e.l.f. Beauty, Inc.

ELFdata completeness 100%12 fiscal years on file
The thesis, from the filings

e.l.f. Beauty, Inc. earns about 14% on invested capital, comfortably above its ~9% cost of capital, but has diluted owners by 11% over 5 years — a real edge showing up in the numbers. The estimate methods put fair value between $10.74 and $106.58 a share.Whether it’s worth owning at today’s price is the last question — and yours to answer, below.

i. The business — what you’d actually own
FigureFY 2022FY 2023FY 2024FY 2025FY 2026
Revenue$392.2M1$578.8M2$1.02B3$1.31B3$1.64B3
Net income$21.8M4$61.5M5$127.7M6$112.1M6$26.3M6
Operating cash flow$19.5M7$101.9M8$71.2M9$133.8M9$212.5M9
Capital expenditure$4.82M10$1.72M11$8.66M12$18.5M12$22.4M12
Free cash flow (derived)$14.7M7$100.2M8$62.5M9$115.3M9$190.1M9
Total debt$841.7M13
Cash & equivalents$43.4M14$120.8M15$108.2M16$148.7M17$289.7M17
Diluted shares53.7M55.3M57.8M58.3M59.4M

Superscripts are receipts. Each links to the SEC filing the number came from (full list at the bottom).

ii. Your slice — ownership made literal
If you owned
shares
Net assets behind them
$190.48
your share of equity
Profit it earned you last year
$4.43
Free cash flow it threw off
$32.02
Debt you’d be carrying
$141.81

10 shares is a claim on $190.48 of net worth that earned you $4.43 and generated $32.02 of cash last year, against $141.81 of debt.

iii. Is this a good business?
Moat signal · return on invested capital
14% avg · 5y
FY22 7%FY23 21%FY24 23%FY25 18%FY26 2%

It earned about 14% on invested capital against a ~9% cost of capital — comfortably above the cost of funding, a moderate advantage.

seeing a moat in the numbers →
Management signal · capital allocation
+11% shares · 5y

Share count is up 11% over 5 years — owners have been diluted. Worth asking what they got for it. Total debt has held roughly steady.

reading capital allocation →

Signals, not verdicts — read from the filings above. Numbers don’t prove a moat; they show its footprint. You decide.

iv. What it’s worth — engine v0.1.0

The 3 estimate methods that apply put fair value between $10.74 and $106.58 a share. They rest on different assumptions, so where they diverge is the story; the Graham Number is a stricter floor, not a target.

DCF · Growth Exit 10Y
$106.58
assumptions (10)
  • riskFreeRate4.7%
  • equityRiskPremium5.0%
  • beta100.0%
  • equityWeight85.0%
  • costOfDebtSpread1.5%
  • taxRate21.0%
  • terminalGrowth2.5%
  • projectionYears10
  • fcfGrowth20.0%
  • fcfBase$115.3M
DCF · Growth Exit 5Y
$54.05
assumptions (10)
  • riskFreeRate4.7%
  • equityRiskPremium5.0%
  • beta100.0%
  • equityWeight85.0%
  • costOfDebtSpread1.5%
  • taxRate21.0%
  • terminalGrowth2.5%
  • projectionYears5
  • fcfGrowth20.0%
  • fcfBase$115.3M
Earnings Power Value
$10.74
assumptions (8)
  • riskFreeRate4.7%
  • equityRiskPremium5.0%
  • beta100.0%
  • equityWeight85.0%
  • costOfDebtSpread1.5%
  • taxRate21.0%
  • normalizedEarnings$61.5M
  • growthAssumed0.0%
Graham Number
$13.73
assumptions (1)
  • grahamMultiplier2250.0%

Different models answer different questions — which to trust when →

v. The price question — last, on purpose
Is today’s price fair?
See live price ↗
Type a price. The ledger answers.
Or set your own belief
FCF growth, next 5 years20.0%
Discount rate (WACC)8.93%
Terminal growth2.5%
At your growth, a share is worth $54.05
The three cases
Bear0.0%$18.46
Base20.0%$54.05
Bull20.0%$54.05

Bear/base/bull growth = 0% / filed history / history + 5pp. Type a price to see the return each case implies.

Default growth 20.0%= this company’s own filed history (median-to-median FCF CAGR, clamped 0–20%). Your adjustments are recorded anonymously. They become the “what do owners actually believe” dataset.

Sources — the receipts
  1. 10-K · period ending 2022-03-31 · accession 0001600033-24-000020 (RevenueFromContractWithCustomerExcludingAssessedTax)
  2. 10-K · period ending 2023-03-31 · accession 0001600033-25-000016 (RevenueFromContractWithCustomerExcludingAssessedTax)
  3. 10-K · period ending 2024-03-31 · accession 0001600033-26-000020 (RevenueFromContractWithCustomerExcludingAssessedTax)
  4. 10-K · period ending 2022-03-31 · accession 0001600033-24-000020 (NetIncomeLoss)
  5. 10-K · period ending 2023-03-31 · accession 0001600033-25-000016 (NetIncomeLoss)
  6. 10-K · period ending 2024-03-31 · accession 0001600033-26-000020 (NetIncomeLoss)
  7. 10-K · period ending 2022-03-31 · accession 0001600033-24-000020 (NetCashProvidedByUsedInOperatingActivities)
  8. 10-K · period ending 2023-03-31 · accession 0001600033-25-000016 (NetCashProvidedByUsedInOperatingActivities)
  9. 10-K · period ending 2024-03-31 · accession 0001600033-26-000020 (NetCashProvidedByUsedInOperatingActivities)
  10. 10-K · period ending 2022-03-31 · accession 0001600033-24-000020 (PaymentsToAcquirePropertyPlantAndEquipment)
  11. 10-K · period ending 2023-03-31 · accession 0001600033-25-000016 (PaymentsToAcquirePropertyPlantAndEquipment)
  12. 10-K · period ending 2024-03-31 · accession 0001600033-26-000020 (PaymentsToAcquirePropertyPlantAndEquipment)
  13. 10-K · period ending 2026-03-31 · accession 0001600033-26-000020 (LongTermDebt)
  14. 10-K · period ending 2022-03-31 · accession 0001600033-23-000016 (CashAndCashEquivalentsAtCarryingValue)
  15. 10-K · period ending 2023-03-31 · accession 0001600033-24-000020 (CashAndCashEquivalentsAtCarryingValue)
  16. 10-K · period ending 2024-03-31 · accession 0001600033-25-000016 (CashAndCashEquivalentsAtCarryingValue)
  17. 10-K · period ending 2025-03-31 · accession 0001600033-26-000020 (CashAndCashEquivalentsAtCarryingValue)