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FFIV, F5 Inc.

Communications Equipment consumer brand Serial acquirer

We sell packaged software in perpetual, subscription, and usage-based consumption models.

F5 enables businesses to continuously stay ahead of threats while delivering exceptional, secure digital experiences for their customers.

Our application delivery and security solutions are available in a range of deployment and consumption models.

Latest annual: FY2025 10-K

FFIV · F5 Inc.

The business

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

Revenue · FY2025

$3.1B

+9.7% YoY · 6% 5-yr CAGR

Vital signs · TTM, with 5-yr average

Revenue $3.2B 5-yr avg $2.8B

Gross margin 82% 5-yr avg 80%

Operating margin 24.7% 5-yr avg 19.0%

ROIC 30% 5-yr avg 21%

Owner-earnings margin 30% 5-yr avg 23%

Free cash flow margin 30% 5-yr avg 23%

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 Services (51%) and Products (49%).
Situation: Serial acquirer. Goodwill and acquired intangibles are 40% of assets, with meaningful acquisition spending in 5 of the record's 9 years; much of what this business is was bought, at prices the record carries.
What moves the needle: Gross margin has run about 81% and operating margin about 23% through the cycle, a wide spread between price and the cost of what it sells — whether that advantage is durable pricing power or a margin that can erode is the question the record is for. Stock-based pay runs about 8.4% of sales, a real and recurring claim on owners that the GAAP margin understates. 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 run high across the record (median 26%, above 15% in 9 of 9 years). Owner earnings agree: roughly 27% of revenue reaches owners as cash, consistently. Whether these returns reflect real pricing power or an accounting artifact is the judgment the 10-K is for.

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 2 lines, the largest Services at 51%.

Revenue by product line, FY2025

Services51%$1.6B
Products49%$1.5B

By geographyUnited States53%EMEA27%Asia Pacific17%Other Americas3%

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, 2017–2025

realized figures from each filing · older years to the left

2017’17	2018’18	2019’19	2020’20	2021’21	2022’22	2023’23	2024’24	2025’25	TTMTTMMar 2026
										Income statement
$2.1B	$2.2B	$2.2B	$2.4B	$2.6B	$2.7B	$2.8B	$2.8B	$3.1B	$3.2B	RevenueRevenue
83%	83%	84%	83%	81%	80%	79%	80%	81%	82%	Gross marginGross mgn
8%	7%	9%	11%	11%	10%	9%	10%	10%	11%	SG&A / revenueSG&A/rev
17%	17%	18%	19%	20%	20%	19%	17%	17%	18%	R&D / revenueR&D/rev
$564M	$591M	$518M	$392M	$394M	$404M	$473M	$659M	$766M	$795M	Operating incomeOp. inc.
27.0%	27.3%	23.1%	16.7%	15.1%	15.0%	16.8%	23.4%	24.8%	24.7%	Operating marginOp. mgn
$421M	$454M	$428M	$307M	$331M	$322M	$395M	$567M	$692M	$708M	Net incomeNet inc.
27%	25%	21%	22%	14%	16%	19%	19%	14%	16%	Effective tax rateTax rate
										Cash flow & returns
$740M	$761M	$748M	$661M	$645M	$443M	$653M	$792M	$950M	$1.0B	Operating cash flowOp. cash
$61M	$59M	$69M	$96M	$115M	$116M	$113M	$107M	$92M	$96M	DepreciationDeprec.
$83M	$90M	$89M	$56M	($45M)	($244M)	($91M)	($100M)	($67M)	($32M)	Working capital & otherWC & other
$39M	$53M	$104M	$60M	$31M	$34M	$54M	$30M	$43M	$53M	CapexCapex
1.9%	2.5%	4.6%	2.5%	1.2%	1.2%	1.9%	1.1%	1.4%	1.6%	Capex / revenueCapex/rev
$702M	$708M	$679M	$601M	$615M	$409M	$599M	$762M	$906M	$963M	Owner earningsOwner earn.
33.6%	32.7%	30.3%	25.6%	23.6%	15.2%	21.3%	27.1%	29.4%	29.9%	Owner earnings marginOE mgn
$702M	$708M	$644M	$601M	$615M	$409M	$599M	$762M	$906M	$963M	Free cash flowFCF
33.6%	32.7%	28.7%	25.6%	23.6%	15.2%	21.3%	27.1%	29.4%	29.9%	Free cash flow marginFCF mgn
$0	$0	$612M	$956M	$411M	$68M	$35M	$33M	$171M	$161M	AcquisitionsAcquis.
$600M	$600M	$201M	$100M	$500M	$500M	$350M	$501M	$502M	—	BuybacksBuybacks
74%	52%	35%	17%	16%	16%	19%	26%	29%	30%	ROICROIC
34%	35%	24%	14%	14%	13%	14%	18%	19%	19%	Return on equityROE
34%	35%	24%	14%	14%	13%	14%	18%	19%	19%	Retained to equityRetained/eq
										Balance sheet
$1.0B	$1.0B	$972M	$1.2B	$911M	$885M	$803M	$1.1B	$1.3B	$1.4B	Cash & investmentsCash+inv
$292M	$295M	$322M	$296M	$341M	$470M	$455M	$389M	$414M	$426M	ReceivablesReceiv.
$30M	$31M	$34M	$28M	$22M	$68M	$36M	$76M	$77M	$90M	InventoryInvent.
$51M	$58M	$63M	$64M	$62M	$113M	$63M	$68M	$84M	$80M	Accounts payablePayables
$271M	$268M	$294M	$260M	$300M	$425M	$427M	$398M	$408M	$436M	Operating working capitalOper. WC
$1.4B	$1.4B	$1.5B	$1.8B	$1.6B	$1.9B	$1.8B	$2.1B	$2.5B	$2.7B	Current assetsCur. assets
$935M	$954M	$1.1B	$1.3B	$1.4B	$1.8B	$1.5B	$1.5B	$1.6B	$1.7B	Current liabilitiesCur. liab.
1.5×	1.5×	1.4×	1.4×	1.2×	1.0×	1.3×	1.4×	1.6×	1.6×	Current ratioCurr. ratio
$556M	$556M	$1.1B	$1.9B	$2.2B	$2.3B	$2.3B	$2.3B	$2.4B	$2.4B	GoodwillGoodwill
$2.5B	$2.6B	$3.4B	$4.7B	$5.0B	$5.3B	$5.2B	$5.6B	$6.3B	$6.5B	Total assetsAssets
—	—	$0	$388M	$369M	$350M	$0	—	—	$0	Total debtDebt
—	—	($972M)	($822M)	($542M)	($535M)	($803M)	—	—	($1.4B)	Net debt / (cash)Net debt
$1.2B	$1.3B	$1.8B	$2.2B	$2.4B	$2.5B	$2.8B	$3.1B	$3.6B	$3.6B	Shareholders’ equityEquity
8.4%	7.3%	7.3%	8.6%	9.3%	9.2%	8.4%	7.8%	7.5%	7.5%	Stock comp / revenueSBC/rev
										Per share
64.8M	62.0M	60.5M	61.4M	62.1M	61.1M	60.3M	59.4M	58.7M	57.7M	Shares out (diluted)Shares
$32.27	$34.85	$37.09	$38.30	$41.95	$44.12	$46.68	$47.44	$52.62	$55.85	Revenue / shareRev/sh
$6.50	$7.32	$7.08	$5.01	$5.34	$5.27	$6.55	$9.55	$11.80	$12.27	EPS (diluted)EPS
$10.83	$11.41	$11.24	$9.79	$9.90	$6.69	$9.94	$12.84	$15.45	$16.67	Owner earnings / shareOE/sh
$10.83	$11.41	$10.66	$9.79	$9.90	$6.69	$9.94	$12.84	$15.45	$16.67	Free cash flow / shareFCF/sh
$0.60	$0.86	$1.71	$0.98	$0.49	$0.55	$0.90	$0.51	$0.74	$0.91	Cap. spending / shareCapex/sh
$18.98	$20.73	$29.14	$36.37	$38.03	$40.41	$46.46	$52.72	$61.21	$63.21	Book value / shareBVPS

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

	8-yr	5-yr
Revenue / share	+6.3%/yr	+6.6%/yr
Owner earnings / share	+4.5%/yr	+9.5%/yr
EPS	+7.7%/yr	+18.7%/yr
Capital spending / share	+2.7%/yr	−5.5%/yr
Book value / share	+15.8%/yr	+11.0%/yr

The record, charted

FY2017–2025

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

Share count

59Mpeak FY2017

ROIC

29%low FY2021

Gross margin

81%low FY2023

Owner earnings vs. net income

Owner earningsNet income

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

$906Mowner earningsvs.$692Mnet incomelow FY2022

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

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 $692M of profit into $906M 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$692M

Owner earnings$906M · 29% of revenue

	FY2025	FY2024	FY2023	FY2022	FY2021
Reported net income	$692M	$567M	$395M	$322M	$331M
Depreciation & amortizationnon-cash charge added back	+$92M	+$107M	+$113M	+$116M	+$115M
Stock-based compensationreal costnon-cash, but a real cost	+$231M	+$219M	+$237M	+$249M	+$243M
Working capital & othertiming of cash in and out, other non-cash items	−$67M	−$100M	−$91M	−$244M	−$45M
Cash from operations	$950M	$792M	$653M	$443M	$645M
Capital expenditurecash put back in to keep running and to grow	−$43M	−$30M	−$54M	−$34M	−$31M
Owner earnings	$906M	$762M	$599M	$409M	$615M
Owner-earnings marginowner earnings ÷ revenue	29%	27%	21%	15%	24%

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 $231M), owner earnings is nearer $675M.

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? —

No meaningful interest burden

Little or no interest expense reported

What this means
Little or no interest expense reported, the business isn't leaning on lenders to operate.
How heavy is the debt, net of cash? +$1.3B

Net cash, debt-free

Cash $1.3B − debt $0

What this means
Cash and short-term investments exceed every dollar of debt by $1.3B, on net the company owes nothing, and can act from strength when others can't. 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? 45d

Tight

DSO 49 + DIO 49 − DPO 53 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 26%

Very high (≥25%) through the cycle

9-yr median, range 16%–74%; 29% latest = NOPAT $656M ÷ invested capital $2.2B

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 9 years (it ran 29% 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 27%

High through the cycle

9-yr median margin, range 15%–34%; latest $906M = operating cash $950M − maintenance capex $43M

Industry peers: median 10%

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 29% of revenue this year, a 27% median across 9 years. Treating stock comp as the real expense it is (less $231M of SBC) leaves $675M.
Are earnings backed by cash? 1.37×

Cash-backed

Cash from ops $950M ÷ net income $692M

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? 55%

Returns about half

Dividends + buybacks $502M ÷ Owner Earnings $906M

What this means
Of $906M Owner Earnings, $502M (55%) went back to shareholders, $0 dividends, $502M buybacks. Net of $231M stock comp, the real buyback was about $271M. 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? 0.47×

Harvesting

Capex $43M ÷ depreciation $92M

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 · 3 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 · $3.1B

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 Near

Current ratio ≥ 2× · 1.56×

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 Pass

Debt ≤ working capital · $0 vs $906M 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 Pass

A profit every year (9-yr record) · no losses

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 Near

Earnings +33% over the record · +27%

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 $9.77/share (latest year $12.27), the averaged base the calculator's gate runs on, and book value is $63.67/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 9 of 9

What this means
Never lost money over the record, the earnings stability Graham insisted on.
Return on capital ≥ 15% 5 of 5 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 26% → 22% (3-yr avg ends)

In the filing’s words The filing attributes gains to higher prices, but the margin in the record has not followed — the claim outruns the result here.

What this means
The recent-years average (22%) sits below the early years (26%), but the latest year (25%) is back near the early level: a cyclical trough dragging the window down, not a one-way slide. The through-cycle median is 23% — read it across the cycle, not on the dip.
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 +2%/yr

What this means
Owner earnings grew about 2% a year over the record.
Worst year 2022 · 15.0% op. margin

What this means
Stayed profitable even in its hardest year, the resilience that survives recessions.
Share count −1.2%/yr

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

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 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.

“Similarly, as we continue building AI functionality into our offerings, we expect competition to increase in the future, from established competitors and new market entrants, as AI technologies are integrated into the markets in which we compete.”

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$2.7B

Cash & short-term investments$1.4B
Receivables$426M
Inventory$90M
Other current assets$744M

Current liabilities$1.7B

Accounts payable$80M
Other current liabilities$1.6B

Current ratio1.61×all current assets ÷ what's due · Graham looked for 2×

Quick ratio1.56×stricter: inventory excluded

Cash ratio0.86×strictest: cash alone against what's due

Working capital$1.0Bthe cushion left after near-term bills

Revenue, latest quarter vs. a year ago+11.0%the freshest read on whether the business is still growing

Current ratio, recent quarters1.4× → 1.6×

Deeper floors

Tangible book value$1.1Bequity stripped of goodwill & intangibles

Net current asset value$1.1BGraham's net-net: current assets less all liabilities

Debt incl. operating leases$260M$260M of it operating leases

Deferred revenue$2.1Bcustomer cash collected before delivery; operating float

From the company's latest filing.

How the cash was used, 2017–2025

Over the record, the business generated $6.4B of operating cash; how management split it reads as a cash returner, paying most of what it earns straight back to owners.

Reinvested$448M · 7%
Buybacks$3.9B · 60%
Retained (debt / cash)$2.1B · 33%

Returned to owners$3.9B
64% of the owner earnings the business produced over the span, $0 as dividends and $3.9B as buybacks.
Average price paid for buybacks$141.35
Across the years where the filing reports a share count, 11M shares were bought for $1.5B, about $141.35 each. Year to year the price paid ranged from $125.10 (2020) to $169.53 (2019); its heaviest year, 2017, paid $131.56 ($600M).
Net change in share count−10.9%
The diluted count fell from 65M to 58M, 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 retained—
Not read here: owner earnings are negative over the span, or the company returned nearly all its earnings rather than retaining them, so there is too little retained to measure a return on.

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$2.5B40% of all assets; the premium carried on the balance sheet for businesses acquired

Against book equity68%goodwill is this share of book equity; the rest is the company’s own retained and paid-in capital

Cash spent acquiring$2.3Bover 9 years buying other businesses, against $448M 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 year	Chief executive	Pay, as filed	“Actually paid”	Owner earnings
2021	Mr. Locoh-Donou	$11.5M	$21.8M	$615M
2022	Mr. Locoh-Donou	$12.8M	$5.5M	$409M
2023	Mr. Locoh-Donou	$10.9M	$13.8M	$599M
2024	Mr. Locoh-Donou	$18.0M	$28.7M	$762M
2025	Mr. Locoh-Donou	$23.0M	$44.5M	$906M

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.
Stock-based compensation$231M
The slice of the business handed to employees in shares this year, 7% of revenue, equal to 30% 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 F5 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 5 tests turned up something to look into; the other 4 came back clean.

Look hereAre "one-time" charges a yearly habit?5 of 9 years
Management took an impairment or write-down in 5 of the last 9 years, $66M 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.

And these came back clean

Is it less profitable than it was?
Did the share count rise anyway?
Did reported profit become cash?
Did receivables and inventory outpace sales?

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, 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, Communications Equipment

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
ANETArista Networks Inc.	$9.0B	64%	32.4%	33%	33%
JNPRJuniper Networks	$5.1B	59%	9.8%	9%	13%
NATLNCR Atleos Corporation	$4.4B	—	7.0%	10%	6%
DBDDiebold Nixdorf Incorporated	$3.8B	24%	-0.6%	-4%	7%
PEverpure Inc.	$3.7B	69%	-8.1%	-12%	12%
FFIVF5 Inc.	$3.1B	81%	23.1%	26%	27%
VYXNCR Voyix Corporation	$2.7B	25%	2.0%	1%	10%
EXTRExtreme Networks Inc.	$1.1B	56%	-0.2%	-0%	8%
Group median	—	59%	4.5%	5%	11%

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 F5 Inc. has delivered.

Today’s price $

Through the cycle, F5 Inc. earns about $836M on its 27.1% median owner-earnings margin. This year’s 29.4% margin runs in line with that. Normalize, below, values the price on that through-cycle figure rather than the latest year.

Base Normalize · through-cycle ($836M) Net of stock comp (−$243M) Steady-state · maintenance capex ($972M)

—

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 · ’17→’25+2%/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 $963M on 56M shares outstanding, per the 10-Q cover, as of 2026-04-30; net cash $1.4B. 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 ($53M) runs well above depreciation ($96M), so this is a build-out; Steady-state swaps total capex for maintenance (≈ depreciation), lifting the base to about $972M, 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 FFIV against another business →

The owners of FFIV: the meeting and the votes →

Cite: Owner Scorecard, "F5 Inc. (FFIV), the owner's record," https://ownerscorecard.com/c/FFIV, data as of 2026-07-09.

Manual order: ← FFIN its page in the Manual FG →

Industry order: ← EXTR the Communications Equipment chapter FN →