Share count
285Mpeak FY2026
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LION, Lionsgate Studios Corp
Lionsgate is one of the world's leading standalone, pure play content companies.
Theatrical revenues also include revenues from certain licenses to direct-to-platform customers where the initial license of a motion picture is to a direct-to-platform customer.
The sale or rental of our film productions and acquired or licensed films and certain television programs (including theatrical and direct-to-video releases) on packaged media and through digital media platforms (including pay-per-view and video-on-demand platforms, electronic sell-through, and digital rental).
The business
What it sells, where the money comes from, the kind of company it is.
Revenue · FY2026
$2.6B
+1.8% YoY · −5% 3-yr CAGR
Vital signs · TTM, with 4-yr average
Revenue $2.6B 4-yr avg $2.7B
Revenue $724M +15.3% vs yr-ago qtr
Operating margin 5.0% yr-ago 4.4%
Net income ($44M) yr-ago ($19M)
Net margin −6.1% yr-ago −2.9%
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. Distress / turnaround. Thin interest coverage, or operating cash burned against real debt, across the record. The balance sheet carries this situation; the debt schedule sets the clock.
- What moves the needle
- Operating margin has run around −0.6% through the cycle, the operating line deeply negative — so the lever is the path to a margin at all: revenue growth against the cost curve and the cash runway, not the level of a margin that isn't there yet. On its own account, the filing leans hardest on pricing power & competition, set against the numbers in what the filing emphasizes, below.
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 →35% of revenue comes from outside the United States.
Revenue by geography, FY2026
- United States65%$1.7B
- International33%$859M
- Canada3%$70M
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, 2023–2026
realized figures from each filing · older years to the left| 2023’23 | 2024’24 | 2025’25 | 2026’26 | TTMTTMMar 2026 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Income statement | |||||
| $3.1B | $2.5B | $2.6B | $2.6B | $2.6B | RevenueRevenue |
| 13% | 16% | 14% | 15% | 15% | SG&A / revenueSG&A/rev |
| $140M | ($15M) | ($18M) | $97M | $97M | Operating incomeOp. inc. |
| 4.5% | −0.6% | −0.7% | 3.7% | 3.7% | Operating marginOp. mgn |
| ($2.0B) | ($1.1B) | ($362M) | ($198M) | ($198M) | Net incomeNet inc. |
| Cash flow & returns | |||||
| $346M | $397M | ($166M) | $25M | $25M | Operating cash flowOp. cash |
| $18M | $16M | $18M | $18M | $18M | DepreciationDeprec. |
| $2.3B | $1.4B | $121M | $128M | $128M | Working capital & otherWC & other |
| $7M | $10M | $14M | $13M | $13M | CapexCapex |
| 0.2% | 0.4% | 0.5% | 0.5% | 0.5% | Capex / revenueCapex/rev |
| $340M | $387M | ($180M) | $11M | $11M | Owner earningsOwner earn. |
| 11.0% | 15.8% | −6.9% | 0.4% | 0.4% | Owner earnings marginOE mgn |
| $340M | $387M | ($180M) | $11M | $11M | Free cash flowFCF |
| 11.0% | 15.8% | −6.9% | 0.4% | 0.4% | Free cash flow marginFCF mgn |
| — | -3% | -1% | — | — | ROICROIC |
| Balance sheet | |||||
| $251M | $277M | $213M | $342M | $342M | Cash & investmentsCash+inv |
| — | $689M | $586M | $785M | $785M | ReceivablesReceiv. |
| — | $247M | $257M | $213M | $213M | Accounts payablePayables |
| — | $442M | $329M | $571M | $571M | Operating working capitalOper. WC |
| — | $1.4B | $1.2B | $1.5B | $1.5B | Current assetsCur. assets |
| — | $3.6B | $3.5B | $3.0B | $3.0B | Current liabilitiesCur. liab. |
| — | 0.4× | 0.4× | 0.5× | 0.5× | Current ratioCurr. ratio |
| $796M | $811M | $809M | $847M | $847M | GoodwillGoodwill |
| — | $5.1B | $6.8B | $5.3B | $5.3B | Total assetsAssets |
| — | $1.8B | $2.0B | $1.9B | $1.9B | Total debtDebt |
| — | $1.5B | $1.8B | $1.6B | $1.6B | Net debt / (cash)Net debt |
| 0.9× | -0.1× | -0.1× | 0.4× | 0.4× | Interest coverageInt. cov. |
| $786M | ($1.2B) | ($265M) | ($1.2B) | ($1.2B) | Shareholders’ equityEquity |
| 2.4% | 2.9% | 2.2% | 3.0% | 3.0% | Stock comp / revenueSBC/rev |
| Per share | |||||
| 253M | 244M | 249M | 285M | 285M | Shares out (diluted)Shares |
| $12.17 | $10.06 | $10.38 | $9.22 | $9.22 | Revenue / shareRev/sh |
| $-7.93 | $-4.53 | $-1.45 | $-0.69 | $-0.69 | EPS (diluted)EPS |
| $1.34 | $1.59 | $-0.72 | $0.04 | $0.04 | Owner earnings / shareOE/sh |
| $1.34 | $1.59 | $-0.72 | $0.04 | $0.04 | Free cash flow / shareFCF/sh |
| $0.03 | $0.04 | $0.05 | $0.05 | $0.05 | Cap. spending / shareCapex/sh |
| $3.10 | $-4.73 | $-1.06 | $-4.18 | $-4.18 | Book value / shareBVPS |
Per-share growththe realized rate an owner's share compounded
| 3-yr | 5-yr | |
|---|---|---|
| Revenue / share | −8.8%/yr | −8.8%/yr (3-yr) |
| Owner earnings / share | −69.0%/yr | −69.0%/yr (3-yr) |
| Capital spending / share | +22.3%/yr | +22.3%/yr (3-yr) |
The record, charted
FY2023–2026Each measure over its full record; the current point and the worst year marked.
Owner earnings vs. net income
Owner earningsNet incomeThe accountant's number, and the cash an owner can take; the gap is the tell.
$11Mowner earningsvs.($198M)net incomelow FY2025
Where the cash went
ReinvestBuybacksDividendsAcquisitionsRetainedEach year's operating cash, by what management did with it: the mix, and how it drifts.
FY2023FY2026
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 2026 the business turned a $198M loss into $11M of owner earnings: more cash than the profit line showed, after the non-cash charges and the capital it put back in.
| FY2026 | FY2025 | FY2024 | FY2023 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Reported net income | ($198M) | ($362M) | ($1.1B) | ($2.0B) |
| Depreciation & amortizationnon-cash charge added back | +$18M | +$18M | +$16M | +$18M |
| Stock-based compensationreal costnon-cash, but a real cost | +$78M | +$57M | +$70M | +$73M |
| Working capital & othertiming of cash in and out, other non-cash items | +$128M | +$121M | +$1.4B | +$2.3B |
| Cash from operations | $25M | ($166M) | $397M | $346M |
| Capital expenditurecash put back in to keep running and to grow | −$13M | −$14M | −$10M | −$7M |
| Owner earnings | $11M | ($180M) | $387M | $340M |
| Owner-earnings marginowner earnings ÷ revenue | 0% | -7% | 16% | 11% |
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 $78M), owner earnings is nearer ($67M).
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
FY2026 10-K · source on SEC EDGAR →
Will it survive?
- Does not cover its interestOperating income $97M ÷ interest expense $260M
What this means
A full year of operating profit didn't cover the interest bill. This is the zombie zone: the business depends on refinancing, asset sales, or forbearance to service its debt.
- How heavy is the debt, net of cash? $1.6B · 16.5× operating profitHeavy net debtCash $342M − debt $1.9B
What this means
Netting $342M of cash and short-term investments against $1.9B of debt leaves $1.6B owed, about 16.5× a year's operating profit (20.0× 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.
- Not enough data
What this means
The filing data didn't include the inputs for this check.
Is it a good business?
- Not enough dataIndustry peers: median 6%
What this means
The filing data didn't include the inputs for this check.
- Thin through the cycle4-yr median margin, range -7%–16%; latest $11M = operating cash $25M − maintenance capex $13MIndustry peers: median 8%
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 0% of revenue this year, a 0% median across 4 years. Treating stock comp as the real expense it is (less $78M of SBC) leaves ($67M).
- Loss, but cash-generativeNet income ($198M) · cash from operations $25M
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?
- Not enough data
What this means
The filing data didn't include the inputs for this check.
- Investing or harvesting? 0.76×HarvestingCapex $13M ÷ depreciation $18M
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 3 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 · $2.6B
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× · 0.49×
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 · $1.9B vs ($1.6B) 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.
- 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 $-1.91/share (latest year $-0.68), the averaged base the calculator's gate runs on, and book value is $-4.10/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, 2023–2026
Whether the record’s returns held, and what the capital reinvested earned.
- Profitable years 0 of 4
What this means
Lost money in 4 year(s), look at what happened there before trusting the average.
- Return on capital ≥ 15% 1 of 3 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 2% → 1% (2-yr avg ends)
What this means
Through the cycle the operating margin held roughly steady — about 2% early, 1% lately, median −1%.
- 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.
- Worst year 2025 · −0.7% op. margin
What this means
Operations went underwater in 2025, understand why before trusting the good years.
- Share count +4.0%/yr
What this means
The share count is rising, dilution works against you on a per-share basis.
- How management talks about it Promotional
What this means
Results have held roughly flat while the filing leans on a promoter’s vocabulary — watch whether the words are doing work the numbers are not.
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 A competitive risk, new this year
Its FY2026 10-K names artificial intelligence as a competitive threat, in language that was not in the prior year's filing.
“Lionsgate has begun incorporating certain AI enabled tools into its operations, and competitors may gain advantages by adopting such technologies more quickly or more effectively.”
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, 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$1.5B
- Cash & short-term investments$342M
- Receivables$785M
- Other current assets$362M
Current liabilities$3.0B
- Debt due within a year$162M
- Accounts payable$213M
- Other current liabilities$2.7B
Current ratio0.49×all current assets ÷ what's due · Graham looked for 2×
Quick ratio0.49×stricter: inventory excluded
Cash ratio0.11×strictest: cash alone against what's due
Working capital($1.6B)the cushion left after near-term bills
Debt due this year vs. cash$162M due · $342M 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+15.3%the freshest read on whether the business is still growing
Current ratio, recent quarters0.4× → 0.5×
Deeper floors
Tangible book value($2.1B)equity stripped of goodwill & intangibles
Net current asset value($4.9B)Graham's net-net: current assets less all liabilities
Debt incl. operating leases$2.2B$301M of it operating leases; with finance leases, “total fixed claims” below reaches $2.2B (annual-report basis)
Deferred revenue$458Mcustomer cash collected before delivery; operating float
From the company's latest filing.
Lease obligations
the lease note, SEC EDGAR →Debt by another name. What the business owes on the property, aircraft, stores and equipment it rents rather than owns is a fixed claim due on a schedule; added back to the debt, it is the true leverage. That ladder, and what it adds to the debt on the page above.
Lease payments by year, scaled to the largest; “later” is everything beyond year five, shown apart. These are the contractual cash payments, before the interest the filing imputes back out to the balance-sheet liability.
Due in the next 12 months$53Ma fixed cash payment, owed whether or not the business has a good year
Total lease payments$378Mevery year plus the tail, undiscounted: the full cash the leases will take
On the balance sheet$301Mthe present value of those payments, the recognised lease liability
True leverage: debt plus leases
On-balance-sheet debt$1.9B
Lease obligations (present value)$301M
Total fixed claims on the business$2.2B
Counting the leases the way Buffett does, the fixed claims on this business come to $2.2B, of which the leases are 13%. The lease wall above and the debt schedule together are the calendar of what must be paid, and when.
Lease ladder read from the ASC 842 tags in the company’s Mar 31, 2026 annual report and reconciled: the yearly buckets sum to the undiscounted total, which less the imputed interest equals the balance-sheet liability; a ladder that doesn’t tie out is withheld.
How the cash was used, 2023–2026
Over the record, the business generated $602M of operating cash; how management split it reads as a balanced allocator, splitting cash between the business, owners, and the balance sheet.
- Reinvested$43M · 7%
- Retained (debt / cash)$558M · 93%
- Net change in share count12.6%
The diluted count rose from 253M to 285M: 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.
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. Feltheimer | $19.2M | $30.4M | — |
| 2022 | Mr. Feltheimer | $5.6M | $10.8M | — |
| 2023 | Mr. Feltheimer | $21.5M | $13.2M | $340M |
| 2024 | Mr. Feltheimer | $18.2M | $13.0M | $387M |
| 2025 | Mr. Feltheimer | $9.8M | $9.3M | ($180M) |
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$78M
The slice of the business handed to employees in shares this year, 3% of revenue, equal to 80% 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, FY2026
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, nearest by economic model
No close industry peers in the catalog yet, so these are the nearest by economic model (general), compared 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| CBZCBIZ | $2.8B | 14% | 8.5% | 5% | 9% |
| VSTSVestis Corporation | $2.7B | — | 6.4% | 6% | 6% |
| AMNAMN Healthcare Services | $2.7B | 33% | 9.2% | 13% | 8% |
| FTREFortrea Holdings Inc. | $2.7B | — | 1.1% | 1% | 5% |
| LIONLionsgate Studios Corp | $2.6B | — | 1.5% | — | 6% |
| MEDPMedpace Holdings | $2.5B | — | 17.6% | 27% | 22% |
| CHEChemed | $2.5B | 33% | 14.4% | 30% | 12% |
| STRZStarz Entertainment Corp. | $1.4B | — | 0.1% | -5% | -1% |
| Group median | — | — | 7.4% | — | 7% |
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 Lionsgate Studios Corp has delivered.
$
Through the cycle, Lionsgate Studios Corp earns about $151M on its 5.7% median owner-earnings margin. This year’s 0.4% 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 ’24–’26)—
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 $11M on 291M shares outstanding, per the 10-K cover, as of 2026-05-18; net debt $1.6B. 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, "Lionsgate Studios Corp (LION), the owner's record," https://ownerscorecard.com/c/LION, data as of 2026-07-09.
Manual order: ← LINE its page in the Manual LITE →
Industry order: ← IQ the Entertainment & Studios chapter LLYVA →