ROIC
4%low FY2022
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FWONA, Liberty Media Corporation
Liberty Media Corporation, through its subsidiaries, is primarily engaged in the motorsport and live entertainment industries with events held worldwide and operations primarily headquartered in the United Kingdom and Spain.
The business
What it sells, where the money comes from, the kind of company it is.
Revenue · FY2025
$4.5B
+22.7% YoY · −14% 5-yr CAGR
Vital signs · TTM, with 5-yr average
Revenue $4.7B 5-yr avg $5.3B
Gross margin 74%
Revenue $711M +59.1% vs yr-ago qtr
Operating margin 9.0% yr-ago −15.0%
Net income $53M yr-ago $5M
Net margin 7.5% yr-ago 1.1%
The business in brief
read the 10-K →What this business is and what moves its needle, from its own SEC filings.
- Situation
- Cyclical. Margins collapse and recover repeatedly across the record; a single year, good or bad, misstates the through-cycle earning power. Serial acquirer. Goodwill and acquired intangibles are 79% of assets, with meaningful acquisition spending in 5 of the record's 10 years; much of what this business is was bought, at prices the record carries.
- 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 margin is cyclical, swinging between 1.9% and 33% 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. The cash cycle has run negative through the cycle (a median of −357 days): the operation is paid before it pays, so working capital releases cash as the business grows rather than tying it up. 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 4%, above 15% in 0 of 5 years). By owner earnings: roughly 18% of revenue reaches owners as cash, consistently, and customers and suppliers fund the business through negative working capital. 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 →92% of revenue comes from outside the United States.
Revenue by geography, FY2025
- United Kingdom84%$3.8B
- United States8%$378M
- Spain7%$310M
- Other0%$12M
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 | |||||||||||
| $5.3B | $7.6B | $8.0B | $10.3B | $9.4B | $11.4B | $3.2B | $3.6B | $3.7B | $4.5B | $4.7B | RevenueRevenue |
| 17% | 15% | 15% | 18% | 19% | 17% | 12% | 18% | 12% | 11% | 11% | SG&A / revenueSG&A/rev |
| $1.7B | $1.4B | $1.5B | $1.5B | $177M | $2.0B | $145M | $266M | $287M | $577M | $708M | Operating incomeOp. inc. |
| 32.9% | 18.4% | 18.8% | 14.3% | 1.9% | 17.3% | 4.6% | 7.4% | 7.9% | 12.9% | 14.9% | Operating marginOp. mgn |
| $680M | $1.4B | $531M | $106M | ($1.4B) | $398M | $1.8B | $761M | ($2.1B) | $555M | $607M | Net incomeNet inc. |
| 42% | — | 25% | — | — | 10% | — | 3% | — | 20% | 22% | Effective tax rateTax rate |
| Cash flow & returns | |||||||||||
| $2.2B | $1.7B | $2.2B | $2.3B | $1.7B | $2.4B | $2.5B | $2.5B | $567M | $908M | $874M | Operating cash flowOp. cash |
| $354M | $824M | $905M | $1.1B | $1.1B | $1.1B | $433M | $406M | $352M | $393M | $428M | DepreciationDeprec. |
| $987M | ($676M) | $528M | $834M | $1.8B | $711M | $270M | $1.3B | $2.2B | ($61M) | ($185M) | Working capital & otherWC & other |
| $568M | $517M | $403M | $510M | $452M | $440M | $309M | $461M | $75M | $119M | $106M | CapexCapex |
| 10.8% | 6.8% | 5.0% | 5.0% | 4.8% | 3.9% | 9.8% | 12.9% | 2.1% | 2.7% | 2.2% | Capex / revenueCapex/rev |
| $1.6B | $1.2B | $1.8B | $1.8B | $1.3B | $2.0B | $2.2B | $2.0B | $492M | $789M | $768M | Owner earningsOwner earn. |
| 30.4% | 16.0% | 21.8% | 17.5% | 13.6% | 17.5% | 70.8% | 56.1% | 13.5% | 17.6% | 16.2% | Owner earnings marginOE mgn |
| $1.6B | $1.2B | $1.8B | $1.8B | $1.3B | $2.0B | $2.2B | $2.0B | $492M | $789M | $768M | Free cash flowFCF |
| 30.4% | 16.0% | 21.8% | 17.5% | 13.6% | 17.5% | 70.8% | 56.1% | 13.5% | 17.6% | 16.2% | Free cash flow marginFCF mgn |
| — | $1.8B | $2M | $0 | — | $14M | $136M | — | $205M | $3.3B | $3.3B | AcquisitionsAcquis. |
| — | — | $466M | $443M | $318M | $555M | $37M | — | — | — | — | BuybacksBuybacks |
| 5% | — | 4% | — | — | — | 0% | 1% | — | 4% | 5% | ROICROIC |
| 6% | 8% | 3% | 1% | -9% | 3% | 11% | 5% | -29% | 7% | 8% | Return on equityROE |
| 6% | 8% | 3% | 1% | −9% | 3% | 11% | 5% | −29% | 7% | 8% | Retained to equityRetained/eq |
| Balance sheet | |||||||||||
| $1.9B | $2.1B | $358M | $1.2B | $2.8B | $2.8B | $1.9B | $1.4B | $2.6B | $1.1B | $2.8B | Cash & investmentsCash+inv |
| $240M | $358M | $364M | $767M | $823M | $828M | $837M | $123M | $114M | $115M | $262M | ReceivablesReceiv. |
| $985M | $1.3B | $1.1B | $1.6B | $1.6B | $1.8B | $1.9B | $474M | $649M | $575M | $524M | Accounts payablePayables |
| ($745M) | ($892M) | ($752M) | ($854M) | ($760M) | ($1.0B) | ($1.0B) | ($351M) | ($535M) | ($460M) | ($262M) | Operating working capitalOper. WC |
| $1.0B | $1.7B | $1.1B | $2.4B | $4.0B | $4.8B | $3.9B | $3.4B | $3.3B | $1.4B | $2.0B | Current assetsCur. assets |
| $2.9B | $4.0B | $3.2B | $3.9B | $4.5B | $6.6B | $5.4B | $4.7B | $1.1B | $939M | $1.5B | Current liabilitiesCur. liab. |
| 0.4× | 0.4× | 0.3× | 0.6× | 0.9× | 0.7× | 0.7× | 0.7× | 3.0× | 1.5× | 1.3× | Current ratioCurr. ratio |
| $14.3B | $18.4B | $18.4B | $19.9B | $19.2B | $19.2B | $4.1B | $4.0B | $4.1B | $7.0B | $7.0B | GoodwillGoodwill |
| $31.4B | $42.0B | $40.8B | $44.2B | $44.0B | $44.4B | $42.5B | $41.3B | $13.0B | $15.4B | $15.9B | Total assetsAssets |
| $8.0B | $14.0B | $13.4B | $15.5B | $17.4B | $18.6B | $16.6B | $4.2B | $3.0B | $5.1B | $5.0B | Total debtDebt |
| $6.1B | $11.8B | $13.0B | $14.3B | $14.6B | $15.8B | $14.7B | $2.8B | $361M | $4.0B | $2.2B | Net debt / (cash)Net debt |
| 4.8× | 2.4× | 2.5× | 2.2× | 0.3× | 3.1× | 0.2× | 0.3× | 1.4× | 2.3× | 2.6× | Interest coverageInt. cov. |
| $11.8B | $16.9B | $16.6B | $16.3B | $15.1B | $14.7B | $16.0B | $16.4B | $7.0B | $7.8B | $7.7B | Shareholders’ equityEquity |
| 2.8% | 3.0% | 2.4% | 3.0% | 2.8% | 2.2% | 0.9% | 0.8% | 0.8% | 0.5% | 0.5% | Stock comp / revenueSBC/rev |
| — | — | — | — | $956M | — | — | — | $73M | — | $73M | Goodwill written downGW imp. |
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.
- Revenue+22.7%
“Our consolidated revenue increased $829 million for the year ended December 31, 2025, as compared to the prior year, driven by increases in Formula 1 revenue and revenue from MotoGP, which was acquired in July 2025.”
✓ figure matches the filed record - Operating income+101.0%
“Our consolidated operating income increased $290 million for the year ended December 31, 2025, as compared to the prior year, driven by an increase in Formula 1’s operating income, a decrease in QuintEvents’ operating loss, largely driven by the goodwill impairment recorded during the year ended December 31, 2024, disclosed below, and the acquisition of MotoGP in July 2025.”
✓ figure matches the filed record
The record, charted
FY2016–2025Each measure over its full record; the current point and the worst year marked.
Net debt ÷ owner earnings
5.1×peak FY2020
Owner earnings vs. net income
Owner earningsNet incomeThe accountant's number, and the cash an owner can take; the gap is the tell.
$789Mowner earningsvs.$555Mnet incomelow FY2024
Where the cash went
ReinvestBuybacksDividendsAcquisitionsRetainedBeyond op. cashEach 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
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 $555M of profit into $789M 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 | $555M | ($2.1B) | $761M | $1.8B | $398M |
| Depreciation & amortizationnon-cash charge added back | +$393M | +$352M | +$406M | +$433M | +$1.1B |
| Stock-based compensationreal costnon-cash, but a real cost | +$21M | +$30M | +$27M | +$28M | +$256M |
| Working capital & othertiming of cash in and out, other non-cash items | −$61M | +$2.2B | +$1.3B | +$270M | +$711M |
| Cash from operations | $908M | $567M | $2.5B | $2.5B | $2.4B |
| Capital expenditurecash put back in to keep running and to grow | −$119M | −$75M | −$461M | −$309M | −$440M |
| Owner earnings | $789M | $492M | $2.0B | $2.2B | $2.0B |
| Owner-earnings marginowner earnings ÷ revenue | 18% | 13% | 56% | 71% | 18% |
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 $21M), owner earnings is nearer $768M.
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.
Quality & stewardship
Returns, the balance sheet, capital allocation, and pay.
Owner’s Scorecard
FY2025 10-K · source on SEC EDGAR →
Will it survive?
- AdequateOperating income $577M ÷ interest expense $249M
What this means
Comfortable in a normal year, but below the margin of safety Graham looked for. Worth checking how stable the coverage has been across a full cycle.
- How heavy is the debt, net of cash? $4.0B · 7.0× operating profitHeavy net debtCash $1.1B + ST investments $15M − debt $5.1B
What this means
Netting $1.1B of cash and short-term investments against $5.1B of debt leaves $4.0B owed, about 7.0× a year's operating profit (8.8× on the gross debt, before the cash). It also holds $1.1B in longer-dated marketable securities; counting those, it sits at $2.9B of net debt. Net debt is the leverage figure that matters: the cash is already set against the debt. Strategic or illiquid investments aren't counted here.
- Negative, funded by othersDSO 9 + DIO 0 − DPO 172 days
What this means
Days cash is tied up between paying suppliers and collecting from customers. A negative cycle is a quiet moat: suppliers and customers fund the operation (Buffett's “float”), the company grows on other people's money. (Little or no inventory, a services / asset-light model, so the inventory leg is ~0.)
Is it a good business?
- Below average through the cycle5-yr median, range 0%–5%; 4% latest = NOPAT $463M ÷ invested capital $11.8BIndustry peers: median 11%
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 5 years (it ran 4% 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.
- High through the cycle10-yr median margin, range 13%–71%; latest $789M = operating cash $908M − maintenance capex $119MIndustry peers: median 15%
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 18% of revenue this year, a 18% median across 10 years. Treating stock comp as the real expense it is (less $21M of SBC) leaves $768M.
- Cash-backedCash from ops $908M ÷ net income $555M
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?
- Reinvests most of itDividends + buybacks $37M ÷ Owner Earnings $789M
What this means
Of $789M Owner Earnings, $37M (5%) went back to shareholders, $0 dividends, $37M buybacks. Net of $21M stock comp, the real buyback was about $16M. 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? 0.30×HarvestingCapex $119M ÷ depreciation $393M
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 PassRevenue ≥ $2B · $4.5B
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 MissCurrent ratio ≥ 2× · 1.46×
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 MissDebt ≤ working capital · $5.1B vs $434M 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 MissA profit every year (10-yr record) · 2 loss years
What this means
Graham wanted earnings in each of the past ten years, the stability a defensive owner leans on.
- Dividend record MissUninterrupted 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 MissEarnings +33% over the record · −129%
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 $-0.99/share (latest year $2.21), the averaged base the calculator's gate runs on, and book value is $30.95/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 8 of 10
What this means
Lost money in 2 year(s), look at what happened there before trusting the average.
- Return on capital ≥ 15% 0 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 23% → 9% (3-yr avg ends)
In the filing’s words Input costs rose and the filing says it could not fully pass them on — which is where this margin compressed.
What this means
Through the cycle the operating margin slipped — about 23% early to 9% lately, median 13% — 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 −8%/yr
What this means
Owner earnings shrank about 8% a year over the record.
- Worst year 2020 · 1.9% op. margin
What this means
Stayed profitable even in its hardest year, the resilience that survives recessions.
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 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.
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.
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, 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$2.0B
- Cash & short-term investments$1.4B
- Receivables$262M
- Other current assets$302M
Current liabilities$1.5B
- Debt due within a year$53M
- Accounts payable$524M
- Other current liabilities$876M
Current ratio1.35×all current assets ÷ what's due · Graham looked for 2×
Quick ratio1.35×stricter: inventory excluded
Cash ratio0.96×strictest: cash alone against what's due
Working capital$504Mthe cushion left after near-term bills
Debt due this year vs. cash$53M due · $1.4B 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+59.1%the freshest read on whether the business is still growing
Current ratio, recent quarters0.8× → 1.3×
Deeper floors
Tangible book value($4.2B)equity stripped of goodwill & intangibles
Net current asset value($5.5B)Graham's net-net: current assets less all liabilities
Debt incl. operating leases$5.4B$376M of it operating leases
Deferred revenue$989Mcustomer 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.
Bars scaled to the largest single year.
Due in the next 12 months$52Mthe first rung: what must be repaid or rolled over within the year
Within two years$610Mthe near wall, the part most exposed to today’s credit conditions
Biggest single year$643Min 2029the lumpiest maturity, where a refinancing, if needed, is largest
Due over the next five years$1.5Bthe near slice; the balance sheet carries $5.1B of debt in all
Against what the business has and earns
Cash & short-term investments, Mar 31, 2026$1.4B
One year of owner earnings (FY2025)$789M
Together, against $52M due next year42.0×
Cash on hand as of Mar 31, 2026 plus a year’s owner earnings comes to $2.2B against the $52M due in the twelve months after the Dec 31, 2025 schedule: 42 times it.
Maturity schedule extracted from the company’s Dec 31, 2025 annual report and reconciled to the balance-sheet debt.
How the cash was used, 2016–2025
Over the record, the business generated $19.0B of operating cash; how management split it reads as a balanced allocator, splitting cash between the business, owners, and the balance sheet.
- Reinvested$3.9B · 20%
- Buybacks$1.8B · 10%
- Retained (debt / cash)$13.4B · 70%
- Returned to owners$1.8B
12% of the owner earnings the business produced over the span, $0 as dividends and $1.8B as buybacks.
- Source of fundingOperating cash
Operating cash covered reinvestment and returns; over the span debt fell $3.0B and cash and short-term investments rose $831M.
- Average price paid for buybacks—
Buybacks ran $1.8B over the span, but the filings don't tag the share count needed to deduce the average price paid.
- Net change in share count—
No continuous share count across the span.
- 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−48%
Of the earnings it kept rather than paid out ($897M over the span), annual owner earnings (first three years vs last three) fell $429M, so each retained $1 gave back about 0.48 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 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$12.1B79% of all assets; the premium carried on the balance sheet for businesses acquired
Against book equity91%goodwill is this share of book equity; the rest is the company’s own retained and paid-in capital
Cash spent acquiring$5.7Bover 10 years buying other businesses, against $3.9B of capital spent building
$1.0B written down across 2 years (2020, 2024): goodwill the company has already conceded it overpaid for, charged against earnings. That is roughly 18% of the cash it put into acquisitions over the span. 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 | Pay, as filed | “Actually paid” | Owner earnings |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2021 | $21.6M | $48.4M | $2.0B |
| 2022 | $22.4M | $8.0M | $2.2B |
| 2023 | $28.7M | $34.3M | $2.0B |
| 2024 | $24.3M | $43.6M | $492M |
| 2025 | $39.3M | $32.5M | $789M |
| 2025 | $1.4M | $1.4M | $789M |
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.
- Stock-based compensation$21M
The slice of the business handed to employees in shares this year, 0% of revenue, equal to 4% 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 Liberty Media 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.
None of the 5 tests turned up a mark; each came back clean. A clean panel says only that these particular ways of being wrong are not written into the record.
Each test came back clean
- Is it less profitable than it was?
- Did debt outgrow the business?
- Did reported profit become cash?
- Did receivables and inventory outpace sales?
- Are "one-time" charges a yearly habit?
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 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, Media & Broadcasting
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| FOXFox Corporation | $16.3B | — | 20.9% | 13% | 15% |
| SIRISiriusXM Holdings Inc. | $8.6B | 100% | 21.2% | 17% | 20% |
| VSNTVersant Media Group, Inc. | $6.7B | — | 26.1% | 13% | 31% |
| NXSTNexstar Media Group Inc. | $4.9B | — | 24.3% | 9% | 22% |
| FWONALiberty Media Corporation | $4.5B | 73% | 13.6% | 4% | 18% |
| IHRTiHeartMedia Inc. | $3.9B | — | 2.9% | -1% | 2% |
| SBGISinclair Inc. | $3.2B | — | 5.5% | 11% | 4% |
| GTNGray Media Inc. | $3.1B | — | 25.1% | 8% | 15% |
| Group median | — | — | 21.1% | 10% | 16% |
The price
What a price has to assume.
What the price implies
reverse-DCFType today's close and see the owner-earnings growth you'd have to believe to justify it, beside what Liberty Media Corporation has delivered.
$
Base
—
The assumptions
9.0% = the 4.55% 10-year Treasury (Jul 15, 2026) + 4.45 points of equity premium. The rate you require is yours to set.
Enter a price above to run it.
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.
Implied by the price—
Owner-earnings growth · ’21→’25−26%/yr
Owner-earnings growth · ’16→’25−8%/yr
Owner-earnings growth · ’16→’25−8%/yr
Owner-earnings yield—
What a growth belief costs, in multiples
The growth each return requires, at your price
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 yield—
High-grade bond yield—
Margin over the bond—
Owner earnings $768M on 251M shares outstanding (a weighted cover-text, the only count this filer tags); net debt $2.2B. The if-converted diluted count is 337M, 34% above the shares outstanding: the dilution overhang (convertibles, options) a buyer inherits. The base is the latest year by default; Normalize values it on the through-cycle median owner-earnings margin (to avoid paying on a peak year). Net of stock comp treats option pay as the expense it is. The dials set the multiple a growth belief justifies; the price, and every dollar on this page, is yours.
Cite: Owner Scorecard, "Liberty Media Corporation (FWONA), the owner's record," https://ownerscorecard.com/c/FWONA, data as of 2026-07-09.
Manual order: ← FWDI its page in the Manual FWONK →
Industry order: ← FOXA the Media & Broadcasting chapter FWONK →