Value Investor
Start free

SLM

SLM on Nasdaq. SLM sells student loans and college planning tools to students and families. Market value $4.3bn.

Watch this stockFree. We tell you when something changes.

Price checks use the past 12 months to June 2026. Some use the latest annual report instead, as marked. Quality checks use five annual reports, the latest for the year to December 2025.

Cash flow or capital spending isn't reported, so free cash flow is unknown.

Should I look at this?

Not a fit for our list right now

Why it could be worth it

What to watch out for

See Financial services stocks that passed both tests

This is not advice. Check the numbers below.

Compare with another stock

Return on equity
five annual reports to December 2025
32.2%five-year median

Yearly profit per dollar of owners' money: 32 cents. Above 10 is good.

Price to book
quarterly report to June 2026
1.7×

What you pay for each dollar of net assets: $1.71.

Earnings yield
past 12 months to June 2026
17.3%

Profit per $100 you pay: $17.33.

Quality score: 66 of 100. Price score: 82 of 100. Our list needs 70 on quality and 60 on price.

$22.58 a share, 27% above its 1-year low

Over the past year the price has ranged from $17.77 to $31.06.

Dividend: 2.4% a year

Paid every year for at least 5 years

Prices from Tuesday’s close (6 October).

Five years of cash, in billions

n/a
n/a
n/a
n/a
n/a
20212022202320242025
Revenue
n/an/an/an/an/a
Operating margin
n/an/an/an/an/a
Debt to equity
n/an/an/an/an/a
Shares outstanding
0.25bn0.23bn0.21bn0.20bn0.19bn

Health checks

  • Free cash flow positiveDoesn't apply to banks and insurers
  • Accounting checksDoesn't apply to banks and insurers
  • DebtDoesn't apply to banks and insurers
  • Revenue growth, five yearsUnknown
  • Buying back its own sharesYes, 25% fewer since 2021

The quarter to June 2026

How the business did, compared with the same quarter a year earlier.

  • Profit: $59 million, down 18% on a year ago.
  • 11% fewer shares than a year ago. Each share owns a bit more of the company.
Profit by quarter
Profit by quarter
Quarter toAmount
September 2024-$45m
December 2024$112m
March 2025$305m
June 2025$71m
September 2025$136m
December 2025$233m
March 2026$308m
June 2026$59m

From the company's quarterly reports to the SEC.

Dates

Next results (estimated)
n/a
Last annual report (10-K)
19 February 2026
Next quarterly (estimated, 10-Q)
22 October 2026

Who owns it

9 long-term investors we follow own it, unchanged from 9 last quarter. 388 funds in all.

Jun '25
Dec '25
Jun '26

Sold out this quarter

Largest holders overall

From 13F filings for the quarter ended 30 June 2026.

Big holders and activists

6 investors own more than 5%.

From Schedule 13D and 13G filings: anyone owning more than 5% must file one.

What insiders did

No insider bought or sold on the open market in the last 12 months.

From Form 4 filings: insiders must report trades in their own company's shares within two days.

What could go wrong

Cheap for a reason is the question the numbers cannot answer.

Whether the price already reflects the risks is what the deep dive is for.

The deep dive

Everything above is arithmetic on public filings. The deep dive reads the last ten years of annual reports, the proxy statements, and the earnings calls, then argues the case the way Buffett, Klarman, and Hohn would, and checks every claim against the source.

  • What the business is worth, as a range, and the margin of safety at today’s price
  • Prices to start buying, buy, and buy hard
  • The three things that would make this a mistake
  • Every number footnoted to the filing it came from
Create a free account to run it

Your first deep dive is free.

What a finished deep dive looks like

Not advice. Numbers on this page come from SEC filings and are updated each night; prices are updated again after the US market closes. The five-year figures are rounded.