CWT

California Water Service Group

Utilities · fiscal year ending 2025-12-31

Through the investors’ lenses

1 of 4 cleared5 of 8 criteria

Each of these investors has said in public what they look at before buying. Click a name to see how this company measures up — a tick where it passes one of their tests, a cross where it does not.

Warren Buffett 2/3

Measure	CWT	Checked against
Owner earnings	—	positive	—
Return on equity	7.6%	US median 2.8%	✓
Debt to equity	0.87x	US median 0.57x	✗
Operating margin	17.7%	US median 3.1%	✓

Passes 2 of 3. These are the measures Warren Buffett published, applied to California Water Service Group’s own figures — their criteria, not their view of this company. What he looks at, and why →

Benjamin Graham 1/2

Measure	CWT	Checked against
Current ratio	0.85x	2.00x published	✗
Long-term debt to working capital	—	1.00x published	—
Positive earnings, ten years running	10 yrs	10 published	✓

Passes 1 of 2. These are the measures Benjamin Graham published, applied to California Water Service Group’s own figures — their criteria, not their view of this company. What he looks at, and why →

Joel Greenblatt 1/1

Measure	CWT	Checked against
Return on capital employed	5.4%	US median 5.1%	✓

Passes 1 of 1. These are the measures Joel Greenblatt published, applied to California Water Service Group’s own figures — their criteria, not their view of this company. What he looks at, and why →

Peter Lynch 1/2

Measure	CWT	Checked against
Debt to equity	0.87x	US median 0.57x	✗
Net margin	13.3%	US median 2.0%	✓

Passes 1 of 2. These are the measures Peter Lynch published, applied to California Water Service Group’s own figures — their criteria, not their view of this company. What he looks at, and why →

Basis	Payout	Why
GAAP earnings	57.7%	why The dividend is set against the allowed return on the rate base.
Operating cash flow	24.4%	why Before the capital programme the regulator expects.

No free cash flow figure is shown. This company does not report the inputs for it in its XBRL filings — capital expenditure, in particular, is often folded into a single investing total rather than tagged on its own. The figure is absent from the filings, not zero, and inventing one from a balance-sheet movement would be a guess dressed as a measurement.

Spread between highest and lowest: 33.3 percentage points. Same filings, different denominators.

Coverage rating 36 / 100 — Strained. ? Peer standing 30/50Direction 4/30Stability 3/20

GAAP earnings payout, last 6 years

Fiscal year	Payout
2025-12-31	57.7%
2024-12-31	34.5%
2023-12-31	114.3%
2022-12-31	56.5%
2021-12-31	46.9%
2020-12-31	43.1%

Coverage worsened sharply this year, 34.5% to 57.7%, after no clear trend before it. One year is not a trend, but it is worth knowing which direction the last one moved.

60% of the 57 utilities here pay out more.

The arithmetic

GAAP earnings — dividends declared per share $1.24 ÷ diluted EPS $2.15
Operating cash flow — dividends paid $73.9m ÷ operating cash flow $303m

Where the figures came from

10-K filed 2026-02-27 · accession 0001628280-26-012444

Every one is public at sec.gov and free to check. That is the point — you should not have to take our word for any of it.

Computed by an open pipeline reading SEC XBRL directly. If any number here looks wrong to you, tell us — that is more useful to us than agreement.

What the GAAP earnings payout ratio measures, and where every company here sits on it.

Also on: rated strained · when it files.

Who else looks like this

Every figure above is computed from California Water Service Group’s own filing, and every company here is measured the same way. Screen all of them on any of these twelve measures, or on the rules four investors published — free, and nothing you screen leaves your browser.

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