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BWA, BorgWarner Inc.

BorgWarner Inc. is a global product leader in clean and efficient technology solutions for combustion, hybrid and electric vehicles.

BorgWarner's products help improve vehicle performance, propulsion efficiency, stability and air quality.

BorgWarner Inc. manufactures and sells these products worldwide, primarily to original equipment manufacturers ("OEMs") of light vehicles (passenger cars, sport-utility vehicles, vans and light trucks).

Latest annual: FY2025 10-K

BWA · BorgWarner Inc.

The business

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

Revenue · FY2025

$14.3B

+1.6% YoY · 7% 5-yr CAGR

Vital signs · TTM, with 5-yr average

Revenue $14.3B 5-yr avg $13.4B

Gross margin 19% 5-yr avg 19%

Operating margin 4.4% 5-yr avg 6.3%

ROIC 6% 5-yr avg 7%

Owner-earnings margin 9% 5-yr avg 7%

Free cash flow margin 9% 5-yr avg 6%

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 led by Turbos & Thermal Technologies (40%) and Drivetrain & Morse Systems (39%), with 2 more segments behind.
What moves the needle: Gross margin has run about 19% and operating margin about 8.0% 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 3.7% to 13% over the years, so the cost line is where the needle moves. Read this kind of business on volume, mix and the cost of the platform. 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 sat near the cost of capital (median 9%). By owner earnings: roughly 7% of revenue reaches owners as cash, consistently. 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 →

Revenue spreads across 4 segments, the largest Turbos & Thermal Technologies at 40%.

Revenue by reportable segment, FY2025

Turbos & Thermal Technologies40%$5.8B
Drivetrain & Morse Systems39%$5.6B
PowerDrive Systems16%$2.3B
Battery & Charging Systems4%$590M

By geographyChina21%United States16%Mexico12%Germany11%Other Europe11%Poland9%Other21%

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
$9.1B	$9.8B	$10.5B	$10.2B	$10.2B	$11.8B	$12.6B	$14.2B	$14.1B	$14.3B	$14.3B	RevenueRevenue
21%	22%	21%	21%	19%	18%	19%	18%	19%	19%	19%	Gross marginGross mgn
9%	9%	9%	9%	9%	9%	10%	9%	10%	9%	9%	SG&A / revenueSG&A/rev
4%	4%	4%	4%	5%	5%	6%	5%	5%	5%	5%	R&D / revenueR&D/rev
$973M	$1.1B	$1.2B	$1.3B	$618M	$914M	$1.0B	$1.2B	$546M	$536M	$635M	Operating incomeOp. inc.
10.7%	10.9%	11.3%	12.8%	6.1%	7.7%	8.0%	8.2%	3.9%	3.7%	4.4%	Operating marginOp. mgn
$595M	$440M	$931M	$746M	$500M	$537M	$944M	$625M	$338M	$277M	$362M	Net incomeNet inc.
34%	57%	18%	39%	44%	11%	17%	32%	25%	41%	36%	Effective tax rateTax rate
											Cash flow & returns
$1.0B	$1.2B	$1.1B	$1.0B	$1.2B	$1.3B	$1.6B	$1.4B	$1.4B	$1.6B	$1.7B	Operating cash flowOp. cash
$391M	$408M	$431M	$439M	$568M	$574M	$552M	$582M	$673M	$719M	$709M	DepreciationDeprec.
$6M	$280M	($289M)	($219M)	$75M	$145M	$9M	$132M	$309M	$586M	$585M	Working capital & otherWC & other
$501M	$560M	$546M	$481M	$441M	$514M	$622M	$832M	$671M	$469M	$493M	CapexCapex
5.5%	5.7%	5.2%	4.7%	4.3%	4.4%	4.9%	5.9%	4.8%	3.3%	3.4%	Capex / revenueCapex/rev
$644M	$772M	$695M	$527M	$743M	$792M	$947M	$815M	$711M	$1.2B	$1.2B	Owner earningsOwner earn.
7.1%	7.9%	6.6%	5.2%	7.3%	6.7%	7.5%	5.7%	5.0%	8.2%	8.5%	Owner earnings marginOE mgn
$535M	$620M	$580M	$527M	$743M	$792M	$947M	$565M	$711M	$1.2B	$1.2B	Free cash flowFCF
5.9%	6.3%	5.5%	5.2%	7.3%	6.7%	7.5%	4.0%	5.0%	8.2%	8.5%	Free cash flow marginFCF mgn
$0	$186M	$0	$10M	$449M	$759M	$312M	$109M	$0	$0	$0	AcquisitionsAcquis.
$113M	$124M	$142M	$140M	$146M	$162M	$161M	$130M	$98M	$119M	$130M	Dividends paidDiv. paid
$288M	$100M	$150M	$100M	$216M	$0	$240M	$177M	$402M	$508M	—	BuybacksBuybacks
13%	10%	17%	14%	4%	9%	8%	10%	5%	5%	6%	ROICROIC
18%	12%	22%	16%	8%	8%	13%	11%	6%	5%	7%	Return on equityROE
15%	9%	19%	13%	6%	5%	11%	8%	4%	3%	4%	Retained to equityRetained/eq
											Balance sheet
$444M	$545M	$739M	$832M	$1.6B	$1.8B	$1.3B	$1.5B	$2.1B	$2.3B	$2.3B	Cash & investmentsCash+inv
$1.7B	$2.0B	$2.0B	$1.9B	$2.9B	$2.9B	$2.5B	$3.1B	$2.8B	$3.0B	$3.1B	ReceivablesReceiv.
$641M	$766M	$781M	$807M	$1.3B	$1.5B	$1.2B	$1.3B	$1.3B	$1.2B	$1.2B	InventoryInvent.
$1.3B	$1.5B	$1.5B	$1.3B	—	$2.3B	$2.7B	—	—	—	$2.7B	Accounts payablePayables
$1.1B	$1.2B	$1.3B	$1.4B	$4.2B	$2.2B	$1.0B	$4.4B	$4.1B	$4.2B	$1.6B	Operating working capitalOper. WC
$2.9B	$3.5B	$3.8B	$3.8B	$6.2B	$6.6B	$6.6B	$6.2B	$6.5B	$6.8B	$6.7B	Current assetsCur. assets
$2.1B	$2.4B	$2.4B	$2.3B	$3.8B	$3.8B	$4.2B	$3.8B	$3.6B	$3.3B	$3.2B	Current liabilitiesCur. liab.
1.4×	1.5×	1.6×	1.6×	1.6×	1.7×	1.6×	1.7×	1.8×	2.1×	2.1×	Current ratioCurr. ratio
$1.7B	$1.9B	$1.9B	$1.8B	$2.6B	$2.9B	$3.0B	$3.0B	$2.4B	$2.1B	$2.0B	GoodwillGoodwill
$8.8B	$9.8B	$10.1B	$9.7B	$16.0B	$16.6B	$17.0B	$14.5B	$14.0B	$13.8B	$13.7B	Total assetsAssets
$2.1B	$2.1B	$2.1B	$1.9B	$3.7B	$4.3B	$4.1B	$3.7B	$4.1B	$3.9B	$3.9B	Total debtDebt
$1.6B	$1.6B	$1.3B	$1.1B	$2.1B	$2.4B	$2.8B	$2.2B	$2.0B	$1.6B	$1.6B	Net debt / (cash)Net debt
11.5×	15.1×	20.2×	30.3×	10.1×	9.8×	19.4×	—	—	—	14.4×	Interest coverageInt. cov.
$3.2B	$3.7B	$4.2B	$4.7B	$6.4B	$6.9B	$7.2B	$5.8B	$5.5B	$5.4B	$5.5B	Shareholders’ equityEquity
0.5%	0.5%	0.5%	0.4%	0.4%	0.4%	0.5%	0.4%	0.4%	0.5%	0.4%	Stock comp / revenueSBC/rev
—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	$577M	$423M	$423M	Goodwill written downGW imp.
											Per share
215M	212M	210M	207M	214M	240M	237M	234M	225M	216M	208M	Shares out (diluted)Shares
$42.13	$46.33	$50.26	$49.17	$47.50	$49.28	$53.36	$60.57	$62.66	$66.16	$68.81	Revenue / shareRev/sh
$2.76	$2.08	$4.44	$3.61	$2.34	$2.24	$3.99	$2.67	$1.50	$1.28	$1.74	EPS (diluted)EPS
$2.99	$3.65	$3.32	$2.55	$3.47	$3.31	$4.00	$3.48	$3.16	$5.45	$5.88	Owner earnings / shareOE/sh
$2.49	$2.93	$2.77	$2.55	$3.47	$3.31	$4.00	$2.41	$3.16	$5.45	$5.88	Free cash flow / shareFCF/sh
$0.53	$0.59	$0.68	$0.68	$0.68	$0.68	$0.68	$0.55	$0.44	$0.55	$0.62	Dividends / shareDiv/sh
$2.32	$2.65	$2.61	$2.33	$2.06	$2.15	$2.63	$3.55	$2.98	$2.17	$2.37	Cap. spending / shareCapex/sh
$14.95	$17.57	$20.17	$22.76	$30.04	$29.01	$30.51	$24.86	$24.61	$25.15	$26.30	Book value / shareBVPS

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

	9-yr	5-yr
Revenue / share	+5.1%/yr	+6.8%/yr
Owner earnings / share	+6.9%/yr	+9.4%/yr
EPS	−8.2%/yr	−11.3%/yr
Dividends / share	+0.5%/yr	−4.2%/yr
Capital spending / share	−0.8%/yr	+1.0%/yr
Book value / share	+6.0%/yr	−3.5%/yr

The record, charted

FY2016–2025

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

Share count

216Mpeak FY2021

ROIC

5%low FY2020

Gross margin

19%low FY2023

Net debt ÷ owner earnings

1.3×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.$277Mnet incomelow FY2019

Where the cash went

ReinvestBuybacksDividendsAcquisitionsRetainedBeyond op. cash

Each year's outlays against its operating cash: the mix, and how it drifts. The hatched cap is spending beyond that year's operating cash — financed from the balance sheet or borrowing, not operations.

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 $277M 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$277M

Owner earnings$1.2B · 8% of revenue

	FY2025	FY2024	FY2023	FY2022	FY2021
Reported net income	$277M	$338M	$625M	$944M	$537M
Depreciation & amortizationnon-cash charge added back	+$719M	+$673M	+$582M	+$552M	+$574M
Stock-based compensationreal costnon-cash, but a real cost	+$66M	+$62M	+$58M	+$64M	+$50M
Working capital & othertiming of cash in and out, other non-cash items	+$586M	+$309M	+$132M	+$9M	+$145M
Cash from operations	$1.6B	$1.4B	$1.4B	$1.6B	$1.3B
Maintenance capital expenditurethe spending needed just to hold position and volume	−$469M	−$671M	−$582M	−$622M	−$514M
Owner earnings	$1.2B	$711M	$815M	$947M	$792M
Growth capital expenditurediscretionary; spent to get bigger, not to stand still	—	—	−$250M	—	—
Free cash flow	$1.2B	$711M	$565M	$947M	$792M
Owner-earnings marginowner earnings ÷ revenue	8%	5%	6%	7%	7%

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 $66M), owner earnings is nearer $1.1B.

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 · source on SEC EDGAR →

Will it survive?

Can it pay its interest? 10.3×

Comfortable

Operating income $536M ÷ interest expense $52M

What this means
Operating profit covers interest with the kind of margin Graham wanted for a defensive holding. Necessary, not sufficient, it says solvent, not cheap.
How heavy is the debt, net of cash? $1.6B · 3.0× operating profit

Meaningful net debt

Cash $2.3B − debt $3.9B

What this means
Netting $2.3B of cash and short-term investments against $3.9B of debt leaves $1.6B owed, about 3.0× a year's operating profit (7.3× 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? 29d

Tight

DSO 76 + DIO 38 − DPO 84 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 9%

Solid through the cycle

10-yr median, range 4%–17%; 5% latest = NOPAT $319M ÷ invested capital $7.0B

Industry peers: median 11%

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 5% 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 7%

Solid through the cycle

10-yr median margin, range 5%–8%; latest $1.2B = operating cash $1.6B − maintenance capex $469M

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 8% of revenue this year, a 7% median across 10 years. Treating stock comp as the real expense it is (less $66M of SBC) leaves $1.1B.
Are earnings backed by cash? 5.95×

Cash-backed

Cash from ops $1.6B ÷ net income $277M

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?

Where do the earnings go? 53%

Returns about half

Dividends + buybacks $627M ÷ Owner Earnings $1.2B

What this means
Of $1.2B Owner Earnings, $627M (53%) went back to shareholders, $119M dividends, $508M buybacks. Net of $66M stock comp, the real buyback was about $442M. 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? 0.65×

Harvesting

Capex $469M ÷ depreciation $719M

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 · 4 of 6 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 · $14.3B

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× · 2.07×

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 Near

Debt ≤ working capital · $3.9B vs $3.5B 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 Pass

A profit every year (10-yr record) · no losses

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 Miss

Earnings +33% over the record · −37%

What this means
At least a third more earnings than a decade ago, averaging three years at each end. Net income (not per-share), so stock splits don't distort it, buybacks and dilution show up in the share-count line instead.
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 $2.02/share (latest year $1.35), the averaged base the calculator's gate runs on, and book value is $26.53/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 10 of 10

What this means
Never lost money over the record, the earnings stability Graham insisted on.
Return on capital ≥ 15% 1 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 11% → 5% (3-yr avg ends)

In the filing’s words The words explain the slip: the filing names price competition rather than pricing actions of its own — a business that looks to take its price, not set it.

What this means
Through the cycle the operating margin slipped — about 11% early to 5% lately, median 8% — competition or costs are biting in.
Reinvestment, incremental ROIC −9%

What this means
Reinvested capital came back at a negative incremental return over this window — the invested base grew while operating profit did not. The filings show where it went.
Owner earnings growth +3%/yr

What this means
Owner earnings grew about 3% a year over the record.
Worst year 2025 · 3.7% op. margin

What this means
Stayed profitable even in its hardest year, the resilience that survives recessions.
Share count +0.1%/yr

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

What this means
Paid a dividend in 10 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.

In its own filing A competitive risk, new this year

Its FY2025 10-K names artificial intelligence as a competitive threat, in language that was not in the prior year's filing.

“We also face risks of competitive disadvantage if our competitors more effectively use AI to drive internal efficiencies or create new or enhanced products or services that we are unable to compete against on cost, quality or other attributes.”

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 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$6.7B

Cash & short-term investments$2.3B
Receivables$3.1B
Inventory$1.2B
Other current assets$141M

Current liabilities$3.2B

Debt due within a year$2M
Accounts payable$2.7B
Other current liabilities$479M

Current ratio2.13×all current assets ÷ what's due · Graham looked for 2×

Quick ratio1.75×stricter: inventory excluded

Cash ratio0.73×strictest: cash alone against what's due

Working capital$3.6Bthe cushion left after near-term bills

Debt due this year vs. cash$2M due · $2.3B 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+0.5%the freshest read on whether the business is still growing

Current ratio, recent quarters1.6× → 2.1×

Deeper floors

Tangible book value$3.1Bequity stripped of goodwill & intangibles

Net current asset value($1.3B)Graham's net-net: current assets less all liabilities

Debt incl. operating leases$4.1B$192M of it operating leases

Deferred revenue$3Mcustomer cash collected before delivery; operating float

From the company's latest filing.

Debt maturity

the debt note, SEC EDGAR →

Not how much it owes, but when it falls due, and against what. The ladder the company files, beside cash on hand and a year's owner earnings.

'26$5M

'27$1.1B

'28$5M

'29$633M

'30$2M

later$2.2B

Bars scaled to the largest single year; “later” is everything due after 2030, shown apart since it dwarfs the years.

Due in the next 12 months$5Mthe first rung: what must be repaid or rolled over within the year

Within two years$1.1Bthe near wall, the part most exposed to today’s credit conditions

Biggest single year$1.1Bin 2027the lumpiest maturity, where a refinancing, if needed, is largest

Total scheduled principal$3.9Bevery year plus what lies beyond, as the footnote totals it

Against what the business has and earns

Cash & short-term investments, Mar 31, 2026$2.3B

One year of owner earnings (FY2025)$1.2B

Together, against $5M due next year698.4×

Cash on hand as of Mar 31, 2026 plus a year’s owner earnings comes to $3.5B against the $5M due in the twelve months after the Dec 31, 2025 schedule: 698 times it.

Maturity schedule extracted from the company’s Dec 31, 2025 annual report and reconciled to the total the table states.

How the cash was used, 2016–2025

Over the record, the business generated $12.8B of operating cash; how management split it reads as a balanced allocator, splitting cash between the business, owners, and the balance sheet.

Reinvested$5.6B · 44%
Dividends$1.3B · 10%
Buybacks$2.2B · 17%
Retained (debt / cash)$3.7B · 29%

Returned to owners$3.5B
45% of the owner earnings the business produced over the span, $1.3B as dividends and $2.2B as buybacks.
Average price paid for buybacks—
Buybacks ran $2.2B over the span, but the filings don't tag the share count needed to deduce the average price paid.
Net change in share count−3.3%
The diluted count fell from 215M to 208M, so the buybacks outran the stock issued to staff.
Dividend record$0.55/sh
Paid in 10 of the years on record, the per-share dividend growing about 0% a year. It was cut at least once along the way.
Return on what it retained8%
Of the earnings it kept rather than paid out ($2.4B over the span), annual owner earnings (first three years vs last three) grew $198M, so each retained $1 added about 0.08 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$2.4B18% of all assets; the premium carried on the balance sheet for businesses acquired

Against book equity38%goodwill is this share of book equity; the rest is the company’s own retained and paid-in capital

Cash spent acquiring$1.8Bover 10 years buying other businesses, against $5.6B of capital spent building

$1.0B written down across 2 years (2024, 2025): goodwill the company has already conceded it overpaid for, charged against earnings. That is roughly 55% of the cash it put into acquisitions over the span. A write-down costs no cash (the cash went out when the deal was signed), but it is management marking its own past judgment to market.

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.

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	Pay, as filed	“Actually paid”	Owner earnings
2021	$17.4M	$21.2M	$792M
2022	$17.7M	$26.4M	$947M
2023	$19.2M	$10.9M	$815M
2024	$18.8M	$16.8M	$711M
2025	$15.5M	$24.7M	$1.2B
2025	$9.7M	$19.4M	$1.2B

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.

CEO pay ratio326:1
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$66M
The slice of the business handed to employees in shares this year, 0% of revenue, equal to 12% of operating profit. 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 BorgWarner 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.

2 of the 6 tests turned up something to look into; the other 4 came back clean.

Look hereDid debt outgrow the business?$2.1B → $3.9B
Debt rose from $2.1B to $3.9B while owner earnings went from about $704M to $902M — about 2.9 years of owner earnings in debt then, about 4.3 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 hereAre "one-time" charges a yearly habit?6 of 10 years
Management took an impairment or write-down in 6 of the last 10 years, $2.4B in all. Taken across the majority of the record, the "one-time" label is wearing thin — ask whether these are past deals coming due rather than genuinely isolated events. Read it beside the goodwill the company still carries.

And these came back clean

Is it less profitable than it was?
Did the share count rise anyway?
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.

What an owner would ask, FY2025

read the 10-K →

How much of the revenue rides on one buyer?
≈$10.2B · 71% of revenue on the largest customers (TTM)
“Sales to the Company's top ten customers represented 71% of sales for the year ended December 31, 2025.”verify →
Which reported numbers are a judgment call?
Management names Pension & retirement, Acquisitions 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, Auto Components

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
LEALear Corporation	$23.3B	7%	3.9%	11%	3%
APTVAptiv PLC	$20.4B	19%	9.1%	14%	6%
ADNTAdient plc Ordinary Shares	$14.5B	6%	0.1%	0%	1%
BWABorgWarner Inc.	$14.3B	19%	8.1%	9%	7%
ALVAutoliv Inc.	$10.8B	19%	8.3%	15%	6%
OSKOshkosh	$10.4B	17%	8.1%	14%	5%
DANDana Incorporated Common Stock	$7.5B	9%	2.6%	5%	2%
DCHDauch Corporation	$5.8B	13%	3.2%	5%	3%
Group median	—	15%	6.0%	10%	4%

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 BorgWarner Inc. has delivered.

BorgWarner Inc.’s latest year runs above its own through-cycle margin — the reported figure may flatter a peak. So the tool opens on the through-cycle base, Graham’s averaging cutting both ways; clear the toggle below to read the latest year exactly as reported.

Today’s price $

Through the cycle, BorgWarner Inc. earns about $989M on its 6.9% median owner-earnings margin. This year’s 8.2% margin runs above that; the reported figure may flatter a peak you'd be paying on. Normalize, below, values the price on that through-cycle figure rather than the latest year. It comes pre-checked here for that reason, the same rule that already normalizes a trough; clear it to price the year as filed.

Base Normalize · through-cycle ($989M) Net of stock comp (−$62M)

—

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 · ’21→’25+2%/yr

Owner-earnings growth · ’16→’25+6%/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 $1.2B on 205M shares outstanding, per the 10-Q cover, as of 2026-05-01; net debt $1.6B. The base opens on the through-cycle figure (the latest year sits above 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.

Weigh BWA against another business →

The owners of BWA: the meeting and the votes →

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

Manual order: ← BW its page in the Manual BWB →

Industry order: ← ATMU the Auto Components chapter CAAS →