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DFIN, Donnelley Financial Solutions, Inc.

Professional Services diversified Revenue in runoff

Revenue is led by Capital Markets Compliance and Communications Management (39%) and Capital Markets Software Solutions (30%), with 2 more segments behind.

Latest annual: FY2025 10-K

DFIN · Donnelley Financial Solutions, Inc.

The business

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

Revenue · FY2025

$767M

−1.9% YoY · −3% 5-yr CAGR

Vital signs · TTM, with 5-yr average

Revenue $771M 5-yr avg $835M

Operating margin 18.6% 5-yr avg 17.8%

Owner-earnings margin 19% 5-yr avg 12%

Free cash flow margin 19% 5-yr avg 12%

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: A diversified business; where the profit really comes from, and whether it is earned or bought, is what the segment detail settles.
Situation: Revenue in runoff. Revenue has shrunk about 3% a year across the record while operations still generate cash.
What moves the needle: Operating margin has run about 13% through the cycle, a solid margin the cost base and competition set as much as the price does. The operating margin has swung widely — from 0.4% to 22% over the years — so the through-cycle figure carries more than any single year, and the worst year more than the best. On its own account, the filing leans hardest on debt terms & refinancing, set against the numbers in what the filing emphasizes, below.
Is it a good business?: Return on capital has run in the teens (median 17%, above 15% in 5 of 8 years). Owner earnings agree: roughly 10% of revenue reaches owners as cash, consistently. Returns like these are solid but short of clear franchise economics; whether they hold is what the 10-K settles, not the multiple.

Every line is arithmetic on the company's filings, shown in full in the sections below.

Where the money comes from

read the 10-K →

Revenue spreads across 4 segments, the largest Capital Markets Compliance And Communications Management at 39%.

Revenue by reportable segment, FY2025

Capital Markets Compliance And Communications Management39%$296M
Capital Markets Software Solutions30%$230M
Investment Companies Software Solutions17%$128M
Investment Companies Compliance And Communications Management15%$112M

By geographyUnited States89%Europe4%Canada3%Asia3%Other0%

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
$984M	$1.0B	$963M	$875M	$895M	$993M	$834M	$797M	$782M	$767M	$771M	RevenueRevenue
21%	24%	27%	24%	30%	31%	32%	35%	37%	36%	36%	SG&A / revenueSG&A/rev
$105M	$96M	$121M	$79M	$4M	$219M	$145M	$110M	$137M	$141M	$144M	Operating incomeOp. inc.
10.7%	9.5%	12.6%	9.0%	0.4%	22.1%	17.4%	13.8%	17.5%	18.4%	18.6%	Operating marginOp. mgn
$59M	$10M	$74M	$38M	($26M)	$146M	$103M	$82M	$92M	$32M	$35M	Net incomeNet inc.
37%	—	28%	28%	—	26%	26%	19%	26%	25%	25%	Effective tax rateTax rate
											Cash flow & returns
$106M	$91M	$66M	$55M	$154M	$180M	$150M	$124M	$171M	$165M	$197M	Operating cash flowOp. cash
$43M	$45M	$46M	$50M	$51M	$40M	$46M	$57M	$60M	$59M	$60M	DepreciationDeprec.
$1M	$30M	($62M)	($42M)	$116M	($26M)	($18M)	($37M)	($7M)	$42M	$70M	Working capital & otherWC & other
$26M	$28M	$37M	$45M	$31M	$42M	$54M	$62M	$66M	$57M	$54M	CapexCapex
2.7%	2.8%	3.9%	5.1%	3.5%	4.3%	6.5%	7.8%	8.4%	7.4%	7.0%	Capex / revenueCapex/rev
$80M	$64M	$29M	$10M	$123M	$138M	$96M	$62M	$105M	$108M	$143M	Owner earningsOwner earn.
8.1%	6.3%	3.0%	1.1%	13.8%	13.9%	11.5%	7.8%	13.5%	14.1%	18.5%	Owner earnings marginOE mgn
$80M	$64M	$29M	$10M	$123M	$138M	$96M	$62M	$105M	$108M	$143M	Free cash flowFCF
8.1%	6.3%	3.0%	1.1%	13.8%	13.9%	11.5%	7.8%	13.5%	14.1%	18.5%	Free cash flow marginFCF mgn
$0	$0	$13M	$5M	$0	$4M	$0	$0	—	—	$0	AcquisitionsAcquis.
$0	$900K	$2M	$2M	$12M	$41M	$165M	$40M	$82M	$185M	—	BuybacksBuybacks
10%	9%	16%	10%	—	36%	23%	18%	20%	—	—	ROICROIC
53%	6%	33%	14%	-10%	39%	31%	20%	21%	9%	9%	Return on equityROE
53%	6%	33%	14%	−10%	39%	31%	20%	21%	9%	9%	Retained to equityRetained/eq
											Balance sheet
$36M	$52M	$47M	$17M	$74M	$55M	$34M	$23M	$57M	$25M	$26M	Cash & investmentsCash+inv
$156M	$165M	$173M	$161M	$174M	$199M	$164M	$152M	$138M	$143M	$202M	ReceivablesReceiv.
$24M	$23M	$12M	$11M	$5M	$6M	$8M	$5M	$4M	$6M	$6M	InventoryInvent.
$85M	$68M	$72M	$59M	$54M	$36M	$49M	$34M	$29M	$24M	$35M	Accounts payablePayables
$95M	$121M	$113M	$114M	$124M	$168M	$122M	$123M	$114M	$125M	$172M	Operating working capitalOper. WC
$330M	$270M	$249M	$211M	$267M	$280M	$228M	$209M	$233M	$211M	$261M	Current assetsCur. assets
$186M	$187M	$198M	$180M	$239M	$261M	$225M	$202M	$224M	$200M	$186M	Current liabilitiesCur. liab.
1.8×	1.4×	1.3×	1.2×	1.1×	1.1×	1.0×	1.0×	1.0×	1.1×	1.4×	Current ratioCurr. ratio
$446M	$447M	$450M	$450M	$410M	$410M	$406M	$406M	$405M	$406M	$406M	GoodwillGoodwill
$979M	$894M	$869M	$887M	$866M	$883M	$828M	$807M	$842M	$800M	$841M	Total assetsAssets
$587M	$458M	$363M	$296M	$231M	$124M	$169M	$125M	$125M	$171M	$230M	Total debtDebt
$551M	$406M	$315M	$279M	$157M	$70M	$135M	$101M	$67M	$147M	$204M	Net debt / (cash)Net debt
9.0×	2.2×	3.3×	2.1×	0.2×	8.2×	15.8×	7.0×	10.6×	10.9×	11.4×	Interest coverageInt. cov.
$111M	$149M	$226M	$269M	$248M	$377M	$330M	$402M	$436M	$379M	$377M	Shareholders’ equityEquity
0.3%	0.7%	1.0%	1.0%	1.5%	2.0%	2.3%	2.8%	3.2%	4.1%	4.1%	Stock comp / revenueSBC/rev
											Per share
32.8M	33.3M	34.0M	34.3M	33.9M	35.2M	32.3M	30.6M	30.2M	28.2M	26.3M	Shares out (diluted)Shares
$29.98	$30.18	$28.32	$25.50	$26.39	$28.22	$25.81	$26.05	$25.89	$27.20	$29.33	Revenue / shareRev/sh
$1.80	$0.29	$2.16	$1.10	$-0.76	$4.14	$3.17	$2.69	$3.06	$1.15	$1.33	EPS (diluted)EPS
$2.43	$1.91	$0.86	$0.28	$3.63	$3.91	$2.97	$2.03	$3.48	$3.82	$5.43	Owner earnings / shareOE/sh
$2.43	$1.91	$0.86	$0.28	$3.63	$3.91	$2.97	$2.03	$3.48	$3.82	$5.43	Free cash flow / shareFCF/sh
$0.80	$0.83	$1.09	$1.31	$0.92	$1.20	$1.68	$2.02	$2.18	$2.02	$2.06	Cap. spending / shareCapex/sh
$3.39	$4.49	$6.65	$7.83	$7.31	$10.71	$10.20	$13.14	$14.44	$13.45	$14.32	Book value / shareBVPS

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

	9-yr	5-yr
Revenue / share	−1.1%/yr	+0.6%/yr
Owner earnings / share	+5.1%/yr	+1.0%/yr
EPS	−4.9%/yr	—
Capital spending / share	+10.9%/yr	+17.2%/yr
Book value / share	+16.6%/yr	+13.0%/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.

Software Solutions+8.7%
“Software solutions cost of sales increased primarily due to higher product development costs of $1.4 million and a lower allocation of overhead costs.”
✓ direction matches the filed record
Print and Distribution-16.1%
“Print and distribution cost of sales decreased primarily due to lower sales volumes of $21.1 million, a lower allocation of overhead costs and cost control initiatives.”
✓ 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

28Mpeak FY2021

ROIC

20%low FY2017

Net debt ÷ owner earnings

1.4×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.

$108Mowner earningsvs.$32Mnet 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 $32M of profit into $108M 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$32M

Owner earnings$108M · 14% of revenue

	FY2025	FY2024	FY2023	FY2022	FY2021
Reported net income	$32M	$92M	$82M	$103M	$146M
Depreciation & amortizationnon-cash charge added back	+$59M	+$60M	+$57M	+$46M	+$40M
Stock-based compensationreal costnon-cash, but a real cost	+$31M	+$25M	+$23M	+$19M	+$20M
Working capital & othertiming of cash in and out, other non-cash items	+$42M	−$7M	−$37M	−$18M	−$26M
Cash from operations	$165M	$171M	$124M	$150M	$180M
Capital expenditurecash put back in to keep running and to grow	−$57M	−$66M	−$62M	−$54M	−$42M
Owner earnings	$108M	$105M	$62M	$96M	$138M
Owner-earnings marginowner earnings ÷ revenue	14%	13%	8%	12%	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 $31M), owner earnings is nearer $76M.

Maintenance capex is estimated as depreciation where a growing business invests above it; free cash flow is the figure the scorecard's free-cash margin reads.

III

Quality & stewardship

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

Owner’s Scorecard

FY2025 10-K · source on SEC EDGAR →

Will it survive?

Can it pay its interest? 10.9×

Comfortable

Operating income $141M ÷ interest expense $13M

What this means
Operating profit covers interest with the kind of margin Graham wanted for a defensive holding. Necessary, not sufficient, it says solvent, not cheap.
How heavy is the debt, net of cash? $147M · 1.0× operating profit

Modest net debt

Cash $25M − debt $171M

What this means
Netting $25M of cash and short-term investments against $171M of debt leaves $147M owed, about 1.0× a year's operating profit (1.2× 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.
How long is cash tied up? —

Not enough data

What this means
The filing data didn't include the inputs for this check.

Is it a good business?

Return on invested capital 16%

High through the cycle

8-yr median, range 9%–36%; the latest year is left out — large non-operating charges put its operating line well above pretax profit

Industry peers: median -1%

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, 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 8%

Solid through the cycle

10-yr median margin, range 1%–14%; latest $108M = operating cash $165M − maintenance capex $57M

Industry peers: median 8%

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 14% of revenue this year, a 8% median across 10 years. Treating stock comp as the real expense it is (less $31M of SBC) leaves $76M.
Are earnings backed by cash? 5.09×

Cash-backed

Cash from ops $165M ÷ net income $32M

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? 172%

Returned more than it generated

Dividends + buybacks $185M ÷ Owner Earnings $108M

What this means
The company returned more than it generated: against $108M of Owner Earnings, $185M (172%) went back to shareholders, $0 dividends, $185M buybacks — the excess came from the balance sheet or borrowing, not the year's operations. Net of $31M stock comp, the real buyback was about $154M. Sustained, that pattern draws down cash or adds debt; the net-debt line above shows where it stands.
Investing or harvesting? 0.96×

Maintaining

Capex $57M ÷ depreciation $59M

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 · 1 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 Miss

Revenue ≥ $2B · $767M

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× · 1.06×

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 · $171M vs $11M 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 Near

A profit every year (10-yr record) · 1 loss year

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 Pass

Earnings +33% over the record · +45%

What this means
At least a third more earnings than a decade ago, averaging three years at each end. Net income (not per-share), so stock splits don't distort it, buybacks and dilution show up in the share-count line instead.
Moderate price —

P/E ≤ 15 and P/E × P/B ≤ 22.5 · decided by the price

What this means
Graham's valuation gate, the wall he kept between a sound business and a sound investment. Three-year average earnings are $2.76/share (latest year $1.30), the averaged base the calculator's gate runs on, and book value is $15.18/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 9 of 10

What this means
Lost money in 1 year(s), look at what happened there before trusting the average.
Return on capital ≥ 15% 6 of 10 yrs

What this means
A moat shows up as a high return on invested capital that holds year after year, not one good vintage.
Operating margin 11% → 17% (3-yr avg ends)

In the filing’s words The record and the words agree: the margin widened and the filing attributes the gain to its own pricing, not volume alone.

What this means
Through the cycle the operating margin widened — about 11% early to 17% lately, median 13% — pricing power intact or improving.
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 +4%/yr

What this means
Owner earnings grew about 4% a year over the record.
Worst year 2020 · 0.4% op. margin

What this means
Stayed profitable even in its hardest year, the resilience that survives recessions.
Share count −1.7%/yr

What this means
The share count is shrinking, buybacks are quietly growing your slice of the business.

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.

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$261M

Cash & short-term investments$26M
Receivables$202M
Inventory$6M
Other current assets$28M

Current liabilities$186M

Debt due within a year$6M
Accounts payable$35M
Other current liabilities$145M

Current ratio1.41×all current assets ÷ what's due · Graham looked for 2×

Quick ratio1.38×stricter: inventory excluded

Cash ratio0.14×strictest: cash alone against what's due

Working capital$76Mthe cushion left after near-term bills

Debt due this year vs. cash$6M due · $26M 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+2.2%the freshest read on whether the business is still growing

Current ratio, recent quarters1.4× → 1.4×

Deeper floors

Tangible book value($29M)equity stripped of goodwill & intangibles

Net current asset value($203M)Graham's net-net: current assets less all liabilities

Debt incl. operating leases$236M$6M of it operating leases

Deferred revenue$59Mcustomer 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 $1.3B of operating cash; how management split it reads as a deleverager, a meaningful share of cash went to paying down debt.

Reinvested$448M · 36%
Buybacks$529M · 42%
Retained (debt / cash)$286M · 23%

Returned to owners$529M
65% of the owner earnings the business produced over the span, $0 as dividends and $529M as buybacks.
Source of fundingOperating cash
Operating cash covered reinvestment and returns; over the span debt fell $357M and cash and short-term investments fell $10M.
Average price paid for buybacks$44.30
Across the years where the filing reports a share count, 12M shares were bought for $524M, about $44.30 each. Year to year the price paid ranged from $10.27 (2020) to $86.14 (2024); its heaviest year, 2025, paid $51.92 ($185M).
Net change in share count−19.8%
The diluted count fell from 33M to 26M, so the buybacks outran the stock issued to staff.
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 retained42%
Of the earnings it kept rather than paid out ($81M over the span), annual owner earnings (first three years vs last three) grew $34M, so each retained $1 added about 0.42 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$406M51% of all assets; the premium carried on the balance sheet for businesses acquired

Against book equityexceeds itgoodwill alone is larger than the company’s entire book equity; stripped of the acquisition premium, there is no net book worth

Cash spent acquiring$21Mover 10 years buying other businesses, against $448M of capital spent building

$41M written down across 1 year (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	Daniel N. Leib	$7.6M	$29.6M	$138M
2022	Daniel N. Leib	$7.5M	$3.4M	$96M
2023	Daniel N. Leib	$6.8M	$16.3M	$62M
2024	Daniel N. Leib	$9.1M	$9.5M	$105M
2025	Daniel N. Leib	$8.5M	$4.9M	$108M

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 ownership5.2%
The stake all directors and executive officers hold together, per the 2026 proxy: skin in the game, the first thing Munger reads.
CEO pay ratio82:1
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$31M
The slice of the business handed to employees in shares this year, 4% of revenue, equal to 22% 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 Donnelley Financial Solutions, Inc. is a good business, the question is what would make owning it a mistake, and whether those marks are in the record. Disconfirming tests across 2016–2025.

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

Look hereDid receivables and inventory outpace sales?18% → 27% of sales
Receivables and inventory grew from $180M to $208M while revenue grew −22%: working capital is climbing faster than sales (18% of revenue then, 27% 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?8 of 10 years
Management took an impairment or write-down in 8 of the last 10 years, $118M in all. A charge taken almost every year is not one-time; it is the business — past deals coming due, and an admission the assets were worth less than what was paid. Munger's rule: when the "one-time" keeps happening, it is the business. Read it beside the goodwill the company still carries.

And these came back clean

Is it less profitable than it was?
Did the share count rise anyway?
Did debt outgrow the business?
Did reported profit become cash?

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 Revenue recognition, 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, Professional Services

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
ANDGAndersen Group Inc.	$839M	—	17.7%	—	20%
PAYOPayoneer	$813M	—	1.2%	27%	13%
DFINDonnelley Financial Solutions, Inc.	$767M	—	13.2%	17%	10%
ACVAACV Auctions Inc.	$760M	—	-19.5%	-19%	3%
XMTRXometry Inc.	$687M	38%	-20.2%	-10%	-18%
FLYWFlywire	$623M	—	-6.6%	-9%	8%
IMXIInternational Money Express Inc.	$608M	—	14.5%	40%	6%
NVEENV5 Global	$491M	—	11.5%	7%	9%
Group median	—	—	6.4%	7%	9%

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 Donnelley Financial Solutions, Inc. has delivered.

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

Today’s price $

Through the cycle, Donnelley Financial Solutions, Inc. earns about $75M on its 9.8% median owner-earnings margin. This year’s 14.1% margin runs above that; the reported figure may flatter a peak you'd be paying on. Normalize, below, values the price on that through-cycle figure rather than the latest year. It comes pre-checked here for that reason, the same rule that already normalizes a trough; clear it to price the year as filed.

Base Normalize · through-cycle ($75M) Net of stock comp (−$32M)

—

The assumptions Required return 9% Years of high growth 10 Terminal growth 2.5%

9.0% = the 4.55% 10-year Treasury (Jul 15, 2026) + 4.45 points of equity premium. The rate you require is yours to set.

Enter a price above to run it.

Implied by the price—

Owner-earnings growth · ’21→’25−2%/yr

Owner-earnings growth · ’16→’25+4%/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 $143M on 25M shares outstanding, per the 10-Q cover, as of 2026-05-01; net debt $204M. The if-converted diluted count is 26M, 5% above the shares outstanding: the dilution overhang (convertibles, options) a buyer inherits. The base opens on the through-cycle figure (the latest year sits above the record’s own median, and Graham’s averaging cuts both ways); clear Normalize to use the year as filed. Net of stock comp treats option pay as the expense it is. The dials set the multiple a growth belief justifies; the price, and every dollar on this page, is yours.

Weigh DFIN against another business →

The owners of DFIN: the meeting and the votes →

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

Manual order: ← DFH its page in the Manual DFS →

Industry order: ← CRAI the Professional Services chapter EXPO →