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GAU, Galiano Gold Inc.

Metals & Mining capital-intensive Unprofitable

A metals and mining business, a price-taker on a global commodity.

Latest annual: FY2025 40-F · US listing is the ordinary share

GAU · Galiano Gold Inc.

The business

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

Revenue · FY2025

$448M

+93.6% YoY · 19% 5-yr CAGR

Vital signs · TTM, with 5-yr average

Revenue $448M 5-yr avg $226M

Gross margin 41% 5-yr avg 38%

Operating margin 8.2% 5-yr avg 8.5%

ROIC 8% 5-yr avg 4%

Owner-earnings margin 26% 5-yr avg 18%

Free cash flow margin 10% 5-yr avg 2%

The business in brief

read the 10-K →

What this business is and what moves its needle, from its own SEC filings.

Situation: Unprofitable. No sustained operating profit across the record; an earnings multiple has nothing to rest on. What the record does show is revenue, the gross-margin trajectory, and the burn against the cash on hand.
What moves the needle: Gross margin has run about 24% and operating margin about 8.9% through the cycle, a thin spread that turns the result on volume and the cost of what it sells far more than on the price it sets. On a spread this thin the operating result swings hard on small moves in cost or volume — it has ranged from 7.1% to 19% over the years, so the cost line is where the needle moves. The cash cycle has run negative through the cycle (a median of −23 days): the operation is paid before it pays, so working capital releases cash as the business grows rather than tying it up. Read this kind of business on the commodity price and the cost position. On its own account, the filing leans hardest on supplier & input dependence, set against the numbers in what the filing emphasizes, below.
Is it a good business?: Return on capital has run in the teens (median 14%, above 15% in 1 of 4 years). Owner earnings agree: roughly 14% of revenue reaches owners as cash, consistently, and customers and suppliers fund the business through negative working capital. 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.

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	2023’23	2024’24	2025’25	TTMTTMDec 2025
							Income statement
$185M	$256M	$162M	$0	$231M	$448M	$448M	RevenueRevenue
24%	24%	20%	—	34%	41%	41%	Gross marginGross mgn
$13M	$48M	$20M	$20M	$20M	$37M	$37M	Operating incomeOp. inc.
7.1%	18.7%	12.2%	—	8.9%	8.2%	8.2%	Operating marginOp. mgn
($13M)	$6M	($141M)	$26M	$6M	($29M)	($29M)	Net incomeNet inc.
							Cash flow & returns
$55M	$123M	$33M	($4M)	$56M	$158M	$158M	Operating cash flowOp. cash
$53M	$64M	$42M	$143K	$24M	$63M	$42M	DepreciationDeprec.
$15M	$53M	$133M	($30M)	$26M	$124M	$145M	Working capital & otherWC & other
$132M	$124M	$54M	$35K	$67M	$115M	$115M	CapexCapex
71.5%	48.3%	33.3%	—	28.9%	25.7%	25.7%	Capex / revenueCapex/rev
$2M	$59M	($9M)	($4M)	$32M	$95M	$116M	Owner earningsOwner earn.
1.1%	23.1%	−5.3%	—	13.8%	21.2%	25.9%	Owner earnings marginOE mgn
($77M)	($577K)	($20M)	($4M)	($11M)	$43M	$43M	Free cash flowFCF
−41.8%	−0.2%	−12.7%	—	−4.8%	9.6%	9.6%	Free cash flow marginFCF mgn
—	5%	—	14%	15%	17%	8%	ROICROIC
-3%	1%	-46%	13%	3%	-13%	-13%	Return on equityROE
−3%	1%	−46%	13%	3%	−13%	−13%	Retained to equityRetained/eq
							Balance sheet
$60M	$49M	$10M	$55M	$106M	$108M	$108M	Cash & investmentsCash+inv
$1M	$2M	$236K	$29K	—	—	$29K	ReceivablesReceiv.
$32M	$34M	—	$0	$43M	$71M	$71M	InventoryInvent.
$47M	$48M	$3M	$12M	$55M	$87M	$87M	Accounts payablePayables
($13M)	($12M)	($3M)	($12M)	($12M)	($16M)	($16M)	Operating working capitalOper. WC
$120M	$94M	$13M	$57M	$166M	$202M	$202M	Current assetsCur. assets
$47M	$84M	$3M	$12M	$111M	$221M	$221M	Current liabilitiesCur. liab.
2.5×	1.1×	3.8×	4.8×	1.5×	0.9×	0.9×	Current ratioCurr. ratio
$663M	$709M	$313M	$213M	$500M	$599M	$599M	Total assetsAssets
$152M	$119M	—	—	—	—	$119M	Total debtDebt
$92M	$70M	—	—	—	—	$11M	Net debt / (cash)Net debt
1.0×	2.7×	1.8×	874.9×	1.3×	2.1×	2.1×	Interest coverageInt. cov.
$416M	$432M	$309M	$201M	$243M	$219M	$219M	Shareholders’ equityEquity
							Per share
199M	203M	220M	225M	251M	258M	257M	Shares out (diluted)Shares
$0.93	$1.26	$0.74	$0.00	$0.92	$1.73	$1.74	Revenue / shareRev/sh
$-0.07	$0.03	$-0.64	$0.12	$0.02	$-0.11	$-0.11	EPS (diluted)EPS
$0.01	$0.29	$-0.04	$-0.02	$0.13	$0.37	$0.45	Owner earnings / shareOE/sh
$-0.39	$-0.00	$-0.09	$-0.02	$-0.04	$0.17	$0.17	Free cash flow / shareFCF/sh
$0.67	$0.61	$0.24	$0.00	$0.27	$0.44	$0.45	Cap. spending / shareCapex/sh
$2.09	$2.12	$1.40	$0.89	$0.97	$0.85	$0.85	Book value / shareBVPS

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

	9-yr	5-yr
Revenue / share	+7.2%/yr	—
Owner earnings / share	+49.2%/yr	—
Capital spending / share	−4.4%/yr	+5246.7%/yr (2-yr)
Book value / share	−9.6%/yr	−2.6%/yr (2-yr)

The record, charted

FY2016–2025

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

Share count

258Mpeak FY2025

ROIC

17%low FY2019

Gross margin

41%low FY2018

Owner earnings vs. net income

Owner earningsNet income

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

$95Mowner earningsvs.($29M)net incomelow FY2021

Where the cash went

ReinvestBuybacksDividendsAcquisitionsRetained

Each year's operating cash, by what management did with it: the mix, and how it drifts.

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 earned $95M of owner earnings, the operating cash left after the $63M it takes just to hold its position. It put $52M more into growth; free cash flow, after that spending, was $43M.

	FY2025	FY2024	FY2023	FY2022	FY2021
Reported net income	($29M)	$6M	$26M	$41M	($69M)
Depreciation & amortizationnon-cash charge added back	+$63M	+$24M	+$143K	+$146K	+$148K
Working capital & othertiming of cash in and out, other non-cash items	+$124M	+$26M	−$30M	−$39M	+$56M
Cash from operations	$158M	$56M	($4M)	$2M	($13M)
Maintenance capital expenditurethe spending needed just to hold position and volume	−$63M	−$24M	−$35K	−$4K	−$31K
Owner earnings	$95M	$32M	($4M)	$2M	($13M)
Growth capital expenditurediscretionary; spent to get bigger, not to stand still	−$52M	−$43M	—	—	—
Free cash flow	$43M	($11M)	($4M)	$2M	($13M)
Owner-earnings marginowner earnings ÷ revenue	21%	14%	—	—	—

Owner earnings is the cash an owner could pull out without starving the business: operating cash less the maintenance capital it must spend to hold its position (here about $63M, roughly its depreciation, the rate its assets wear out). The other $52M of its capital spending is growth it chose, not upkeep it owed; charged only with the maintenance it must do, the business earns well more than the year's free cash flow shows.

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 40-F · source on SEC EDGAR →

Will it survive?

Can it pay its interest? 2.1×

Adequate

Operating income $37M ÷ interest expense $18M

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? $11M · 0.3× operating profit

Modest net debt

Cash $108M − debt $119M

What this means
Netting $108M of cash and short-term investments against $119M of debt leaves $11M owed, about 0.3× a year's operating profit (3.3× 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? -23d

Negative, funded by others

DSO 0 + DIO 98 − DPO 121 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.

Is it a good business?

Return on invested capital 14%

Solid through the cycle

8-yr median, range -95%–36%; 8% latest = NOPAT $18M ÷ invested capital $230M

Industry peers: median 2%

What this means
The rate the business earns on the money tied up in it, Buffett's north star, because over time a stock tracks the ROIC beneath it. Above ~15% sustained hints at a moat; a return below the cost of capital (~8%) erodes value as a business grows rather than building it — the test Buffett weighs most. The headline is the median of the last 8 years (it ran 8% 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 14%

Solid through the cycle

5-yr median margin, range -5%–23%; latest $116M = operating cash $158M − maintenance capex $42M

Industry peers: median 2%

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 26% of revenue this year, a 14% median across 5 years. It chose to put $73M more into growth, so free cash flow this year was $43M — the gap is investment, not weakness.
Are earnings backed by cash? $158M

Loss, but cash-generative

Net income ($29M) · cash from operations $158M

What this means
The company reported a net loss, so a conversion ratio isn't meaningful. What matters then is whether operations still threw off cash, here, they did.

How is the cash used?

Where do the earnings go? —

Not enough data

What this means
The filing data didn't include the inputs for this check.
Investing or harvesting? 2.74×

Expanding

Capex $115M ÷ depreciation $42M

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 · 0 of 5 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 · $448M

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× · 0.92×

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 · $119M vs ($18M) WC

What this means
Graham's rule that borrowings not exceed net current assets. Capital-heavy and buyback-heavy firms routinely fail it, read it next to interest coverage, not alone.
Earnings stability Miss

A profit every year (10-yr record) · 5 loss years

What this means
Graham wanted earnings in each of the past ten years, the stability a defensive owner leans on.
Dividend record Miss

Uninterrupted dividends · none paid

What this means
An unbroken dividend was Graham's mark of durability. He wanted twenty years; the filings show about ten, and a single suspension breaks the streak. Non-payers, many fine modern compounders, fall outside his defensive net by design.
Earnings growth —

Earnings +33% over the record · —

What this means
Earnings were negative early in the record, a growth rate isn't meaningful.
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 $0.00/share (latest year $-0.11), the averaged base the calculator's gate runs on, and book value is $0.84/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 3 of 6

What this means
Lost money in 3 year(s), look at what happened there before trusting the average.
Operating margin 13% → 9% (2-yr avg ends)

What this means
Through the cycle the operating margin slipped — about 13% early to 9% lately, median 9% — 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 grew about 8% a year over the record.
Worst year 2016 · 7.1% op. margin

What this means
Stayed profitable even in its hardest year, the resilience that survives recessions.
Share count +2.9%/yr

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

Does AI threaten the moat?

Low contestability

The moat is physical, regulated or balance-sheet-funded, the kind AI cuts costs within but does not contest.

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 fiscal year-end, Dec 31, 2025

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$202M

Cash & short-term investments$108M
Receivables$29K
Inventory$71M
Other current assets$23M

Current liabilities$221M

Accounts payable$87M
Other current liabilities$134M

Current ratio0.92×all current assets ÷ what's due · Graham looked for 2×

Quick ratio0.60×stricter: inventory excluded

Cash ratio0.49×strictest: cash alone against what's due

Working capital($18M)the cushion left after near-term bills

Deeper floors

Tangible book value$219Mequity stripped of goodwill & intangibles

Net current asset value($175M)Graham's net-net: current assets less all liabilities

Debt incl. operating leases$156M$37M of it operating leases

From the company's latest filing.

How the cash was used, 2016–2025

Over the record, the business generated $395M of operating cash; how management split it reads as a reinvestor, most operating cash is plowed back into the business.

Reinvested$492M · 124%
Buybacks$3M · 1%

Returned to owners$3M
2% of the owner earnings the business produced over the span, $0 as dividends and $3M as buybacks.
Source of funding−$100M
Reinvestment and shareholder returns ran $100M beyond the operating cash the business generated, so the gap was financed off the balance sheet.
Average price paid for buybacks—
Buybacks ran $3M over the span, but the filings don't tag the share count needed to deduce the average price paid.
Net change in share count29.2%
The diluted count rose from 199M to 257M: issuance (stock pay, deals) outran any buybacks, so owners were diluted on net.
Dividend record—
No dividend line was reported in the filing data over the span; the record here neither confirms nor rules out a payout.

Buybacks are gross of stock issued to staff; the share-count line above is the net of that, the figure that decides whether owners gained. The average price paid blends a year of purchases (and any accelerated repurchase), so it is close, not exact. The record of where the cash went and on what terms.

Inverting the record

Invert: instead of why Galiano Gold 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.

1 of the 4 tests turned up something to look into; the other 3 came back clean.

Look hereDid the share count rise anyway?29.2%
Diluted shares grew 29.2% over 2016–2025, even as the company spent $3M on buybacks. The repurchases were outrun by issuance — to staff, in a raise, or in a deal — and the filing says which; owners' slice still shrank. Read the buyback line beside this one, not on its own.

And these came back clean

Is it less profitable than it was?
Did debt outgrow the business?
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.

Peers, Metals & Mining

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
MDUMDU Resources Group, Inc.	$1.9B	—	9.9%	5%	-0%
HLHecla Mining Company	$1.4B	22%	10.0%	-0%	2%
CMPCompass Minerals Intl Inc	$1.2B	—	8.3%	4%	4%
LEUCentrus Energy Corp.	$449M	26%	11.0%	—	7%
GAUGaliano Gold Inc.	$448M	24%	8.9%	14%	14%
USLMUnited States Lime & Minerals Inc.	$373M	30%	22.1%	21%	18%
IPIIntrepid Potash Inc	$298M	—	-2.1%	-1%	-3%
UUUUEnergy Fuels Inc.	$66M	37%	-122.6%	-16%	-102%
Group median	—	26%	9.4%	4%	3%

The price

What a price has to assume.

What the price implies

reverse-DCF

Enter the US price, in dollars: the NYSE/Nasdaq quote you hold. Galiano Gold Inc.'s US listing is the ordinary share itself. The record tables elsewhere on this page remain as filed.

Type today's close and see the owner-earnings growth you'd have to believe to justify it, beside what Galiano Gold Inc. has delivered.

Galiano Gold 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, Galiano Gold Inc. earns about $62M on its 13.8% median owner-earnings margin. This year’s 25.9% 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 ($62M) Net of stock comp Steady-state · maintenance capex ($116M)

—

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 · ’17→’25+12%/yr

Owner-earnings growth, delivered—

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 $43M on 260M shares outstanding, per the 40-F cover, as of 2025-12-31; net debt $11M. 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. Capex ($115M) runs well above depreciation ($42M), so this is a build-out; Steady-state swaps total capex for maintenance (≈ depreciation), lifting the base to about $116M, 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 GAU against another business →

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

Manual order: ← GASS its page in the Manual GCL →

Industry order: ← FCX the Metals & Mining chapter GSM →