Westlake
WLK on NYSE. Westlake sells building materials and plastics to construction and packaging customers. Market value $8.3bn.
Price checks use the past 12 months to June 2026. Quality checks use five annual reports, the latest for the year to December 2025.
Should I look at this?
Good business, but not cheap right now
Why it could be worth it
See cheaper Materials stocks on the list
This is not advice. Check the numbers below.
For every $100 of what the whole company costs, it produced $-3.21 of spare cash in the past 12 months. A savings account pays about $4.
The filings do not give us enough to work this out.
Each dollar kept in the business earns 6 cents a year. Above 10 is good.
Quality score: 73 of 100. Price score: 0 of 100. Our list needs 70 on quality and 60 on price.
$64.61 a share, 15% above its 1-year low
Over the past year the price has ranged from $56.33 to $124.23.
Dividend: 3.3% a year
Paid every year for at least 5 years
Prices from Monday’s close (5 October).
Five years of cash, in billions
Spare cash swings from quarter to quarter here: a shortfall of $265 million in the past 12 months, a shortfall of $530 million in the year to December 2025.
| Revenue | |||||
| Revenue | $11.8bn | $15.8bn | $12.5bn | $12.1bn | $11.2bn |
| Operating margin | |||||
| Operating margin | 23.8% | 19.3% | 5.8% | 7.2% | -14.1% |
| Debt to equity | |||||
| Debt to equity | 0.65 | 0.49 | 0.48 | 0.43 | 0.64 |
| Shares outstanding | |||||
| Shares outstanding | 0.13bn | 0.13bn | 0.13bn | 0.13bn | 0.13bn |
Health checks
- Free cash flow positive4 of 5 years
- Accounting looks honest (Beneish)Nothing unusual
- Financial strength (Piotroski)2 of 8 checks we could run
- Profit backed by cash (accruals)Yes
- Debt0.64× equity
- Revenue growth, five yearsSlow, 8.3% a year
- Buying back its own sharesRoughly flat
The quarter to June 2026
How the business did, compared with the same quarter a year earlier.
- Sales: $3.3 billion last quarter, up 11% on a year ago.
- Profit: $260 million, after a loss of $142 million a year ago.
- It loses 11 cents on each $1 of sales, after keeping 1 cents a year earlier.
- Over the past 12 months it spent $265 million more cash than it brought in, compared with $54 million a year earlier.
- About the same number of shares as a year ago.
- Debt is $3.4 billion more than cash, up from $2.6 billion a year ago.
- Sales grew on a year ago in 1 of the last 4 quarters.
| Quarter to | Amount |
|---|---|
| September 2024 | $3.1bn |
| December 2024 | $2.8bn |
| March 2025 | $2.8bn |
| June 2025 | $3.0bn |
| September 2025 | $2.8bn |
| December 2025 | $2.5bn |
| March 2026 | $2.7bn |
| June 2026 | $3.3bn |
| Quarter to | Amount |
|---|---|
| September 2024 | $108m |
| December 2024 | $7m |
| March 2025 | -$40m |
| June 2025 | -$142m |
| September 2025 | -$782m |
| December 2025 | -$544m |
| March 2026 | -$169m |
| June 2026 | $260m |
From the company's quarterly reports to the SEC.
Dates
- Next results (estimated)
- n/a
- Last annual report (10-K)
- 26 February 2026
- Next quarterly (estimated, 10-Q)
- 4 November 2026
Who owns it
5 long-term investors we follow own it, down from 6 last quarter. 358 funds in all.
- GAMCO InvestorsMario Gabelli
- Value
- $254,843
- Share of fund
- <0.1%
| Fund | Value | Share of that fund | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Orbis Investment ManagementOrbis team (Allan Gray lineage) | $152m | 0.5% | Cut |
| Brandes Investment PartnersCharles Brandes | $115m | 0.8% | Cut |
| Gotham Asset ManagementJoel Greenblatt | $1m | <0.1% | Cut |
| First Eagle Investment ManagementMatthew McLennan | $413,910 | <0.1% | Cut |
| GAMCO InvestorsMario Gabelli | $254,843 | <0.1% |
Sold out this quarter
Largest holders overall
- BlackRock$240mAdded
- Capital World Investors$207mCut
- Price T Rowe Associates$161mCut
- Orbis Investment Management$152mCut
- Dimensional Fund Advisors LP$150mAdded
- Vanguard Portfolio Management$128m
- Brandes Investment Partners$115mCut
- AQR Capital Management$115mAdded
- Vanguard Capital Management$107m
- State Street$106mAdded
From 13F filings for the quarter ended 30 June 2026.
Big holders and activists
No one has reported a stake above 5% since December 2024.
From Schedule 13D and 13G filings: anyone owning more than 5% must file one.
What insiders did
No insider bought shares on the open market in the last 12 months. 3 sold $10m.
- Chao AlbertExecutive Chairman, DirectorSold
- Date
- 11 August 2026
- Shares
- 38,873
- Price
- $80.28
- Value
- $3m
- Buesinger Robert F.EVP, PEM Segment HeadSold
- Date
- 27 March 2026
- Shares
- 4,000
- Price
- $115.25
- Value
- $461,000
- Bender Mark StevenEVP & CFOSold
- Date
- 27 March 2026
- Shares
- 16,413
- Price
- $112.54
- Value
- $2m
- Bender Mark StevenEVP & CFOSold
- Date
- 27 February 2026
- Shares
- 17,409
- Price
- $100.92
- Value
- $2m
- Chao AlbertExecutive Chairman, DirectorSold
- Date
- 22 December 2025
- Shares
- 40,836
- Price
- $73.58
- Value
- $3m
| Date | Who | Did | Shares | Price | Value |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 11 August 2026 | Chao Albert Executive Chairman, Director | Sold | 38,873 | $80.28 | $3m |
| 27 March 2026 | Buesinger Robert F. EVP, PEM Segment Head | Sold | 4,000 | $115.25 | $461,000 |
| 27 March 2026 | Bender Mark Steven EVP & CFO | Sold | 16,413 | $112.54 | $2m |
| 27 February 2026 | Bender Mark Steven EVP & CFO | Sold | 17,409 | $100.92 | $2m |
| 22 December 2025 | Chao Albert Executive Chairman, Director | Sold | 40,836 | $73.58 | $3m |
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
Your first deep dive is free.
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.