Owner Scorecard


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CTOS, Custom Truck One Source Inc.

Trading Companies & Distributors capital-intensive Unprofitable

Custom Truck One Source Inc. are engaged in the business of providing a range of services and products to customers through rentals and sales of specialty equipment, rentals and sales of aftermarket parts and services related to the specialty equipment, and repair, maintenance, and customization services related to that equipment.

We are a specialty equipment provider to the electric utility transmission and distribution, telecommunications, rail, forestry, waste management and other infrastructure-related industries in North America.

Our core business relates to our new equipment inventory and rental fleet of specialty equipment that is utilized by service providers in infrastructure development and improvement work.

Latest annual: FY2025 10-K
CTOS · Custom Truck One Source Inc.
I

The business

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

Revenue · FY2025
$1.9B
+7.9% YoY · 45% 5-yr CAGR
Vital signs · TTM, with 5-yr average
Revenue $2.0B 5-yr avg $1.7B
Gross margin 22% 5-yr avg 22%
Operating margin 7.3% 5-yr avg 5.1%
ROIC 5% 5-yr avg 3%

The business in brief

read the 10-K →

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

Situation
Unprofitable. No sustained operating profit across the record; an earnings multiple has nothing to rest on. What the record does show is revenue, the gross-margin trajectory, and the burn against the cash on hand.
What moves the needle
Gross margin has run about 24% and operating margin about 7.0% 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 −3.6% to 18% over the years, so the cost line is where the needle moves. Inventory runs near 35% of sales, so how fast it turns back into cash — and the risk of writing it down when demand softens — sits alongside the margin. On its own account, the filing leans hardest on pricing power & competition, set against the numbers in what the filing emphasizes, below.
Is it a good business?
Return on capital has rarely cleared the cost of capital (median 4%, above 15% in 0 of 8 years). By owner earnings: roughly 11% 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.

II

The record

Ten years of arithmetic, read across the cycle.

The record, 2017–2025

realized figures from each filing · older years to the left
2017’172018’182019’192020’202021’212022’222023’232024’242025’25TTMTTMMar 2026
Income statement
$204M$246M$264M$303M$1.2B$1.6B$1.9B$1.8B$1.9B$2.0BRevenueRevenue
28%33%33%25%18%24%24%22%21%22%Gross marginGross mgn
14%13%14%15%13%13%12%13%12%12%SG&A / revenueSG&A/rev
$23M$43M$36M$17M($42M)$103M$171M$126M$125M$144MOperating incomeOp. inc.
11.5%17.5%13.6%5.7%−3.6%6.6%9.2%7.0%6.4%7.3%Operating marginOp. mgn
($27M)($16M)($27M)($21M)($182M)$39M$51M($29M)($31M)($17M)Net incomeNet inc.
Cash flow & returns
$17M$41M$19M$43M$139M$46M($31M)$122M$310M$278MOperating cash flowOp. cash
$3M$3M$77M$85M$209M$223M$219M$236M$264M$270MDepreciationDeprec.
$40M$52M($32M)($23M)$94M($229M)($314M)($97M)$69M$18MWorking capital & otherWC & other
$417K$716K$3M$874K$874KCapexCapex
0.2%0.3%1.2%0.3%0.0%Capex / revenueCapex/rev
$17M$40M$16M$42M$277MOwner earningsOwner earn.
8.2%16.4%6.0%13.9%14.0%Owner earnings marginOE mgn
$17M$40M$16M$42M$277MFree cash flowFCF
8.2%16.4%6.0%13.9%14.0%Free cash flow marginFCF mgn
$478K$2M$48M$0$1.3B$50M$0$6M$0$0AcquisitionsAcquis.
$0$0$10M$39M$29M$33MBuybacksBuybacks
6%4%2%-2%4%6%4%4%5%ROICROIC
-21%4%6%-3%-4%-2%Return on equityROE
−21%4%6%−3%−4%−2%Retained to equityRetained/eq
Balance sheet
$502K$2M$6M$3M$36M$14M$10M$4M$6M$10MCash & investmentsCash+inv
$53M$71M$61M$168M$193M$215M$216M$196M$204MReceivablesReceiv.
$11M$33M$31M$411M$597M$986M$1.0B$931M$1.0BInventoryInvent.
$176K$21M$41M$32M$91M$87M$118M$88M$88M$125MAccounts payablePayables
$43M$63M$60M$488M$703M$1.1B$1.2B$1.0B$1.1BOperating working capitalOper. WC
$609K$69M$116M$103M$657M$868M$1.3B$1.3B$1.2B$1.3BCurrent assetsCur. assets
$176K$53M$78M$71M$441M$635M$897M$1.0B$873M$973MCurrent liabilitiesCur. liab.
3.5×1.3×1.5×1.4×1.5×1.4×1.4×1.3×1.3×1.3×Current ratioCurr. ratio
$229M$238M$238M$696M$704M$704M$705M$705M$705MGoodwillGoodwill
$403M$692M$815M$768M$2.7B$2.9B$3.4B$3.5B$3.4B$3.5BTotal assetsAssets
$759M$714M$717M$1.3B$1.4B$1.5B$1.5B$1.6B$1.6BTotal debtDebt
$757M$708M$714M$1.3B$1.3B$1.5B$1.5B$1.6B$1.6BNet debt / (cash)Net debt
($144M)($159M)($12M)($31M)$859M$888M$917M$861M$809M$805MShareholders’ equityEquity
0.5%0.5%0.4%0.8%1.5%0.8%0.7%0.7%0.4%0.4%Stock comp / revenueSBC/rev
Per share
32.5M32.5M33.1M49.1M241M248M246M237M227M227MShares out (diluted)Shares
$6.27$7.58$7.99$6.17$4.84$6.35$7.59$7.61$8.57$8.75Revenue / shareRev/sh
$-0.83$-0.48$-0.82$-0.43$-0.75$0.16$0.21$-0.12$-0.14$-0.08EPS (diluted)EPS
$0.52$1.24$0.48$0.86$1.22Owner earnings / shareOE/sh
$0.52$1.24$0.48$0.86$1.22Free cash flow / shareFCF/sh
$0.01$0.02$0.09$0.02$0.00Cap. spending / shareCapex/sh
$-4.43$-4.89$-0.37$-0.63$3.56$3.59$3.73$3.63$3.56$3.55Book value / shareBVPS

Share counts before 2019 are restated ×1.5 for a stock split, so per-share figures sit on one basis.

The diluted share count moved ×1.48 into 2020 — shares issued, not a split the totals corroborate — and the per-share figures carry the counts as filed.

The diluted share count moved ×4.92 into 2021 — shares issued, not a split the totals corroborate — and the per-share figures carry the counts as filed.

Per-share growththe realized rate an owner's share compounded
8-yr5-yr
Revenue / share+4.0%/yr+6.8%/yr
Owner earnings / share+18.3%/yr (3-yr)+18.3%/yr (3-yr)
Capital spending / share+11.5%/yr (3-yr)+11.5%/yr (3-yr)

The record, charted

FY2017–2025

Each measure over its full record; the current point and the worst year marked. Share counts on the current split basis.

Share count
227Mpeak FY2022
ROIC
4%low FY2021
Gross margin
21%low FY2021
Net debt ÷ owner earnings
17.0×peak FY2019

Owner earnings vs. net income

Owner earningsNet income

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

$42Mowner earningsvs.($21M)net 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.

FY2017FY2025

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 2020 the business turned a $21M loss into $42M of owner earnings: more cash than the profit line showed, after the non-cash charges and the capital it put back in.

FY2020FY2019FY2018FY2017
Reported net income($21M)($27M)($16M)($27M)
Depreciation & amortizationnon-cash charge added back+$85M+$77M+$3M+$3M
Stock-based compensationreal costnon-cash, but a real cost+$2M+$1M+$1M+$1M
Working capital & othertiming of cash in and out, other non-cash items−$23M−$32M+$52M+$40M
Cash from operations$43M$19M$41M$17M
Capital expenditurecash put back in to keep running and to grow−$874K−$3M−$716K−$417K
Owner earnings$42M$16M$40M$17M
Owner-earnings marginowner earnings ÷ revenue14%6%16%8%

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 $2M), owner earnings is nearer $40M.

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?

  • Interest expense not tagged in the data
    What this means

    No usable interest-expense line was tagged in the filing data, but the balance sheet carries real net debt — so the interest burden here is unknown, not absent. Read the debt on the net-debt check below.

  • How heavy is the debt, net of cash? $1.6B · 13.1× operating profit
    Heavy net debt
    Cash $6M − debt $1.6B
    What this means

    Netting $6M of cash and short-term investments against $1.6B of debt leaves $1.6B owed, about 13.1× a year's operating profit (13.2× 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.

  • Long (60+ days)
    DSO 37 + DIO 222 − DPO 21 days
    What this means

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

Is it a good business?

  • Below average through the cycle
    8-yr median, range -2%–6%; 4% latest = NOPAT $99M ÷ invested capital $2.4B
    Industry peers: median 6%
    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 8 years (it ran 4% 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.

  • Solid through the cycle
    4-yr median margin, range 6%–16%; latest $309M = operating cash $310M − maintenance capex $874K
    Industry peers: median 15%
    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 16% of revenue this year, a 8% median across 4 years. Treating stock comp as the real expense it is (less $8M of SBC) leaves $301M.

  • Loss, but cash-generative
    Net income ($31M) · cash from operations $310M
    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?

  • Reinvests most of it
    Dividends + buybacks $33M ÷ Owner Earnings $309M
    What this means

    Of $309M Owner Earnings, $33M (11%) went back to shareholders, $0 dividends, $33M buybacks. Net of $8M stock comp, the real buyback was about $24M. 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? 0.00×
    Harvesting
    Capex $874K ÷ depreciation $264M
    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 · 0 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 Near
    Revenue ≥ $2B · $1.9B
    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× · 1.33×
    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 · $1.6B vs $285M 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 (9-yr record) · 7 loss years
    What this means

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

  • Dividend record Miss
    Uninterrupted dividends · none paid
    What this means

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

  • Earnings growth
    Earnings +33% over the record ·
    What this means

    Earnings were negative early in the record, a growth rate isn't meaningful.

  • Moderate price
    P/E ≤ 15 and P/E × P/B ≤ 22.5 · decided by the price
    What this means

    Graham's valuation gate, the wall he kept between a sound business and a sound investment. Three-year average earnings are $-0.01/share (latest year $-0.14), the averaged base the calculator's gate runs on, and book value is $3.56/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, 2017–2025

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

  • Profitable years 2 of 9
    What this means

    Lost money in 7 year(s), look at what happened there before trusting the average.

  • Return on capital ≥ 15% 0 of 8 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 14% → 8% (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 14% early to 8% lately, median 7% — competition or costs are biting in.

  • Reinvestment, incremental ROIC 5%
    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.

  • Owner earnings growth +0%/yr
    What this means

    Owner earnings grew about 0% a year over the record.

  • Worst year 2021 · −3.6% op. margin
    What this means

    Operations went underwater in 2021, understand why before trusting the good years.

Does AI threaten the moat?

Moderate contestability

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

In its own filing Raised, but not as a competitor

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

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

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

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

Current Position

as of the latest quarter, Mar 31, 2026

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

Current assets$1.3B
  • Cash & short-term investments$10M
  • Receivables$204M
  • Inventory$1.0B
  • Other current assets$27M
Current liabilities$973M
  • Debt due within a year$5M
  • Accounts payable$125M
  • Other current liabilities$842M
Current ratio1.30×all current assets ÷ what's due · Graham looked for 2×
Quick ratio0.25×stricter: inventory excluded
Cash ratio0.01×strictest: cash alone against what's due
Working capital$289Mthe cushion left after near-term bills
Debt due this year vs. cash$5M due · $10M 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+7.0%the freshest read on whether the business is still growing
Current ratio, recent quarters1.3× → 1.3×
Deeper floors
Tangible book value($119M)equity stripped of goodwill & intangibles
Net current asset value$1.2BGraham's net-net: current assets less all liabilities
Debt incl. operating leases$1.7B$114M of it operating leases
Deferred revenue$11Mcustomer cash collected before delivery; operating float

From the company's latest filing.

How the cash was used, 2017–2020

Over the record, the business generated $120M of operating cash; how management split it reads as a balanced allocator, splitting cash between the business, owners, and the balance sheet.

  • Reinvested$5M · 4%
  • Retained (debt / cash)$115M · 96%
  • Net change in share count597.5%

    The diluted count rose from 32M to 227M: 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.

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 9-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$931M27% 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$1.4Bover 9 years buying other businesses, against $5M 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 9-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 yearChief executivePay, as filed“Actually paid”Net income
2021$6.4M$5.4M($182M)
2022$4.3M$3.1M$39M
2023$1.9M$800k$51M
2023$1.5M$300k$51M
2024$1.1M$400k($29M)
2025Ryan McMonagle$2.6M$2.1M($31M)

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. Net income is the whole business's, as filed, for the same fiscal years. A dash under the name means the filing tags the figure without naming the officer.

  • Stock-based compensation$8M

    The slice of the business handed to employees in shares this year, 0% of revenue, equal to 7% 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 Custom Truck One Source 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 2017–2025.

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

  • Look hereDid the share count rise anyway?597.5%

    Diluted shares grew 597.5% over 2017–2020. Owners were diluted on net; each share owns less of the business than it did. Read the buyback line beside this one, not on its own.

And these came back clean
  • Is it less profitable than it was?
  • Are "one-time" charges a yearly habit?

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

What an owner would ask, FY2025

read the 10-K →
  • Which reported numbers are a judgment call?
    Management names Income taxes, Credit & receivables, 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, Trading Companies & Distributors

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
EQPTEquipmentShare.com Inc$4.4B28%6.8%6%-1%
ALLEAllegion$4.1B44%19.4%23%15%
CSGPCoStar Group Inc.$3.2B79%17.7%9%21%
FTAIFTAI Aviation Ltd.$2.5B55%-8.2%-1%-12%
CTOSCustom Truck One Source Inc.$1.9B24%7.0%4%11%
CCOClear Channel Outdoor Holdings Inc.$1.6B12.3%11%-3%
CTEVClaritev Corporation$965M9.9%-1%22%
HRIHerc Holdings Inc. Common Stock$862M95%11.2%6%31%
Group median49%10.5%6%13%
IV

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 Custom Truck One Source Inc. has delivered.

$

Through the cycle, Custom Truck One Source Inc. earns about $269M on its 13.9% median owner-earnings margin. This year’s 15.9% margin runs in line with that. Normalize, below, values the price on that through-cycle figure rather than the latest year.

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 · ’17→’20+0%/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 $277M on 227M shares outstanding, per the 10-Q cover, as of 2026-04-23; net debt $1.6B. 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.

Cite: Owner Scorecard, "Custom Truck One Source Inc. (CTOS), the owner's record," https://ownerscorecard.com/c/CTOS, data as of 2026-07-09.

Manual order: ← CTO its page in the Manual CTRA →

Industry order: ← CNM the Trading Companies & Distributors chapter DSGR →