O, Realty Income Corp.
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 Retail (75%), Industrial (15%) and Other (4%).
- What moves the needle
- Occupancy, rents, and the cost of debt. Read on funds from operations and net asset value, because GAAP depreciation distorts the earnings.
- Is it a good business?
- Funds from operations per share have been roughly flat (3% a year). The dividend takes 86% of FFO, and is covered. The quality and location of the properties, the lease terms and occupancy, and the cost of the debt are what the 10-K settles, and no single ratio captures them.
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 →Retail is 75% of revenue, so this is largely a single-line business.
- Retail75%$4.3B
- Industrial15%$864M
- Other4%$247M
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, 2016–2025
realized figures from each filing, no estimates| 2016’16 | 2017’17 | 2018’18 | 2019’19 | 2020’20 | 2021’21 | 2022’22 | 2023’23 | 2024’24 | 2025’25 | TTMTTMMar 2026 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| RevenueRevenue | $1.1B | $1.2B | $1.3B | $1.5B | $1.6B | $2.1B | $3.3B | $4.1B | $5.3B | $5.7B | $5.9B |
| Net incomeNet inc. | $316M | $319M | $364M | $436M | $395M | $359M | $869M | $872M | $861M | $1.1B | $1.1B |
| Funds from operationsFFO | $744M | $777M | $879M | $1.0B | $996M | $1.2B | $2.4B | $2.7B | $3.1B | $3.4B | $3.5B |
| FFO / shareFFO/sh | $1.97 | $1.92 | $2.05 | $2.14 | $1.95 | $1.96 | $3.98 | $3.96 | $3.63 | $3.75 | $3.72 |
| Dividend payout (FFO)Payout | 82% | 89% | 87% | 85% | 97% | 97% | 74% | 77% | 86% | 86% | — |
| Debt / assetsDebt/assets | 30% | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| Total debtDebt | $4.0B | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | $4.7B |
| Dividends / shareDiv/sh | $1.62 | $1.70 | $1.78 | $1.83 | $1.89 | $1.91 | $2.96 | $3.05 | $3.12 | $3.22 | — |
| Book value / shareBVPS | $17.94 | $18.23 | $18.90 | $20.95 | $21.55 | $40.92 | $46.90 | $47.53 | $44.97 | $43.42 | $41.89 |
Owner’s Scorecard
Is it a good business?
- about $3.75 per shareNet income $1.1B + depreciation $2.5B − gains on sale $178M
GAAP net income with property depreciation added back, because the buildings a REIT charges against earnings usually hold or grow their value. This, not net income, is what a REIT is actually priced on. It is an approximation here: where a filing reports gains on property sales, we remove them, the way the NAREIT definition does.
- CoveredDividends $2.9B ÷ FFO $3.4B
A REIT must distribute most of its taxable income, so a high payout is normal and the question is whether FFO covers it. Above 100%, the trust is funding the dividend with debt or asset sales, and a cut usually follows.
Is it sound?
- Not cleanly captured
This REIT tags its borrowings in a way the pipeline could not fully total, so we decline to show a leverage figure rather than a misleadingly low one. The debt schedule in the 10-K is where to read its true leverage.
- Not enough data
Operating income or interest missing.
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.
Management & pay
read the proxy →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.
- CEO pay ratio105:1
What the chief earns for every dollar the median employee makes, per the 2026 proxy. A high ratio isn't proof of anything, some businesses are genuinely top-heavy in scarce skill, but a runaway figure is where Buffett starts asking whether the board is doing its job or just keeping the chair company.
- Stock-based compensation$31M
The slice of the business handed to employees in shares this year, 1% of revenue. 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.
What the price implies
price / FFOA REIT is priced on a multiple of its funds from operations (FFO), the cash it earns once the depreciation on its buildings is added back. Type today’s price; we show the multiple you would pay and the income and growth it implies. Nothing is stored.
Enter a price above to run it.
The justified multiple is 1 ÷ (discount rate − growth), a perpetuity on FFO. At an 8% discount and 3% growth, a REIT is worth about 20× FFO. Raise the discount rate and the multiple falls: the same interest-rate gravity that pulls on every yield asset.
FFO about $3.72 per share on 934M shares. A lens, not a target. FFO here adds back depreciation and removes property-sale gains, the NAREIT method; it does not net out maintenance capex (AFFO), occupancy or lease terms, which the 10-K does.
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.
- Debt terms & refinancingRisk Factors
The fine print behind the debt. Covenants and near-term maturities decide who is really in control when a year goes badly.
“Moreover, a default under a single loan or debt instrument may trigger cross-default or cross-acceleration provisions in other indebtedness and debt instruments, giving the holders of such other indebtedness and debt instruments similar rights to demand immediate repayment and to seize and sell any …”
From the recordBalance sheet (TTM)$3.5B net debt - Cyclicality & demandRisk Factors
How the business behaves when the economy turns. A cyclical earns its keep across the whole cycle, not at the peak.
“Clients, borrowers, or guarantors may experience a downturn in their business that may weaken their operating results or overall financial condition.”
A judgment, not a number, weigh it against the filing yourself. - Regulation & policyRisk Factors
Rules that can rewrite the economics, tariffs, antitrust, data, export controls.
“Note Repayments 2025 Repayments Date of Issuance Maturity Date Principal amount (in millions) 3.875% Notes April 2018 April 2025 $ 500.0 4.625% Notes October 2018 November 2025 $ 550.0 2026 Repayment Date of Issuance Maturity Date Principal amount (in millions) 5.050% Notes January 2023 January 2026…”
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.
- “Such pro forma ratio has been prepared on the basis required by that debt service covenant, reflects various estimates and assumptions and is subject to other uncertainties, and therefore does not purport to reflect what our actual debt service coverage ratio would have been had transactions referre…”
- “Note Repayments 2025 Repayments Date of Issuance Maturity Date Principal amount (in millions) 3.875% Notes April 2018 April 2025 $ 500.0 4.625% Notes October 2018 November 2025 $ 550.0 2026 Repayment Date of Issuance Maturity Date Principal amount (in millions) 5.050% Notes January 2023 January 2026…”
- “We have historically engaged in, and may again in the future engage in strategic acquisitions of operating businesses, in which case we would be subject to risks related to our ability to successfully underwrite such target's businesses effectively and to combine such target's operations with ours i…”
- “Further, net lease REITs must be able to deploy capital with agility and consistency, if we cannot access the capital markets upon favorable terms or at all, we may not be able to acquire investments upon favorable terms or at all and may be required to liquidate investments, including investments t…”
Classic text analysis over the filing itself, no model wrote a word of this, and every quote is the company's own.
Peers, Real estate
The same industry, side by side on the REIT lens, compare, don't rank by a single number. ● marks best in the group.
| Company | Revenue | FFO margin | FFO / assets | Payout (FFO) | Debt / assets |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| PLDPrologis Inc. | $8.8B | 61% | 5.4% | 71% | 35% |
| SPGSimon Property Group | $6.4B | 95% | 14.9% | — | 70% |
| ORealty Income Corp. | $5.7B | 59% | 4.7% | 86% | — |
| PSAPublic Storage | $4.8B | 61% | 14.5% | 33% | 51% |
| AMTAmerican Tower Corp. | $936M | — | 7.2% | 70% | 67% |