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ASPN, Aspen Aerogels Inc.

Building Products capital-intensive UnprofitableCapital build-out

Aspen Aerogels, Inc. is an aerogel technology company that designs, develops and manufactures innovative, high-performance aerogel materials used primarily in the energy industrial, sustainable insulation materials, and electric vehicle markets.

We have provided high-performance aerogel insulation to the energy industrial and sustainable insulation markets for nearly two decades.

We have developed a number of promising aerogel products and technologies for the EV market, including our proprietary line of PyroThin aerogel thermal barriers for use in battery packs in EVs.

Latest annual: FY2025 10-K/A

ASPN · Aspen Aerogels Inc.

The business

What it sells, where the money comes from, the kind of company it is.

Revenue · FY2025

$271M

−40.1% YoY · 22% 5-yr CAGR

Vital signs · TTM, with 5-yr average

Revenue $230M 5-yr avg $253M

Gross margin 12% 5-yr avg 18%

Operating margin −43.3% 5-yr avg −45.1%

ROIC −49% 5-yr avg −52%

Owner-earnings margin 15% 5-yr avg −20%

Free cash flow margin 15% 5-yr avg −56%

The business in brief

read the 10-K →

What this business is and what moves its needle, from its own SEC filings.

What it is: Revenue is Thermal Barrier (62%) and Energy Industrial (38%).
Situation: Unprofitable. No sustained operating profit across the record; an earnings multiple has nothing to rest on. What the record does show is revenue, the gross-margin trajectory, and the burn against the cash on hand. Capital build-out. Capital spending has surged to 14% of sales, today's earnings are charged less depreciation than tomorrow's will be.
What moves the needle: Operating margin has reached 12% at its best but run negative through the cycle (median −22%) on a 17% gross margin — so the question is which reading is truer: whether the median was pulled below zero by one-off charges, by the cycle, or by spending it is still growing into, and whether it settles back at a profit. Capital spending runs about 11% of sales, below what it charges for depreciation, so the return earned on what it sinks into that plant weighs as much as the margin. On its own account, the filing leans hardest on customer concentration, set against the numbers in what the filing emphasizes, below.
Is it a good business?: Return on capital has rarely cleared the cost of capital (median −22%, above 15% in 0 of 10 years). Owner earnings, the cash-based check, have been thin too. This is price-taker territory, where the balance sheet and the cycle matter more than any multiple; the rest is in the 10-K.

Every line is arithmetic on the company's filings, shown in full in the sections below.

Where the money comes from

read the 10-K →

Thermal Barrier is 62% of revenue, with Energy Industrial the other meaningful line at 38%.

Revenue by product line, FY2025

Thermal Barrier62%$169M
Energy Industrial38%$102M

By geographyUnited States63%Latin America18%Asia11%Europe7%Canada1%

From the segment footnote of the company's own 10-K. Shares are of total revenue; the profit bar shows each segment's share of segment operating profit, before unallocated corporate costs.

The record

Ten years of arithmetic, read across the cycle.

The record, 2016–2025

realized figures from each filing · older years to the left

2016’16	2017’17	2018’18	2019’19	2020’20	2021’21	2022’22	2023’23	2024’24	2025’25	TTMTTMMar 2026
											Income statement
$118M	$112M	$104M	$139M	$100M	$122M	$180M	$239M	$453M	$271M	$230M	RevenueRevenue
21%	18%	—	—	15%	8%	3%	24%	40%	17%	12%	Gross marginGross mgn
15%	17%	18%	12%	16%	19%	21%	24%	16%	21%	25%	SG&A / revenueSG&A/rev
5%	6%	6%	6%	9%	9%	9%	7%	4%	5%	5%	R&D / revenueR&D/rev
($11M)	($19M)	($34M)	($14M)	($22M)	($41M)	($79M)	($49M)	$55M	($378M)	($100M)	Operating incomeOp. inc.
−9.5%	−17.1%	−32.5%	−10.2%	−21.5%	−33.4%	−43.9%	−20.6%	12.0%	−139.5%	−43.3%	Operating marginOp. mgn
($12M)	($19M)	($34M)	($15M)	($22M)	($37M)	($83M)	($46M)	$13M	($390M)	($112M)	Net incomeNet inc.
											Cash flow & returns
($578K)	($5M)	($9M)	($1M)	($10M)	($19M)	($94M)	($43M)	$46M	$33M	$61M	Operating cash flowOp. cash
$10M	$11M	$11M	$10M	$10M	$9M	$9M	$15M	$23M	$45M	$45M	DepreciationDeprec.
$2M	$4M	$15M	$3M	$2M	$9M	($21M)	($23M)	($3M)	$369M	$120M	Working capital & otherWC & other
$13M	$6M	$4M	$2M	$3M	$14M	$178M	$175M	$86M	$37M	$26M	CapexCapex
11.2%	5.5%	3.4%	1.5%	3.4%	11.3%	98.7%	73.5%	19.1%	13.8%	11.2%	Capex / revenueCapex/rev
($10M)	($11M)	($12M)	($3M)	($13M)	($28M)	($104M)	($58M)	$23M	($5M)	$36M	Owner earningsOwner earn.
−8.9%	−9.6%	−11.7%	−2.3%	−13.3%	−23.1%	−57.5%	−24.3%	5.1%	−1.7%	15.4%	Owner earnings marginOE mgn
($14M)	($11M)	($12M)	($3M)	($13M)	($32M)	($272M)	($218M)	($41M)	($5M)	$36M	Free cash flowFCF
−11.7%	−9.6%	−11.7%	−2.3%	−13.3%	−26.6%	−151.0%	−91.3%	−9.0%	−1.7%	15.4%	Free cash flow marginFCF mgn
-9%	-17%	-40%	-20%	-31%	-62%	-24%	-8%	10%	-177%	-49%	ROICROIC
-10%	-19%	-49%	-25%	-32%	-29%	-18%	-9%	2%	-165%	-52%	Return on equityROE
−10%	−19%	−49%	−25%	−32%	−29%	−18%	−9%	2%	−165%	−52%	Retained to equityRetained/eq
											Balance sheet
$18M	$11M	$3M	$4M	$16M	$77M	$281M	$140M	$221M	$157M	$176M	Cash & investmentsCash+inv
$18M	$27M	$26M	$32M	$16M	$20M	$57M	$70M	$109M	$35M	$36M	ReceivablesReceiv.
$13M	$9M	$7M	$9M	$13M	$12M	$23M	$39M	$48M	$38M	$31M	InventoryInvent.
$13M	$11M	$12M	$13M	$5M	$17M	$55M	$51M	$44M	$13M	$14M	Accounts payablePayables
$17M	$25M	$20M	$28M	$23M	$15M	$25M	$58M	$112M	$60M	$54M	Operating working capitalOper. WC
$50M	$48M	$37M	$46M	$47M	$112M	$370M	$266M	$409M	$242M	$254M	Current assetsCur. assets
$18M	$22M	$23M	$30M	$14M	$37M	$79M	$78M	$110M	$62M	$88M	Current liabilitiesCur. liab.
2.8×	2.2×	1.6×	1.5×	3.4×	3.1×	4.7×	3.4×	3.7×	3.9×	2.9×	Current ratioCurr. ratio
$135M	$124M	$99M	$104M	$97M	$183M	$643M	$703M	$895M	$407M	$410M	Total assetsAssets
—	—	—	—	$4M	—	$100M	$115M	$115M	$91M	$121M	Total debtDebt
—	—	—	—	($13M)	—	($181M)	($25M)	($106M)	($66M)	($55M)	Net debt / (cash)Net debt
$116M	$101M	$70M	$59M	$68M	$128M	$447M	$488M	$615M	$236M	$213M	Shareholders’ equityEquity
—	—	—	—	—	—	—	4.6%	2.8%	3.2%	3.7%	Stock comp / revenueSBC/rev
											Per share
23.1M	23.4M	23.7M	24.1M	26.4M	30.4M	39.4M	69.4M	80.3M	82.3M	82.7M	Shares out (diluted)Shares
$5.09	$4.77	$4.40	$5.78	$3.80	$4.00	$4.58	$3.44	$5.64	$3.29	$2.78	Revenue / shareRev/sh
$-0.52	$-0.83	$-1.45	$-0.60	$-0.83	$-1.22	$-2.10	$-0.66	$0.17	$-4.73	$-1.35	EPS (diluted)EPS
$-0.45	$-0.46	$-0.52	$-0.13	$-0.51	$-0.92	$-2.63	$-0.83	$0.29	$-0.06	$0.43	Owner earnings / shareOE/sh
$-0.60	$-0.46	$-0.52	$-0.13	$-0.51	$-1.06	$-6.92	$-3.14	$-0.51	$-0.06	$0.43	Free cash flow / shareFCF/sh
$0.57	$0.26	$0.15	$0.09	$0.13	$0.45	$4.52	$2.53	$1.07	$0.45	$0.31	Cap. spending / shareCapex/sh
$4.99	$4.32	$2.96	$2.45	$2.57	$4.22	$11.37	$7.03	$7.65	$2.86	$2.58	Book value / shareBVPS

The diluted share count moved ×1.76 into 2023 — shares issued, not a split the totals corroborate — and the per-share figures carry the counts as filed.

Per-share growththe realized rate an owner's share compounded

	9-yr	5-yr
Revenue / share	−4.7%/yr	−2.8%/yr
Capital spending / share	−2.5%/yr	+28.6%/yr
Book value / share	−6.0%/yr	+2.1%/yr

The record, charted

FY2016–2025

Each measure over its full record; the current point and the worst year marked.

Share count

82Mpeak FY2025

ROIC

−177%low FY2025

Gross margin

17%low FY2022

Owner earnings vs. net income

Owner earningsNet income

The accountant's number, and the cash an owner can take; the gap is the tell.

($5M)owner earningsvs.($390M)net incomelow FY2022

Owner-earnings bridge

FY2021–FY2025cash-flow statement, SEC EDGAR →

Net income is the accountant's number; owner earnings is the cash an owner could take out. The walk between them, off the cash-flow statement, and whether the gap is widening or holding.

In fiscal 2025 the business turned a $390M loss into ($5M) of owner earnings: more cash than the profit line showed, after the non-cash charges and the capital it put back in.

	FY2025	FY2024	FY2023	FY2022	FY2021
Reported net income	($390M)	$13M	($46M)	($83M)	($37M)
Depreciation & amortizationnon-cash charge added back	+$45M	+$23M	+$15M	+$9M	+$9M
Stock-based compensationreal costnon-cash, but a real cost	+$9M	+$13M	+$11M	—	—
Working capital & othertiming of cash in and out, other non-cash items	+$369M	−$3M	−$23M	−$21M	+$9M
Cash from operations	$33M	$46M	($43M)	($94M)	($19M)
Maintenance capital expenditurethe spending needed just to hold position and volume	−$37M	−$23M	−$15M	−$9M	−$9M
Owner earnings	($5M)	$23M	($58M)	($104M)	($28M)
Growth capital expenditurediscretionary; spent to get bigger, not to stand still	—	−$64M	−$160M	−$169M	−$4M
Free cash flow	($5M)	($41M)	($218M)	($272M)	($32M)
Owner-earnings marginowner earnings ÷ revenue	-2%	5%	-24%	-57%	-23%

Owner earnings is the cash an owner could pull out without starving the business: operating cash less the capital it must spend to hold its position . The cash-flow statement also adds stock comp back as non-cash, but it is a real cost paid in shares; counted as the expense it is (less $9M), owner earnings is nearer ($13M).

Maintenance capex is estimated as depreciation where a growing business invests above it; free cash flow is the figure the scorecard's free-cash margin reads.

III

Quality & stewardship

Returns, the balance sheet, capital allocation, and pay.

Owner’s Scorecard

FY2025 10-K/A · source on SEC EDGAR →

Will it survive?

Can it pay its interest? —

No meaningful interest burden

Little or no interest expense reported

What this means
Little or no interest expense reported, the business isn't leaning on lenders to operate.
How heavy is the debt, net of cash? +$42M

Net cash

Cash $157M − debt $115M

What this means
Cash and short-term investments exceed every dollar of debt by $42M, on net the company owes nothing, and can act from strength when others can't. Net debt is the leverage figure that matters: the cash is already set against the debt. Strategic or illiquid investments aren't counted here.
How long is cash tied up? 88d

Long (60+ days)

DSO 47 + DIO 62 − DPO 21 days

What this means
Days cash is tied up between paying suppliers and collecting from customers. Lower is better; a long cycle means growth itself eats cash.

Is it a good business?

Return on invested capital -24%

Below average through the cycle

10-yr median, range -177%–10%; -154% latest = NOPAT ($299M) ÷ invested capital $194M

Industry peers: median 8%

What this means
The rate the business earns on the money tied up in it, Buffett's north star, because over time a stock tracks the ROIC beneath it. Above ~15% sustained hints at a moat; a return below the cost of capital (~8%) erodes value as a business grows rather than building it — the test Buffett weighs most. The headline is the median of the last 10 years (it ran -154% most recently), so one peak or trough year doesn't set the verdict. Asset-light businesses (R&D expensed, little capital) read artificially high, pair this with Owner Earnings.
Owner-earnings margin -12%

Consumes cash through the cycle

10-yr median margin, range -57%–5%; latest ($5M) = operating cash $33M − maintenance capex $37M

Industry peers: median 3%

What this means
What an owner could take out without starving the business: operating cash less the maintenance capital it must spend to hold its position — Buffett's owner earnings. That's -2% of revenue this year, a -12% median across 10 years. Treating stock comp as the real expense it is (less $9M of SBC) leaves ($13M).
Are earnings backed by cash? $33M

Loss, but cash-generative

Net income ($390M) · cash from operations $33M

What this means
The company reported a net loss, so a conversion ratio isn't meaningful. What matters then is whether operations still threw off cash, here, they did.

How is the cash used?

Where do the earnings go? —

Not enough data

What this means
The filing data didn't include the inputs for this check.
Investing or harvesting? 0.83×

Maintaining

Capex $37M ÷ depreciation $45M

What this means
Descriptive, not a grade. Above ~1× means investing faster than assets wear out (growth, or, sustained for years, today's earnings carrying less depreciation than tomorrow's will). Below means spending less than it's wearing out (efficiency, or a melting asset base). The ratio won't tell you which; the filings will.

Graham’s defensive tests · 2 of 5 met

Graham’s numerical criteria for the defensive investor (The Intelligent Investor, ch. 14), run on the filings. A floor of safety, not a buy signal; many fine modern businesses fail his strictest liquidity rules by design.

Adequate size Miss

Revenue ≥ $2B · $271M

What this means
Big enough to weather a storm. Graham's 1972 floor was ~$100M of sales (≈ $700M today); we use a $2B revenue line as a conservative modern stand-in.
Strong liquidity Pass

Current ratio ≥ 2× · 3.90×

What this means
Current assets at least twice current liabilities, near-term bills covered without touching the business. Strict by design: many cash-rich modern firms run leaner and miss it, holding their cushion in longer-dated securities.
Conservative debt Pass

Debt ≤ working capital · $115M vs $180M WC

What this means
Graham's rule that borrowings not exceed net current assets. Capital-heavy and buyback-heavy firms routinely fail it, read it next to interest coverage, not alone.
Earnings stability Miss

A profit every year (10-yr record) · 9 loss years

What this means
Graham wanted earnings in each of the past ten years, the stability a defensive owner leans on.
Dividend record Miss

Uninterrupted dividends · none paid

What this means
An unbroken dividend was Graham's mark of durability. He wanted twenty years; the filings show about ten, and a single suspension breaks the streak. Non-payers, many fine modern compounders, fall outside his defensive net by design.
Earnings growth —

Earnings +33% over the record · —

What this means
Earnings were negative early in the record, a growth rate isn't meaningful.
Moderate price —

P/E ≤ 15 and P/E × P/B ≤ 22.5 · decided by the price

What this means
Graham's valuation gate, the wall he kept between a sound business and a sound investment. Three-year average earnings are $-1.70/share (latest year $-4.70), the averaged base the calculator's gate runs on, and book value is $2.84/share. Enter a price in “What the price implies” just below for the P/E, P/B, and whether it clears. But this is the rule Buffett outgrew: there's no hard P/E law, and a wonderful business can deserve a far richer multiple if the thesis holds, treat it as the bargain-hunter's floor, not a verdict on the price.

Durability & moat, 2016–2025

Whether the record’s returns held, and what the capital reinvested earned.

Profitable years 1 of 10

What this means
Lost money in 9 year(s), look at what happened there before trusting the average.
Return on capital ≥ 15% 0 of 5 yrs

What this means
A moat shows up as a high return on invested capital that holds year after year, not one good vintage.
Operating margin −20% → −49% (3-yr avg ends)

In the filing’s words The filing attributes gains to higher prices, but the margin in the record has not followed — the claim outruns the result here.

What this means
Through the cycle the operating margin slipped — about −20% early to −49% lately, median −22% — competition or costs are biting in.
Reinvestment, incremental ROIC —

What this means
The reinvested base moved too little against the change in profit to read a reliable return on it here — the figure would be a small-denominator artifact, not a moat. Judge this one on the owner-earnings record and the cash it returns instead.
Worst year 2025 · −139.5% op. margin

What this means
Operations went underwater in 2025, understand why before trusting the good years.

Does AI threaten the moat?

Moderate contestability

AI is likely to reshape costs and some products here without clearly contesting or sparing the core moat; how the company itself frames it is the tell.

In its own filing Raised, but not as a competitor

The filing raises AI among its risks, but in other terms (security, regulation, energy or the like), not as a competitor to its product.

The question is whether a moat the record shows as durable outlasts a technology that lowers the cost of part of what the firm sells. The durability is read in the record above, the filing's own framing of AI beside it; the industry label decides nothing on its own.

Read from the filing's own risk factors, paired with the industry's structure under its SIC code; the durability is read above, the price below.

All figures as filed; the source filing is linked above.

Current Position

as of the latest quarter, Mar 31, 2026

Can the business pay what it owes this year, off the freshest balance sheet: the quality of the assets, the debt actually coming due, and what a low ratio means here.

Current assets$254M

Cash & short-term investments$176M
Receivables$36M
Inventory$31M
Other current assets$10M

Current liabilities$88M

Debt due within a year$24M
Accounts payable$14M
Other current liabilities$50M

Current ratio2.89×all current assets ÷ what's due · Graham looked for 2×

Quick ratio2.54×stricter: inventory excluded

Cash ratio2.01×strictest: cash alone against what's due

Working capital$166Mthe cushion left after near-term bills

Debt due this year vs. cash$24M due · $176M cash covered by cash on hand, no refinancing forced · both figures from the Mar 31, 2026 balance sheet

Revenue, latest quarter vs. a year ago−51.9%the freshest read on whether the business is still growing

Current ratio, recent quarters3.5× → 2.9×

Deeper floors

Tangible book value$213Mequity stripped of goodwill & intangibles

Net current asset value$57MGraham's net-net: current assets less all liabilities

Debt incl. operating leases$109M$23M of it operating leases

Deferred revenue$37Mcustomer cash collected before delivery; operating float

From the company's latest filing.

Management, ownership & pay

read the proxy →

From the proxy: how much of the business the people running it own, and how they are paid, beside what the business earned for its owners in the same years.

Fiscal year	Chief executive	Pay, as filed	“Actually paid”	Owner earnings
2021	Mr. Young	$8.4M	$30.3M	($28M)
2022	Mr. Young	$2.4M	−$20.8M	($104M)
2023	Mr. Young	$3.6M	$7.8M	($58M)
2024	Mr. Young	$3.1M	$1.2M	$23M
2025	Mr. Young	$2.7M	−$1.4M	($5M)

Both pay figures are the company’s own, from the pay-versus-performance table its proxy statement files. “As filed” is the Summary Compensation Table total: salary, bonus, and equity awards at their value on the day of grant. “Actually paid” is the SEC’s prescribed recalculation, which re-marks those equity awards to what they became as they vested; it can swing far above or below the filed figure in either direction, and negative years occur. Owner earnings are the whole business's, from the record above, for the same fiscal years.

Insider ownership3%
The stake all directors and executive officers hold together, per the 2026 proxy: skin in the game, the first thing Munger reads.
CEO pay ratio110:1
What the chief earns for every dollar the median employee makes, per the 2026 proxy. A high ratio alone settles nothing; some businesses are genuinely top-heavy in scarce skill. A runaway figure is where Buffett starts asking whether the board is doing its job.
Stock-based compensation$9M
The slice of the business handed to employees in shares this year, 3% of revenue. Buffett's oldest accounting fight: this is compensation, compensation is an expense, real whether or not the headline earnings admit it. One trap: the cash-flow statement adds SBC back, so the operating cash, and the owner earnings drawn from it, are flattered by exactly this amount; counted as the cost it is, what an owner keeps is lower.

Inverting the record

Invert: instead of why Aspen Aerogels Inc. is a good business, the question is what would make owning it a mistake, and whether those marks are in the record. Disconfirming tests across 2016–2025.

None of the 3 tests turned up a mark; each came back clean. A clean panel says only that these particular ways of being wrong are not written into the record.

Each test came back clean

Is it less profitable than it was?
Did receivables and inventory outpace sales?
Are "one-time" charges a yearly habit?

Each test is read from the filings and is noisy alone; a flag can mark a cyclical trough or a year of heavy investment as easily as a problem. The filing says which.

What an owner would ask, FY2025

read the 10-K →

Which reported numbers are a judgment call?
Management names Inventory as critical estimates
each rests partly on management's judgment; the filing's note sets out the assumptionsverify →

The questions the record and the charts do not answer on their own; each carries the figure and the place to look.

Peers, Building Products

The same industry, side by side on owner economics. Each figure is a through-cycle median, so a peak or trough year can’t distort it; the group median at the foot is the line to read each against.

Company	Revenue	Gross margin	Op. margin	ROIC	Owner earn. margin
QXOQXO Inc.	$6.8B	40%	-2.4%	-7%	3%
BCCBoise Cascade L.L.C.	$6.4B	56%	4.7%	20%	4%
SCSCScanSource	$3.0B	12%	2.8%	8%	2%
BXCBluelinx Holdings Inc.	$3.0B	15%	2.2%	11%	2%
DSGRDistribution Solutions Group Inc.	$2.0B	35%	2.9%	6%	3%
GICGlobal Industrial Company	$1.4B	34%	7.0%	38%	5%
FSTRL.B. Foster Company	$540M	20%	3.9%	3%	4%
ASPNAspen Aerogels Inc.	$271M	17%	-21.1%	-22%	-11%
Group median	—	27%	2.8%	7%	3%

The price

What a price has to assume.

What the price implies

reverse-DCF

Type today's close and see the owner-earnings growth you'd have to believe to justify it, beside what Aspen Aerogels Inc. has delivered.

Today’s price $

Base Normalize · through-cycle (($88M)) Net of stock comp (−$9M)

—

The assumptions Required return 9% Years of high growth 10 Terminal growth 2.5%

9.0% = the 4.55% 10-year Treasury (Jul 15, 2026) + 4.45 points of equity premium. The rate you require is yours to set.

Enter a price above to run it.

Implied by the price—

Owner-earnings growth, delivered—

Owner-earnings yield—

P/E (3-yr earnings ’23–’25)—

P/B—

Graham’s price gate—

Graham capped the multiple at 15×; Buffett and Munger let that rule go: a wonderful business can deserve 50× if the thesis holds. The gate marks the bargain-hunter's floor.

Against a high-grade bond: Graham’s yardstick bond yield%

Prefilled with the 10-year Treasury (4.55%, as of Jul 15, 2026). Edit it for today’s exact figure, or a AAA corporate yield.

Graham measured a stock against the bond you could own instead, the heart of his margin of safety. Enter a price above to weigh the owner-earnings yield against this bond.

Owner earnings $36M on 83M shares outstanding, per the 10-Q cover, as of 2026-05-05; net cash $55M. The base is the latest year by default; Normalize values it on the through-cycle median owner-earnings margin (to avoid paying on a peak year). Net of stock comp treats option pay as the expense it is. The dials set the multiple a growth belief justifies; the price, and every dollar on this page, is yours.

Weigh ASPN against another business →

The owners of ASPN: the meeting and the votes →

Cite: Owner Scorecard, "Aspen Aerogels Inc. (ASPN), the owner's record," https://ownerscorecard.com/c/ASPN, data as of 2026-07-09.

Manual order: ← ASPI its page in the Manual ASPS →

Industry order: ← APOG the Building Products chapter CARR →