Share count
223Mpeak FY2015
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JEF, Jefferies Financial Group
Capital Markets & Asset Management financial
Jefferies Financial Group is a U.S.-headquartered global investment banking and capital markets firm.
We report our activities in two business segments: (1) Investment Banking and Capital Markets and (2) Asset Management.
Investment Banking and Capital Markets provides investment banking, capital markets and other related services to our clients.
The business
What it sells, where the money comes from, the kind of company it is.
Revenue · FY2025
$10.8B
+2.9% YoY · 9% 5-yr CAGR
Vital signs · TTM, with 5-yr average
Revenue $11.8B 5-yr avg $9.0B
Net margin 6.9% 5-yr avg 9.0%
Revenue $1.7B +36.5% vs yr-ago qtr
Net income $250M yr-ago $91M
Net margin 14.9% yr-ago 7.4%
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 Investment Banking and Capital Markets (92%) and Asset Management (8%).
- What moves the needle
- Assets under management and the fee rate on them. What decides it: net flows in or out, the market's move on the assets already there (the firm rises and falls with the indices it invests in), the drift toward cheaper passive products, and the operating leverage on a largely fixed cost base. On its own account, the filing leans hardest on customer concentration, set against the numbers in what the filing emphasizes, below.
- Is it a good business?
- Operating margin has held high for a asset manager (median 30% across the record). It earns this on little capital, so return on equity has run near 6%, the leverage of a model that needs almost no plant to grow. A high return that does not fade can mark a moat, but whether the assets stay (net flows, not last year's market) is what the flow disclosures and the 10-K settle, 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 →Investment Banking and Capital Markets is 92% of revenue, with Asset Management the other meaningful segment at 8%.
Revenue by reportable segment, FY2025
- Investment Banking and Capital Markets92%$5.1B
- Asset Management8%$458M
By geographyAmericas71%Europe And Middle East22%Asia Pacific8%
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.
Revenue up 25.0% year over year; operating income up 133.9%
figures computed from the filing's XBRL
The record, 2015–2025
realized figures from each filing · older years to the left| 2015’15 | 2016’16 | 2017’17 | 2019’19 | 2020’20 | 2021’21 | 2022’22 | 2023’23 | 2024’24 | 2025’25 | TTMTTMMay 2026 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Income statement | |||||||||||
| $11.7B | $3.8B | $5.0B | $5.4B | $6.9B | $8.9B | $7.1B | $7.4B | $10.5B | $10.8B | $11.8B | RevenueRevenue |
| 8.9% | 16.8% | 32.7% | 32.5% | 29.2% | 34.8% | 31.0% | 41.6% | 9.2% | 7.5% | 0.7% | Operating marginOp. mgn |
| 2.4% | 3.3% | 3.3% | 17.9% | 11.2% | 18.6% | 10.8% | 3.5% | 6.4% | 5.8% | 6.9% | Net marginNet mgn |
| $280M | $126M | $167M | $960M | $770M | $1.7B | $774M | $261M | $669M | $631M | $812M | Net incomeNet inc. |
| 28% | 17% | — | — | 28% | 26% | 26% | 26% | 30% | 23% | 23% | Effective tax rateTax rate |
| Cash flow & returns | |||||||||||
| — | — | — | — | $1.9B | $1.4B | $1.6B | ($1.9B) | ($331M) | ($1.7B) | $1.8B | Owner earningsOwner earn. |
| 3% | 1% | 2% | 10% | 8% | 16% | 8% | 3% | 7% | 6% | 8% | Return on equityROE |
| 2% | 0% | 0% | 8% | 6% | 14% | 5% | −0% | 4% | 2% | 4% | Retained to equityRetained/eq |
| Balance sheet | |||||||||||
| $46.3B | $45.1B | $47.2B | $49.5B | $53.1B | $56.1B | $51.1B | $57.9B | $64.4B | $76.0B | $79.5B | Total assetsAssets |
| $3.6B | $3.8B | $5.3B | $7.7B | $9.1B | $10.8B | $9.7B | $8.5B | $12.2B | $14.0B | $17.7B | Cash & investmentsCash+inv |
| $10.4B | $10.1B | $10.1B | $9.6B | $9.4B | $10.6B | $10.2B | $9.7B | $10.2B | $10.6B | $10.6B | Shareholders’ equityEquity |
| Per share | |||||||||||
| 372M | 372M | 371M | 317M | 290M | 272M | 256M | 237M | 224M | 223M | 223M | Shares out (diluted)Shares |
| $31.37 | $10.36 | $13.62 | $16.90 | $23.69 | $32.95 | $27.97 | $31.45 | $47.02 | $48.59 | $53.06 | Revenue / shareRev/sh |
| $0.75 | $0.34 | $0.45 | $3.03 | $2.65 | $6.14 | $3.03 | $1.10 | $2.99 | $2.83 | $3.64 | EPS (diluted)EPS |
| — | — | — | — | $6.47 | $5.22 | $6.39 | $-8.18 | $-1.48 | $-7.64 | $7.99 | Owner earnings / shareOE/sh |
| $0.25 | $0.25 | $0.32 | $0.47 | $0.55 | $0.82 | $1.10 | $1.18 | $1.35 | $1.68 | $1.66 | Dividends / shareDiv/sh |
| $27.93 | $27.26 | $27.26 | $30.22 | $32.37 | $38.87 | $40.04 | $41.04 | $45.41 | $47.47 | $47.33 | Book value / shareBVPS |
Per-share growththe realized rate an owner's share compounded
| 10-yr | 5-yr | |
|---|---|---|
| Revenue / share | +4.5%/yr | +15.5%/yr |
| EPS | +14.2%/yr | +1.3%/yr |
| Dividends / share | +21.1%/yr | +24.8%/yr |
| Capital spending / share | +8.9%/yr (5-yr) | +8.9%/yr |
| Book value / share | +5.4%/yr | +8.0%/yr |
The record, charted
FY2015–2025Each measure over its full record; the current point and the worst year marked.
Revenue
$10.8Blow 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?
- Operating margin −2.3%Thin for a fee businessOperating income ($251M) ÷ revenue $10.8BIndustry peers: median 25%
What this means
The heart of a asset manager: how much of each fee dollar survives the cost of running the business. Fees ride on assets under management, so the swing factors are net flows in or out and the market's move on the assets already there; the cost base is largely fixed, which lifts margins in a bull market and squeezes them in a bear one. A high margin held for years, through a market it does not control, is the operational mark of a real franchise.
- Net margin 5.8%SolidNet income $631M ÷ revenue $10.8B
What this means
What reaches the owner after tax and interest. For a capital-light fee business this should be a wide share of revenue; when it is thin despite a high operating margin, debt taken on for acquisitions is usually the reason, so read it next to the balance sheet.
- Below the cost of equityNet income $631M ÷ equity $10.6BIndustry peers: median 13%
What this means
Because the business ties up little capital, a healthy fee stream throws off a high return on the equity behind it. Read it with the buyback record: returning capital lifts this ratio honestly, but heavy debt taken to do so can flatter it.
Does AI threaten the moat?
Moderate contestabilityAI 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 Named as a competitive risk
Its FY2025 10-K names artificial intelligence as a competitive threat.
“AI could significantly disrupt the business models, investment strategies, operational processes, and markets in which we operate and subject us to increased competition, which could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations.”
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 fiscal year-end, Dec 31, 2012Can 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$2.5B
- Cash & short-term investments$16.0B
- Receivables$259M
- Inventory$306M
Current liabilities$1.3B
- Debt due within a year$441M
- Accounts payable$82M
- Other current liabilities$757M
Current ratio1.97×all current assets ÷ what's due · Graham looked for 2×
Quick ratio1.73×stricter: inventory excluded
Cash ratio12.49×strictest: cash alone against what's due
Working capital$1.2Bthe cushion left after near-term bills
Debt due this year vs. cash$441M due · $16.0B cash
covered by cash on hand, no refinancing forced · both figures from the Dec 31, 2012 balance sheet
Revenue, latest quarter vs. a year ago+36.5%the freshest read on whether the business is still growing
Deeper floors
Tangible book value$8.7Bequity stripped of goodwill & intangibles
Net current asset value($66.4B)Graham's net-net: current assets less all liabilities
Debt incl. operating leases$18.5Bno operating-lease liability tagged this quarter, so debt alone
Deferred revenue$63Mcustomer cash collected before delivery; operating float
From the company's latest filing.
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 | Richard B. Handler | $28.9M | $66.7M | $1.4B |
| 2022 | Richard B. Handler | $56.9M | $68.7M | $1.6B |
| 2023 | Richard B. Handler | $26.1M | $34.0M | ($1.9B) |
| 2024 | Richard B. Handler | $22.6M | $117.7M | ($331M) |
| 2025 | Richard B. Handler | $28.4M | −$4.8M | ($1.7B) |
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 ownership19.9%
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$88M
The slice of the business handed to employees in shares this year, 1% of revenue. 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.
Peers, Capital Markets & Asset Management
The same industry, side by side on fee margins. 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 | Op. margin | Net margin | ROE |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| BLKBlackRock Inc. | $24.2B | 35.4% | 29.9% | 14% |
| ICEIntercontinental Exchange Inc. | $12.6B | 37.7% | 25.8% | 11% |
| JEFJefferies Financial Group | $10.8B | 30.1% | 6.1% | 6% |
| BENFranklin Resources Inc. | $8.8B | 21.8% | 15.0% | 10% |
| IBKRInteractive Brokers Group Inc. | $6.2B | 24.6% | 10.1% | 13% |
| HOODRobinhood Markets Inc. | $4.5B | -28.6% | -29.0% | -8% |
| VIRTVirtu Financial | $3.6B | 14.2% | 10.4% | 22% |
| SEICSEI Investments Company | $2.3B | 26.6% | 27.0% | 27% |
| Group median | — | 25.6% | 12.7% | 12% |
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 Jefferies Financial Group has delivered.
$
Through the cycle, Jefferies Financial Group earns about $687M on its 6.3% median owner-earnings margin. This year’s −15.7% margin runs below that; the reported figure may understate a lean year. Normalize, below, values the price on that through-cycle figure rather than the latest year.
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, delivered—
Owner-earnings growth, delivered—
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 $1.8B on 204M shares outstanding, per the 10-Q cover, as of 2026-03-30; net debt $746M. The if-converted diluted count is 223M, 9% 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, "Jefferies Financial Group (JEF), the owner's record," https://ownerscorecard.com/c/JEF, data as of 2026-07-09.
Manual order: ← JCI its page in the Manual JHG →
Industry order: ← IVZ the Capital Markets & Asset Management chapter JFIN →