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BBUC, Brookfield Business Corporation

Construction & Engineering capital-intensive Distress / turnaround

Revenue is Industrials (54%), Business services (34%) and Infrastructure services (11%).

Latest annual: FY2025 20-F · US listing is the ordinary share

BBUC · Brookfield Business Corporation

The business

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

Revenue · FY2025

$27.5B

−32.4% YoY · −6% 5-yr CAGR

Vital signs · TTM, with 5-yr average

Revenue $27.5B 5-yr avg $45.4B

Operating margin 5.7%

ROIC 1%

Owner-earnings margin 7% 5-yr avg 1%

Free cash flow margin 7% 5-yr avg 1%

The business in brief

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

What it is: A capital-intensive business, run on heavy physical assets that must be kept working and earn a return above what they cost to maintain.
Situation: Distress / turnaround. Thin interest coverage, or operating cash burned against real debt, across the record. The balance sheet carries this situation; the debt schedule sets the clock.
What moves the needle: Gross margin has run about 21% and operating margin about 1.6% through the cycle, a thin spread that turns the result on volume and the cost of what it sells far more than on the price it sets. On a spread this thin the operating result swings hard on small moves in cost or volume — it has ranged from 0.5% to 5.9% over the years, so the cost line is where the needle moves. The cash cycle has run negative through the cycle (a median of −28 days): the operation is paid before it pays, so working capital releases cash as the business grows rather than tying it up.
Is it a good business?: Return on capital has rarely cleared the cost of capital (median 3%, above 15% in 0 of 4 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 20-F →

Revenue spreads across 3 segments, the largest Industrials at 54%.

Revenue by reportable segment, FY2025

Industrials54%$14.9B
Business services34%$9.4B
Infrastructure services11%$3.2B

By geographyUnited States32%Europe18%Australia15%Brazil9%United Kingdom8%Other7%Other11%

From the segment footnote of the company's own 20-F. 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	TTMTTMDec 2025
											Income statement
$8.0B	$22.8B	$37.2B	$43.0B	$37.6B	$46.6B	$57.4B	$55.1B	$40.6B	$27.5B	$27.5B	RevenueRevenue
24%	11%	15%	21%	26%	—	—	—	—	—	—	Gross marginGross mgn
$39M	$210M	$596M	$1.9B	$2.2B	—	—	—	—	—	$1.6B	Operating incomeOp. inc.
0.5%	0.9%	1.6%	4.4%	5.9%	—	—	—	—	—	5.7%	Operating marginOp. mgn
($35M)	$0	$0	$434M	$580M	$2.2B	$240M	$3.8B	$895M	$387M	$0	Net incomeNet inc.
—	—	—	31%	21%	7%	—	-1%	—	19%	—	Effective tax rateTax rate
											Cash flow & returns
$229M	($70M)	$1.3B	$2.2B	$4.2B	$1.7B	$1.0B	$2.1B	$3.3B	$3.2B	$3.2B	Operating cash flowOp. cash
$286M	$371M	$748M	$1.8B	$2.2B	$2.3B	$3.2B	$3.6B	$3.2B	$3.0B	$3.0B	DepreciationDeprec.
($22M)	($441M)	$593M	($75M)	$1.5B	($2.7B)	($2.5B)	($5.2B)	($818M)	($187M)	$200M	Working capital & otherWC & other
$144M	$240M	$545M	$1.2B	$1.4B	$1.4B	$1.7B	$2.3B	$2.5B	$2.1B	$1.4B	CapexCapex
1.8%	1.1%	1.5%	2.8%	3.7%	3.1%	3.0%	4.2%	6.2%	7.5%	5.1%	Capex / revenueCapex/rev
$85M	($310M)	$796M	$958M	$2.8B	$243M	($737M)	($158M)	$761M	$1.2B	$1.8B	Owner earningsOwner earn.
1.1%	−1.4%	2.1%	2.2%	7.4%	0.5%	−1.3%	−0.3%	1.9%	4.3%	6.6%	Owner earnings marginOE mgn
$85M	($310M)	$796M	$958M	$2.8B	$243M	($737M)	($158M)	$761M	$1.2B	$1.8B	Free cash flowFCF
1.1%	−1.4%	2.1%	2.2%	7.4%	0.5%	−1.3%	−0.3%	1.9%	4.3%	6.6%	Free cash flow marginFCF mgn
$11M	$0	$0	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	$0	Dividends paidDiv. paid
—	—	$0	$0	$56M	$83M	$78M	$5M	$0	$224M	—	BuybacksBuybacks
—	1%	2%	4%	6%	—	—	—	—	—	1%	ROICROIC
-1%	0%	0%	4%	5%	17%	1%	20%	5%	3%	0%	Return on equityROE
−1%	0%	0%	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	0%	Retained to equityRetained/eq
											Balance sheet
$1.1B	$1.1B	$1.9B	$2.0B	$3.1B	$2.7B	$3.0B	$3.3B	$3.5B	$3.7B	$3.7B	Cash & investmentsCash+inv
$1.7B	$3.5B	$4.3B	$4.8B	$4.3B	$4.9B	$6.4B	$5.6B	$5.2B	$6.5B	$6.5B	ReceivablesReceiv.
$229M	$1.1B	$1.6B	$3.5B	$3.7B	$4.5B	$5.2B	$3.7B	$2.4B	$2.6B	$2.6B	InventoryInvent.
$2.1B	$4.9B	$7.2B	$9.9B	$10.4B	$11.8B	$12.9B	$11.6B	$10.6B	$7.6B	$7.6B	Accounts payablePayables
($147M)	($343M)	($1.3B)	($1.6B)	($2.4B)	($2.4B)	($1.3B)	($2.4B)	($3.0B)	$1.5B	$1.5B	Operating working capitalOper. WC
$4.1B	$6.4B	$9.8B	$12.8B	$14.5B	$15.4B	$18.3B	$14.9B	$15.3B	$15.0B	$15.0B	Current assetsCur. assets
$2.6B	$5.7B	$9.0B	$11.0B	$12.1B	$13.9B	$16.7B	$14.4B	$12.2B	$9.0B	$9.0B	Current liabilitiesCur. liab.
1.6×	1.1×	1.1×	1.2×	1.2×	1.1×	1.1×	1.0×	1.3×	1.7×	1.7×	Current ratioCurr. ratio
$1.2B	$1.6B	$2.4B	$5.2B	$5.2B	$8.6B	$15.5B	$14.1B	$12.2B	$13.3B	$13.3B	GoodwillGoodwill
$8.2B	$15.8B	$27.3B	$51.8B	$54.7B	$64.2B	$89.3B	$82.4B	$75.5B	$75.8B	$75.8B	Total assetsAssets
$1.1B	$2.4B	$9.0B	$21.3B	$21.7B	$25.4B	$40.8B	$38.1B	$35.1B	$41.1B	$41.1B	Total debtDebt
$90M	$1.3B	$7.1B	$19.3B	$18.6B	$22.7B	$37.8B	$34.7B	$31.6B	$37.3B	$37.3B	Net debt / (cash)Net debt
0.4×	1.0×	1.2×	1.5×	1.5×	—	—	—	—	—	1.1×	Interest coverageInt. cov.
$4.0B	$5.8B	$6.5B	$11.1B	$11.3B	$13.0B	$18.4B	$18.5B	$17.3B	$15.3B	$15.3B	Shareholders’ equityEquity

The diluted share count moved ×1.44 into TTM — shares issued, not a split the totals corroborate — and the per-share figures carry the counts as filed.

The record, charted

FY2016–2025

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

ROIC

6%low FY2017

Gross margin

26%low FY2017

Net debt ÷ owner earnings

31.9×peak FY2021

Owner earnings vs. net income

Owner earningsNet income

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

$1.2Bowner earningsvs.$387Mnet incomelow FY2022

Where the cash went

ReinvestBuybacksDividendsAcquisitionsRetained

Each year's operating cash, by what management did with it: the mix, and how it drifts.

FY2016FY2025

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 $387M of profit into $1.2B of owner earnings: more cash than the profit line showed, after the non-cash charges and the capital it put back in.

Reported net income$387M

Owner earnings$1.2B · 4% of revenue

	FY2025	FY2024	FY2023	FY2022	FY2021
Reported net income	$387M	$895M	$3.8B	$240M	$2.2B
Depreciation & amortizationnon-cash charge added back	+$3.0B	+$3.2B	+$3.6B	+$3.2B	+$2.3B
Working capital & othertiming of cash in and out, other non-cash items	−$187M	−$818M	−$5.2B	−$2.5B	−$2.7B
Cash from operations	$3.2B	$3.3B	$2.1B	$1.0B	$1.7B
Capital expenditurecash put back in to keep running and to grow	−$2.1B	−$2.5B	−$2.3B	−$1.7B	−$1.4B
Owner earnings	$1.2B	$761M	($158M)	($737M)	$243M
Owner-earnings marginowner earnings ÷ revenue	4%	2%	0%	-1%	1%

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 .

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 20-F · source on SEC EDGAR →

Will it survive?

Can it pay its interest? 1.1×

Thin

Operating income $1.6B ÷ interest expense $1.5B

What this means
Operating profit covers interest, but with little room. A bad year, a refinancing at higher rates, or a revenue wobble closes the gap fast.
How heavy is the debt, net of cash? $37.3B · 23.7× operating profit

Heavy net debt

Cash $3.5B + ST investments $180M − debt $41.1B

What this means
Netting $3.7B of cash and short-term investments against $41.1B of debt leaves $37.3B owed, about 23.7× a year's operating profit (26.1× on the gross debt, before the cash). 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? 27d

Tight

DSO 87 + DIO 30 − DPO 91 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 2%

Below average through the cycle

4-yr median, range 1%–6%; 1% latest = NOPAT $788M ÷ invested capital $52.8B

Industry peers: median 16%

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 4 years (it ran 1% 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 1%

Thin through the cycle

10-yr median margin, range -1%–7%; latest $1.8B = operating cash $3.2B − maintenance capex $1.4B

Industry peers: median 4%

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 7% of revenue this year, a 1% median across 10 years.
Are earnings backed by cash? $3.2B

Loss, but cash-generative

Net income $0 · cash from operations $3.2B

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? 12%

Reinvests most of it

Dividends + buybacks $224M ÷ Owner Earnings $1.8B

What this means
Of $1.8B Owner Earnings, $224M (12%) went back to shareholders, $0 dividends, $224M buybacks. Returning most of it is the mark of a mature business with little left to reinvest at a high return; reinvesting most could mean a long runway, or empire-building. The split doesn't say which; the return earned on it (see ROIC) does.
Investing or harvesting? 0.46×

Harvesting

Capex $1.4B ÷ depreciation $3.0B

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 · 1 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 Pass

Revenue ≥ $2B · $27.5B

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 Near

Current ratio ≥ 2× · 1.67×

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 Miss

Debt ≤ working capital · $41.1B vs $6.1B 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) · 3 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 · 1 of 10 yrs

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 $21.08/share (latest year $0.00), the averaged base the calculator's gate runs on, and book value is $191.39/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 7 of 10

What this means
Lost money in 3 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 1% → 5% (2-yr avg ends)

What this means
Through the cycle the operating margin widened — about 1% early to 5% lately, median 2% — pricing power intact or improving.
Reinvestment, incremental ROIC 2%

What this means
Reinvested capital came back at only a modest incremental return — near the cost of capital, where extra growth adds little per dollar. The record shows whether it is a soft stretch or a thinning moat.
Worst year 2016 · 0.5% op. margin

What this means
Stayed profitable even in its hardest year, the resilience that survives recessions.
Share count +0.0%/yr

What this means
Roughly flat share count, little dilution, little buyback.
Dividend record paid

What this means
Paid a dividend in 1 of the years on record.

Does AI threaten the moat?

Low contestability

The moat is physical, regulated or balance-sheet-funded, the kind AI cuts costs within but does not contest.

AI is unlikely to contest a moat that is physical, regulated or balance-sheet-funded; here it reads more as a cost tool than a threat.

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 fiscal year-end, Dec 31, 2025

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$15.0B

Cash & short-term investments$3.7B
Receivables$6.5B
Inventory$2.6B
Other current assets$2.2B

Current liabilities$9.0B

Accounts payable$7.6B
Other current liabilities$1.4B

Current ratio1.67×all current assets ÷ what's due · Graham looked for 2×

Quick ratio1.39×stricter: inventory excluded

Cash ratio0.41×strictest: cash alone against what's due

Working capital$6.1Bthe cushion left after near-term bills

Deeper floors

Tangible book value($16.5B)equity stripped of goodwill & intangibles

Net current asset value($45.4B)Graham's net-net: current assets less all liabilities

Debt incl. operating leases$41.9B$824M of it operating leases

Deferred revenue$359Mcustomer cash collected before delivery; operating float

From the company's latest filing.

How the cash was used, 2016–2025

Over the record, the business generated $19.2B of operating cash; how management split it reads as a reinvestor, most operating cash is plowed back into the business.

Reinvested$13.6B · 71%
Dividends$11M · 0%
Buybacks$446M · 2%
Retained (debt / cash)$5.2B · 27%

Returned to owners$457M
8% of the owner earnings the business produced over the span, $11M as dividends and $446M as buybacks.
Source of fundingOperating cash
Operating cash covered reinvestment and returns; over the span debt rose $39.9B and cash and short-term investments rose $2.7B.
Average price paid for buybacks—
Buybacks ran $446M over the span, but the filings don't tag the share count needed to deduce the average price paid.
Net change in share count44.1%
The diluted count rose from 56M to 80M: issuance (stock pay, deals) outran any buybacks, so owners were diluted on net.
Dividend record$0.00/sh
Paid in 1 of the years on record. It was never cut over the span.
Return on what it retained5%
Of the earnings it kept rather than paid out ($8.0B over the span), annual owner earnings (first three years vs last three) grew $401M, so each retained $1 added about 0.05 of yearly owner earnings. Buffett's test, run on owner earnings instead of market value.

Buybacks are gross of stock issued to staff; the share-count line above is the net of that, the figure that decides whether owners gained. The average price paid blends a year of purchases (and any accelerated repurchase), so it is close, not exact. The record of where the cash went and on what terms.

Acquisitions & goodwill

from the balance sheet & the 10-year cash-flow record

Goodwill grows only when a company acquires and falls only when it concedes it overpaid. The size of that bet, the cash put into buying rather than building, and how much has already been written off.

Goodwill & intangibles$31.8B42% of all assets; the premium carried on the balance sheet for businesses acquired

Against book equity87%goodwill is this share of book equity; the rest is the company’s own retained and paid-in capital

Cash spent acquiring$0over 10 years buying other businesses, against $13.6B of capital spent building

None written down over the record; the goodwill is still carried at full cost. That is the deals holding their value on the books so far; whether they keep doing so is the test an owner watches, since the write-down, when it comes, is the admission the price was too high.

Goodwill, acquired intangibles and equity from the latest balance sheet; acquisition spend and write-downs summed across the 10-year record, from the company's own filings.

Inverting the record

Invert: instead of why Brookfield Business Corporation 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.

3 of the 5 tests turned up something to look into; the other 2 came back clean.

Look hereDid the share count rise anyway?44.1%
Diluted shares grew 44.1% over 2016–2025, even as the company spent $446M on buybacks. The repurchases were outrun by issuance — to staff, in a raise, or in a deal — and the filing says which; owners' slice still shrank. Read the buyback line beside this one, not on its own.
Look hereDid debt outgrow the business?$1.1B → $41.1B
Debt rose from $1.1B to $41.1B while owner earnings went from about $190M to $591M — about 6.0 years of owner earnings in debt then, about 69 now: measured against what the business earns, the balance sheet carries more debt than it did. Debt raised for buybacks or deals rather than growth is the kind that bites in a downturn.
Look hereDid receivables and inventory outpace sales?24% → 33% of sales
Receivables and inventory grew from $1.9B to $9.1B while revenue grew 245%: working capital is climbing faster than sales (24% of revenue then, 33% now). That can mean customers paying slower, stock building up, or revenue pulled forward. The filing's cash-flow and receivables notes say which.

And these came back clean

Is it less profitable than it was?
Did reported profit become cash?

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.

Peers, Construction & Engineering

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
PWRQuanta Services Inc.	$28.5B	14%	5.1%	8%	4%
BBUCBrookfield Business Corporation	$27.5B	21%	1.6%	3%	1%
EMEEMCOR Group	$17.0B	15%	5.1%	20%	4%
FIXComfort Systems	$9.1B	20%	6.5%	20%	6%
BLDTopBuild	$5.4B	28%	13.4%	12%	9%
LGNLegence Corp.	$2.6B	21%	2.4%	—	1%
AMRCAmeresco Inc.	$1.8B	19%	6.1%	8%	-10%
AGXArgan Inc.	$945M	17%	8.9%	29%	19%
Group median	—	19%	5.6%	12%	4%

The price

What a price has to assume.

What the price implies

reverse-DCF

Enter the US price, in dollars: the NYSE/Nasdaq quote you hold. Brookfield Business Corporation's US listing is the ordinary share itself. The record tables elsewhere on this page remain as filed.

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

Today’s price $

Base Normalize · through-cycle ($591M) Net of stock comp

—

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 · since FY2024+54%/yr

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 $1.8B on 80M diluted shares; net debt $37.3B. 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 BBUC against another business →

Cite: Owner Scorecard, "Brookfield Business Corporation (BBUC), the owner's record," https://ownerscorecard.com/c/BBUC, data as of 2026-07-09.

Manual order: ← BBDO its page in the Manual BBVA →

Industry order: ← BBCP the Construction & Engineering chapter BLD →