Owner Scorecard


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DBRG, DigitalBridge Group Inc.

An asset manager, paid a fee on the money it runs for other people.

Latest annual: FY2025 10-K
DBRG · DigitalBridge Group Inc.
I

The business

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

Revenue · FY2025
$94M
−84.5% YoY · −26% 5-yr CAGR
Vital signs · TTM, with 5-yr average
Revenue $121M 5-yr avg $521M
Operating margin −64.7% 5-yr avg −7.6%
Net margin 122.6% 5-yr avg 11.8%
Return on equity 7% 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.

What moves the needle
Assets under management and the fee rate on them. What decides it: net flows in or out, the market's move on the assets already there (the firm rises and falls with the indices it invests in), the drift toward cheaper passive products, and the operating leverage on a largely fixed cost base. 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?
Operating margin has been modest for a fee business (median −16%). It earns this on little capital, so return on equity has run near −5%, the leverage of a model that needs almost no plant to grow. A high return that does not fade can mark a moat, but whether the assets stay (net flows, not last year's market) is what the flow disclosures and the 10-K settle, not the multiple.

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, 2016–2025

realized figures from each filing · older years to the left
2016’162017’172018’182019’192020’202021’212022’222023’232024’242025’25TTMTTMMar 2026
Income statement
$839M$2.5B$1.2B$61M$416M$388M$695M$821M$607M$94M$121MRevenueRevenue
12.4%−23.2%−57.7%−273.7%−89.1%−9.3%17.7%32.8%18.1%−97.4%−64.7%Operating marginOp. mgn
13.7%−7.8%−44.3%n/m−642.5%−80.0%−46.3%22.6%11.6%151.0%122.6%Net marginNet mgn
$115M($198M)($520M)($1.0B)($2.7B)($310M)($322M)$185M$71M$142M$148MNet incomeNet inc.
4%0%4%4%4%Effective tax rateTax rate
Cash flow & returns
$248M$263M$234M$57M$258M$168MOwner earningsOwner earn.
4%-2%-7%-20%-107%-14%-19%10%4%7%7%Return on equityROE
−2%−8%−12%−24%−111%−14%−19%10%3%6%7%Retained to equityRetained/eq
Balance sheet
$9.8B$24.8B$22.2B$19.8B$20.2B$14.2B$11.0B$3.6B$3.5B$3.4B$3.3BTotal assetsAssets
$376M$922M$462M$1.2B$704M$1.2B$856M$345M$302M$383M$411MCash & investmentsCash+inv
$2.8B$8.4B$7.0B$5.2B$2.5B$2.1B$1.7B$1.8B$2.0B$2.1B$2.1BShareholders’ equityEquity
Per share
41.1M133M124M120M118M123M154M170M169M176M180MShares out (diluted)Shares
$20.39$19.15$9.43$0.51$3.52$3.16$4.50$4.84$3.60$0.53$0.67Revenue / shareRev/sh
$2.80$-1.49$-4.18$-8.75$-22.60$-2.52$-2.08$1.09$0.42$0.81$0.82EPS (diluted)EPS
$2.02$1.70$1.38$0.33$1.47$0.93Owner earnings / shareOE/sh
$4.40$3.62$2.50$1.79$0.90$0.00$0.01$0.04$0.04$0.04$0.04Dividends / shareDiv/sh
$67.42$63.15$56.39$43.50$21.13$17.47$10.75$10.67$11.60$11.99$11.69Book value / shareBVPS

The diluted share count moved ×3.24 into 2017 — shares issued, not a split the totals corroborate — and the per-share figures carry the counts as filed.

Share counts before 2020 are restated ×1/4 for a stock split, so per-share figures sit on one basis.

Per-share growththe realized rate an owner's share compounded
9-yr5-yr
Revenue / share−33.3%/yr−31.4%/yr
Owner earnings / share−7.7%/yr (4-yr)−7.7%/yr (4-yr)
EPS−12.9%/yr
Dividends / share−40.6%/yr−46.2%/yr
Book value / share−17.5%/yr−10.7%/yr

The record, charted

FY2016–2025

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

Share count
176Mpeak FY2025
Revenue
$94Mlow FY2019
III

Quality & stewardship

Returns, the balance sheet, capital allocation, and pay.

Owner’s Scorecard

FY2025 10-K · source on SEC EDGAR →

Is it a good business?

  • Operating margin −97.4%
    Thin for a fee business
    Operating income ($91M) ÷ revenue $94M
    Industry peers: median 22%
    What this means

    The heart of a asset manager: how much of each fee dollar survives the cost of running the business. Fees ride on assets under management, so the swing factors are net flows in or out and the market's move on the assets already there; the cost base is largely fixed, which lifts margins in a bull market and squeezes them in a bear one. A high margin held for years, through a market it does not control, is the operational mark of a real franchise.

  • Net margin 151.0%
    Wide
    Net income $142M ÷ revenue $94M
    What this means

    What reaches the owner after tax and interest. For a capital-light fee business this should be a wide share of revenue; when it is thin despite a high operating margin, debt taken on for acquisitions is usually the reason, so read it next to the balance sheet.

  • Below the cost of equity
    Net income $142M ÷ equity $2.1B
    Industry peers: median 26%
    What this means

    Because the business ties up little capital, a healthy fee stream throws off a high return on the equity behind it. Read it with the buyback record: returning capital lifts this ratio honestly, but heavy debt taken to do so can flatter it.

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 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 could significantly disrupt the markets in which we operate and subject us to increased competition, legal and regulatory risks and compliance costs, which could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations.”

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.

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$514M15% of all assets; the premium carried on the balance sheet for businesses acquired
Against book equity22%goodwill is this share of book equity; the rest is the company’s own retained and paid-in capital
Cash spent acquiring$617Mover 10 years buying other businesses, against $5M of capital spent building

$1.7B written down across 3 years (2017, 2019, 2020): goodwill the company has already conceded it overpaid for, charged against earnings. 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 yearChief executivePay, as filed“Actually paid”Owner earnings
2021Mr. Ganzi$22.5M$63.3M$248M
2022Mr. Ganzi$38.3M−$23.4M$263M
2023Mr. Ganzi$7.8M$10.6M$234M
2024Mr. Ganzi$6.0M$633k$57M
2025Mr. Ganzi$7.5M$9.9M$258M

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 ownership3.4%

    The stake all directors and executive officers hold together, per the 2026 proxy: skin in the game, the first thing Munger reads.

  • Stock-based compensation$34M

    The slice of the business handed to employees in shares this year, 36% of revenue. 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.

What an owner would ask, FY2025

read the 10-K →
  • Which reported numbers are a judgment call?
    Management names Income taxes 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, Capital Markets & Asset Management

The same industry, side by side on fee margins. 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.

CompanyRevenueOp. marginNet marginROE
HLNEHamilton Lane$759M33.2%23.8%29%
GCMGGCM Grosvenor Inc.$558M18.9%3.3%168%
CNSCohen & Steers$556M38.3%28.4%39%
RPCRidgepost Capital Inc.$297M21.9%6.6%5%
ALTIAlTi Global Inc.$255M-21.8%-46.9%-27%
ABXAbacus Global Management Inc.$235M37.0%14.9%6%
DBRGDigitalBridge Group Inc.$94M-16.2%-26.0%-5%
VALUValue Line Inc.$35M18.1%43.3%26%
Group median20.4%10.7%16%
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 DigitalBridge Group Inc. has delivered.

$
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→’25−11%/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 $168M on 182M shares outstanding, per the 10-Q cover, as of 2026-04-24; net debt $57M. 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, "DigitalBridge Group Inc. (DBRG), the owner's record," https://ownerscorecard.com/c/DBRG, data as of 2026-07-09.

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