WLKWestlake Corporation
Is the business good?
More warning than reassurance: 3 of 9 health tests passed and margins compressing.
Weak, deteriorating fundamentals. Nine pass/fail tests of year-over-year health from the filings.
Operating margin has narrowed over the past few years, profitability per dollar of sales is eroding.
Where this answer is blind. The F-score rewards improvement, so an already-elite company can score mid-pack.
How good a business is WLK?
Westlake Corporation earns −8.3% on the capital it employs against a 9.0% cost of capital, so growth costs more than it returns.
Return on invested capital · cost of capital 9.0% · 17 points below what the capital costs: growth destroys value
- Operating margin
- −11%
Operating margin · Specialty Chemicals median 7.4% · 12 months to Q2 2026
- Share count, year on year
- +0.20%
Share count, year on year · flat: no meaningful dilution
- Gross margin
- 9.6%
Gross margin
| Year | Operating margin |
|---|---|
| FY2020 | 5.7% |
| FY2021 | 24% |
| FY2022 | 19% |
| FY2023 | 5.8% |
| FY2024 | 7.2% |
| FY2025 | −14% |
Details›
- Gross margin12 months to Q2 2026
- 9.6%
- Operating margin12 months to Q2 2026
- −11%
- Net margin12 months to Q2 2026
- −11%
- Free cash flow margin
- −2.4%
- Revenue, trailing twelve months
- $11.3B
- Free cash flow, trailing twelve months
- −$265M
- Net income, trailing twelve months
- −$1.24B
- Return on invested capitaloperating profit after tax ÷ debt + equity − cash
- −8.3%
Margins, capital and share counts from the statements as filed with the SEC; cash conversion is operating cash flow over operating profit after tax.