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DCH, Dauch Corporation

Auto Components capital-intensive UnprofitableDistress / turnaroundCyclical

Dauch Corporation is a premier Driveline and Metal Forming supplier serving the global automotive industry with a powertrain-agnostic product portfolio that supports electric, hybrid, and internal combustion vehicles.

No other customer represented 10% or more of consolidated net sales during these periods. 2 Business Strategy We have aligned our business strategy to build value for our key stakeholders.

We use our operating system to focus on customer satisfaction, lean production and efficient cost management, which allows us to improve quality, eliminate waste, and reduce lead time and total costs globally.

Latest annual: FY2025 10-K

DCH · Dauch Corporation

The business

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

Revenue · FY2025

$5.8B

−4.7% YoY · 4% 5-yr CAGR

Vital signs · TTM, with 5-yr average

Revenue $6.8B 5-yr avg $5.8B

Gross margin 11% 5-yr avg 12%

Operating margin 0.5% 5-yr avg 3.4%

ROIC 0% 5-yr avg 5%

Owner-earnings margin 0% 5-yr avg 4%

Free cash flow margin 0% 5-yr avg 4%

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 Driveline (70%) and Metal Forming (30%).
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. Distress / turnaround. Thin interest coverage, or operating cash burned against real debt, across the record. The balance sheet carries this situation; the debt schedule sets the clock. Cyclical. Margins collapse and recover repeatedly across the record; a single year, good or bad, misstates the through-cycle earning power.
What moves the needle: Gross margin has run about 12% and operating margin about 2.4% 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. The margin is cyclical, swinging between −8.4% and 10% 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. Read this kind of business on volume, mix and the cost of the platform. 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 5%, above 15% in 1 of 8 years). By owner earnings: roughly 3% 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 →

Driveline is 70% of revenue, with Metal Forming the other meaningful segment at 30%.

Revenue by reportable segment, FY2025

Driveline70%$4.1B
Metal Forming30%$1.8B
Other Operating0%$0

By geographyMexico37%United States37%Europe13%Asia, excluding China5%China4%South America3%

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
$3.9B	$6.3B	$7.3B	$6.5B	$4.7B	$5.2B	$5.8B	$6.1B	$6.1B	$5.8B	$6.8B	RevenueRevenue
18%	18%	16%	14%	12%	14%	12%	10%	12%	12%	11%	Gross marginGross mgn
8%	6%	5%	6%	7%	7%	6%	6%	6%	7%	6%	SG&A / revenueSG&A/rev
4%	3%	2%	2%	2%	2%	2%	3%	3%	3%	2%	R&D / revenueR&D/rev
$381M	$543M	$106M	($302M)	($396M)	$241M	$244M	$147M	$241M	$112M	$36M	Operating incomeOp. inc.
9.6%	8.7%	1.5%	−4.6%	−8.4%	4.7%	4.2%	2.4%	3.9%	1.9%	0.5%	Operating marginOp. mgn
$241M	$337M	($58M)	($485M)	($561M)	$6M	$64M	($34M)	$35M	($20M)	($127M)	Net incomeNet inc.
19%	1%	—	—	—	—	3%	—	44%	—	—	Effective tax rateTax rate
											Cash flow & returns
$408M	$647M	$772M	$560M	$455M	$538M	$449M	$396M	$455M	$412M	$291M	Operating cash flowOp. cash
$202M	$429M	$529M	$537M	$522M	$544M	$492M	$487M	$470M	$460M	$529M	DepreciationDeprec.
($56M)	($162M)	$272M	$485M	$475M	($30M)	($125M)	($71M)	($64M)	($42M)	($131M)	Working capital & otherWC & other
$223M	$478M	$525M	$433M	$216M	$181M	$171M	$195M	$248M	$257M	$291M	CapexCapex
5.6%	7.6%	7.2%	6.6%	4.6%	3.5%	3.0%	3.2%	4.0%	4.4%	4.3%	Capex / revenueCapex/rev
$185M	$169M	$247M	$126M	$239M	$357M	$278M	$202M	$207M	$155M	$500K	Owner earningsOwner earn.
4.7%	2.7%	3.4%	1.9%	5.1%	6.9%	4.8%	3.3%	3.4%	2.7%	0.0%	Owner earnings marginOE mgn
$185M	$169M	$247M	$126M	$239M	$357M	$278M	$202M	$207M	$155M	$500K	Free cash flowFCF
4.7%	2.7%	3.4%	1.9%	5.1%	6.9%	4.8%	3.3%	3.4%	2.7%	0.0%	Free cash flow marginFCF mgn
$6M	$896M	$1M	$9M	$0	$5M	$89M	$3M	$7M	$3M	$334M	AcquisitionsAcquis.
$5M	$7M	$4M	$8M	$3M	$4M	$2M	$15M	$3M	$3M	—	BuybacksBuybacks
21%	10%	—	-6%	-9%	—	8%	4%	5%	1%	0%	ROICROIC
48%	22%	-4%	-50%	-151%	1%	10%	-6%	6%	-3%	-8%	Return on equityROE
48%	22%	−4%	−50%	−151%	1%	10%	−6%	6%	−3%	−8%	Retained to equityRetained/eq
											Balance sheet
$481M	$377M	$476M	$532M	$557M	$530M	$512M	$520M	$553M	$709M	$1.0B	Cash & investmentsCash+inv
$560M	$1.0B	$967M	$815M	$793M	$763M	$820M	$819M	$709M	$733M	$1.5B	ReceivablesReceiv.
$182M	$392M	$460M	$374M	$323M	$410M	$464M	$483M	$443M	$466M	$1.0B	InventoryInvent.
$382M	$799M	$840M	$624M	$579M	$613M	$734M	$774M	$701M	$718M	$1.6B	Accounts payablePayables
$360M	$629M	$586M	$566M	$538M	$560M	$550M	$528M	$451M	$481M	$897M	Operating working capitalOper. WC
$1.3B	$1.9B	$2.0B	$1.9B	$1.9B	$1.9B	$2.0B	$2.0B	$1.9B	$3.6B	$3.9B	Current assetsCur. assets
$652M	$1.2B	$1.4B	$1.0B	$979M	$1.0B	$1.2B	$1.2B	$1.2B	$1.2B	$2.8B	Current liabilitiesCur. liab.
2.0×	1.6×	1.5×	1.8×	1.9×	1.8×	1.7×	1.7×	1.6×	2.9×	1.4×	Current ratioCurr. ratio
$154M	$1.7B	$1.1B	$699M	$186M	$184M	$182M	$182M	$172M	$174M	$649M	GoodwillGoodwill
$3.4B	$7.9B	$7.5B	$6.6B	$5.9B	$5.6B	$5.5B	$5.4B	$5.1B	$6.7B	$11.3B	Total assetsAssets
$1.4B	$4.1B	$3.9B	$3.7B	$3.5B	$3.1B	$3.0B	$2.8B	$2.7B	$4.1B	$5.3B	Total debtDebt
$935M	$3.7B	$3.4B	$3.2B	$2.9B	$2.6B	$2.5B	$2.3B	$2.1B	$3.4B	$4.2B	Net debt / (cash)Net debt
4.1×	2.8×	0.5×	-1.4×	-1.9×	1.2×	1.4×	0.7×	1.3×	0.6×	0.1×	Interest coverageInt. cov.
$504M	$1.5B	$1.5B	$978M	$371M	$458M	$627M	$605M	$563M	$640M	$1.5B	Shareholders’ equityEquity
0.5%	0.7%	0.4%	0.3%	0.4%	0.4%	0.3%	0.2%	0.2%	0.2%	0.3%	Stock comp / revenueSBC/rev
—	—	$486M	$440M	$510M	—	—	—	—	—	$510M	Goodwill written downGW imp.
											Per share
76.9M	103M	112M	112M	113M	114M	116M	117M	118M	118M	193M	Shares out (diluted)Shares
$51.34	$60.95	$65.15	$58.16	$41.65	$45.19	$50.24	$52.14	$52.04	$49.30	$35.20	Revenue / shareRev/sh
$3.13	$3.28	$-0.52	$-4.31	$-4.96	$0.05	$0.56	$-0.29	$0.30	$-0.17	$-0.66	EPS (diluted)EPS
$2.40	$1.65	$2.21	$1.12	$2.11	$3.13	$2.40	$1.73	$1.76	$1.31	$0.00	Owner earnings / shareOE/sh
$2.40	$1.65	$2.21	$1.12	$2.11	$3.13	$2.40	$1.73	$1.76	$1.31	$0.00	Free cash flow / shareFCF/sh
$2.90	$4.65	$4.70	$3.86	$1.91	$1.59	$1.48	$1.67	$2.11	$2.17	$1.50	Cap. spending / shareCapex/sh
$6.56	$14.94	$13.30	$8.71	$3.28	$4.01	$5.43	$5.19	$4.78	$5.41	$7.75	Book value / shareBVPS

The diluted share count moved ×1.63 into TTM — 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

	9-yr	5-yr
Revenue / share	−0.5%/yr	+3.4%/yr
Owner earnings / share	−6.5%/yr	−9.1%/yr
Capital spending / share	−3.2%/yr	+2.6%/yr
Book value / share	−2.1%/yr	+10.5%/yr

The record, charted

FY2016–2025

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

Share count

118Mpeak FY2025

ROIC

1%low FY2020

Gross margin

12%low FY2023

Net debt ÷ owner earnings

21.8×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.

$155Mowner earningsvs.($20M)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.

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 a $20M loss into $155M of owner earnings: more cash than the profit line showed, after the non-cash charges and the capital it put back in.

	FY2025	FY2024	FY2023	FY2022	FY2021
Reported net income	($20M)	$35M	($34M)	$64M	$6M
Depreciation & amortizationnon-cash charge added back	+$460M	+$470M	+$487M	+$492M	+$544M
Stock-based compensationreal costnon-cash, but a real cost	+$14M	+$15M	+$13M	+$18M	+$18M
Working capital & othertiming of cash in and out, other non-cash items	−$42M	−$64M	−$71M	−$125M	−$30M
Cash from operations	$412M	$455M	$396M	$449M	$538M
Capital expenditurecash put back in to keep running and to grow	−$257M	−$248M	−$195M	−$171M	−$181M
Owner earnings	$155M	$207M	$202M	$278M	$357M
Owner-earnings marginowner earnings ÷ revenue	3%	3%	3%	5%	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 $14M), owner earnings is nearer $142M.

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? 0.6×

Does not cover its interest

Operating income $112M ÷ interest expense $201M

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? $3.4B · 30.1× operating profit

Heavy net debt

Cash $709M − debt $4.1B

What this means
Netting $709M of cash and short-term investments against $4.1B of debt leaves $3.4B owed, about 30.1× a year's operating profit (36.4× 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? 28d

Tight

DSO 46 + DIO 33 − DPO 51 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 4%

Below average through the cycle

8-yr median, range -9%–21%; 1% latest = NOPAT $56M ÷ invested capital $4.0B

Industry peers: median 12%

What this means
The rate the business earns on the money tied up in it, Buffett's north star, because over time a stock tracks the ROIC beneath it. Above ~15% sustained hints at a moat; a return below the cost of capital (~8%) erodes value as a business grows rather than building it — the test Buffett weighs most. The headline is the median of the last 8 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 3%

Thin through the cycle

10-yr median margin, range 2%–7%; latest $155M = operating cash $412M − maintenance capex $257M

Industry peers: median 5%

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 3% median across 10 years. Treating stock comp as the real expense it is (less $14M of SBC) leaves $142M.
Are earnings backed by cash? $412M

Loss, but cash-generative

Net income ($20M) · cash from operations $412M

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?

Where do the earnings go? 2%

Reinvests most of it

Dividends + buybacks $3M ÷ Owner Earnings $155M

What this means
Of $155M Owner Earnings, $3M (2%) went back to shareholders, $0 dividends, $3M buybacks. But the buybacks barely exceed stock issued to employees ($14M SBC), net of dilution, little was truly returned. 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? 0.56×

Harvesting

Capex $257M ÷ depreciation $460M

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× · 2.95×

What this means
Current assets at least twice current liabilities, near-term bills covered without touching the business. Strict by design: many cash-rich modern firms run leaner and miss it, holding their cushion in longer-dated securities.
Conservative debt Miss

Debt ≤ working capital · $4.1B vs $2.4B 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) · 5 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 · −104%

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 $-0.03/share (latest year $-0.08), the averaged base the calculator's gate runs on, and book value is $2.70/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 5 of 10

What this means
Lost money in 5 year(s), look at what happened there before trusting the average.
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 7% → 3% (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 7% early to 3% lately, median 2% — competition or costs are biting in.
Reinvestment, incremental ROIC returns capital

What this means
The capital base barely grew: this business returns cash through dividends and buybacks rather than reinvesting. Judge it on the cash returned, not on compounding.
Owner earnings growth +0%/yr

What this means
Owner earnings grew about 0% a year over the record.
Worst year 2020 · −8.4% op. margin

What this means
Operations went underwater in 2020, understand why before trusting the good years.
Share count +4.9%/yr

What this means
The share count is rising, dilution works against you on a per-share basis.

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 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.

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$3.9B

Cash & short-term investments$1.0B
Receivables$1.5B
Inventory$1.0B
Other current assets$344M

Current liabilities$2.8B

Accounts payable$1.6B
Other current liabilities$1.1B

Current ratio1.40×all current assets ÷ what's due · Graham looked for 2×

Quick ratio1.04×stricter: inventory excluded

Cash ratio0.36×strictest: cash alone against what's due

Working capital$1.1Bthe cushion left after near-term bills

Revenue, latest quarter vs. a year ago+68.6%the freshest read on whether the business is still growing

Current ratio, recent quarters1.7× → 1.4×

Deeper floors

Tangible book value$479Mequity stripped of goodwill & intangibles

Net current asset value($5.9B)Graham's net-net: current assets less all liabilities

Debt incl. operating leases$5.4B$185M of it operating leases

Deferred revenue$75Mcustomer 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$10M

'27$26M

'28$286M

'29$1.3B

'30$403M

later$2.1B

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$10Mthe first rung: what must be repaid or rolled over within the year

Within two years$37Mthe near wall, the part most exposed to today’s credit conditions

Biggest single year$1.3Bin 2029the lumpiest maturity, where a refinancing, if needed, is largest

Total scheduled principal$4.1Bevery year plus what lies beyond, as the footnote totals it

Against what the business has and earns

Cash & short-term investments, Mar 31, 2026$1.0B

One year of owner earnings (FY2025)$155M

Together, against $10M due next year111.9×

Cash on hand as of Mar 31, 2026 plus a year’s owner earnings comes to $1.2B against the $10M due in the twelve months after the Dec 31, 2025 schedule: 112 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 $5.1B of operating cash; how management split it reads as a reinvestor, most operating cash is plowed back into the business.

Reinvested$2.9B · 57%
Buybacks$53M · 1%
Retained (debt / cash)$2.1B · 41%

Returned to owners$53M
2% of the owner earnings the business produced over the span, $0 as dividends and $53M as buybacks.
Source of fundingOperating cash
Operating cash covered reinvestment and returns; over the span debt rose $3.8B and cash and short-term investments rose $527M.
Average price paid for buybacks$10.52
Across the years where the filing reports a share count, 5M shares were bought for $53M, about $10.52 each. Year to year the price paid ranged from $4.67 (2025) to $23.33 (2017); its heaviest year, 2023, paid $9.19 ($15M).
Net change in share count151.4%
The diluted count rose from 77M 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.

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$550M8% of all assets; the premium carried on the balance sheet for businesses acquired

Against book equity27%goodwill is this share of book equity; the rest is the company’s own retained and paid-in capital

Cash spent acquiring$1.0Bover 10 years buying other businesses, against $2.9B of capital spent building

$1.4B written down across 3 years (2018, 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 year	Chief executive	Pay, as filed	“Actually paid”	Owner earnings
2021	Mr. Dauch	$11.2M	$14.1M	$357M
2022	Mr. Dauch	$13.4M	$9.1M	$278M
2023	Mr. Dauch	$12.2M	$13.7M	$202M
2024	Mr. Dauch	$11.1M	$6.1M	$207M
2025	Mr. Dauch	$11.5M	$13.1M	$155M

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 2026 proxy: skin in the game, the first thing Munger reads.
CEO pay ratio212:1
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$14M
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 Dauch Corporation 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.

All 5 tests turned up something to look into. A record that trips every wire is one to understand slowly.

Look hereIs it less profitable than it was?3.1% vs 3.6%
The owner-earnings margin averaged 3.6% early in the record and 3.1% 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?151.4%
Diluted shares grew 151.4% over 2016–2025, even as the company spent $53M 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?$1.4B → $5.3B
Debt rose from $1.4B to $5.3B while owner earnings went from about $200M to $188M — about 7.1 years of owner earnings in debt then, about 28 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 hereDid receivables and inventory outpace sales?19% → 37% of sales
Receivables and inventory grew from $742M to $2.5B while revenue grew 72%: working capital is climbing faster than sales (19% of revenue then, 37% now). That can mean customers paying slower, stock building up, or revenue pulled forward. The filing's cash-flow and receivables notes say which.
Look hereAre "one-time" charges a yearly habit?7 of 10 years
Management took an impairment or write-down in 7 of the last 10 years, $3.2B 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.

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 Pension & retirement, Income taxes, 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
DANDana Incorporated Common Stock	$7.5B	9%	2.6%	5%	2%
DCHDauch Corporation	$5.8B	13%	3.2%	5%	3%
LCIILCI Industries	$4.1B	23%	8.2%	12%	8%
PATKPatrick Industries Inc.	$4.0B	19%	7.4%	12%	7%
VCVisteon Corporation	$3.8B	13%	5.7%	28%	3%
GTXGarrett Motion Inc.	$3.6B	20%	12.2%	58%	8%
PHINPHINIA Inc.	$3.5B	22%	7.3%	8%	5%
MODModine Manufacturing Company	$3.2B	17%	5.4%	12%	3%
Group median	—	18%	6.5%	12%	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 Dauch Corporation has delivered.

Today’s price $

Through the cycle, Dauch Corporation earns about $198M on its 3.4% median owner-earnings margin. This year’s 2.7% 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 ($198M) Net of stock comp (−$21M) Steady-state · maintenance capex ($35M)

—

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→’25−13%/yr

Owner-earnings growth · ’16→’25+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.

Free cash flow $500K on 237M shares outstanding, per the 10-Q cover, as of 2026-05-05; net debt $4.2B. 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. Capex ($291M) runs well above depreciation ($529M), so this is a build-out; Steady-state swaps total capex for maintenance (≈ depreciation), lifting the base to about $35M, 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 DCH against another business →

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

Manual order: ← DCBG its page in the Manual DCI →

Industry order: ← DAN the Auto Components chapter DORM →