Owner Scorecard


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BRSL, BRIGHTSTAR LOTTERY PLC

Casinos & Gaming capital-intensive Cyclical

A capital-intensive business, run on heavy physical assets that must be kept working and earn a return above what they cost to maintain.

Latest annual: FY2025 20-F · US listing is the ordinary share
BRSL · BRIGHTSTAR LOTTERY PLC
I

The business

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

Revenue · FY2025
$2.5B
−0.0% YoY · −4% 5-yr CAGR
Vital signs · TTM, with 5-yr average
Revenue $2.5B 5-yr avg $2.8B
Operating margin 27.3% 5-yr avg 26.5%
ROIC 12% 5-yr avg 8%
Owner-earnings margin −17% 5-yr avg 20%
Free cash flow margin −17% 5-yr avg 20%

The business in brief

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

Situation
Cyclical. Margins collapse and recover repeatedly across the record; a single year, good or bad, misstates the through-cycle earning power.
What moves the needle
Operating margin has run about 13% through the cycle, a solid margin the cost base and competition set as much as the price does. The margin is cyclical, swinging between −3.4% and 30% over the years, so the through-cycle figure carries more than any single year — and the balance sheet at the trough more than the peak. Capital spending runs about 8.2% 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.
Is it a good business?
Return on capital has rarely cleared the cost of capital (median 6%, above 15% in 0 of 10 years). By owner earnings: roughly 18% of revenue reaches owners as cash, though it swings, and customers and suppliers fund the business through negative working capital. The cycle and the balance sheet decide this one; the worst year tells more than the median, and 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 4 regions, the largest United States at 47%.

Revenue by geography, FY2025
  • United States47%$1.2B
  • Italy41%$1.0B
  • Rest of Europe8%$195M
  • All other5%$123M

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.

II

The record

Ten years of arithmetic, read across the cycle.

The record, 2016–2025

realized figures from each filing · older years to the left
2016’162017’172018’182019’192020’202021’212022’222023’232024’242025’25TTMTTMDec 2025
Income statement
$5.2B$4.9B$4.0B$4.0B$3.1B$4.1B$2.6B$2.5B$2.5B$2.5B$2.5BRevenueRevenue
89%88%77%Gross marginGross mgn
$660M($51M)$474M$478M($107M)$902M$743M$752M$686M$624M$686MOperating incomeOp. inc.
12.8%−1.0%11.9%11.9%−3.4%22.1%28.6%29.7%27.3%24.9%27.3%Operating marginOp. mgn
$264M($948M)$115M$112M($839M)$670M$414M$307M$508M$287M$287MNet incomeNet inc.
18%56%54%29%34%42%33%37%37%Effective tax rateTax rate
Cash flow & returns
$338M$663M$30M$1.1B$866M$978M$899M$1.0B$1.1B($99M)($99M)Operating cash flowOp. cash
$882M$802M$607M$614M$566M$526M$492M$215M$204M$221M$221MDepreciationDeprec.
($809M)$808M($693M)$367M$1.1B($218M)($7M)$490M$338M($607M)($607M)Working capital & otherWC & other
$542M$698M$472M$377M$255M$238M$162M$147M$149M$316M$316MCapexCapex
10.5%14.1%11.9%9.4%8.2%5.8%6.2%5.8%5.9%12.6%12.6%Capex / revenueCapex/rev
($204M)($35M)($443M)$716M$611M$740M$737M$865M$901M($415M)($415M)Owner earningsOwner earn.
−4.0%−0.7%−11.1%17.8%19.6%18.1%28.4%34.2%35.9%−16.5%−16.5%Owner earnings marginOE mgn
($204M)($35M)($443M)$716M$611M$740M$737M$865M$901M($415M)($415M)Free cash flowFCF
−4.0%−0.7%−11.1%17.8%19.6%18.1%28.4%34.2%35.9%−16.5%−16.5%Free cash flow marginFCF mgn
$161M$163M$163M$164M$41M$41M$161M$160M$161M$770M$770MDividends paidDiv. paid
$0$0$0$41M$115M$0$0$271MBuybacksBuybacks
5%-0%2%3%-1%9%7%7%7%11%12%ROICROIC
9%-47%6%7%-108%52%29%21%31%33%33%Return on equityROE
3%−55%−3%−3%−113%49%18%10%21%−55%−55%Retained to equityRetained/eq
Balance sheet
$294M$1.1B$251M$655M$907M$591M$590M$508M$584M$1.4B$1.4BCash & investmentsCash+inv
$947M$938M$949M$875M$846M$903M$670M$403M$468M$526M$526MReceivablesReceiv.
$347M$320M$283M$162M$169M$183M$254M$110M$113M$116M$116MInventoryInvent.
$1.2B$1.2B$1.1B$1.1B$1.1B$1.0B$731M$643M$718M$766M$766MAccounts payablePayables
$79M$17M$89M($22M)($111M)$51M$193M($130M)($137M)($124M)($124M)Operating working capitalOper. WC
$2.3B$3.1B$2.3B$2.6B$3.4B$2.5B$2.1B$2.1B$6.2B$2.3B$2.3BCurrent assetsCur. assets
$2.3B$3.7B$2.0B$2.5B$2.6B$1.9B$1.8B$1.7B$2.7B$3.1B$3.1BCurrent liabilitiesCur. liab.
1.0×0.8×1.1×1.1×1.3×1.3×1.2×1.3×2.3×0.8×0.8×Current ratioCurr. ratio
$6.8B$5.7B$5.1B$4.9B$4.7B$4.7B$2.7B$2.7B$2.6B$2.7B$2.7BGoodwillGoodwill
$15.1B$15.2B$13.6B$13.6B$13.0B$11.3B$10.4B$10.5B$10.3B$9.2B$9.2BTotal assetsAssets
$7.9B$8.4B$8.0B$8.1B$8.3B$6.5B$5.8B$5.7B$5.4B$4.2B$4.2BTotal debtDebt
$7.6B$7.3B$7.7B$7.4B$7.3B$5.9B$5.2B$5.1B$4.8B$2.7B$2.7BNet debt / (cash)Net debt
1.4×-0.1×1.1×1.2×-0.3×2.6×2.6×3.6×3.3×3.6×4.0×Interest coverageInt. cov.
$3.1B$2.0B$1.8B$1.7B$777M$1.3B$1.4B$1.4B$1.7B$875M$875MShareholders’ equityEquity
Per share
202M203M204M204M205M207M203M203M204M197M187MShares out (diluted)Shares
$25.49$24.31$19.51$19.73$15.22$19.75$12.79$12.46$12.31$12.75$13.44Revenue / shareRev/sh
$1.31$-4.66$0.56$0.55$-4.10$3.24$2.04$1.51$2.49$1.46$1.54EPS (diluted)EPS
$-1.01$-0.17$-2.17$3.50$2.98$3.57$3.63$4.26$4.42$-2.11$-2.22Owner earnings / shareOE/sh
$-1.01$-0.17$-2.17$3.50$2.98$3.57$3.63$4.26$4.42$-2.11$-2.22Free cash flow / shareFCF/sh
$0.80$0.80$0.80$0.80$0.20$0.20$0.79$0.79$0.79$3.91$4.12Dividends / shareDiv/sh
$2.68$3.44$2.31$1.84$1.25$1.15$0.80$0.72$0.73$1.60$1.69Cap. spending / shareCapex/sh
$15.18$9.87$8.86$8.11$3.80$6.19$7.04$7.11$8.10$4.44$4.68Book value / shareBVPS
Per-share growththe realized rate an owner's share compounded
9-yr5-yr
Revenue / share−7.4%/yr−3.5%/yr
EPS+1.2%/yr
Dividends / share+19.3%/yr+81.2%/yr
Capital spending / share−5.5%/yr+5.2%/yr
Book value / share−12.8%/yr+3.2%/yr

The record, charted

FY2016–2025

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

Share count
197Mpeak FY2021
ROIC
11%low FY2020
Net debt ÷ owner earnings
5.3×peak FY2020

Owner earnings vs. net income

Owner earningsNet income

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

($415M)owner earningsvs.$287Mnet incomelow FY2018

Where the cash went

ReinvestBuybacksDividendsAcquisitionsRetained

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

FY2016FY2024

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 reported $287M of profit but ($415M) of owner earnings: $702M less than the profit line, taken out by capital spending and the timing of cash.

FY2025FY2024FY2023FY2022FY2021
Reported net income$287M$508M$307M$414M$670M
Depreciation & amortizationnon-cash charge added back+$221M+$204M+$215M+$492M+$526M
Working capital & othertiming of cash in and out, other non-cash items−$607M+$338M+$490M−$7M−$218M
Cash from operations($99M)$1.1B$1.0B$899M$978M
Capital expenditurecash put back in to keep running and to grow−$316M−$149M−$147M−$162M−$238M
Owner earnings($415M)$901M$865M$737M$740M
Owner-earnings marginowner earnings ÷ revenue-17%36%34%28%18%

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 .

Much of fiscal 2025's profit didn't arrive as operating cash; it sits in “working capital & other” above. That can be a real inventory or timing swing, or profit that doesn't run through operating cash at all: a heavy tax year, equity-method earnings, or investment income booked through investing. For a year like this, owner earnings understates the cash earned; the full cash-flow statement carries the rest.

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?

  • Adequate
    Operating income $686M ÷ interest expense $172M
    What this means

    Comfortable in a normal year, but below the margin of safety Graham looked for. Worth checking how stable the coverage has been across a full cycle.

  • How heavy is the debt, net of cash? $2.7B · 4.0× operating profit
    Meaningful net debt
    Cash $1.4B − debt $4.2B
    What this means

    Netting $1.4B of cash and short-term investments against $4.2B of debt leaves $2.7B owed, about 4.0× a year's operating profit (6.1× 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.

  • Negative, funded by others
    DSO 76 + DIO 73 − DPO 483 days
    What this means

    Days cash is tied up between paying suppliers and collecting from customers. A negative cycle is a quiet moat: suppliers and customers fund the operation (Buffett's “float”), the company grows on other people's money.

Is it a good business?

  • Below average through the cycle
    10-yr median, range -1%–11%; 12% latest = NOPAT $436M ÷ invested capital $3.6B
    Industry peers: median 12%
    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 12% 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.

  • High through the cycle
    10-yr median margin, range -17%–36%; latest ($415M) = operating cash ($99M) − maintenance capex $316M
    Industry peers: median 9%
    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 -17% of revenue this year, a 18% median across 10 years.

  • Thinly cash-backed
    Cash from ops ($99M) ÷ net income $287M
    What this means

    How much of reported profit showed up as operating cash. Above 1× is reassuring; well below suggests earnings lean on accruals. One year is noisy, growth and working-capital swings distort it, and this is operating cash, not free cash. Watch the multi-year trend.

How is the cash used?

  • No surplus to allocate
    What this means

    The business didn't generate positive Owner Earnings this year, so any distributions came from the balance sheet or borrowing, not from operations.

  • Investing or harvesting? 1.43×
    Expanding
    Capex $316M ÷ depreciation $221M
    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 Pass
    Revenue ≥ $2B · $2.5B
    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 Miss
    Current ratio ≥ 2× · 0.76×
    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 · $4.2B vs ($736M) 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) · 2 loss years
    What this means

    Graham wanted earnings in each of the past ten years, the stability a defensive owner leans on.

  • Dividend record Pass
    Uninterrupted dividends · paid every year (10)
    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 $1.97/share (latest year $1.54), the averaged base the calculator's gate runs on, and book value is $4.68/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 8 of 10
    What this means

    Lost money in 2 year(s), look at what happened there before trusting the average.

  • Return on capital ≥ 15% 0 of 10 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 8% → 27% (3-yr avg ends)
    What this means

    Through the cycle the operating margin widened — about 8% early to 27% lately, median 13% — pricing power intact or improving.

  • Reinvestment, incremental ROIC returns capital
    What this means

    The capital base barely grew: this business returns cash through dividends and buybacks rather than reinvesting. Judge it on the cash returned, not on compounding.

  • Worst year 2020 · −3.4% op. margin
    What this means

    Operations went underwater in 2020, understand why before trusting the good years.

  • Share count −0.3%/yr
    What this means

    Roughly flat share count, little dilution, little buyback.

  • Dividend record rising
    What this means

    Paid and raised the dividend across the record, the continuity Graham prized.

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.

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 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$2.3B
  • Cash & short-term investments$1.4B
  • Receivables$526M
  • Inventory$116M
  • Other current assets$248M
Current liabilities$3.1B
  • Debt due within a year$118M
  • Accounts payable$766M
  • Other current liabilities$2.2B
Current ratio0.76×all current assets ÷ what's due · Graham looked for 2×
Quick ratio0.72×stricter: inventory excluded
Cash ratio0.47×strictest: cash alone against what's due
Working capital($736M)the cushion left after near-term bills

Its current ratio is below 1, which usually reads as strain; here it is likely structural strength. This business collects from customers before it pays suppliers (a negative cash-conversion cycle), so the balance sheet is funded by that float, the way Costco's and Amazon's are. The low ratio can be the edge, not the risk; the cash-conversion cycle and the debt due above say which.

Debt due this year vs. cash$118M due · $1.4B cash covered by cash on hand, no refinancing forced · both figures from the Dec 31, 2025 balance sheet
Cash runway3.5 yrsthe business is consuming cash; this is how long the cash on hand lasts at that rate
Deeper floors
Tangible book value($2.0B)equity stripped of goodwill & intangibles
Net current asset value($5.2B)Graham's net-net: current assets less all liabilities
Debt incl. operating leases$4.2B$25M of it operating leases
Deferred revenue$39Mcustomer 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 $6.8B of operating cash; how management split it reads as a deleverager, a meaningful share of cash went to paying down debt.

  • Reinvested$3.4B · 49%
  • Dividends$2.0B · 29%
  • Buybacks$427M · 6%
  • Retained (debt / cash)$1.1B · 16%
  • Returned to owners$2.4B

    69% of the owner earnings the business produced over the span, $2.0B as dividends and $427M as buybacks.

  • Source of fundingOperating cash

    Operating cash covered reinvestment and returns; over the span debt fell $3.7B and cash and short-term investments rose $1.2B.

  • Average price paid for buybacks

    Buybacks ran $427M over the span, but the filings don't tag the share count needed to deduce the average price paid.

  • Net change in share count−7.6%

    The diluted count fell from 202M to 187M, so the buybacks outran the stock issued to staff.

  • Dividend record$3.91/sh

    Paid in 10 of the years on record, the per-share dividend growing about 19% a year. It was cut at least once along the way.

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$2.8B31% of all assets; the premium carried on the balance sheet for businesses acquired
Against book equityexceeds itgoodwill alone is larger than the company’s entire book equity; stripped of the acquisition premium, there is no net book worth
Cash spent acquiring$0over 10 years buying other businesses, against $3.4B 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 BRIGHTSTAR LOTTERY PLC 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 5 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 the share count rise anyway?
  • Did debt outgrow the business?
  • Did reported profit become cash?
  • Did receivables and inventory outpace sales?

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, Casinos & Gaming

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.

CompanyRevenueGross marginOp. marginROICOwner earn. margin
FUNCedar Fair$3.1B91%14.2%-19%6%
LTHLife Time Group Holdings Inc.$3.0B47%8.9%4%7%
MTNVail Resorts Inc.$3.0B18.3%12%18%
BRSLBRIGHTSTAR LOTTERY PLC$2.5B77%17.4%6%18%
PRKSUnited Parks & Resorts Inc.$1.7B18.6%16%10%
PLNTPlanet Fitness$1.3B81%28.6%16%20%
MSGSMadison Square Garden Sports Corp.$1.0B-3.4%-3%7%
MSGEMadison Square Garden Entertainment Corp.$863M12.6%13%
Group median79%15.8%9%10%
IV

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. BRIGHTSTAR LOTTERY PLC'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 BRIGHTSTAR LOTTERY PLC has delivered.

BRIGHTSTAR LOTTERY PLC’s latest year shows negative owner earnings, a cyclical trough. So the tool opens on the through-cycle base, the cash it would earn at rest; clear the toggle below to read the latest year exactly as reported.

$
Base

The assumptions

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 · ’21→’25−24%/yr
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 ($415M) on 187M shares outstanding, per the 20-F cover, as of 2025-12-31; net debt $2.7B. The base opens on the through-cycle figure (the latest year sits off the record’s own median, and Graham’s averaging cuts both ways); clear Normalize to use the year as filed. 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.

Cite: Owner Scorecard, "BRIGHTSTAR LOTTERY PLC (BRSL), the owner's record," https://ownerscorecard.com/c/BRSL, data as of 2026-07-09.

Manual order: ← BRAG its page in the Manual BSAC →

Industry order: ← BRAG the Casinos & Gaming chapter BYD →