RCL 10-K Analysis: Royal Caribbean Improved Leverage 53% Without Paying Down Debt
Royal Caribbean improved its debt-to-equity ratio by 53% — from 4.54x to 2.13x — without paying down a single net dollar of its $21.3 billion debt. Instead, the cruise giant doubled shareholders' equity through retained earnings. Our deep dive into the FY2025 10-K reveals the 55% incremental operating margin engine, $7.2 billion in government-subsidized ship financing, and the $7.6 billion OCF threshold that determines whether this strategy compounds or collapses.