Buckle Valuation Multiples

Visa is the largest payment processor in the world. In fiscal 2025, it processed almost $17 trillion in total volume. Visa operates in over 200 countries and processes transactions in over 160 currencies. Its systems are capable of processing over 65,000 transactions per second.

Mastercard is the second-largest payment processor in the world, having processed close to $10 trillion in volume during 2024. Mastercard operates in over 200 countries and processes transactions in over 150 currencies.

Home Depot is the world's largest home improvement specialty retailer, operating 2,359 warehouse-format stores offering more than 30,000 products in store and 1 million products online in the US, Canada, and Mexico. Its stores offer building materials, home improvement products, lawn and garden products, and decor products and provide various services, including home improvement installation services and tool and equipment rentals. The acquisition of Interline Brands in 2015 allowed Home Depot to enter the MRO business, which has been expanded through the tie-up with HD Supply (2020). The 2024 tie-up with SRS will help grow professional demand in roofing, pool, and landscaping projects, while the 2025 purchase of GMS will lift building product sales through 1,250 distribution locations.

American Express is a global financial institution, operating in about 130 countries, that provides consumers and businesses charge and credit card payment products. The company also operates a highly profitable merchant payment network. It operates in four segments: US consumer services, US commercial services, international card services, and global merchant and network services. In addition to payment products, the company's commercial business offers expense management tools, consulting services, and business loans.

Founded in 1987, TJX Companies is the world’s largest off-price apparel and home fashions retailer, operating more than 5,000 stores across nine countries. In fiscal 2025, the company generated roughly $56 billion in sales. TJX operates through four segments: Marmaxx (61% of sales), HomeGoods (17%), TJX Canada (9%), and TJX international (13%). Its off-price model emphasizes branded merchandise at meaningful discounts, driving high traffic and rapid inventory turnover.

Fast Retailing is Japan's largest apparel company. It operates casualwear retail chain Uniqlo, known for its high-quality functional apparel at reasonable prices. Fast Retailing is in charge of product design and sales and outsources almost all of its production to factories in places including China, Vietnam, Bangladesh, Indonesia, and India. It is ranked the second-largest apparel company by sales globally in 2024 per Euromonitor, thanks to the expansion of Uniqlo International. As of February 2025, it ran 3,616 stores globally. Other brands in its portfolio include GU and acquired brands like Theory, Comptoir des Cotonniers, and Princesse tam.tam. The Yanai family owned a 40.86% stake in the firm as of July 2025.

Charles Schwab is one of the largest retail-oriented financial-services companies in the US, with $11.9 trillion in client assets across its brokerage, banking, asset management, custody, financial advisory, and wealth-management businesses at the end of 2025. While best known for its retail brokerage offering, Schwab generates the lion’s share of its revenue and profits through its Charles Schwab Bank and asset management segments. The firm is a dominant player in registered investment advisor custody, with over 40% market share, and has recently pushed into wealth management with robo-advisory, direct indexing, and other managed-investment solutions.

S&P Global provides data and benchmarks to capital and commodity market participants. Its ratings business is the largest credit rating agency in the world and S&P's largest segment by profitability. S&P's largest segment by revenue is market intelligence, which provides desktop, data and advisory solutions, enterprise solutions, and credit/risk solutions mostly in the financial-services industry. S&P's other segments include energy (formerly commodity insights, this segment includes Platts and other data), mobility (Carfax), and indexes. S&P plans to spin off mobility in 2026.

Lowe's is the second-largest home improvement retailer globally, with more than 1,750 stores in the US, after the 2023 divestiture of its Canadian locations (RONA, Lowe's Canada, Réno-Dépôt, and Dick's Lumber). The firm's stores offer products and services for home decorating, maintenance, repair, and remodeling, with maintenance and repair accounting for two-thirds of products sold. Lowe's primarily targets retail do-it-yourself (around 70% of sales) and do-it-for-me customers, but has expanded its professional business clients to 30% from less than 20% in the past six years (set ot expand further with the acquisition of FBM). We estimate Lowe's captures a high-single-digit share of the domestic home improvement market, based on US Census data and management's market size estimates.

Capital One is a diversified financial services holding company headquartered in McLean, Virginia. Originally a spinoff of Signet Financial’s credit card division in 1994, the company is now primarily involved in credit card lending, auto loans, and commercial lending. Following the acquisition of Discover in 2025, the firm also has a modest personal loan business, though credit card lending provides the majority of the bank's revenue.

Based in Chicago, CME Group operates exchanges giving investors, suppliers, and businesses the ability to trade futures and derivatives based on interest rates, equity indexes, foreign currencies, energy, metals, and commodities. The Chicago Mercantile Exchange was founded in 1898 and in 2002 completed its IPO. Since then, CME Group has consolidated parts of the industry by merging with crosstown rival CBOT Holdings in 2007 before acquiring Nymex Holdings in 2008 and NEX in 2018. In addition, the company has a 27% stake in S&P Dow Jones Indices, making the Chicago Mercantile Exchange the exclusive venue to trade and clear S&P futures contracts. Through CME's acquisition of NEX, it also expanded into cash foreign exchange, fixed-income trading, and collateral optimization.

MercadoLibre runs the largest e-commerce marketplace in Latin America, with about 150 million active users and more than 600 million active listings across 18 countries stitching into its commerce network or fintech solutions when last reported. The company operates a host of complementary businesses to its core online shop, with shipping solutions (Mercado Envios), a payment and financing operation (Mercado Pago and Mercado Credito), advertisements (Mercado Clics), classifieds, and a turnkey e-commerce solution (Mercado Shops) rounding out its arsenal. MercadoLibre generates revenue from final value fees, advertising royalties, payment processing, insertion fees, subscription fees, and interest income from consumer and small-business lending.

Intercontinental Exchange is a vertically integrated operator of financial exchanges and provides ancillary data products. Though the company is probably best known for its ownership of the New York Stock Exchange, which it acquired in 2013, ICE operates a large derivatives exchange, too. The company's largest commodity futures product is the ICE Brent crude futures contract. In addition to the exchanges business, which is about 54% of net revenue, Intercontinental Exchange has used a series of acquisitions to create its mortgage technology business (22% of net revenue) and fixed-income and data-services segment (24% of net revenue).

Intuit serves small and midsize businesses with accounting software QuickBooks and online marketing platform Mailchimp. The company also operates retail tax filing tool TurboTax, personal finance platform Credit Karma, and a suite of professional tax offerings for accountants. Founded in the mid-1980s, Intuit enjoys a dominant market share for small-to-midsize business accounting and self-serve tax filing in the US.

Moody’s, along with S&P Ratings, is a leading provider of credit ratings on fixed-income securities. The ratings segment, Moody’s Investors Service, includes corporates, structured finance, financial institutions, and public finance ratings. MIS represents a majority of the firm’s profit and often (depending on bond issuance levels) a majority of the firm's revenue. The other segment, Moody’s Analytics, consists of decision solutions, research and insights, and data and information.

Ross Stores, founded in 1982, is a US-focused off-price apparel and home fashion retailer operating more than 2,100 stores across 43 states, primarily under the Ross Dress for Less banner, with a smaller footprint through DD’s Discounts. In fiscal 2024, the company generated over $21 billion in sales. Ross offers branded apparel, footwear, accessories, and home goods at a 20%-60% discount to department and specialty store prices, sourcing closeouts and excess inventory from vendors worldwide.

O’Reilly is an aftermarket automotive parts retailer in the United States and Mexico with more than $16 billion in annual sales. The company operates over 6,000 domestic stores and serves both the do-it-yourself (about 50% of sales) and professional (47% of sales) end markets. O’Reilly differentiates itself by providing quality service to its customers throughout the entirety of the vehicle diagnosis and purchasing process. Furthermore, the firm boasts an impressive hub-and-spoke distribution network designed to provide its localized store base with ample aftermarket part availability across a variety of vehicle makes and models.

Robinhood Markets Inc is creating a modern financial services platform. It designs its own products and services and delivers them through a single, app-based cloud platform supported by proprietary technology. Its vertically integrated platform has enabled the introduction of new products and services such as cryptocurrency trading, dividend reinvestment, fraud detection, derivatives, fractional shares, recurring investments, and others.

Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing is a vertically integrated securities exchange business offering listing, data, trading, clearing and settlement services across equities, debt and derivatives. HKEx, like Hong Kong itself, functions as a gateway between China and the rest of the world. HKEx serves as a preferred listing venue for Chinese companies outside of China and, through the Connect Scheme, offers two-way trading for a growing group of financial products with the Shanghai Stock Exchange and the Shenzhen Stock Exchange.

Nu Holdings Ltd provides digital banking services. It offers several financial services such as Credit cards, Personal accounts, Investments, Personal Loans, Insurance, Mobile payments, Business Accounts, and Rewards. The company earns the majority of its revenue in Brazil.

Wesfarmers is Australia's largest conglomerate. Its retail operations include the Bunnings hardware chain (number one in market share), discount department stores Kmart and Target (number one and three), and Officeworks in office supplies (number one). These activities account for the vast majority of group earnings before taxes. Other operations include chemicals and fertilizers, lithium mining, industrial and safety supplies, and health. Management is focused on generating cash and creating shareholder wealth in the long term.

London Stock Exchange Group is a fully integrated financial exchange company covering the financial market value chain from primary and secondary markets across multiple asset classes over data, index, and analytics down to clearing and post-trading reporting. With the acquisition of Refinitiv, LSEG generates about two thirds of its revenue from data and analytics including its FTSE Russell and WM/Refinitiv benchmarks as well as data feeds and terminals. The group is also a majority shareholder in Tradeweb, one of the dominant global fixed-income trading venues, as well as LCH, the largest clearinghouse for over-the-counter swaps globally.

Bajaj Finance Ltd is the holding company for various financial services businesses under the Bajaj Group, which operates in India. The company is an NBFC in India offering payments, partnerships, services, and lending solutions to customers. The company's model is focused on the acquisition of customers and offering multiple loans and services on a cross-sell basis to meet their financial service needs. The company provides discretionary spending across consumer electronics, furniture, and digital products in India. The company's strategies and structure are closely aligned with those of commercial banks in India. All of its revenue is generated from India.

Deutsche Boerse is a financial exchange company headquartered in Frankfurt, Germany. The company primarily generates revenue through its Eurex and Clearstream segments. Eurex allows for the trading and clearing of derivatives. Clearstream offers custody and settlement services for domestic and international securities, as well as collateral management services. Other segments include Xetra, which generates revenue through trading and clearing cash equities, STOXX (an index business), and several others.

Alimentation Couche-Tard Inc operates a network of convenience stores across North America, Europe, and Asia. The company generates income through the sale of tobacco products, groceries, beverages, fresh food, quick service restaurants, car wash services, other retail products and services, road transportation fuel, stationary energy, marine fuel, and chemicals. In addition, the company operates stores under the Circle K banner in other countries such as Indonesia, Egypt, Macau, and others. Its operation is geographically divided into the U.S., Europe and other regions, and Canada. Revenue from external customers falls mainly into three categories: merchandise and services, road transportation fuel, and others. The company generates the majority of its revenue from the United States.

Founded in 1971, Nasdaq is primarily known for its equity exchange, but in addition to its trading business (about 22.5% of sales), the company sells market and financial data to investors, offers Nasdaq-branded indexes, and lists companies through its capital access segment (42.5%). Nasdaq's newest segment, financial technology, was primarily constructed through the acquisitions of Verafin and Adenza and has expanded the company into capital management, financial crime, and regulatory compliance software (35%) as it seeks to become a diversified technology company.

AutoZone operates as a leading retailer of aftermarket automotive parts in the United States. The firm operates 6,666 stores domestically, serving the do-it-yourself and commercial (do-it-for-me) end markets. Through its vast store footprint and distribution network, AutoZone manages a wide array of stock-keeping units applicable to numerous vehicle makes and models, providing its consumers with ample product availability. The firm drives traffic by providing superior and convenient customer service as AutoZone's team of knowledgeable staff assists consumers with diagnosing a vehicle's problem, selecting the necessary part for replacement, and occasionally, installation. The company also operates internationally, with 895 stores in Mexico and 149 in Brazil.

Founded in 2012, Coinbase is the leading cryptocurrency exchange platform in the United States. The company intends to be the safe and regulation-compliant point of entry for retail investors and institutions into the cryptocurrency economy. Users can establish an account directly with the firm, instead of using an intermediary, and many choose to allow Coinbase to act as a custodian for their cryptocurrency, giving the company breadth beyond that of a traditional financial exchange. While the company still generates the majority of its revenue from transaction fees charged to its retail customers, Coinbase uses internal investment and acquisitions to expand into adjacent businesses, such as prime brokerage and data analytics.

East Money Information Co Ltd is engaged in securities business, financial e-commerce service business, financial data service business, and Internet advertising service business. It mainly provides paid financial data services, financial e-commerce services, and Internet advertisement services through its Website, eastmoney.com. It generates majority of ots revenue from the securities business.

MSCI has described its mission as enabling investors to build better portfolios for a better world. MSCI's largest and most profitable segment is its index segment, where it provides benchmarking to asset managers and asset owners. MSCI boasts over $18 trillion in benchmarked assets, including over $2.3 trillion in ETF assets linked to MSCI indexes. The MSCI analytics segment provides portfolio management and risk management analytics software to asset managers and asset owners. In its sustainability and climate segment, MSCI provides ESG data to the investment industry. In private assets, MSCI provides real restate reporting, market data, benchmarking, and analytics to investors and real estate managers.

Founded in 2009, Block provides payment services to merchants, along with related services. The company also launched Cash App, a person-to-person payment network. In 2024, Square's payment volume was almost USD 250 million.

Constellation Software is an acquirer, manager, and developer of vertical market software, or VMS, businesses globally. VMS differentiates from horizontal software in that it provides mission critical solutions within a specific industry for customers in a particular market. Constellation operates through a decentralized model in which each business operates as its own independent entity. Managers of individual businesses are incentivized to optimize their business for returns on invested capital and revenue growth. Excess cash generated by the individual businesses is repatriated to portfolio managers who focus on allocating as much capital as possible on new acquisitions. As of 2025, Constellation consisted of over 1,000 individual businesses and 64,000 employees.

Rocket Companies is a financial services company that was originally founded as Rock Financial in 1985 and is currently based in Detroit. Rocket Companies offers a wide array of services and products but is best known for its Rocket Mortgage business. The company’s mortgage lending operations are split between its direct-to-consumer lending, which sees borrowers accessing the company’s lending arm directly through either its mobile app or website, and its partner network where mortgage brokers and other firms use Rocket’s origination process to offer loans to their customers. The company has rapidly gained market share in recent years and will also be the largest mortgage servicer in the US following its acquisition of the Mr. Cooper Group.

PayPal was spun off from eBay in 2015 and provides electronic payment solutions to merchants and consumers, with a focus on online transactions. The company had 434 million active accounts at the end of 2024. The company also owns Venmo, a person-to-person payment platform.

Founded in 1973, Cboe controls the largest option exchange in the US, which provides around 60% of the firm's revenue. The company is best known for its proprietary S&P 500 and VIX index options, which it offers through an exclusive contract with S&P Global. The firm moved into US and European equities through the $3.4 billion acquisition of BATS in 2017. Cboe has continued to look to expand internationally, using acquisitions to build a presence in both Canada and Australia.

Interactive Brokers is a large, automated, retail and institutional brokerage that boasted nearly $780 billion in customer equity at the end of 2025. The company cut its teeth as a market maker, introducing US financial markets to automated and algorithmic training before expanding into brokerage services in 1993. The firm has a wide-ranging client base, with its best-in-class order execution and extremely low margin lending rates catering to a sophisticated audience of hedge funds, proprietary traders, and introducing brokers that account for about 45% of the firm’s commissions. With operations spanning more than 160 electronic exchanges, 36 countries, and 28 currencies, Interactive Brokers caters to a global clientele, with more than 80% of active accounts sitting outside the US.

Thomson Reuters is a leading global provider of business information services, delivering trusted data, technology, and expertise to professionals across legal, tax, accounting, risk, compliance, and the news and media sectors. Headquartered in Toronto, Canada, the company combines deep domain knowledge with data and software solutions to help clients make informed decisions, manage complexity, and drive efficiency. Thomson Reuters serves legal and accounting/tax professionals, corporations, and governments worldwide, but around 75% of revenue is generated in the US. The company is known for flagship products such as Westlaw, UltraTax CS, and Reuters News.

Adyen is a payment company that provides merchants with a single platform to accept e-commerce, mobile, and point-of-sale payments in multiple countries using various payment schemes and methodologies. Adyen started out providing only gateway and payment processing services to merchants but soon expanded into merchant acquiring services as well. Adyen obtained a banking license to improve settlement of merchant accounts.

Experian is one of the leading credit bureaus in North America and the United Kingdom, providing the consumer information that is the basis for making lending decisions. The company also provides decision analytics, marketing data, and direct-to-consumer credit products and services. Roughly one quarter of the company's revenue is generated outside of North America and the United Kingdom, primarily in Latin America and Asia.

Workday is a software company that offers human capital management, financial management, and business planning solutions for enterprises. Known for being a cloud-only software provider, Workday was founded in 2005 and is headquartered in Pleasanton, California.

Fiserv is a leading provider of core processing and complementary services, such as electronic funds transfer, payment processing, and loan processing, for US banks and credit unions, with a focus on small and midsize banks. Following its 2019 merger with First Data, Fiserv also provides payment processing services to merchants. About 10% of the company’s revenue is generated internationally.

Founded in 1956, Fair Isaac Corporation is a leading applied analytics company. Fair Isaac is primarily known for its FICO credit scores, which is a widely used industry benchmark to determine the creditworthiness of an individual consumer. The firm’s US-centric credit scores business accounts for most of the firm’s revenue and profits and consists of business-to-business and business-to-consumer services. In addition to scores, Fair Isaac also sells software primarily to financial institutions for areas such as analytics, decision-making, customer workflows, and fraud.

Casey's General Stores Inc serves as convenience store chain with its 2,900 locations, positioned in the Midwest United States. About half of Casey’s stores are located in rural towns with populations under 5,000. While fueling stations serve as a key traffic driver, about two-thirds of the company’s gross profit stems from in-store sales of grocery items, prepared meals, and general merchandise. Casey’s owns more than 90% of its stores and operates the majority of its warehousing and distribution processes internally.

Asian Paints Ltd manufactures and sells a variety of paint and home improvement products. The firm operates itself as a Paints and Home Decor company which sells interior and exterior paints, metal finish, and wood finish. The home improvement product offerings include kitchen and bathroom products. Asian Paints sells its products to distributors and directly to the home improvement industry through the company's network of retail stores. The majority of revenue comes from India.

Hithink RoyalFlush Information Network Co Ltd is engaged in providing Internet financial information services and online financial software. The company's business includes an online market trading system, mobile financial information service, fund sales, financial big data processing, and cloud services. It serves individuals, brokers, funds, private placements, banks, insurance, government, and research Institutional clients.

Circle Internet Group Inc is a financial technology firm engaged in digital currencies and public blockchains for payments, commerce, and financial applications. The company is the issuer of USD Coin (USDC).

Synchrony Financial, originally a spinoff of GE Capital's retail financing business, is the largest provider of private-label credit cards in the United States by both outstanding receivables and purchasing volume. Synchrony partners with other firms to market its credit products in their physical stores as well as on their websites and mobile applications. Synchrony operates through three segments: retail card (private-label and co-branded general-purpose credit cards), payment solutions (promotional financing for large ticket purchases), and CareCredit (financing for elective healthcare procedures).

IREN Ltd is engaged in data center business powering the future of Bitcoin, AI and beyond utilizing renewable energy. Bitcoin mining operations generate revenue by earning Bitcoin through a combination of Block rewards and transaction fees from the operation of its Bitcoin miners and exchanging these Bitcoin for fiat currencies such as USD or CAD.