MOS, Mosaic Co
The Mosaic Company is the world's leading producer and marketer of concentrated phosphate and potash crop nutrients.
Read top to bottom, the owner's questions in the order an owner asks them: what the business is, whether the record holds, whether it survives and is any good, and what you would be paying. New to the questions? Start with the Method.
The business in brief
read the 10-K →What this business is and what moves its needle, read from the numbers in its filings. The quantitative detail is in the sections below; the verdict is left to you.
- What it is
- Revenue is led by Mosaic Fertilizantes (40%) and Phosphates (32%), with 2 more segments behind.
- Situation
- Cyclical. margins collapse repeatedly across the cycle, a single year misleads; look at normalized, through-cycle earnings and the balance sheet at the trough.
- What moves the needle
- How hard the assets work, and what the inputs cost. What decides it: utilization, how much of the capex merely keeps the assets running, and what a downturn does to a heavy fixed-cost base. In practice most of the profit now comes from Potash, even though Mosaic Fertilizantes is the bigger seller, so that is the part to watch (see the mix below).
- Is it a good business?
- Return on capital has rarely cleared the cost of capital (median 3%, above 15% in 1 of 8 years). Owner earnings agree: roughly 5% of revenue reaches owners as cash, though it swings. The cycle and the balance sheet decide this one, so weigh the worst year against the median, and read the 10-K.
Every line here is arithmetic from the company's own filings, not a model's opinion, and each figure appears in full in the sections below.
Where the money comes from
read the 10-K →The largest slice of sales is Mosaic Fertilizantes at 40%, but the profit engine is Potash: 22% of revenue and 61% of segment operating profit.
- Mosaic Fertilizantes40%$4.8B26% of profit
- Phosphates32%$3.9B13% of profit
- Potash22%$2.7B61% of profit
- Corporate Eliminations And Other6%$669Mloss
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, 2018–2025
realized figures from each filing, no estimates| 2018’18 | 2019’19 | 2020’20 | 2021’21 | 2022’22 | 2023’23 | 2024’24 | 2025’25 | TTMTTMMar 2026 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| RevenueRevenue | $9.6B | $8.9B | $8.7B | $12.4B | $19.1B | $13.7B | $11.1B | $12.1B | $12.4B |
| Operating marginOp. mgn | 9.7% | −12.3% | 4.8% | 20.0% | 25.0% | 9.8% | 5.6% | 6.8% | 0.9% |
| Net incomeNet inc. | $470M | ($1.1B) | $666M | $1.6B | $3.6B | $1.2B | $175M | $541M | $45M |
| EPS (diluted)EPS | $1.22 | $-2.78 | $1.75 | $4.27 | $10.06 | $3.50 | $0.55 | $1.70 | $0.14 |
| Owner earningsOwner earn. | $455M | ($177M) | $412M | $898M | $2.7B | $1.0B | $47M | ($535M) | ($489M) |
| ROICROIC | 6% | -7% | 3% | 13% | 24% | 8% | 2% | 3% | 0% |
| CapexCapex | $955M | $1.3B | $1.2B | $1.3B | $1.2B | $1.4B | $1.3B | $1.4B | $1.4B |
| Capex / revenueCapex/rev | 10.0% | 14.3% | 13.5% | 10.4% | 6.5% | 10.2% | 11.3% | 11.3% | 11.1% |
| Capex vs depreciationCapex/dep | 1.08× | 1.44× | 1.38× | 1.59× | 1.34× | 1.46× | 1.22× | 1.29× | 1.22× |
| Total debtDebt | $4.5B | $4.6B | $4.6B | $4.0B | $3.4B | $3.4B | $3.4B | $4.3B | $4.3B |
| Cash & investmentsCash+inv | $848M | $519M | $574M | $770M | $735M | $349M | $273M | $277M | $282M |
| Net debt / (cash)Net debt | $3.7B | $4.1B | $4.0B | $3.2B | $2.7B | $3.0B | $3.1B | $4.0B | $4.0B |
Owner’s Scorecard
Will it survive?
- AdequateOperating income $822M ÷ interest expense $242M
Comfortable in a normal year, but below the margin of safety Graham looked for. Worth checking how stable the coverage has been across a full cycle.
- HeavyTotal debt $4.3B ÷ operating income $822M
Years of operating profit it would take to repay all debt. A first read, not a credit rating: it's gross debt (not netted against cash) over EBIT (not EBITDA), and a cyclical year distorts it.
- Debt, net of cash $4.0BHeavy net debtCash $277M − debt $4.3B
Netting $277M of cash and short-term investments against $4.3B of debt leaves $4.0B owed, about 4.9× a year's operating profit, versus the gross figure above. Net debt is the leverage figure that matters; the gross ratio above ignores the cash already set against it. Strategic or illiquid investments aren't counted here.
- Not enough data
The filing data didn't include the inputs for this check.
Is it a good business?
- Below averageNOPAT $411M ÷ invested capital $16.1B (debt + equity − cash)
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; below ~8% the company may destroy value as it grows. Asset-light businesses (R&D expensed, little capital) read artificially high, pair this with Owner Earnings.
- Consumes cashOwner Earnings ($535M) = operating cash $825M − capex $1.4B
What an owner could take out without starving the business. That's -4% of revenue. Treating stock comp as the real expense it is (less $31M of SBC) leaves ($565M). Honest caveat: capex here blends maintenance and growth, so steady-state Owner Earnings may run higher (see capex vs. depreciation).
- Cash-backedCash from ops $825M ÷ net income $541M
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?
- No surplus to allocate
The business didn't generate positive Owner Earnings this year, so any distributions came from the balance sheet or borrowing, not from operations.
- Investing or harvesting? 1.29×ExpandingCapex $1.4B ÷ depreciation $1.0B
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.
Durability & moat, 2018–2025
A moat is a high return that doesn’t fade, reinvested at high returns. Here is what the record says, judgments, not another chart of the numbers.
- Profitable years 7 of 8
Lost money in 1 year(s), look at what happened there before trusting the average.
- Return on capital ≥ 15% 1 of 8 yrs
A moat shows up as a high return on invested capital that holds year after year, not one good vintage.
- Operating margin 10% (FY2018) → 7% (FY2025)
Margins slipped over the record, competition or costs are biting in.
- Reinvestment, incremental ROIC 30%
Every extra dollar the company reinvested earned a high return, it is still compounding, not coasting on an old moat.
- Worst year 2019 · −12.3% op. margin
Operations went underwater in 2019, understand why before trusting the good years.
- Share count −2.7%/yr
The share count is shrinking, buybacks are quietly growing your slice of the business.
- Dividend record rising
Paid and raised the dividend across the record, the continuity Graham prized.
Solvent is not the same as cheap; growing is not the same as good. These are vital signs, not a verdict, the judgment is yours, and the filing is one click away.
How the cash was used, 2018–2025
Over the record, the business generated $14.7B of operating cash, and how management split it is, as Buffett insists, the job that matters most. Here it reads as a reinvestor, most operating cash is plowed back into the business.
- Reinvested$9.9B · 67%
- Dividends$1.4B · 9%
- Buybacks$3.2B · 22%
- Retained (debt / cash)$192M · 1%
It reinvested $9.9B (67%) back into the business and returned $4.6B (31%) to owners, $1.4B in dividends, $3.2B in buybacks. Total debt fell $224M across the span.
Buybacks are gross of stock issued to employees; net of that, the real return to owners is lower (see Management & pay). And the mix alone doesn't grade management, what matters is the return earned on the dollars reinvested (see incremental ROIC in the durability report).
Management & pay
Two questions Buffett actually asks about pay: is stock compensation, a real expense, whatever the income statement pretends, quietly large, and is the top wildly out of line with the floor. He's no populist about it; he just wants pay that's rational and earned, and comp committees that aren't lapdogs.
- Stock-based compensation$31M
The slice of the business handed to employees in shares this year, 0% of revenue, equal to 4% of operating profit. Buffett's oldest accounting fight: this is compensation, compensation is an expense, real whether or not the headline earnings admit it. And note the 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.
Graham’s defensive-investor test
3 of 6 metGraham gave the defensive investor seven numerical criteria in The Intelligent Investor. Here they are, run mechanically on the filings, his framework, not our verdict. Meeting them is a floor of safety, not a reason to buy; missing one is no veto, since many fine modern businesses fail his strictest liquidity tests by design. The worth is in seeing exactly where a company stands against the canon, every number sourced.
- Adequate size PassRevenue ≥ $2B · $12.1B
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 MissCurrent ratio ≥ 2× · 1.32×
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 MissDebt ≤ working capital · $4.3B vs $1.3B WC
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 NearA profit every year (8-yr record) · 1 loss year
Graham wanted earnings in each of the past ten years, the stability a defensive owner leans on.
- Dividend record PassUninterrupted dividends · paid every year (8)
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 PassEarnings +33% over the record · +2637%
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
Graham's valuation gate, the wall he kept between a sound business and a sound investment. Earnings are $1.70/share and book value $37.90/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.
Graham would be the first to say a checklist is a starting point, not an answer. These are his defensive, bargain-hunter's tests, the cigar-butt lens. Buffett and Munger grew past it, paying fair prices for wonderful businesses; that lens lives in the moat and owner-earnings work above, and both still matter. Clearing Graham’s tests earns a closer look; failing them earns harder questions, not a dismissal.
What the price implies
reverse-DCFOwner earnings are negative today, so the usual reverse-DCF has nothing to grow. But that's exactly when a price makes its boldest promise. So we flip the question: type a price, and see the future profitability you'd have to believe to justify it.
Enter a price to run it.
It flips the reverse-DCF: the company must reach owner earnings that, valued at a mature multiple and discounted back at your rate, equal today's market cap, shown as the margin it must earn on revenue grown at your rate, from negative today. For a deep cyclical at a trough, normalized through-cycle earnings are the better lens; this is for the genuinely unprofitable.
What the filing emphasizes, FY2025
read the 10-K →Each year a 10-K must name what could go wrong, in the company's own words. Here are the ones Graham and Buffett would stop on, each set against the figure from the same filings that bears on it, anchored to a period you can find in the record above. We point; the judgment is yours.
- Customer concentrationRisk Factors
Who the revenue leans on. When one buyer is a large slice of sales, that buyer holds the pricing power, and its troubles become the company's.
“In 2025, we derived approximately 64% of our net sales from customers located outside of the U.S.”
From the recordRevenue exposed (TTM)$12.4B - Supplier & input dependenceBusiness
A choke point upstream. A sole or limited supplier can dictate terms, and a single shortage can stop the line.
“Through our broad product offering, we are a single source supplier of phosphate- and potash-based crop nutrients and animal feed ingredients.”
From the recordGross-margin cushion (TTM)13% - Litigation & contingenciesRisk Factors
Claims an owner inherits. Most disclosure is boilerplate; this fires only on an actual matter, a named suit, a settlement, a contingency, a number.
“Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (" RCRA ") Consent Decrees.”
A judgment, not a number, weigh it against the filing yourself. - Cyclicality & demandRisk Factors
How the business behaves when the economy turns. A cyclical earns its keep across the whole cycle, not at the peak.
“As a result, particularly during pronounced cyclical troughs, the crop nutrient industry has a long history of consolidation.”
From the recordWorst year on record−12.3% operating margin (FY2019) - Regulation & policyRisk Factors
Rules that can rewrite the economics, tariffs, antitrust, data, export controls.
“In February 2025, the U.S. imposed a 25% tariff on most imports from Canada, including potash crop nutrients.”
A judgment, not a number, weigh it against the filing yourself.
What changed, FY2025 vs FY2024
read the 10-K →Most of a 10-K is boilerplate carried over verbatim; the signal is in what's new. These lines appear this year and weren't there last, figure updates filtered out, so only the language shift remains.
- “More stringent laws and regulations may be enacted to accomplish the goals set out in Canada's NDC and Canada's own long-term emissions reduction targets. 28 Table of Content In March 2024, the SEC issued final rules on climate-related disclosures that would require disclosure of extensive detailed …”
- “Environmental justice considerations could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition or results of operations. 27 Table of Content Some state governments are adopting standards or policies requiring environmental justice reviews in some permitting actions.”
- “This tariff went into effect on March 4, 2025, but beginning March 7, 2025, the U.S. exempted from this tariff goods that qualify as wholly originating in Canada under the United States Mexico Canada Agreement, including potash from Mosaic's Canadian operations.”
- “In addition, our investment in Ma'aden is subject to stock market volatility, and declines in the market value of its publicly traded shares could reduce the value of our investment and negatively impact our results of operations and liquidity.”
Classic text analysis over the filing itself, no model wrote a word of this, and every quote is the company's own.
Peers, Agricultural chemicals
The same industry, side by side on owner economics, compare, don't rank by a single number.● marks best in the group.
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| BIIBBiogen Inc. | $9.9B | 76% | 28.7% | 11% | 21% |
| ZTSZoetis Inc. | $9.5B | 72% | 37.8% | 26% | 24% |