Is Wheels Up Experience Inc. (UP) a good stock to buy?
Two or more of our tested checks point the wrong way. When the survival check is one of them, no price makes that acceptable.
What each rating means, in numbers
Can it survive? — Very risky. Safer than 1% of the companies we cover, judged on the warning signs that came before companies that really did fail.
Business quality — Very weak. Passes 2 of the 8 health checks we can measure — things like making a profit, turning it into cash, and not piling on debt. Across 131,000 company-quarters the weakest scorers went on to fail at 5.4% against 1.4% for the strongest, in every era and all twelve sectors.
What "tested" means here, and why there is no score out of 100
Tested means the read was measured against what actually happened afterwards, on a history that keeps the companies that were later delisted, using only figures that had been filed on the day they are used. Survival was ranked on companies that really did fail. What an owner keeps was tested across the universe from 2011 to 2025.
The full record of everything we have tested is on the research pages.
Which benchmark. Over the period we tested, the median listed company returned +5.8% a year while the S&P 500 returned about +13.9% — the index is weighted by size and was carried by a handful of enormous winners. So "beats the index" and "beats the other companies you could have bought" are different questions. Where a read says it picks better companies, it means the second one. None of these gets you an index fund's return, and we would rather say that than imply otherwise.
The quality read is the strongest thing we have tested: 131,000 company-quarters across 5,300 companies, where the weakest scorers went on to fail at 5.4% against 1.4% for the strongest, holding in every era and all twelve sectors. It still says less likely to break, not likely to beat the market — every band in that study lost to the index at the median, because the median listed company does.
Each read is shown on its own rather than merged into a single score, so you can see which part is strong and which is weak instead of taking an average on trust.
▾ What goes into the smart-money reading
Contributions (weight × component score) sum to the total. This near-term score now includes fundamental health (leverage, FCF trend). It excludes the Altman Z score, whose retained-earnings input this filer does not report separately. See the Financial Health section for the full balance-sheet read.
Chance the S&P 500 falls 10% or more in the next three months.
Counted from every day since 2006. Says nothing about UP — see the board for how it is measured.
📍 Where to start on this page, and what to look at first
How to read UP (pre-profit growth)
This company is reinvesting instead of generating profit, so a standard DCF cannot price it. The useful question is whether the growth the market is paying for is achievable — and whether the company can fund itself until then.
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Reverse-DCF — the growth the price demands ↓
It shows exactly how fast the business must grow to justify today's price. Compare that to what comparable companies have actually achieved.
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Cash runway ↓
Can it reach profitability before it has to raise money and dilute shareholders?
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Interactive calculator ↓
Set your own growth + margin assumptions and see what the business would be worth if you are right.
A discounted-cash-flow model can only discount POSITIVE cash flows. UP's free cash flow is currently negative — it's reinvesting / still pre-profit — so a forward DCF can't produce a meaningful number. That's a property of the model, not missing data; the full financials and story are below.
What to use instead: This is exactly where the Reverse-DCF earns its keep: it shows the growth the market is ALREADY pricing in, so you can judge whether that's achievable. Pair it with the EV/Sales peer lens, the Rule-of-40 read, and the cash-runway section — the right tools for a pre-profit company.
This note is only about the single DCF fair-value number — UP's full financial statements, health scores, and written analysis are all below.
Who owns UP, and how it moves
From the SEC's own filings: every fund manager over $100M reports its holdings each quarter, and every officer and director reports theirs. Each point is what was public at the time.
60 institutions reported holding it at the latest quarter-end.
Riskier than 99% of the stocks we cover
What this rating means, and what it does not
What this rank is — Very risky. Riskier than 99% of the companies we cover. Out of every 100 companies ranked here, about 16.4% went bankrupt within the year, against 0.6% for the average company we cover. The rank comes from a model trained on every US filing since 2012, including 823 companies that really did fail, and scored each year by a version that had not seen that year.
What it is not — Not a trade. We tested shorting these names and buying puts, spreads, straddles and condors on them at real option prices, 2010-2025. Every version lost money: the market already prices the distress and the survivors squeeze. A high rank is a reason to read the filings and to size for a total loss, not a reason to bet against the company. A low rank says the balance sheet is calm, not that the price is sensible.
▾ The numbers, the logic, and why not to trade on it
The logic. A model trained on every US filing since 2012 — including 823 companies that went bankrupt or stopped trading under a dollar — ranks each covered stock by its chance of failing in the next year, from its latest filing, price history and credit conditions. The rank is a position among peers; the table is a count of what happened to stocks in each position, scored each year by a model that had not seen that year.
| Rank band | went bankrupt within 12 months | fell 80% or more (or failed) within 12 months | fell 50% or more (or failed) within 6 months |
|---|---|---|---|
| All covered stocks (average) | 0.59% | 4.21% | 8.51% |
| Other (construction, transport, services) (sector average) | 0.48% | 3.35% | 7.44% |
| riskiest 1% ← this stock | 16.4% | 33.0% | 45.5% |
| next 2% (97-99) | 5.9% | 24.9% | 38.2% |
| next 2% (95-97) | 3.4% | 21.2% | 33.8% |
| next 5% (90-95) | 1.6% | 15.1% | 27.3% |
| next 15% (75-90) | 0.8% | 8.5% | 17.8% |
| next 25% (50-75) | 0.2% | 2.7% | 6.2% |
| safest half | <0.1% | 0.5% | 2.1% |
Why not to trade on it. We tested shorting these names and buying puts, spreads, straddles and condors on them at real option prices, 2010–2025: every version lost money. The market already prices the distress, and the survivors squeeze. Use a high rank to read the filings and to size for a total loss — not to bet against the company. A low rank says the balance sheet is calm, not that the price is sensible.
Scored from the filing of 2026-05-12; table generated 2026-09-18. Within Other (construction, transport, services): rank 99 of 100. Rough one-year odds for this stock alone: bankruptcy 7.0%, an 80% fall 38.2% (the model overstates the middle of the range). On the same data, the Altman Z score caught 26% of bankruptcies in its riskiest 5%; this rank caught 59%.
▾ The logic, and why not to buy on it
The logic. Trained on 2,900 acquisitions since 2012, the model leans on size (small), age, retained earnings, asset growth, volatility and how many deals the sector has just seen. Announcement = the day the stock jumped, not the day the paperwork was filed.
| top 1% | 15.4% acquired within a year |
| next 2% (97-99) | 10.3% acquired within a year |
| next 2% (95-97) | 9.0% acquired within a year |
| next 5% (90-95) | 7.3% acquired within a year |
| next 15% (75-90) | 6.4% acquired within a year |
| next 25% (50-75) ← this stock | 4.8% acquired within a year |
| bottom half | 3.0% acquired within a year |
Why not to buy on it. A takeover paid a median +22% on the day — but even in the top band about 6 in 7 companies are not bought, and those lag. Buying the whole top list returned what the S&P 500 did (2012–2023), and adding "cheap" or "beaten-down" filters did not change that. Read it as context for a thesis you already have, never as the thesis.
⚠ We found only 1 genuine same-industry (Air Courier) comparable — fewer than the 4 we require for a reliable median. The 8 names in the table below therefore include 7 broader Industrials names marked fallback, whose business models and margins differ — which is why any median below is computed over that wider set, not over true comparables. So we do not derive a peer-implied share value here. Read the multiples as rough context only.
How does UP stack up against its closest peers?
Ideally we compare UP only to same-industry peers, but too few exist in our universe right now, so the basket below mixes in broader-sector names. Treat the multiples as rough context, not a valuation. For a leveraged business, EV/EBIT and FCF yield (both in the table) are usually more reliable than EV/Sales, because revenue multiples ignore differences in margins and debt.
▾ What's "EV / Sales" in plain English?
EV (Enterprise Value) = market cap + total debt − cash. It's "what you'd pay to buy the entire company outright" — you pay the market cap to shareholders and take over their debt, but you keep their cash. EV is fairer than market cap alone because it includes the debt the new owner inherits.
EV / Sales = EV ÷ annual revenue. So "2.5×" means investors pay $2.50 of enterprise value per $1 of yearly sales. Higher = market is paying more per dollar of sales (usually because they expect future growth or fat margins).
p25 / median / p75 are the 25th, 50th (middle), and 75th percentile of the peers' multiples. Half the peers fall between p25 and p75. The median (p50) is the typical peer — that's the benchmark we compare to.
| EV / SalesEV / Sales — For every $1 of yearly revenue, this is how many dollars investors pay to own the whole business (including debt). Why it matters: Works for pre-profit growth companies where P/E and FCF don't apply. The most apples-to-apples cross-company multiple because it ignores accounting choices. Reference: 1–3x for mature companies · 4–10x for software/SaaS · 10–20x for hypergrowth · >20x is rare and demanding Full explanation → |
0.8x / 1.3x / 2.6x |
| EV / Gross ProfitEV / Gross Profit — Enterprise value divided by gross profit — the multiple paid for what each dollar of sales contributes after direct costs. Why it matters: More refined than EV/Sales for high-margin businesses (software, marketplaces) where gross margin is the real economic engine. Reference: 8–15x for SaaS · 15–25x for hypergrowth software · >30x demanding Full explanation → |
2.5x / 5.7x / 14.1x |
| EV / EBITEV / EBITDA — Enterprise value divided by earnings before interest, tax, depreciation, and amortization. Why it matters: A classic "what would a private buyer pay" multiple — used in M&A. Strips out tax and capital-structure noise. Reference: 8–12x for mature businesses · 15–25x for growth · Below 5x often signals distress Full explanation → |
7.9x / 11.4x / 19.0x |
Bold middle number = median peer. Half the peers trade above it, half below. Computed over 8 peers (broad — see caveat); implausible multiples excluded.
⚠️ Important caveat: peer multiples only work if the peers are genuinely comparable. Always check the peer list below — if the auto-picker grabbed micro-caps or unrelated businesses, the comparison is noise. A medical-device giant priced against tiny biotech startups won't produce a useful signal.
▾ View peer list (8)
| Ticker | Company | Industry | Mcap | EV/Sales | EV/GP | EV/EBIT | FCF Yield |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| VTOL | Bristow Group Inc. | Air Courier | $1.2B | 1.3x | — | 12.0x | 3.2% |
| TRMD | TORM plc | Deep Sea Foreign Transport ·fallback | $2.8B | — | — | — | — |
| EFXT | Enerflex Ltd. | Industrial Machinery ·fallback | $2.7B | 1.3x | 5.7x | 10.8x | 9.2% |
| VVX | V2X, Inc. | Facilities Support Managem ·fallback | $2.6B | 0.8x | — | 19.0x | 6.0% |
| TNK | TEEKAY TANKERS LTD. | Water Transportation ·fallback | $2.4B | 2.6x | — | 7.9x | 15.6% |
| ZIM | ZIM Integrated Shipping Services L | Deep Sea Foreign Transport ·fallback | $3.3B | 0.5x | 2.5x | — | 17.2% |
| VECO | VEECO INSTRUMENTS INC | Special Industry Machinery ·fallback | $3.5B | 5.6x | 14.1x | 104.9x | 1.3% |
| WERN | WERNER ENTERPRISES INC | Trucking ·fallback | $2.1B | 0.9x | — | 241.6x | 5.9% |
Quality & solvency checks
Cheap stocks can be cheap for a reason. These screens warn when a low valuation comes paired with structural fragility.
What these health ratings mean, in numbers
Business quality — Very weak. Passes 2 of the 8 health checks we can measure — making a profit, turning it into cash, not piling on debt, not issuing shares. Across 131,000 company-quarters the weakest scorers went on to fail at 5.4% within a year against 1.4% for the strongest, and that held in every era and all twelve sectors. It says "less likely to break", not "likely to beat the market".
Why it matters: Cheap-looking stocks (low P/E or P/B) often have low Z-scores because the market knows the company is dying. Z-score warns you before you fall into a value trap.
Reference: > 3.0 = safe zone · 1.81–3.0 = grey zone · < 1.81 = distress zone
Full explanation →
We can't produce a trustworthy Altman Z here: retained earnings weren't separately reported in our data, so a core input would have to be fabricated. Rather than show a categorical "distress" verdict from an invented number, we mark it unavailable. Judge financial health from the leverage, cash position, and the measurable Piotroski checks instead.
▾ The checks — what passed, what didn't (and what we couldn't measure)
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✗ Positive net incomeNet income -$294.2M in FY2025.Why this matters: Does the company actually earn a profit? Sustained losses eventually force it to raise money — diluting you — or take on debt.
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✗ Positive operating cash flowOperating cash flow -$166.3M (was -$77.9M the prior year).Why this matters: Profit can be an accounting figure; cash from running the business is harder to fake. Negative operating cash flow means the core business consumes cash and must be funded externally.
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✓ Cash flow backs up reported profitOperating cash flow -$166.3M vs net income -$294.2M.
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✗ Return on assets improvingReturn on assets -30.4% vs -29.3% a year ago.Why this matters: Is the company squeezing more profit out of each dollar of assets than last year? Rising = getting more efficient; falling = the opposite.
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✗ Debt load (vs assets)Long-term debt is 32.7% of assets vs 32.5% a year ago ($316.4M of $968.8M assets).Why this matters: Rising debt relative to assets means more risk and more cash going to interest instead of shareholders. Falling debt is a sign of strengthening.
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✗ Short-term liquidity (current ratio)Current ratio 0.27x vs 0.36x a year ago — below 1.0, a caution flag.Why this matters: The current ratio compares assets it can turn to cash within a year against bills due within a year. Below 1.0 means it may struggle to cover near-term obligations.
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✗ Share count (dilution)Share count rose 1.2% (697.7M → 706.0M year-over-year).Why this matters: Issuing lots of new shares splits the pie into more pieces, shrinking your slice. Stable or falling share count protects existing owners.
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· Pricing power (gross margin) (n/a — data not reported; not scored)
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✓ Sales per asset (asset turnover)Asset turnover 0.76x vs 0.68x a year ago.
Missing data is never counted as a pass or a fail — it's shown as n/a and excluded from the denominator. Each check compares the company against its own prior year.
Plain English: the company holds about $134M in cash and is burning roughly $166M/year in operations. At that pace, the cash lasts 10 mo before it must raise capital (diluting shareholders), take on debt, or cut spending.
Assumes constant burn and ignores financing/asset sales. For pre-profit biotech and growth companies, this matters more than a DCF — a great drug pipeline is worthless if they run out of money before approval.
What if you assume different inputs?
Here's where we land — and what happens if you change the assumptions. Drag the sliders to set your own Discount RateDiscount Rate — The annual return you demand for taking single-stock risk instead of buying a safe Treasury or index fund.
Why it matters: Higher discount rate = stricter valuation (a stock has to produce more cash to be worth holding). Lower = more generous.
Reference: 8–12% is standard · 9–10% matches S&P 500 historical return · Below 7% is illogical for single-stock risk
Full explanation → (the annual return you demand for single-stock risk) and terminal growth; the value updates live so you can see whether the stock looks cheaper or richer. The discount rate starts at 10.0%, the figure our model used for UP. Open Advanced to also change beta, growth and the rate path.
Note: no headline intrinsic value is published for this stock (the valuation is held for a data-quality reason — see the notes above). The calculator below is a what-if tool: the values it produces are your assumptions played out, not our estimate.
A full intrinsic value isn't shown for UP because the valuation is currently held for a data-quality reason (see the guardrail notes above). The reverse-DCF reading still works — it needs only the price and cash flow — but we won't publish a forward value until the underlying data passes our checks.
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⚙ Advanced — tinker with every input (beta, growth, rate path, margin → full intrinsic value)
A standard discounted cash flowDCF — Discounted Cash Flow — sums up all future cash a business will produce, adjusted for the fact that future dollars are worth less than dollars today.
Why it matters: It is the most fundamentally honest valuation method when applicable — but only works for companies with predictable, positive cash flow.
Reference: Best for: mature, profitable businesses. Fails for: pre-profit growth, banks, REITs.
Full explanation → (DCF) valuation is not meaningful for Wheels Up Experience Inc. due to its consistently negative free cash flowFree Cash Flow (FCF) — Operating cash flow minus capital spending: cash left after a company covers operating costs, taxes and interest and reinvests in the business — but BEFORE repaying debt principal or paying dividends. The cash actually available to investors.
Why it matters: A company can show big profits on paper while burning through cash. FCF is what actually fills the bank account.
Reference: Healthy mature businesses convert 8–15% of revenue into FCF · Growth companies often negative
Full explanation → after stock compensation, which was -$305.4 million in the latest fiscal year. Valuing this company would require a clear path to profitability and positive cash generation, which is not currently evident. Investors are likely focused on the company's ability to stabilize revenue and improve operational efficiency. The biggest risk to our assumptions is the continued revenue decline, which has been -11.4% per year over the last four years, indicating a shrinking business base.
As of 15 days ago
Anatomy of a share
What you're buying per share. Bars are at the same scale so you can see the relative size of revenue, costs, cash flow, and debt — not just read them in a table.
What's free cash flow / what do these mean?
Revenue per share — how much the business earns from customers, divided by the number of shares outstanding. Top of the income statement.
Earnings per share — profit left after operating costs, interest, and taxes, per share. Two versions appear on this page and are not interchangeable: GAAP diluted EPS uses the company's weighted-average diluted share count during the reporting period (this is the "earnings" in "price-to-earnings"); net income per current share divides annual net income by today's share count. They differ whenever the share count has changed.
Owner-earnings free cash flow per share — the cash the business produces for shareholders. Savng's owner-earnings FCF subtracts capital expenditures and stock-based compensation from operating cash flow (SBC is a real dilution cost even though it's non-cash). This is deliberately more conservative than "standard" FCF, which subtracts only capital expenditures — so our figure is lower than the headline FCF you'll see elsewhere. FCF funds dividends, buybacks, debt repayment, and acquisitions; a company can report positive earnings yet negative FCF.
Debt per share — total interest-bearing borrowings divided by shares. High debt-per-share next to thin FCF-per-share is a fragility signal.
What you actually need to decide
Every stock price is a disagreement. Here's the single thing that must go right for the bulls, the single thing that breaks the thesis, and the concrete signposts to watch so you can update your view as real results arrive.
- Quarterly revenue growth returning to positive territory
- Improvement in operating cash flow towards positive levels
- Reduction in total debt or improvement in current ratio
The trend, in plain numbers (FY2024 → FY2025, latest reported)
Straight from the financial statements — no model, no opinion. For a small or unprofitable company, the direction of these numbers usually tells you more than any single valuation.
- Still unprofitable at -$294.2M — loss narrowing.
- Revenue fell -7% to $736.5M.
- Free cash flow is negative at -$305.4M — the cash burn widened vs last year.
Management & Leadership
George N Mattson serves as the Chief Executive Officer, and John Andrew Verkamp is the Chief Financial Officer. Matthew J. Knopf holds the position of Chief Legal Officer, and Alexander Chatkewitz is the Chief Accounting Officer.
Chief Executive Officer
Chief Financial Officer
What They Make
Wheels Up Experience Inc. provides private aviation services, offering on-demand charter flights, membership programs, and aircraft management. Customers pay for flight hours, membership fees, and related aviation services.
End Markets
Revenue Drivers
Why Is It Priced Like This?
Why Customers Pay
What we use instead: earnings (P/E, EV/EBIT), book value (P/B) — computed from the figures this company does report, shown in the sections below. Those numbers are unaffected by the missing cash-flow data.
The market's pricing for Wheels Up is likely driven by expectations for a turnaround in its operational performance and potential for future growth in the private aviation sector, rather than current cash flow, which is negative at -$166.3 million. The market may be assigning value to the potential for network effects in private aviation, which is not in the model, or the possibility of strategic partnerships that could enhance its service offerings and market reach, which is also not in the model. The company's current ratio of 0.27, indicating liquid assets do not cover current liabilities, suggests significant financial pressure.
Business Model & Valuation
How They Make Money
The company funds itself primarily through equity raises and has seen its long-term debt rise from $0M to $335.4 million, while holding $133.9 million in cash and short-term investments.
Growth / Revenue DCF
Negative free cash flow: revenue/margin growth model used - standard FCF DCF is unreliable for companies still scaling.
Show advanced inputs
| Revenue Growth | 2.0% |
What this model does NOT do: this is a consolidated owner-earnings FCF model. Standalone segment assumptions: none. It does not project its revenue segments independently; their combined effect is embedded in the historical revenue and cash-flow trend the model extrapolates. The calculator above can only approximate a segment's impact through the single consolidated growth rate — it cannot model any one line separately. For a true segment-level view, build a separate model from the company's segment disclosures.
Maturity & Competitive Position
Moat Signals
Revenue is declining, with a -11.4% annual decrease over the last four years, from $1194M to $736.5 million.
Geography & Markets
Wheels Up Experience Inc. primarily operates within the United States, offering private aviation services across various regions. Specific geographic mix percentages are not available from current data sources.
Geographic Risks
Market Signals
These are timing signals, not value signals — they describe the stock's recent price behavior, not what the business is worth. Use them for the "the thesis looks good, but is now the moment?" question. Each tile below explains what it's saying.
Why it matters: Short-term contrarian indicator. Extreme readings often precede mean reversion, though not always.
Reference: 30–70 normal · >70 overbought · <30 oversold
Full explanation → (14)39.3NeutralMomentum is balanced — neither overbought nor oversold.
Why it matters: When the fast line crosses above the slow line, short-term momentum is turning up; below, turning down. A timing cue, not a value signal.
Reference: Line above signal = bullish momentum · below = bearish
Full explanation →BullishLine above signalThe fast trend is above the slow trend — short-term momentum is currently upward.
Technicals describe price, not the business. A great company can have a "bearish" tape (a buying chance) and a weak one a "bullish" tape (a trap). Pair these with the valuation and health sections above.
QUALITY
Data Quality & Risk Flags (5 notes — click to expand/collapse)
Guardrail Notes (4)
- FCF negative: revenue/margin growth model projects future cash flows from revenue trajectory.
- Terminal growth set to 1.6% — the lowest of the applicable caps (binding: 80% of near-term growth (2%)). We use one effective terminal rate everywhere on the page.
- INVARIANT: weighted IV is non-positive. Model may not be appropriate.
- Model implies no positive equity value under these assumptions. Valuation is speculative/low-confidence.
FINANCIALS
Financial Statements (5-year tables — click to expand)
From Wheels Up Experience Inc.'s SEC filings (EDGAR).
Income (5yr)
| Year | Revenue | Net Income | EPS |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2025 | 736.5M | -294.2M | $-0.42 |
| 2024 | 792.1M | -339.6M | $-0.49 |
| 2023 | 1.3B | -487.4M | $-3.69 |
| 2022 | 1.6B | -555.2M | $-22.60 |
| 2021 | 1.2B | -190.0M | $-9.28 |
Cash Flow (5yr)
| Year | Operating CF | CapEx | − SBC | Free Cash Flow |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2025 | -166.3M | 93.6M | 45.4M | -305.4M |
| 2024 | -77.9M | 122.8M | 46.0M | -246.7M |
| 2023 | -665.3M | 20.2M | 25.6M | -711.1M |
| 2022 | -230.7M | 83.6M | 89.0M | -403.2M |
| 2021 | 126.5M | 15.2M | 49.7M | 61.6M |
How we define FCF: operating cash flow − capital expenditure − stock-based compensation (owner-earnings basis — SBC is a real cost to shareholders even though it's non-cash). Latest year: -166.3M − 93.6M − 45.4M (stock-based comp) = -305.4M. This is the same owner-earnings FCF definition the valuation model uses, though the DCF's starting value is a projected from revenue × terminal margin, not this single year.
Balance Sheet
| Total Assets | 968.8M |
| Total Liabilities | 1.4B |
| Equity | -392.1M |
| Total Debt | 335.4M |
The questions people ask about UP
Is Wheels Up Experience Inc. (UP) a good stock to buy?
We do not publish a single fair value for Wheels Up Experience Inc., because one number would not be reliable for this business (the page explains why). Judge it on what today's price assumes, its financial-health checks and what insiders are doing, all shown here from SEC filings. This is educational research from SEC filings, not investment advice.
Is Wheels Up Experience Inc. (UP) overvalued?
A single fair-value number is not reliable for Wheels Up Experience Inc., so we do not call it overvalued or undervalued. The page shows what growth today's price assumes and how the company's finances look instead. This is educational research from SEC filings, not investment advice.
What growth is priced into UP?
Working backwards from today's price, the market is counting on roughly 18.2% a year growth in UP's cash flow over the next decade. Compare that with the company's actual record on this page.
Where do these numbers come from?
From Wheels Up Experience Inc.'s own SEC filings (10-K and 10-Q), Form 4 insider filings and daily market prices. Every figure on the page links to how it was calculated, and the model's weak spots are listed next to its results.