NYSE · Beverages · CIK 0000014693

BROWN FORMAN CORP

BF.BHealth 7.3 / 10

What this company does

BROWN FORMAN makes food and drink. It took in $3.93B last year, which makes it a mid-sized company. Of every dollar it sells, about 18 cents is left as profit.

Yearly sales: $3.93B
ⓘ
Everything customers paid it over the year, before any costs.
Yearly profit: $715.0M
ⓘ
What was left after every cost, wage, interest payment and tax bill.
Kept per dollar: 18.2%
ⓘ
Of every dollar of sales, the share that ends up as profit.

7.3OUT OF 10

Financial health

Generally healthy, with a few things to watch.

From BROWN FORMAN CORP's FY2026 annual filing · share price scored separately

Piotroski: 7/9
ⓘ
Nine yes-or-no checks of whether the finances improved this year. More is better.
Altman Z′: 2.11
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Distance from bankruptcy risk. No share price is available, so this uses Altman's book-value model (Z′), where above 2.9 is the safe zone. Companies that have bought back a lot of shares score lower on this variant.
Beneish M: n/a
ⓘ
This company has not reported enough of the required figures to calculate this score.

How this score was reached

Every check behind the three models, and what each one tests

What changed in FY2026

Measured against FY2025, from the 10-K

Profit
ⓘ
Profit swings far more than sales do, and one-off items — a legal settlement, a tax charge, an asset sale — move it without the underlying business changing.
Deteriorated: -17.7%
$869.0M to $715.0M
Gross margin
ⓘ
What survives each sale before overheads. Falling gross margin usually means the company is discounting or its input costs rose — it is the earliest place pricing pressure shows.
Improved: +1.6 pts
58.9% to 60.5%
Profit margin
ⓘ
What survives to the very end of each sale. Worth reading beside revenue: growing sales on a shrinking margin means the company is buying its growth.
Deteriorated: −3.7 pts
21.9% to

What's working

It makes a profit rather than burning through money.
$715.0M earned last year
Day-to-day operations generate real cash, not just accounting profit.
$1.00B cash from operations

What to watch

Sales are shrinking rather than growing.
down 1.2% on last year
It keeps less of each sale as profit than it did a year ago.
21.9% → 18.2%

Price history

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The essentials

The five questions that matter

Each answered from the filings, with the numbers behind it.

Is it profitable?

Good

Yes. It keeps about 18 cents of every dollar of sales as profit, earning $715.0M last year.

Net profit margin: 18.2%
ⓘ
Out of every $100 of sales, this much is left over as profit.
Return on assets: 9.1%
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How hard everything the company owns is working — profit earned per $100 of assets.
Operating cash flow: $1.00B
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Real money that landed in the bank, after paying bills and wages. Harder to massage than profit.
Free cash flow: $893.0M
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The standard figures

What it earns, what it keeps, and what it costs to run — all from the same filing

Free cash flow: $893.0M
ⓘ
Cash left after paying for the buildings and equipment the business needs to keep running. What is actually available for dividends, buybacks or paying down debt.
Earnings per share: $1.53
ⓘ
Last year's profit divided by the shares in issue at year end. A company's own reported EPS uses a weighted average across the year, so this sits close to it rather than exactly on it.
Free cash flow margin: 22.7%
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Of every $100 of sales, this much survived as spendable cash.
Price to free cash flow: —
ⓘ
What the market pays for each $1 of cash the company actually generates. Harder to flatter than a P/E.

Gross margin: 60.5%
ⓘ
What is left of each sale after the direct cost of making it — before wages, rent or research.
Operating margin: 25.5%

What it pays shareholders

Whether the dividend is covered by what the business actually earns

It pays out 60 cents of every dollar of profit and keeps the rest, which leaves the payment comfortably covered. It paid out 43% of the cash its operations generated. It has paid in each of the last 12 years.

Good

Paid last year: $427.0M
ⓘ
Total cash handed to shareholders over the year, across every share.
Share of profit paid out: 59.7%
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Out of every $100 of profit, this much left the company as a dividend. Below about 80% leaves room for a bad year.
Share of cash flow paid out: 42.7%
ⓘ
The same test against real cash rather than accounting profit. Above 100% means it paid out more than it earned.
Years paid in a row: 12+
ⓘ
Counting back from the latest filing. A '+' means the run reaches as far back as the filings held here go.

The balance sheet, in plain English

Figures from the FY2026 annual filing

Owes $3.87B

Owns $4.02B

Liabilities $3.87BShareholders' equity $4.02BTotal assets $7.89B

For every $1 Brown-Forman owes, it owns $2.04 in assets.
After paying off everything it owes, $4.02B would be left for shareholders — about 51% of everything it owns.
It holds $308.0M in cash and cash equivalents.

Last year it earned $715.0M and generated $1.00B of cash from operations.

How it has changed over time

Reported annual figures

Early signals

Insider activity, ownership stakes and what's coming — straight from EDGAR, before any article is written about it

Nothing recent

No insider trades, pending-sale notices or 5% stake filings from BF.B in the last few months. That is the ordinary case, not a gap.

Not investment advice, and not a signal to act on by itself — a filing says what happened, not why, and insiders trade for ordinary reasons having nothing to do with where they think the company is headed.

Go deeper

Sources and further reading

Every figure above traces back to one of these filings.

Official filings

Straight from SEC EDGAR — the original source for every figure above

Filing	Filed	Covers to
Quarterly report(10-Q)	2026-09-02	2026-07-31
Major event announcement(8-K)	2026-09-02	2026-09-02

Financial figures are from BF.B's 10-K for fiscal year 2026 (period ending 2026-04-30), reported under the US GAAP taxonomy. View the source filing.

Filing

Filed

Covers to

Quarterly report(10-Q)

2026-09-02

2026-07-31

Major event announcement(8-K)

2026-09-02

BROWN FORMAN CORP

How this score was reached

What changed in FY2026

What's working

What to watch

Price history

The five questions that matter

Is it profitable?

The standard figures

What it pays shareholders

The balance sheet, in plain English

How it has changed over time

Early signals

Sources and further reading

Official filings

BROWN FORMAN CORP

How this score was reached

What changed in FY2026

What's working

What to watch

Price history

The five questions that matter

Is it profitable?

The standard figures

What it pays shareholders

The balance sheet, in plain English

How it has changed over time

Early signals

Sources and further reading

Official filings

Piotroski F-Score

Altman Z′

Beneish M

Is it growing?

Is it drowning in debt?

Is it cheap or expensive?

Are there accounting red flags?

Recent news

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