16T08:06:05.509Z.

### How it makes money

Operates in capital markets; annual sales are USD 1.5 billion.

- Source: https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1596967/000119312526076747/mc-20251231.htm#000119312526076747 (filed 2026-02-26); FY2025: revenue 1516796000; grossProfit 1504917000; margin = grossProfit / revenue.

- Source: https://eodhd.com/financial-apis/stock-etfs-fundamental-data-feeds/ (filed 2026-10-16); MC.US: Moelis & Company operates as an investment banking advisory company in North and South America, Europe, the Middle East, Asia, and Australia. It offers advisory services in the areas of mergers and acquisitions, recapitalizations and restructurings, capital markets transactions, and other corporate finance matters, as well as strategic advisory, capital markets, capital structure advisory, and private capital advisory. The company serves public multinational corporations, middle market private companies, financial sponsors, entrepreneurs, governments, and sovereign wealth funds clients. Moelis & Company was founded in 2007 and is headquartered in New York, New York.

### Why customers stay

Margins ranged from 16.4% to 99.2% during 2023–25; it earns 58.5% on its capital.

- Source: https://eodhd.com/financial-apis/stock-etfs-fundamental-data-feeds/ (filed 2026-02-26); FY2023: grossProfit / revenue = 16.4%.

- Source: https://eodhd.com/financial-apis/stock-etfs-fundamental-data-feeds/ (filed 2026-02-26); FY2024: grossProfit / revenue = 30.5%.

- Source: https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1596967/000119312526076747/mc-20251231.htm (filed 2026-02-26); FY2025: grossProfit / revenue = 99.2%.

- Source: https://eodhd.com/financial-apis/stock-etfs-fundamental-data-feeds/ (filed 2026-02-26); 10-year return on capital observations [[2016,0.5957087872275432],[2017,0.30586680110106357],[2018,0.4612985568704983],[2019,1.4605480101117723],[2020,4.319994452246632],[2021,0.5743652081524033],[2022,207.01529288668712],[2023,-0.08723539102307991],[2024,0.5296238962846683],[2025,0.6639681052439846]]; median 0.5850369976899732. ROIC follows the displayed moat series; financial companies use return on tangible equity.

### Where the cash goes

Reinvests 10.5% of cash earnings; earns 77.3% on new investment.

- Source: https://eodhd.com/financial-apis/stock-etfs-fundamental-data-feeds/ (filed 2026-02-26); FY2016: growth capex 0; upkeep 2870000; owner earnings 38471694.11764706. Growth capex / owner earnings = 0.

- Source: https://eodhd.com/financial-apis/stock-etfs-fundamental-data-feeds/ (filed 2026-02-26); FY2017: growth capex 1017414.9238206809; upkeep 4629585.076179319; owner earnings 28314414.923820682. Growth capex / owner earnings = 0.035932754625444804.

- Source: https://eodhd.com/financial-apis/stock-etfs-fundamental-data-feeds/ (filed 2026-02-26); FY2018: growth capex 2295000; upkeep 4625000; owner earnings 140680000. Growth capex / owner earnings = 0.016313619562126812.

- Source: https://eodhd.com/financial-apis/stock-etfs-fundamental-data-feeds/ (filed 2026-02-26); FY2019: growth capex 0; upkeep 6467000; owner earnings 103593000. Growth capex / owner earnings = 0.

- Source: https://eodhd.com/financial-apis/stock-etfs-fundamental-data-feeds/ (filed 2026-02-26); FY2020: growth capex 21968640.54071503; upkeep 18690359.45928497; owner earnings 164848640.54071504. Growth capex / owner earnings = 0.13326552447539972.

- Source: https://eodhd.com/financial-apis/stock-etfs-fundamental-data-feeds/ (filed 2026-02-26); FY2021: growth capex 9184000; upkeep 7242000; owner earnings 365213000. Growth capex / owner earnings = 0.025146969029032372.

- Source: https://eodhd.com/financial-apis/stock-etfs-fundamental-data-feeds/ (filed 2026-02-26); FY2022: growth capex 0; upkeep 5957000; cash acquisitions 0; owner earnings 152363000. Growth capex plus acquisitions / owner earnings = 0.

- Source: https://eodhd.com/financial-apis/stock-etfs-fundamental-data-feeds/ (filed 2026-02-26); FY2024: growth capex 1648000; upkeep 10444000; cash acquisitions 0; owner earnings 136020000. Growth capex plus acquisitions / owner earnings = 0.012115865313924423.

- Source: https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1596967/000119312526076747/mc-20251231.htm (filed 2026-02-26); FY2025: growth capex 24451000; upkeep 11879000; cash acquisitions 0; owner earnings 233037000. Growth capex plus acquisitions / owner earnings = 0.10492325253071401.

- Source: https://eodhd.com/financial-apis/stock-etfs-fundamental-data-feeds/ (filed 2026-02-26); Incremental return on capital 0.7731656234151506, from the economics test's unchanged annual inputs.

- Source: https://eodhd.com/financial-apis/stock-etfs-fundamental-data-feeds/ (filed 2026-02-26); Dividend observations: [[2016,154703000],[2017,255694000],[2018,313827000],[2019,209178000],[2020,282920000],[2021,479963000],[2022,174651000],[2023,182156000],[2024,184160000],[2025,208703000]]. Zero only counted when supported by a complete cash-flow statement.

- Source: https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1596967/000119312526076747/mc-20251231.htm (filed 2026-02-26); FY2025: cash repurchases 74591000 USD.

### Are managers owners

Insiders own 1.1% of the company.

- Source: https://eodhd.com/financial-apis/stock-etfs-fundamental-data-feeds/ (filed 2026-10-16); MC.US SharesStats.PercentInsiders = 1.088 percentage points; cache date 2026-10-16.

### What the price says

The price assumes cash profits grow 4.8% yearly over ten years; actual growth was 7.1%.

- Source: https://eodhd.com/financial-apis/stock-etfs-fundamental-data-feeds/ (filed 2026-02-26); Ten-year compound average after fade. Initial solved rate 0.05536004915503734. Price 55.32; FX 1; discount 0.1; same standard ten-year fade to terminal 0.03. FY2015 owner earnings/share 1.480093571326201 → FY2025 2.9411704199108692. Closing-price date 2026-10-15.

## Monthly share-price history (USD per share)

- 2016-10: $25.40 per share

- 2016-11: $29.20 per share

- 2016-12: $33.90 per share

- 2017-01: $34.10 per share

- 2017-02: $36.80 per share

- 2017-03: $38.50 per share

- 2017-04: $36.70 per share

- 2017-05: $35.10 per share

- 2017-06: $38.85 per share

- 2017-07: $40.90 per share

- 2017-08: $39.40 per share

- 2017-09: $43.05 per share

- 2017-10: $42.75 per share

- 2017-11: $47.90 per share

- 2017-12: $48.50 per share

- 2018-01: $51.70 per share

- 2018-02: $50.75 per share

- 2018-03: $50.85 per share

- 2018-04: $53.80 per share

- 2018-05: $59.25 per share

- 2018-06: $58.65 per share

- 2018-07: $63.60 per share

- 2018-08: $58.05 per share

- 2018-09: $54.80 per share

- 2018-10: $40.36 per share

- 2018-11: $40.42 per share

- 2018-12: $34.38 per share

- 2019-01: $43.75 per share

- 2019-02: $44.61 per share

- 2019-03: $41.61 per share

- 2019-04: $40.95 per share

- 2019-05: $31.78 per share

- 2019-06: $34.95 per share

- 2019-07: $36.44 per share

- 2019-08: $33.53 per share

- 2019-09: $32.85 per share

- 2019-10: $35.68 per share

- 2019-11: $32.96 per share

- 2019-12: $31.92 per share

- 2020-01: $36.00 per share

- 2020-02: $31.96 per share

- 2020-03: $28.10 per share

- 2020-04: $29.87 per share

- 2020-05: $33.63 per share

- 2020-06: $31.16 per share

- 2020-07: $29.79 per share

- 2020-08: $31.91 per share

- 2020-09: $35.14 per share

- 2020-10: $37.20 per share

- 2020-11: $39.24 per share

- 2020-12: $46.76 per share

- 2021-01: $49.71 per share

- 2021-02: $51.64 per share

- 2021-03: $54.88 per share

- 2021-04: $54.28 per share

- 2021-05: $53.69 per share

- 2021-06: $56.89 per share

- 2021-07: $59.25 per share

- 2021-08: $61.95 per share

- 2021-09: $61.87 per share

- 2021-10: $72.74 per share

- 2021-11: $61.31 per share

- 2021-12: $62.51 per share

- 2022-01: $56.47 per share

- 2022-02: $48.21 per share

- 2022-03: $46.95 per share

- 2022-04: $44.26 per share

- 2022-05: $46.92 per share

- 2022-06: $39.35 per share

- 2022-07: $46.58 per share

- 2022-08: $41.66 per share

- 2022-09: $33.81 per share

- 2022-10: $42.46 per share

- 2022-11: $43.22 per share

- 2022-12: $38.37 per share

- 2023-01: $46.75 per share

- 2023-02: $42.83 per share

- 2023-03: $38.44 per share

- 2023-04: $37.88 per share

- 2023-05: $37.87 per share

- 2023-06: $45.34 per share

- 2023-07: $48.83 per share

- 2023-08: $47.41 per share

- 2023-09: $45.13 per share

- 2023-10: $41.64 per share

- 2023-11: $47.45 per share

- 2023-12: $56.13 per share

- 2024-01: $54.97 per share

- 2024-02: $54.04 per share

- 2024-03: $56.77 per share

- 2024-04: $49.08 per share

- 2024-05: $56.61 per share

- 2024-06: $56.86 per share

- 2024-07: $68.00 per share

- 2024-08: $66.79 per share

- 2024-09: $68.51 per share

- 2024-10: $66.40 per share

- 2024-11: $76.98 per share

- 2024-12: $73.88 per share

- 2025-01: $78.29 per share

- 2025-02: $70.64 per share

- 2025-03: $58.36 per share

- 2025-04: $53.58 per share

- 2025-05: $57.11 per share

- 2025-06: $62.32 per share

- 2025-07: $70.14 per share

- 2025-08: $72.11 per share

- 2025-09: $71.32 per share

- 2025-10: $63.33 per share

- 2025-11: $64.17 per share

- 2025-12: $68.74 per share

- 2026-01: $71.67 per share

- 2026-02: $59.36 per share

- 2026-03: $57.00 per share

- 2026-04: $65.12 per share

- 2026-05: $67.29 per share

- 2026-06: $65.42 per share

- 2026-07: $67.08 per share

- 2026-08: $68.07 per share

- 2026-09: $57.52 per share

- 2026-10: $55.32 per share

## Annual estimated value (USD per share)

- FY2016: low $16.31 per share, central $18.56 per share, high $21.55 per share

- FY2017: low $12.91 per share, central $14.69 per share, high $17.06 per share

- FY2018: low $10.56 per share, central $12.01 per share, high $13.95 per share

- FY2019: low $9.09 per share, central $10.34 per share, high $12.01 per share

- FY2020: low $22.23 per share, central $25.30 per share, high $29.38 per share

- FY2021: low $38.06 per share, central $43.31 per share, high $50.30 per share

- FY2022: low $24.32 per share, central $27.68 per share, high $32.14 per share

- FY2023: low $21.09 per share, central $24.00 per share, high $27.87 per share

- FY2024: low $26.35 per share, central $29.99 per share, high $34.82 per share

- FY2025: low $32.15 per share, central $36.58 per share, high $42.48 per share

Historical values use today's bond yield for every fiscal year

Historical values use today's FX rate into trading currency for every fiscal year

Historical values use current restated fundamentals and current commodity classification; they are not point-in-time estimates

## Sources

[Original 10-K filing](https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1596967/000119312526076747/mc-20251231.htm); period 2025-12-31, filed 2026-02-26.

Estimates depend on assumptions and are not guarantees or investment advice. Underlying data remains subject to its source licenses; public reading does not grant bulk redistribution rights.