Share count
97Mpeak FY2018
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DLB, Dolby Laboratories
We derive the majority of our revenue from licensing audio and video technology to electronics manufacturers, and a lesser portion of our revenue by offering premium audio and video technologies to cinema exhibitors.
Dolby is synonymous with high-quality entertainment from a consumer perspective and has become critical to makers of consumer electronic devices as our technology is an important component in the creation and delivery of audio and video content.
While some of our technology represents relatively elemental functions like audio signal compression that enable playback, we also offer technology that is innovating in emerging categories including spatial audio and high contrast video.
The business
What it sells, where the money comes from, the kind of company it is.
Revenue · FY2025
$1.3B
+5.9% YoY · 3% 5-yr CAGR
Vital signs · TTM, with 5-yr average
Revenue $396M +7.1% vs yr-ago qtr
Operating margin 28.5% yr-ago 29.2%
Net income $95M yr-ago $92M
Net margin 24.1% yr-ago 25.0%
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
- Occupancy, rents, and the cost of debt. Read on funds from operations and net asset value, because GAAP depreciation distorts the earnings, and a property downturn meets a balance sheet built on leverage. 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?
- Funds from operations per share have been roughly flat (3% a year). The dividend takes 39% of FFO, and is covered. The quality and location of the properties, the lease terms and occupancy, and the cost of the debt are what the 10-K settles, and no single ratio captures them.
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 →63% of revenue comes from outside the United States.
Revenue by geography, FY2025
- International63%$852M
- United States37%$497M
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 | |||||||||||
| $1.0B | $1.1B | $1.1B | $1.2B | $1.2B | $1.3B | $1.3B | $1.3B | $1.3B | $1.3B | $1.4B | RevenueRevenue |
| $186M | $206M | $42M | $255M | $231M | $310M | $184M | $201M | $262M | $255M | $244M | Net incomeNet inc. |
| Cash flow & returns | |||||||||||
| $271M | $291M | $123M | $340M | $322M | $392M | $273M | $283M | $337M | $343M | $336M | Funds from operationsFFO |
| Balance sheet | |||||||||||
| 18% | 20% | 54% | 23% | 27% | 23% | 37% | 37% | 34% | 37% | 39% | Dividend payout (FFO)Payout |
| $2.3B | $2.5B | $2.9B | $2.8B | $2.9B | $3.1B | $2.7B | $3.0B | $3.1B | $3.2B | $3.2B | Total assetsAssets |
| 1854.4× | 1945.9× | 926.8× | 1512.2× | 1176.0× | 719.0× | 524.4× | — | — | — | 841.4× | Interest coverageInt. cov. |
| $2.0B | $2.1B | $2.4B | $2.3B | $2.4B | $2.6B | $2.2B | $2.4B | $2.5B | $2.6B | $2.6B | Shareholders’ equityEquity |
| Per share | |||||||||||
| 102M | 103M | 107M | 105M | 103M | 105M | 102M | 97.7M | 97.3M | 97.5M | 96.3M | Shares out (diluted)Shares |
| $2.65 | $2.82 | $1.15 | $3.25 | $3.13 | $3.75 | $2.67 | $2.90 | $3.47 | $3.52 | $3.49 | FFO / shareFFO/sh |
| $0.47 | $0.55 | $0.62 | $0.74 | $0.86 | $0.85 | $0.98 | $1.06 | $1.18 | $1.30 | $1.37 | Dividends / shareDiv/sh |
| $19.24 | $20.69 | $22.10 | $22.06 | $23.63 | $24.83 | $22.03 | $24.10 | $25.45 | $26.90 | $27.19 | Book value / shareBVPS |
Per-share growththe realized rate an owner's share compounded
| 9-yr | 5-yr | |
|---|---|---|
| Revenue / share | +3.7%/yr | +4.2%/yr |
| Owner earnings / share | +6.5%/yr | +10.7%/yr |
| EPS | +4.1%/yr | +3.1%/yr |
| Dividends / share | +11.9%/yr | +8.6%/yr |
| Capital spending / share | −10.2%/yr | −10.4%/yr |
| Book value / share | +3.8%/yr | +2.6%/yr |
The record, charted
FY2016–2025Each measure over its full record; the current point and the worst year marked.
Revenue
$1.3Blow FY2016
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?
- about $3.52 per shareNet income $255M + depreciation $88M
What this means
GAAP net income with property depreciation added back, because the buildings a REIT charges against earnings usually hold or grow their value. This, not net income, is what a REIT is actually priced on. It is an approximation here: where a filing reports gains on property sales, we remove them, the way the NAREIT definition does.
- Lightly coveredDividends $127M ÷ FFO $343MIndustry peers: median 44%
What this means
A REIT must distribute most of its taxable income, so a high payout is normal and the question is whether FFO covers it. Above 100%, the trust is funding the dividend with debt or asset sales, and a cut usually follows.
Is it sound?
- Not cleanly capturedIndustry peers: median 46%
What this means
This REIT tags its borrowings in a way the pipeline could not fully total, so we decline to show a leverage figure rather than a misleadingly low one. The debt schedule in the 10-K is where to read its true leverage.
- Interest coverage (EBITDA) 895.4×Strong(operating income + depreciation) ÷ interest $394KIndustry peers: median 3.8×
What this means
How many times the property cash earnings cover the interest bill. Comfortable coverage is what lets a REIT refinance through a tight credit market instead of being forced to sell into one.
Does AI threaten the moat?
Low contestabilityThe moat is physical, regulated or balance-sheet-funded, the kind AI cuts costs within but does not contest.
In its own filing Named as a competitive risk
Its FY2025 10-K names artificial intelligence as a competitive threat.
“For example, disruptive technologies such as AI/ML may significantly alter the market for our products in unpredictable ways and reduce customer demand.”
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 27, 2026Can 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$1.4B
- Cash & short-term investments$595M
- Receivables$391M
- Inventory$32M
- Other current assets$397M
Current liabilities$475M
- Accounts payable$21M
- Other current liabilities$454M
Current ratio2.98×all current assets ÷ what's due · Graham looked for 2×
Quick ratio2.91×stricter: inventory excluded
Cash ratio1.25×strictest: cash alone against what's due
Working capital$940Mthe cushion left after near-term bills
Revenue, latest quarter vs. a year ago+7.1%the freshest read on whether the business is still growing
Current ratio, recent quarters4.1× → 3.0×
Deeper floors
Tangible book value$1.7Bequity stripped of goodwill & intangibles
Net current asset value$792MGraham's net-net: current assets less all liabilities
Debt incl. operating leases$50M$50M of it operating leases
Deferred revenue$63Mcustomer cash collected before delivery; operating float
From the company's latest filing.
Acquisitions & goodwill
from the balance sheet & the 10-year cash-flow recordGoodwill 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$927M29% of all assets; the premium carried on the balance sheet for businesses acquired
Against book equity20%goodwill is this share of book equity; the rest is the company’s own retained and paid-in capital
Cash spent acquiring$595Mover 10 years buying other businesses, against $635M of capital spent building
None written down over the record; the goodwill is still carried at full cost. That is the deals holding their value on the books so far; whether they keep doing so is the test an owner watches, since the write-down, when it comes, is the admission the price was too high.
Goodwill, acquired intangibles and equity from the latest balance sheet; acquisition spend and write-downs summed across the 10-year record, from the company's own filings.
Management, ownership & pay
read the proxy →From the proxy: how much of the business the people running it own, and how they are paid, beside what the business earned for its owners in the same years.
| Fiscal year | Chief executive | Pay, as filed | “Actually paid” | Owner earnings |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2021 | Kevin Yeaman | $9.6M | $23.6M | $393M |
| 2022 | Kevin Yeaman | $9.4M | $28k | $271M |
| 2023 | Kevin Yeaman | $9.5M | $13.7M | $337M |
| 2024 | Kevin Yeaman | $9.7M | $5.9M | $297M |
| 2025 | Kevin Yeaman | $10.2M | $8.7M | $436M |
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 ownership3.7%
The stake all directors and executive officers hold together, per the 2025 proxy: skin in the game, the first thing Munger reads.
- Stock-based compensation$129M
The slice of the business handed to employees in shares this year, 10% of revenue, equal to 49% 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.
What an owner would ask, FY2025
read the 10-K →- Which reported numbers are a judgment call?Management names Revenue recognition, Income taxes, Acquisitions, Stock compensation 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 the REIT lens. 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 | FFO margin | FFO / assets | Payout (FFO) | Debt / assets |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| PEBPebblebrook Hotel Trust | $1.5B | 13% | 2.7% | 28% | 39% |
| HHHHoward Hughes Holdings Inc. | $1.5B | 19% | 2.9% | — | 55% |
| APLEApple Hospitality REIT | $1.4B | 27% | 7.1% | 69% | 29% |
| RLJRLJ Lodging Trust | $1.3B | 19% | 4.8% | 44% | 46% |
| DLBDolby Laboratories | $1.3B | 26% | 10.9% | 31% | — |
| FRTFederal Realty Investment Trust | $1.3B | 51% | 7.3% | — | 53% |
| OHIOmega Healthcare | $1.2B | 59% | 6.1% | 103% | 53% |
| IDCCInterDigital Inc. | $834M | 45% | 10.8% | 22% | 24% |
| Group median | — | 27% | 6.6% | 37% | — |
The price
What a price has to assume.
What the price implies
price / FFOA REIT is priced on a multiple of its funds from operations (FFO), the cash it earns once the depreciation on its buildings is added back. Type today’s price; we show the multiple you would pay and the income and growth it implies.
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The assumptions
FFO / share, delivered1%/yr’20→’25
The justified multiple is 1 ÷ (required return − growth), a perpetuity on FFO. At an 8% required return and 3% growth, a REIT is worth about 20× FFO.
Enter a price above to run it.
Price / FFO—
Justified by growth—
Dividend yield—
A dated snapshot of the price you typed, the assumptions you set, and what the page showed for them. A snapshot is never edited after it is saved. Your notebook is yours alone — the commitment states what is stored and what we will never do.
FFO about $3.49 per share on 95M shares. The dials set the multiple they justify; your price sets the multiple you are paying. FFO here adds back depreciation and removes property-sale gains, the NAREIT method; it does not net out maintenance capex (AFFO), occupancy or lease terms, which the 10-K does.
Cite: Owner Scorecard, "Dolby Laboratories (DLB), the owner's record," https://ownerscorecard.com/c/DLB, data as of 2026-07-09.
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