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COHR, Coherent Corp.

Electronic Components & Instruments capital-intensive CyclicalSerial acquirer

Our revenue growth in these portions of the Industrial market is a result of our focus on higher demand applications within the Industrial market, including display and semiconductor capital equipment.

Trends and Other Matters Affecting our Business Industry Conditions Throughout fiscal 2025, we experienced stronger demand in our Communications market.

The increase in the number of hyperscale and other cloud customers building AI datacenters and in the number and size of their AI datacenter buildouts drove demand for our datacenter transceivers.

Latest annual: FY2025 10-K

COHR · Coherent Corp.

The business

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

Revenue · FY2025

$5.8B

+23.4% YoY · 20% 5-yr CAGR

Vital signs · TTM, with 5-yr average

Revenue $6.6B 5-yr avg $4.4B

Gross margin 37% 5-yr avg 35%

Operating margin 1.5% 5-yr avg 5.7%

ROIC 1% 5-yr avg 4%

Owner-earnings margin −6% 5-yr avg 6%

Free cash flow margin −8% 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 Networking (59%), Lasers (25%) and Materials (16%).
Situation: Cyclical. Margins collapse and recover repeatedly across the record; a single year, good or bad, misstates the through-cycle earning power. Serial acquirer. Goodwill and acquired intangibles are 51% of assets, with meaningful acquisition spending in 6 of the record's 10 years; much of what this business is was bought, at prices the record carries.
What moves the needle: Gross margin has run about 38% and operating margin about 11% through the cycle, a spread the cycle sets more than the company does. The margin is cyclical, swinging between −0.7% and 13% 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. Inventory runs near 22% of sales, so how fast it turns back into cash — and the risk of writing it down when demand softens — sits alongside the margin. Read this kind of business on the installed base and the upgrade cycle. 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 8%). By owner earnings: roughly 6% of revenue reaches owners as cash, consistently. 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 10-K →

Revenue spreads across 3 segments, the largest Networking at 59%.

Revenue by reportable segment, FY2025

Networking59%$3.4B
Lasers25%$1.4B
Materials16%$954M

By geographyNorth America61%Europe12%China12%Rest of World8%Japan7%

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
$827M	$972M	$1.2B	$1.4B	$2.4B	$3.1B	$3.3B	$5.2B	$4.7B	$5.8B	$6.6B	RevenueRevenue
38%	40%	40%	38%	33%	38%	38%	31%	31%	35%	37%	Gross marginGross mgn
19%	18%	18%	17%	17%	14%	14%	20%	18%	16%	16%	SG&A / revenueSG&A/rev
7%	10%	10%	10%	14%	11%	11%	10%	10%	10%	10%	R&D / revenueR&D/rev
$92M	$116M	$137M	$149M	$39M	$402M	$414M	($37M)	$96M	$94M	$96M	Operating incomeOp. inc.
11.1%	11.9%	11.8%	10.9%	1.7%	12.9%	12.5%	−0.7%	2.0%	1.6%	1.5%	Operating marginOp. mgn
$65M	$95M	$88M	$108M	($67M)	$298M	$235M	($259M)	($156M)	$49M	$469M	Net incomeNet inc.
27%	20%	28%	17%	—	16%	17%	—	—	57%	10%	Effective tax rateTax rate
											Cash flow & returns
$123M	$119M	$161M	$178M	$297M	$574M	$413M	$634M	$546M	$634M	$140M	Operating cash flowOp. cash
$57M	$64M	$81M	$92M	$221M	$270M	$287M	$681.7B	$559.8B	$554M	$536M	DepreciationDeprec.
($9M)	($52M)	($23M)	($43M)	$75M	($64M)	($181M)	($680.9B)	($559.2B)	($130M)	($1.0B)	Working capital & otherWC & other
$58M	$139M	$153M	$137M	$137M	$146M	$314M	$436M	$347M	$441M	$679M	CapexCapex
7.0%	14.3%	13.2%	10.1%	5.8%	4.7%	9.5%	8.5%	7.4%	7.6%	10.3%	Capex / revenueCapex/rev
$65M	$55M	$80M	$86M	$160M	$428M	$99M	$198M	$199M	$193M	($396M)	Owner earningsOwner earn.
7.8%	5.7%	6.9%	6.3%	6.7%	13.8%	3.0%	3.8%	4.2%	3.3%	−6.0%	Owner earnings marginOE mgn
$65M	($20M)	$8M	$41M	$160M	$428M	$99M	$198M	$199M	$193M	($538M)	Free cash flowFCF
7.8%	−2.0%	0.7%	3.0%	6.7%	13.8%	3.0%	3.8%	4.2%	3.3%	−8.2%	Free cash flow marginFCF mgn
$122M	$40M	$81M	$83M	$1.0B	$34M	$0	$5.5B	$0	$0	$0	AcquisitionsAcquis.
$6M	—	$50M	$2M	$2M	$0	$0	—	—	—	—	BuybacksBuybacks
8%	10%	8%	9%	—	11%	10%	-0%	1%	1%	1%	ROICROIC
8%	11%	9%	9%	-3%	9%	6%	-5%	-3%	1%	4%	Return on equityROE
8%	11%	9%	9%	−3%	9%	6%	−5%	−3%	1%	4%	Retained to equityRetained/eq
											Balance sheet
$218M	$272M	$247M	$205M	$493M	$1.6B	$2.6B	$821M	$926M	$909M	$2.4B	Cash & investmentsCash+inv
$165M	$193M	$215M	$270M	$598M	$659M	$700M	$902M	$849M	$964M	$1.2B	ReceivablesReceiv.
$175M	$204M	$248M	$296M	$620M	$696M	$903M	$1.3B	$1.3B	$1.4B	$2.1B	InventoryInvent.
$54M	$66M	$90M	$104M	$269M	$294M	$435M	$405M	$632M	$847M	$1.3B	Accounts payablePayables
$286M	$332M	$374M	$461M	$949M	$1.1B	$1.2B	$1.8B	$1.5B	$1.6B	$2.0B	Operating working capitalOper. WC
$583M	$702M	$762M	$813M	$1.8B	$3.0B	$4.3B	$3.3B	$3.7B	$3.9B	$6.4B	Current assetsCur. assets
$171M	$185M	$236M	$271M	$673M	$730M	$1.3B	$1.1B	$1.3B	$1.8B	$2.1B	Current liabilitiesCur. liab.
3.4×	3.8×	3.2×	3.0×	2.7×	4.1×	3.4×	3.0×	2.7×	2.2×	3.0×	Current ratioCurr. ratio
$234M	$250M	$271M	$320M	$1.2B	$1.3B	$1.3B	$4.5B	$4.5B	$4.5B	$4.4B	GoodwillGoodwill
$1.2B	$1.5B	$1.8B	$2.0B	$5.2B	$6.5B	$7.8B	$13.7B	$14.5B	$14.9B	$17.3B	Total assetsAssets
$235M	$342M	$439M	$467M	$2.3B	$1.4B	$2.3B	$4.3B	$4.1B	$3.7B	$3.2B	Total debtDebt
$17M	$70M	$192M	$262M	$1.8B	($217M)	($282M)	$3.5B	$3.2B	$2.8B	$776M	Net debt / (cash)Net debt
29.8×	17.0×	7.5×	6.6×	0.4×	6.7×	3.4×	-0.1×	—	—	0.3×	Interest coverageInt. cov.
$782M	$901M	$1.0B	$1.1B	$2.1B	$3.4B	$3.6B	$5.0B	$5.2B	$5.6B	$10.7B	Shareholders’ equityEquity
1.2%	1.2%	1.3%	1.6%	2.9%	2.3%	2.2%	2.9%	2.7%	2.8%	2.7%	Stock comp / revenueSBC/rev
											Per share
62.9M	64.5M	65.1M	65.8M	84.8M	115M	117M	138M	152M	155M	193M	Shares out (diluted)Shares
$13.15	$15.07	$17.79	$20.71	$28.06	$27.00	$28.47	$37.51	$31.04	$37.54	$34.19	Revenue / shareRev/sh
$1.04	$1.48	$1.35	$1.63	$-0.79	$2.59	$2.01	$-1.89	$-1.03	$0.32	$2.43	EPS (diluted)EPS
$1.03	$0.85	$1.23	$1.31	$1.89	$3.72	$0.85	$1.44	$1.31	$1.25	$-2.05	Owner earnings / shareOE/sh
$1.03	$-0.31	$0.12	$0.63	$1.89	$3.72	$0.85	$1.44	$1.31	$1.25	$-2.79	Free cash flow / shareFCF/sh
$0.92	$2.15	$2.36	$2.08	$1.61	$1.27	$2.70	$3.17	$2.29	$2.85	$3.51	Cap. spending / shareCapex/sh
$12.44	$13.96	$15.73	$17.22	$24.48	$29.61	$31.04	$36.25	$34.36	$36.47	$55.28	Book value / shareBVPS

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

	9-yr	5-yr
Revenue / share	+12.4%/yr	+6.0%/yr
Owner earnings / share	+2.1%/yr	−8.0%/yr
EPS	−12.3%/yr	—
Capital spending / share	+13.3%/yr	+12.0%/yr
Book value / share	+12.7%/yr	+8.3%/yr

The year, in the company's words

the filing →

Verbatim from the 10-K's management discussion. Each sentence is shown only because its subject, direction, and stated figures check out against the filed numbers on this page. The words are the company's; the arithmetic is the record's.

Revenue+23.4%
“Revenues increased $1,162 million, or 51%, in the communications market, with increases in datacom driven primarily by ongoing strong AI datacenter demand and growth in our telecom revenue due to higher demand in the data center interconnect and the telecom transport markets.”
✓ figure matches the filed record
Lasers+2.8%
“Lasers revenue increased $40 million year-over-year reflecting higher volumes of annealing lasers in our display capital equipment market partially offset by continued soft demand in precision manufacturing.”
✓ figure matches the filed record
Materials-6.2%
“Materials ($ in millions) Year Ended June 30, % Increase (Decrease) 2025 2024 Revenues $ 954 $ 1,017 (6) % Segment profit $ 355 $ 297 19 % Revenues for the fiscal year ended June 30, 2025 for Materials decreased 6% to $954 million, compared to revenues of $1,017 million last fiscal year. The decrease in revenues during the current fiscal year was primarily related to decreases of $71 million in the electronics market primarily due to weak automotive and Silicon Carbide end market demand and $29 million in the industrial market due to m…”
✓ figure matches the filed record

The record, charted

FY2016–2025

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

Share count

155Mpeak FY2025

ROIC

1%low FY2023

Gross margin

35%low FY2024

Net debt ÷ owner earnings

14.4×peak FY2023

Owner earnings vs. net income

Owner earningsNet income

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

$193Mowner earningsvs.$49Mnet incomelow FY2017

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 $49M of profit into $193M 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$49M

Owner earnings$193M · 3% of revenue

	FY2025	FY2024	FY2023	FY2022	FY2021
Reported net income	$49M	($156M)	($259M)	$235M	$298M
Depreciation & amortizationnon-cash charge added back	+$554M	+$559.8B	+$681.7B	+$287M	+$270M
Stock-based compensationreal costnon-cash, but a real cost	+$160M	+$126M	+$149M	+$73M	+$71M
Working capital & othertiming of cash in and out, other non-cash items	−$130M	−$559.2B	−$680.9B	−$181M	−$64M
Cash from operations	$634M	$546M	$634M	$413M	$574M
Capital expenditurecash put back in to keep running and to grow	−$441M	−$347M	−$436M	−$314M	−$146M
Owner earnings	$193M	$199M	$198M	$99M	$428M
Owner-earnings marginowner earnings ÷ revenue	3%	4%	4%	3%	14%

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 $160M), owner earnings is nearer $33M.

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 10-K · source on SEC EDGAR →

Will it survive?

Can it pay its interest? 0.3×

Does not cover its interest

Operating income $96M ÷ interest expense $287M

What this means
A full year of operating profit didn't cover the interest bill. This is the zombie zone: the business depends on refinancing, asset sales, or forbearance to service its debt.
How heavy is the debt, net of cash? $2.8B · 28.9× operating profit

Heavy net debt

Cash $909M − debt $3.7B

What this means
Netting $909M of cash and short-term investments against $3.7B of debt leaves $2.8B owed, about 28.9× a year's operating profit (38.4× 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? 118d

Long (60+ days)

DSO 61 + DIO 139 − DPO 82 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 8%

Solid through the cycle

9-yr median, range -0%–11%; 1% latest = NOPAT $48M ÷ invested capital $8.4B

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 9 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 6%

Solid through the cycle

10-yr median margin, range 3%–14%; latest $193M = operating cash $634M − maintenance capex $441M

Industry peers: median 12%

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 3% of revenue this year, a 6% median across 10 years. Treating stock comp as the real expense it is (less $160M of SBC) leaves $33M.
Are earnings backed by cash? 12.84×

Cash-backed

Cash from ops $634M ÷ net income $49M

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? 0%

Reinvests most of it

Dividends + buybacks $0 ÷ Owner Earnings $193M

What this means
Of $193M Owner Earnings, $0 (0%) went back to shareholders, $0 dividends, $0 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? 0.80×

Harvesting

Capex $441M ÷ depreciation $554M

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 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 · $5.8B

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× · 2.19×

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 · $3.7B vs $2.1B 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 · 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 Miss

Earnings +33% over the record · −247%

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 $-0.62/share (latest year $0.25), the averaged base the calculator's gate runs on, and book value is $28.85/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 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 12% → 1% (3-yr avg ends)

What this means
Through the cycle the operating margin slipped — about 12% early to 1% lately, median 11% — competition or costs are biting in.
Reinvestment, incremental ROIC −1%

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 +14%/yr

What this means
Owner earnings grew about 14% a year over the record.
Worst year 2023 · −0.7% op. margin

What this means
Operations went underwater in 2023, understand why before trusting the good years.

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.

“AI technology is complex and rapidly evolving, and may expose us to significant competitive, legal, regulatory, and other risks.”

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, and the company is using it that way.

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$6.4B

Cash & short-term investments$2.4B
Receivables$1.2B
Inventory$2.1B
Other current assets$713M

Current liabilities$2.1B

Debt due within a year$9M
Accounts payable$1.3B
Other current liabilities$761M

Current ratio3.05×all current assets ÷ what's due · Graham looked for 2×

Quick ratio2.04×stricter: inventory excluded

Cash ratio1.14×strictest: cash alone against what's due

Working capital$4.3Bthe cushion left after near-term bills

Debt due this year vs. cash$9M due · $2.4B 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+20.5%the freshest read on whether the business is still growing

Current ratio, recent quarters2.7× → 3.0×

Deeper floors

Tangible book value$3.3Bequity stripped of goodwill & intangibles

Net current asset value$174MGraham's net-net: current assets less all liabilities

Debt incl. operating leases$3.4B$231M of it operating leases

Deferred revenue$70Mcustomer 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 $3.7B of operating cash; how management split it reads as a reinvestor, most operating cash is plowed back into the business.

Reinvested$2.3B · 63%
Buybacks$59M · 2%
Retained (debt / cash)$1.3B · 36%

Returned to owners$59M
4% of the owner earnings the business produced over the span, $0 as dividends and $59M as buybacks.
Source of fundingOperating cash
Operating cash covered reinvestment and returns; over the span debt rose $3.0B and cash and short-term investments rose $2.2B.
Average price paid for buybacks$18.37
Across the years where the filing reports a share count, 0M shares were bought for $8M, about $18.37 each.
Net change in share count207.0%
The diluted count rose from 63M to 193M: issuance (stock pay, deals) outran any buybacks, so owners were diluted on net.
Dividend record—
No dividend line was reported in the filing data over the span; the record here neither confirms nor rules out a payout.
Return on what it retained33%
Of the earnings it kept rather than paid out ($396M over the span), annual owner earnings (first three years vs last three) grew $130M, so each retained $1 added about 0.33 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$7.7B51% of all assets; the premium carried on the balance sheet for businesses acquired

Against book equity79%goodwill is this share of book equity; the rest is the company’s own retained and paid-in capital

Cash spent acquiring$6.9Bover 10 years buying other businesses, against $2.3B 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.

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	James R. Anderson	$10.5M	$24.5M	$428M
2022	James R. Anderson	$10.7M	−$617k	$99M
2023	James R. Anderson	$15.4M	$12.9M	$198M
2024	James R. Anderson	$28.8M	$45.1M	$199M
2024	James R. Anderson	$101.5M	$108.4M	$199M
2025	James R. Anderson	$3.7M	$34.5M	$193M

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 ownership<1%
The stake all directors and executive officers hold together, per the 2025 proxy: skin in the game, the first thing Munger reads.
Stock-based compensation$160M
The slice of the business handed to employees in shares this year, 3% of revenue, equal to 167% 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 Coherent Corp. 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 6 tests turned up something to look into; the other 3 came back clean.

Look hereIs it less profitable than it was?3.8% vs 6.8%
The owner-earnings margin averaged 6.8% early in the record and 3.8% across the last three years, and the latest year has not recovered. Ask the filing whether that is a structural drift or a cyclical trough — price, mix, cost, or a competitor — and whether it is permanent.
Look hereDid the share count rise anyway?207.0%
Diluted shares grew 207.0% over 2016–2025, even as the company spent $59M 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?$235M → $3.2B
Debt rose from $235M to $3.2B while owner earnings went from about $67M to $197M — about 3.5 years of owner earnings in debt then, about 16 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.

And these came back clean

Did reported profit become cash?
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.

Peers, Electronic Components & Instruments

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
ROKRockwell Automation Inc.	$8.3B	43%	19.4%	30%	15%
AMEAMETEK Inc.	$7.4B	35%	23.2%	13%	19%
AVTRAvantor Inc.	$6.6B	34%	10.0%	7%	9%
STESteris	$5.9B	43%	16.1%	8%	12%
COHRCoherent Corp.	$5.8B	38%	11.0%	8%	6%
MKSIMKS Instruments	$3.9B	45%	15.6%	8%	13%
STSensata Technologies Holding plc	$3.7B	33%	15.8%	8%	12%
BRKRBruker	$3.4B	48%	13.2%	18%	7%
Group median	—	40%	15.7%	8%	12%

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 Coherent Corp. has delivered.

Coherent Corp.’s latest year shows negative owner earnings, the mark of a build-out: total capital spending outruns the cash the business throws off today. So the tool opens on the steady-state base (maintenance capex in place of the build-out spend), the cash it would earn at rest; clear the toggle below to read the latest year exactly as reported.

Today’s price $

Through the cycle, Coherent Corp. earns about $348M on its 6.0% median owner-earnings margin. This year’s 3.3% margin runs below that; the reported figure may understate a lean year. Normalize, below, values the price on that through-cycle figure rather than the latest year.

Base Normalize · through-cycle ($348M) Net of stock comp (−$180M) Steady-state · maintenance capex (($300M))

—

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→’25−7%/yr

Owner-earnings growth · ’16→’25+14%/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.

Free cash flow ($538M) on 196M shares outstanding, per the 10-Q cover, as of 2026-05-04; net debt $776M. The base opens on the steady-state figure (the latest year is negative on total capex mid-build-out); clear Steady-state to use the year as filed. Net of stock comp treats option pay as the expense it is. Capex ($679M) runs well above depreciation ($536M), so this is a build-out; Steady-state swaps total capex for maintenance (≈ depreciation), lifting the base to about ($300M), the cash it would throw off if it stopped expanding. The dials set the multiple a growth belief justifies; the price, and every dollar on this page, is yours.

Weigh COHR against another business →

The owners of COHR: the meeting and the votes →

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

Manual order: ← COGT its page in the Manual COHU →

Industry order: ← CNXN the Electronic Components & Instruments chapter COHU →