Global Partners LP (GLP): what the price assumes

boothcheck covers Global Partners LP (GLP) but does not put one priced-in number on it: here the defensible answer is the evidence rather than a point estimate. boothcheck publishes no house fair value, target price, or buy/sell rating. Narrative composed 2026-07-26.

Generated: 2026-09-07 · Exported: 2026-09-09 · Source: https://boothcheck.com/report/GLP

Headline

What The Price Assumes (Inversion)

The assumption today's price embeds, recovered by inverting the valuation.

The operating-margin figure is value-band context at year 12: derived from the framework's value band, a separate calculation — not part of the priced-in solve.

The price sits below what even a 5%/yr operating-profit decline would warrant; the inversion reports a bound, not a solved growth path.

Solve inputs: computed at a 9.8% cost of capital with 4% terminal growth over a 5-year stage.

How unusual the bet is: within-range (limited comparison data)

Valuation X-Ray

The price is supported by earnings-power and relative-multiple and growth-DCF value. A value/asset-supported name, not a pure growth bet.

How the valuation models price the stock relative to the market price. Price/FV above 1.0 means the market pays more than that lens defends (expensive); at or below 1.0 the lens can defend the price.

Families that justify the price: Earnings, Relative, Growth

The models below discount at their own flat-beta convention rates (cost of equity 9.3%, WACC 6.6%); the inversion above states its own rate.

Per-Model Detail (n=8)

Economic-Unit Decomposition (Sum Of The Parts)

One or more material disclosed units has unresolved economics. Unknown/general is not evidence of homogeneity: segment SOTP is primary but incomplete, consolidated cash flow may remain only a secondary cross-check when every unit shares an enterprise basis, and one sector multiple or target margin is withheld.

No total common-equity value is stated. One or more material units lack a supported unit value. The displayed values are an indicative subtotal; consolidated debt and cash cannot be applied to a fraction of the company.

Solvency

Interest expense is not separately reported in the latest filings, so interest coverage cannot be computed.

Bullet Takeaways

• Global Partners earns on the spread between what fuel costs and what it sells for, and in the first quarter of 2026 that spread widened enough to lift net income to 70.1 million dollars from 18.7 million a year earlier.

• The gallons moved the other way, with the partnership's own stations selling 331.9 million gallons in the quarter against 357.6 million a year earlier, so the improvement came from cents per gallon rather than volume.

• Two dated items set the next few months: the quarterly payout of 76.5 cents a unit, 3.06 dollars on an annual basis, and the July 30 2026 redemption of the 9.50% preferred units that rank ahead of the common.

Bull Case

All three of Global Partners' segments earned more per unit of product in the first quarter of 2026 than they did a year earlier, and the size of the move is what makes the quarter worth reading twice. Wholesale product margin came in at 154.1 million dollars against 93.6 million. The station business added 199.3 million against 187.9 million. Commercial, the smallest of the three, made 11.7 million against 7.1 million. Gross profit for the partnership was 332.2 million dollars versus 255.2 million, and net income reached 70.1 million versus 18.7 million. Reported operating income for the quarter was 105.7 million dollars against 55.9 million in the first quarter of 2025.

Those figures need one translation to be useful. In fuel distribution the product itself is very nearly a pass-through, so headline sales tell you almost nothing about the business; roughly 5.3 billion dollars of first-quarter sales is mostly the cost of the gasoline moving through. The number that describes the enterprise is the margin left after the product is paid for, and that is what expanded.

Underneath the swing is a retail business that behaves differently from the wholesale one. Product margin from gasoline distribution rose to 136.7 million dollars from 125.8 million on better fuel margins per gallon, while product margin from station operations was 62.6 million against 62.1 million, helped by sundries. The annual report describes the mix directly: station operations cover convenience store and prepared food sales alongside rental income, sitting next to the fuel sold to station operators and sub-jobbers. Coffee, sandwiches and lottery tickets do not move with the crude curve. MUSA, the closest listed operator of company-run fuel and convenience sites, ran a 4.2% operating margin on about 19.7 billion dollars of trailing revenue, which is a reasonable sense of the ceiling a well-run version of this business earns on a revenue line dominated by product cost.

The capital structure is being tidied at the same time. In 2025 the partnership issued 450.0 million dollars of 7.125% senior notes due 2033 and used the proceeds to take out its 7.00% notes due 2027 and pay down revolver borrowings. The credit agreement's maximum borrowing capacity moved from 1.5 billion to 1.8 billion dollars, with 1,129.0 million of that unused at March 31 2026. And on June 29 2026 the partnership issued a notice of full redemption for every one of its 9.50% Series B preferred units, to be retired on July 30 2026 at 25.00 dollars per unit plus accrued distributions. That removes the most expensive layer of claims sitting above the common units.

Which brings the argument to the payout, because that is what people own this for. The board declared 76.5 cents a unit for the first quarter of 2026, up from 76.0 cents for the fourth quarter of 2025, an annualized rate of 3.06 dollars. Operations produced 284.8 million dollars of cash in 2025, which covers that obligation with room left over for maintenance capital. The bull case here is not complicated. Today's price does not ask this partnership to grow. It asks only that the decline it has already priced in does not arrive on schedule, and the most recent quarter went the other direction entirely.

Bear Case

Very little of what happened in the first quarter of 2026 was management's doing in the way a software company's quarter is. Fuel distribution earns on dislocation: cold winters, refinery outages, a blown-out crack spread, a moment when the person holding product in a tank is worth more than the person moving it. When those conditions reverse the same assets earn much less, and the partnership says so plainly in its own risk disclosure, noting that Warmer weather conditions could adversely affect our results of operations and financial condition. A quarter that good is evidence about the environment first and about the business second.

The volume trend is the part that does not reverse. The partnership's stations sold 331.9 million gallons in the first quarter of 2026 against 357.6 million a year earlier. That is a seven percent contraction in the physical thing being sold, absorbed and then some by a higher margin on each gallon. The annual report names why the gallons keep leaking away: Higher prices, new technology and alternative fuels, such as electric, hybrid, battery powered, hydrogen or other alternative fuel-powered motor vehicles, energy efficiency and changing consumer preferences or driving habits could reduce demand for our products. A distributor losing volume every year needs the margin per gallon to keep climbing forever just to stand still, and margin per gallon is the one variable it does not set.

Zoom out from the quarter and the picture flattens. For the full year 2025 the partnership reported operating income of 234.7 million dollars against 251.2 million in 2024, and net income of 98.0 million against 110.3 million. Two consecutive down years on both lines, then one very strong quarter. Anyone underwriting the quarter as the new run rate is extrapolating from a single winter.

Then the balance sheet, which is where a partnership of this shape usually gets into trouble. The annual report is unambiguous: As of December 31, 2025, our total debt, including amounts outstanding under our credit agreement and senior notes, was approximately $1.56 billion. Cash on the balance sheet at that same date was 12.2 million dollars, because a wholesaler's liquidity lives in receivables and inventory and in an undrawn revolver rather than in a deposit account. Interest expense for 2025 was 137.2 million dollars against that 234.7 million of operating income, so well over half of the operating profit was spent servicing lenders before a unitholder saw anything. Total contractual obligations at year end came to 2.86 billion dollars, of which 1.83 billion is principal and interest on the senior notes.

That arithmetic makes the distribution the binding constraint rather than a reward. Common unitholders are paid last, after interest, after maintenance capital, after the preferred units. In a weak margin year, the same integrated platform that produced a spectacular first quarter produces a payout the partnership must choose whether to defend by borrowing. The indentures and credit agreement already limit distributions in certain circumstances, and the credit facility can be closed off by borrowing base and covenant tests exactly when the operating environment is worst. Distribution cuts are what reprice a partnership, not multiple compression.

Finally, the downside boundary is thinner than the diversified structure suggests. Outside the three operating segments the partnership carries roughly 116 million dollars of investment holdings, about 7% of the market value of the common units. That is a real floor and it is a small one set against the debt figure quoted above.

Valuation

The most useful thing to say about this price is what it does not require. Global Partners trades at roughly seven times its company-wide operating income, a multiple low enough that the price sits below what even a steady five-percent annual decline in operating profit would warrant, computed at a 9.9% cost of capital with 4% terminal growth. That is a bound rather than a solved forecast, and it is worth stating as one. The market is not asking this partnership to expand. It has already assumed contraction and then priced in a margin beyond that.

Set against the filed record, the assumption is not obviously wrong and not obviously right. On roughly 19.3 billion dollars of 2025 sales the partnership reported operating income of 234.7 million dollars, down from 251.2 million in 2024, and net income of 98.0 million. Trailing operating income through the first quarter of 2026 runs near 283 million dollars, because the March quarter alone contributed 105.7 million against 55.9 million a year earlier. Two years of decline, then a quarter that recovered a large part of it. Both facts are in the same twelve months.

The valuation methods split in a way that is unusual and worth naming. Nothing anchored on assets applies at all here, because a partnership that has distributed most of its earnings for two decades carries a book value that describes almost nothing; partners' capital stood at 675.5 million dollars at the end of 2025 against debt several times that. The methods that capitalize current earnings power land essentially where the price already is, within a handful of percent. The discounted cash-flow methods land above it. Not one approach in the set reads the price as expensive, which for a business this exposed to commodity spreads is itself the finding: the market is not disputing the earnings, it is disputing their durability.

Read the multiple-based methods with more suspicion than the others. Several reach far above the price by capitalizing a historical earnings growth rate off a cyclical trough, and a business whose profit swings with the winter does not compound the way that arithmetic assumes. Against its own history the current pace is within what the partnership has delivered before, and against its sector the multiple sits in the lower half of the peer range. Neither reading suggests a mispricing so much as a market applying a cyclical discount.

What has to be true, then, is inverted from the usual case. Most companies must reach a margin they have not shown. Global Partners must merely avoid deteriorating as fast as its price assumes, on a whole-company operating margin of about 1.5% where two thirds of what it sells is wholesale fuel and product cost swamps everything. MUSA, by comparison, converts about 4.2% of a similarly sized revenue line into operating profit, which is the shape of a business weighted to retail sites rather than to the wholesale rack. The balance sheet is what decides whether the assumption gets tested gently or violently: 1,129.0 million dollars of unused credit capacity at the end of March buys considerable time, and 137.2 million dollars of annual interest against operating income of that size leaves little margin if a bad spread year arrives before the retail mix grows.

Catalysts

The May 8 2026 results are the anchor. First-quarter net income of 70.1 million dollars, or 1.85 dollars per diluted common unit, compared with 18.7 million and 0.36 dollars a year earlier, and gross profit of 332.2 million against 255.2 million. Product margin rose in all three segments, led by wholesale at 154.1 million dollars against 93.6 million, with gasoline and blendstocks contributing 101.2 million against 57.1 million on what management described as more favorable market conditions. Total volume was 2.1 billion gallons against 1.9 billion, though the station network's own gallons fell to 331.9 million from 357.6 million.

The payout moved up alongside the results. On April 30 2026 the board of the general partner declared a quarterly cash distribution of 76.5 cents per common unit, 3.06 dollars on an annual basis, covering January through March 2026 and paid on May 15 2026 to holders of record on May 11. That followed 76.0 cents declared on January 30 2026 for the final quarter of 2025.

The capital structure changes twice more this summer. On June 29 2026 the partnership issued a notice of full redemption covering all of its 9.50% Series B preferred units, which will be retired on July 30 2026 at 25.00 dollars per unit plus accrued and unpaid distributions, after which they stop trading on the New York Stock Exchange. Separately, the maximum borrowing capacity under the credit agreement rose to 1.8 billion dollars as of March 31 2026 from 1.5 billion at year end, with 1,129.0 million unused. Both moves lower the cost and raise the flexibility of the structure sitting above the common units, and both land before the second-quarter results.

Peer Cohorts (Per Segment, With Filing Citations)

Wholesale (reported)

• WKC (World Kinect Corporation)
• FY2025 10-K: 03-31 0000789460 us-gaap:DisposalGroupNotDiscontinuedOperationsMember wkc:WatsonFuelsMember wkc:LandSegmentMember 2025-04-01 2025-06-30 0000789460 us-gaap:DisposalGroupNotDiscontinuedOperationsMember wkc:AvinodeGroupMember wkc:AviationSegmentMember 2024-05-01 2024-05-01 0000789460…
• FY2025 10-K: 8 million and $ 0.8 million for the years ended December 31, 2025 and 2023, respectively. Unrecognized Compensation Cost As of December 31, 2025, there was $ 24.1 million of total unrecognized compensation cost related to unvested share-based payment awards, which is expected to be recognized as compensation expense…
• GEL (GENESIS ENERGY LP)
• FY2025 10-K: …crude oil and refined products on behalf of producers, refiners and other customers. This segment includes crude oil and refined products pipelines, terminals, rail unloading facilities, and refinery processing locations operating primarily within the U.S. Gulf Coast market. In addition, we utilize our trucking fleet…
• FY2025 10-K: …on reducing debt in absolute terms, opportunistically redeeming our Class A Convertible Preferred Units and thoughtfully evaluating increases in our quarterly distributions to common unitholders. Offshore Growth Capital Projects Completion We previously entered into definitive agreements to provide transportation…
• DKL (DKL)
• FY2025 10-K: …Delek Holdings at our Memphis and North Little Rock terminals during the terms of these agreements. Pursuant to an exclusive marketing agreements with Delek Holdings, we marketed 100% of the refined products output of the Tyler Refinery (other than jet fuel and petroleum coke) to various customers in return for a…
• FY2025 10-K: …the surrounding area. Revenue Streams and Customers We generate revenue in our wholesale marketing and terminalling segment by (i) providing marketing services for the refined products output of the Tyler Refinery, (ii) engaging in wholesale activity at our Abilene and San Angelo, Texas terminals, as well as at…
• PAA (PLAINS ALL AMERICAN PIPELINE LP)
• FY2025 10-K: …inherent in the transportation, storage, terminalling and marketing of crude oil, as well as in the processing, transportation, fractionation, storage and marketing of NGL. Other factors described herein, as well as factors that are unknown or unpredictable, could also have a material adverse effect on future…
• FY2025 10-K: …All American GP LLC (Principal Executive Officer) /s/ Al Swanson Al Swanson Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer of Plains All American GP LLC (Principal Financial Officer) February 27, 2026 F-2 Table of Contents Index to Financial Statements Report of Independent Registered Public Accounting Firm To…
• CLMT (Calumet, Inc. /DE)
• FY2025 10-K: …clmt:UnrealizedGainLossMember 2025-01-01 2025-12-31 0002013745 us-gaap:NondesignatedMember clmt:RealizedGainLossMember 2025-01-01 2025-12-31 0002013745 clmt:SupplyandOfftakeAgreementsMember us-gaap:NondesignatedMember clmt:UnrealizedGainLossMember clmt:SpecialtyProductsAndSolutionsMember 2024-01-01 2024-12-31…
• FY2025 10-K: …and remediation of contamination at the Great Falls refinery. We believe the majority of the impacts related to such historical contamination at the Great Falls refinery are covered by a contractual indemnity provided by a subsidiary of HF Sinclair Corporation (the "Seller"), the owner and operator of the Great Falls…

GDSO (Gasoline Distribution & Station Operations) (reported)

• MUSA (MURPHY USA INC.)
• FY2025 10-K: …or former affiliates that manufacture refined products. We also compete with integrated companies that have their own production and/or refining operations that are at times able to offset losses from marketing operations with profits from producing or refining operations and may be better positioned to withstand…
• FY2025 10-K: …volumes, fuel gross profit and overall customer traffic, which in turn could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition, results of operations and cash flows. Further, recessionary economic conditions, higher interest rates, higher gasoline and other energy costs, inflation, increases in…
• CASY (CASEY’S GENERAL STORES, INC.)
• FY2025 10-K: …(excluding depreciation and amortization) represents the fuel revenue less cost of goods sold (excluding depreciation and amortization) divided by the gross fuel sales dollars. As retail fuel prices fluctuate in a period of consistent gross margin per gallon, the percentage will also fluctuate in an inverse…
• FY2025 10-K: …similar or identical to those sold by the Company, are generally available from various competitors in the communities served by Casey's and by certain online retailers. We believe our stores located in smaller towns compete principally with other local grocery and convenience stores, similar retail outlets,…
• WKC (World Kinect Corporation)
• FY2025 10-K: …lower-carbon fuels such as sustainable aviation fuel and are working to expand and develop our supply chain to meet customer demand. Land Segment In our land segment, we sell liquid fuels, natural gas, and related products and services to commercial, industrial, and government customers, as well as retail fuel…
• FY2025 10-K: …fuel management, ground handling, 24/7 global dispatch services, and trip support services, including flight planning and scheduling. We also supply fuel and provide services to U.S. and foreign government and military customers. Given that fuel is a major component of an aircraft's operating costs, our customers…

Commercial (reported)

• WKC (World Kinect Corporation)
• FY2025 10-K: …We lease our corporate headquarters in Miami, Florida as well as administrative office space in London, Singapore and other strategic locations throughout the world. As of February 13, 2026, the majority of our principal properties are leased on commercially reasonable terms and we do not anticipate that we will…
• FY2025 10-K: 36,916.6 $ 42,168.0 $ 47,710.6 (1) Includes revenue from derivatives, leases, and other transactions that we account for under separate guidance. Accounts Receivable, Contract Assets, and Contract Liabilities The nature of the receivables related to revenue from contracts with customers and other types of contracts…
• GEL (GENESIS ENERGY LP)
• FY2025 10-K: …crude oil and refined products on behalf of producers, refiners and other customers. This segment includes crude oil and refined products pipelines, terminals, rail unloading facilities, and refinery processing locations operating primarily within the U.S. Gulf Coast market. In addition, we utilize our trucking fleet…
• FY2025 10-K: …trucks, barges, pipelines, rail unloading facilities, tanks and terminals affords us flexibility within our existing regional footprint and provides us the capability to enter new markets and expand our customer relationships. • Our marine transportation assets provide waterborne transportation throughout North…
• DKL (DKL)
• FY2025 10-K: …reportable segments. Commercial Agreements Commercial Agreements with Delek Holdings The Partnership has a number of long-term, fee-based commercial agreements with Delek Holdings under which we provide various services, including crude oil gathering and crude oil, intermediate and refined products transportation and…
• FY2025 10-K: …2024-01-01 2024-12-31 0001552797 us-gaap:OperatingSegmentsMember us-gaap:NonrelatedPartyMember dkl:StorageAndTransportationMember 2024-01-01 2024-12-31 0001552797 us-gaap:OperatingSegmentsMember us-gaap:NonrelatedPartyMember dkl:InvestmentsInPipelineJointVenturesMember 2024-01-01 2024-12-31 0001552797…
• PBF (PBF ENERGY INC.)
• FY2025 10-K: …that reflects the consideration to which the Company expects to be entitled in exchange for those goods or services. As described in "Note 19 - Segment Information", the Company's business consists of the Refining Segment and Logistic Segment. The following table provides information relating to the Company's…
• FY2025 10-K: …2015 to September 2017. Previously, Mr. Davis was responsible for managing the U.S. clean products commercial operations for Hess Energy Trading Company from 2006 to 2012. Prior to that, Mr. Davis was responsible for Premcor's U.S. Midwest clean products disposition group. Mr. Davis has over 42 years of experience in…

Methodology Note

• Priced-in inversion: the valuation is inverted on the current price to recover the operating-income growth, duration, and steady-state margin the price embeds (ROE for financials, FFO growth for REITs).
• Valuation x-ray: the valuation models, grouped into four families (asset, earnings, relative, growth). Each model is expressed as a price/FV ratio (distance from price), not a point fair-value estimate. The spread across families is the disagreement.
• Economic-unit decomposition (SOTP): each disclosed business unit is assigned its native valuation basis before any multiple is applied. Operating units are valued on enterprise value; funded financial units are valued on their own common equity, because their borrowings fund earning assets rather than levering the parent. A company total is stated only once every material unit carries a supported value and the parent capital bridge reconciles.
• Solvency: net cash/debt, net-debt-to-NOPAT, interest coverage, and share-count CAGR from EDGAR financials (net debt / FFO and fixed-charge coverage for REITs; regulatory-capital framing for financials).
• Peer cohorts: per-segment comparables with deep-linkable SEC filing citations.

Fundamentals sourced from SEC EDGAR filings. Current price from Databento. The priced-in inversion and valuation x-ray are computed by the boothcheck engine; narrative composed by AI from the structured data.