CHOICE HOTELS INTERNATIONAL INC /DE
CHH · Consumer Discretionary · $5.1B mkt cap · FY2025 filings · Narrow moat ·
On the watchlist
The five investor questions
2008–2025: revenue 641680000.00 to 1596793000.00, increasing; diluted EPS 1.59 to 7.90, increasing. Diluted EPS was derived from net income and diluted weighted-average shares in 2 years where the direct tag was absent.
Not enough years of gross-margin data to score pricing power.
Median ROIC 30.4%, above the 12% hurdle in 100% of years.
Net debt/EBITDA 3.7x, interest coverage 5x.
Owner earnings +14.8%/yr, share count shrinking (buybacks).
The pricingPower component abstained: Not enough years of gross-margin data to score pricing power. The other four 20% weights were renormalized over the scored 80%.
Price vs. owner-earnings value range
- Owner earnings (normalized)
- $299.7M
- Value range / share
- $72.39–$117.27
- Conservative high estimate / share
- $117.27
- Recent price
- $109.96
- Price vs. high estimate
- 6% below high estimate
Conservative range under moat-index@2.0.0: low end 11.1×, high end capped at 18×; 9% discount rate; high-end growth 4% (capped at 4%) using min(5y revenue CAGR, 5y diluted-EPS CAGR), clamped to 0%–4%; maintenance capex uses min(capex, D&A); abstain when D&A is unavailable. This is a disclosed model range, not intrinsic value as fact.
19 years of fundamentals
The business, in plain English
Across the filed record, revenue grew from $641.7M (FY2008) to $1.6B (FY2025) — about 5.5% a year compounded over 17 years.
It earned 17.8% on invested capital in FY2025, with a median of 49.4% across 17 filed years. The Returns on Capital filter above scores it 100/100.
The balance sheet carried $1.9B of total debt in FY2025 against $369.9M of owner earnings — roughly 5.2 years of owner earnings to retire it all. Balance-Sheet Safety scores it 12/100.
The share count fell 22.7% between FY2009 and FY2025 — management has been retiring shares, which concentrates each remaining owner's claim. Capital Discipline scores it 100/100.
This breakdown is generated from the filed numbers and sub-scores above — no outside narrative, no estimates. Where a filing doesn’t disclose an input, the sentence that would need it is omitted instead of guessed.
Not disclosed in CHH’s filings for these years — we don’t estimate it.
Gaps in a line mean that item isn’t in CHH’s filings for that year — the series is never interpolated or estimated. The Table view lists every filed value, including operating and net margins, total debt, and share count.
Moat Score history
Tier changesSame-methodology crossings of the Wide / Narrow / Shallow bars
- Methodology upgraded moat-index@1.2.0tomoat-index@2.0.0 — readings across versions aren’t comparedJul 20, 2026
Scores are logged append-only and never overwritten — this record can’t be backfilled, which is exactly why it’s worth keeping.
Track record
How CHOICE HOTELS INTERNATIONAL INC /DE’s moat rated in each of the years we can reconstruct from its filings — scored only on what was knowable at the time — and what its price and returns did afterward. The score never saw a price; the two are joined only in hindsight, for education, not as a signal.
How to read this: each dot is what the engine would have scored CHH on that December 31; the line below is its total-return price path (dividends reinvested) in the years since.
Two tracks, one timeline: the score has its own 0–100 scale (top), the price its own 100-based scale (bottom) — never a shared axis. The price path is a total-return (dividends reinvested) index built from the same data the forward returns use; gaps in the score line are years with no reconstructed rating (see the table for why). The Table view carries every value.
What followed, in the years it rated Wide
In the 1 year CHH rated Wide-moat (2023), the median forward total return that followed — measured only after each year’s filings were public — was:
- 1 year 25% vs the S&P 500’s 24% (price basis) · median over 1 year
- 3 years None of the 1 year it rated Wide has a fully elapsed 3-year window with a benchmark to compare against yet.
- 5 years None of the 1 year it rated Wide has a fully elapsed 5-year window with a benchmark to compare against yet.
These are medians computed from the data, not a claim about any one year. The company figures are total returns (dividends reinvested); the S&P 500 is the price-only ^GSPC index, which excludes dividends and so understates the index — the gap flatters the company. A quality rating is not a return forecast, and past returns don’t predict future ones. Educational only, not investment advice.
Consumer Discretionary context
#60 of 482 scored Consumer Discretionary companies, ranked by Moat Score.
Nearest peers by Moat Score
- #58LOW LOWE’S COMPANIES, INC.75.7 out of 100, Narrow moatNarrow moat
- #59URBN Urban Outfitters, Inc.75.2 out of 100, Narrow moatNarrow moat
- #61MUSA MURPHY USA INC.73.6 out of 100, Narrow moatNarrow moat
- #62CSV CARRIAGE SERVICES, INC.73.0 out of 100, Narrow moatNarrow moat
Compare CHH with its nearest peers →All Consumer Discretionary companies on the Index →
Common questions about CHH
- Does CHOICE HOTELS INTERNATIONAL INC /DE have an economic moat?
- Based on its FY2025 SEC filings, the Moat Index scores CHOICE HOTELS INTERNATIONAL INC /DE (CHH) 73.6 out of 100 — a Narrow moat. The five questions behind that score begin at 20% each; if exactly one genuinely lacks data, the other four weights are renormalized and disclosed. revenue and EPS trend 83, pricing power not measurable from the filings, returns on capital 100, balance-sheet safety 12, capital discipline 100.
- Is CHH trading below the conservative owner-earnings estimate?
- The owner-earnings value range is $72.39–$117.27 per share. It capitalizes normalized owner earnings at a 9% rate; the low end assumes 0% growth and the high end uses 4% growth, capped at 4% and 18×. Versus a recent price of $109.96, that is 6% below high estimate relative to the high estimate. This is a conservative educational estimate from primary SEC filings, not intrinsic value as a fact or investment advice.
- How has CHH's Moat Score changed over time?
- The record logs 9 readings since Jul 17, 2026; the latest reads 73.6 out of 100 (narrow moat). No tier changes on record yet. (A methodology upgrade on Jul 20, 2026 re-based the score; readings across engine versions aren't compared.) The history is append-only — readings are only ever added, never rewritten.