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The Moat Index

CONSTELLATION BRANDS, INC.

STZ · Consumer Staples · FY2026 filings · Shallow moat ·

Doesn't clear the bar

49/ 100
Shallow moat

The four filters

Pricing power85

Median gross margin 50.4% over 10y, very stable.

Returns on capital36

Median ROIC 9.2%, above the 9% hurdle in 50% of years.

Balance-sheet safety23

Net debt/EBITDA 3.3x, interest coverage 8x.

Capital discipline42

Owner earnings +1.1%/yr, share count n/a.

Margin of safety

Above valueOn sale
No price data
Owner earnings (normalized)
—
Est. intrinsic value / share
—
Recent price
$132.87
Discount to value
No price data

Conservative model: 9% discount rate, 0% assumed growth (capped at 4%), maintenance capex ≈ min(capex, D&A).

19 years of fundamentals

The business, in plain English

CONSTELLATION BRANDS, INC. booked $9.1B of revenue in FY2026 in the Consumer Staples sector and kept 51.6% of it as gross profit — a solid-margin business by that measure. After every other cost, 18.5% of each revenue dollar reached the bottom line.

Across the filed record, revenue grew from $4.7B (FY2009) to $9.1B (FY2026) — about 4.0% a year compounded over 17 years.

It earned 10.8% on invested capital in FY2026, with a median of 8.5% across 18 filed years. The Returns on Capital filter above scores it 36/100.

The balance sheet carried $10.6B of total debt in FY2026 against $1.7B of owner earnings — roughly 6.3 years of owner earnings to retire it all. Balance-Sheet Safety scores it 23/100.

Put together: Pricing Power is the strongest of the four filters (85/100) and Balance-Sheet Safety the weakest (23/100), which is how STZ lands at 49/100 — a Shallow moat.

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.

FY2008–FY2026 · 19 fiscal years, normalized from STZ’s SEC filings

RevenueSales, as filed$9.1B FY2026
$0$5B$10B2008201420202026
Gross marginRevenue kept after cost of goods51.6% FY2026
0%20%40%2008201420202026
Return on invested capitalOperating profit on the capital employed10.8% FY2026
0%10%2008201420202026
Owner earningsCash an owner could take out$1.7B FY2026
$0$2B2008201420202026

Gaps in a line mean that item isn’t in STZ’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

Moat Score over time · 3 readings since 2026-07-17

Scores are logged append-only and never overwritten — this record can't be backfilled, which is exactly why it's worth keeping.

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Scored from primary SEC filings via the public methodology. Educational only — not a recommendation to buy or sell STZ. See the disclaimer.

CONSTELLATION BRANDS, INC. (STZ) Moat Score — The Moat Index · Buy Like Buffett