Owner Scorecard


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LPRO, Open Lending Corporation

Consumer Finance asset-light Cyclical

Lending market have fewer lenders focused on loans with longer terms or higher advance rates.

Lenders Protection Platform LPP is a cloud-based automotive lending enablement platform.

LPP is powered by technology that delivers speed and scalability in providing interest rate decisioning to automotive lenders.

Latest annual: FY2025 10-K
LPRO · Open Lending Corporation
I

The business

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

Revenue · FY2025
$93M
+288.0% YoY · −3% 5-yr CAGR
Vital signs · TTM, with 5-yr average
Revenue $89M 5-yr avg $126M
Gross margin 77% 5-yr avg 53%
Operating margin −7.2% 5-yr avg −25.7%
ROIC −8% 5-yr avg 42%
Owner-earnings margin −0% 5-yr avg 49%
Free cash flow margin −0% 5-yr avg 49%

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 Program Fee (58%), New certified loan originations (31%) and Claims administration and other service fees (10%).
Situation
Cyclical. Margins collapse and recover repeatedly across the record; a single year, good or bad, misstates the through-cycle earning power.
What moves the needle
Gross margin has run about 89% and operating margin about 52% 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. The margin is cyclical, swinging between −272% and 70% 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. 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?
Return on capital has run high across the record (median 45%, above 15% in 3 of 3 years), though buybacks and expensed R&D and brands shrink the capital base, so the figure overstates the underlying economics. The steadier read is owner earnings: roughly 50% 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 4 lines, the largest Program Fee at 58%.

Revenue by product line, FY2025
  • Program Fee58%$54M
  • New certified loan originations31%$29M
  • Claims administration and other service fees10%$10M
  • Change In Estimated Revenue0%$388K

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.

II

The record

Ten years of arithmetic, read across the cycle.

The record, 2018–2025

realized figures from each filing · older years to the left
2018’182019’192020’202021’212022’222023’232024’242025’25TTMTTMMar 2026
Income statement
$52M$93M$109M$216M$180M$117M$24M$93M$89MRevenueRevenue
81%1%77%77%Gross marginGross mgn
23%15%30%14%20%37%183%57%60%SG&A / revenueSG&A/rev
2%1%2%2%5%5%19%9%9%R&D / revenueR&D/rev
$28M$63M$57M$150M$98M$29M($65M)($5M)($6M)Operating incomeOp. inc.
54.6%67.4%52.1%69.7%54.4%24.8%−272.1%−5.4%−7.2%Operating marginOp. mgn
$28M$63M($98M)$146M$67M$22M($135M)($4M)($5M)Net incomeNet inc.
0%-0%24%29%24%Effective tax rateTax rate
Cash flow & returns
$29M$42M$25M$95M$107M$83M$18M($3M)($120K)Operating cash flowOp. cash
$80K$105K$1M$525K$915K$1M$2M$2M$3MDepreciationDeprec.
($2M)($23M)$118M($55M)$34M$50M$142M($8M)($4M)Working capital & otherWC & other
$106K$99K$1M$111K$238K$123K$165K$56K$11KCapexCapex
0.2%0.1%1.1%0.1%0.1%0.1%0.7%0.1%0.0%Capex / revenueCapex/rev
$28M$42M$23M$95M$107M$83M$17M($3M)($131K)Owner earningsOwner earn.
54.6%44.9%21.5%44.1%59.7%70.3%72.6%−3.5%−0.1%Owner earnings marginOE mgn
$28M$42M$23M$95M$107M$83M$17M($3M)($131K)Free cash flowFCF
54.6%44.9%21.5%44.1%59.7%70.3%72.6%−3.5%−0.1%Free cash flow marginFCF mgn
$19M$42M$136M$0$0$0Dividends paidDiv. paid
$0$0$38M$20M$18M$37M$0$5MBuybacksBuybacks
61%45%20%-8%ROICROIC
-366%92%31%11%-173%-6%-7%Return on equityROE
−876%92%31%−7%Retained to equityRetained/eq
Balance sheet
$11M$8M$102M$116M$204M$240M$243M$177M$173MCash & investmentsCash+inv
$4M$4M$7M$6M$5M$5M$4M$5MReceivablesReceiv.
$1M$3M$1M$288K$375K$953K$446K$543KAccounts payablePayables
$2M$910K$5M$5M$4M$4M$3M$4MOperating working capitalOper. WC
$34M$45M$163M$203M$281M$290M$276M$223M$218MCurrent assetsCur. assets
$14M$8M$17M$12M$15M$21M$47M$49M$49MCurrent liabilitiesCur. liab.
2.5×5.5×9.6×16.8×18.6×14.1×5.8×4.5×4.4×Current ratioCurr. ratio
$79M$294M$319M$380M$374M$296M$237M$231MTotal assetsAssets
$3M$158M$146M$147M$144M$140M$85M$158MTotal debtDebt
($4M)$56M$30M($57M)($96M)($103M)($92M)($16M)Net debt / (cash)Net debt
83.5×194.5×4.9×25.7×16.7×2.7×-5.8×-0.5×-0.8×Interest coverageInt. cov.
($134M)($235M)$27M$159M$213M$206M$78M$75M$75MShareholders’ equityEquity
4.8%2.1%2.6%1.8%3.0%8.1%36.1%7.6%7.1%Stock comp / revenueSBC/rev
Per share
37.6M37.6M82.9M126M126M121M119M119M118MShares out (diluted)Shares
$1.39$2.47$1.31$1.71$1.42$0.97$0.20$0.79$0.76Revenue / shareRev/sh
$0.75$1.66$-1.18$1.16$0.53$0.18$-1.13$-0.04$-0.05EPS (diluted)EPS
$0.76$1.11$0.28$0.75$0.85$0.68$0.15$-0.03$-0.00Owner earnings / shareOE/sh
$0.76$1.11$0.28$0.75$0.85$0.68$0.15$-0.03$-0.00Free cash flow / shareFCF/sh
$0.50$1.13$1.64$0.00$0.00$0.00Dividends / shareDiv/sh
$0.00$0.00$0.01$0.00$0.00$0.00$0.00$0.00$0.00Cap. spending / shareCapex/sh
$-3.56$-6.24$0.32$1.26$1.69$1.69$0.66$0.63$0.64Book value / shareBVPS

The diluted share count moved ×2.2 into 2020 — shares issued, not a split the totals corroborate — and the per-share figures carry the counts as filed.

The diluted share count moved ×1.52 into 2021 — shares issued, not a split the totals corroborate — and the per-share figures carry the counts as filed.

Per-share growththe realized rate an owner's share compounded
7-yr5-yr
Revenue / share−7.8%/yr−9.8%/yr
Capital spending / share−22.5%/yr−49.5%/yr
Book value / share+14.5%/yr

The record, charted

FY2018–2025

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

Share count
119Mpeak FY2021
ROIC
20%low FY2023
Gross margin
77%low FY2024

Owner earnings vs. net income

Owner earningsNet income

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

($3M)owner earningsvs.($4M)net incomelow FY2025

Where the cash went

ReinvestBuybacksDividendsAcquisitionsRetained

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

FY2018FY2024

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 a $4M loss into ($3M) of owner earnings: more cash than the profit line showed, after the non-cash charges and the capital it put back in.

FY2025FY2024FY2023FY2022FY2021
Reported net income($4M)($135M)$22M$67M$146M
Depreciation & amortizationnon-cash charge added back+$2M+$2M+$1M+$915K+$525K
Stock-based compensationreal costnon-cash, but a real cost+$7M+$9M+$9M+$5M+$4M
Working capital & othertiming of cash in and out, other non-cash items−$8M+$142M+$50M+$34M−$55M
Cash from operations($3M)$18M$83M$107M$95M
Capital expenditurecash put back in to keep running and to grow−$56K−$165K−$123K−$238K−$111K
Owner earnings($3M)$17M$83M$107M$95M
Owner-earnings marginowner earnings ÷ revenue-3%73%70%60%44%

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 $7M), owner earnings is nearer ($10M).

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?

  • Does not cover its interest
    Operating income ($5M) ÷ interest expense $10M
    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.

  • Net cash
    Cash $177M − debt $158M
    What this means

    Cash and short-term investments exceed every dollar of debt by $19M, 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.

  • Tight
    DSO 14 + DIO 0 − DPO 8 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. (Little or no inventory, a services / asset-light model, so the inventory leg is ~0.)

Is it a good business?

  • Very high (≥25%) through the cycle
    3-yr median, range 20%–61%; -7% latest = NOPAT ($4M) ÷ invested capital $56M
    Industry peers: median -67%
    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 3 years (it ran -7% 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 cycle
    8-yr median margin, range -3%–73%; latest ($3M) = operating cash ($3M) − maintenance capex $56K
    Industry peers: median 4%
    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 -3% of revenue this year, a 45% median across 8 years. Treating stock comp as the real expense it is (less $7M of SBC) leaves ($10M).

  • Loss, and burning cash
    Net income ($4M) · cash from operations ($3M)
    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 not.

How is the cash used?

  • No surplus to allocate
    What this means

    The business didn't generate positive Owner Earnings this year, so any distributions came from the balance sheet or borrowing, not from operations.

  • Investing or harvesting? 0.02×
    Harvesting
    Capex $56K ÷ depreciation $2M
    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 · 2 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 · $93M
    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 Pass
    Current ratio ≥ 2× · 4.52×
    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 · $158M vs $173M 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 (8-yr record) · 3 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 · 3 of 8 yrs
    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 $-0.33/share (latest year $-0.04), the averaged base the calculator's gate runs on, and book value is $0.63/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, 2018–2025

Whether the record’s returns held, and what the capital reinvested earned.

  • Profitable years 5 of 8
    What this means

    Lost money in 3 year(s), look at what happened there before trusting the average.

  • Return on capital ≥ 15% 4 of 4 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 58% → −84% (3-yr avg ends)
    What this means

    Through the cycle the operating margin slipped — about 58% early to −84% lately, median 52% — 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 −20%/yr
    What this means

    Owner earnings shrank about 20% a year over the record.

  • Worst year 2024 · −272.1% op. margin
    What this means

    Operations went underwater in 2024, understand why before trusting the good years.

  • Dividend record rising
    What this means

    Paid and raised the dividend across the record, the continuity Graham prized.

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 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$218M
  • Cash & short-term investments$173M
  • Receivables$5M
  • Other current assets$40M
Current liabilities$49M
  • Debt due within a year$8M
  • Accounts payable$543K
  • Other current liabilities$41M
Current ratio4.44×all current assets ÷ what's due · Graham looked for 2×
Quick ratio4.44×stricter: inventory excluded
Cash ratio3.53×strictest: cash alone against what's due
Working capital$169Mthe cushion left after near-term bills
Debt due this year vs. cash$8M due · $173M 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−16.0%the freshest read on whether the business is still growing
Current ratio, recent quarters13.3× → 4.4×
Deeper floors
Tangible book value$75Mequity stripped of goodwill & intangibles
Net current asset value$62MGraham's net-net: current assets less all liabilities
Debt incl. operating leases$86M$3M of it operating leases

From the company's latest filing.

How the cash was used, 2018–2025

Over the record, the business generated $395M of operating cash; how management split it reads as a cash returner, paying most of what it earns straight back to owners.

  • Reinvested$2M · 1%
  • Dividends$197M · 50%
  • Buybacks$118M · 30%
  • Retained (debt / cash)$78M · 20%
  • Returned to owners$315M

    80% of the owner earnings the business produced over the span, $197M as dividends and $118M as buybacks.

  • Source of fundingOperating cash

    Operating cash covered reinvestment and returns; over the span cash and short-term investments rose $162M.

  • Average price paid for buybacks$5.78

    Across the years where the filing reports a share count, 10M shares were bought for $60M, about $5.78 each. Year to year the price paid ranged from $1.93 (2025) to $7.13 (2023), and 2023, near the top of that range, was also its heaviest buyback year ($37M).

  • Net change in share count213.0%

    The diluted count rose from 38M to 118M: issuance (stock pay, deals) outran any buybacks, so owners were diluted on net.

  • Dividend record$0.00/sh

    Paid in 3 of the years on record. It was cut at least once along the way.

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 yearChief executivePay, as filed“Actually paid”Owner earnings
2021John J. Flynn$2.3M$1.5M$95M
2022John J. Flynn$2.4M$399k$107M
2022Keith A. Jezek$6.7M$6.1M$107M
2023Keith A. Jezek$6.0M$6.2M$83M
2024Charles D. Jehl$5.1M$2.8M$17M
2024Keith A. Jezek$1.1M−$7.1M$17M
2025Charles D. Jehl$1.4M−$3.0M($3M)
2025Jessica Buss$11.2M$6.1M($3M)

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 ownership14%

    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$7M

    The slice of the business handed to employees in shares this year, 8% 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.

Inverting the record

Invert: instead of why Open Lending 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 2018–2025.

1 of the 3 tests turned up something to look into; the other 2 came back clean.

  • Look hereDid the share count rise anyway?213.0%

    Diluted shares grew 213.0% over 2018–2025, even as the company spent $118M 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 reported profit become cash?

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 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, Consumer Finance

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.

CompanyRevenueGross marginOp. marginROICOwner earn. margin
ENVAEnova International Inc.$3.2B50%21.6%10%56%
CHYMChime Financial Inc.$2.2B88%-18.4%-88%2%
MSTRStrategy Inc Common Stock Class A$477M80%-13.0%-2%6%
WLTHWealthfront Corporation$365M90%37.2%-46%
LPROOpen Lending Corporation$93M77%53.2%45%50%
SBETSharplink Inc.$28M31%-294.4%-308%-117%
ZSQRZ Squared Inc.$1M87%-956.9%-287%
Group median80%-13.0%-46%6%
IV

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 Open Lending Corporation has delivered.

Open Lending Corporation’s latest year shows negative owner earnings, a cyclical trough. So the tool opens on the through-cycle base, the cash it would earn at rest; clear the toggle below to read the latest year exactly as reported.

$
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.

Implied by the price
Owner-earnings growth · ’21→’25−49%/yr
Owner-earnings growth · ’18→’25−20%/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.

Owner earnings ($131K) on 118M shares outstanding, per the 10-Q cover, as of 2026-05-05; net cash $16M. The base opens on the through-cycle figure (the latest year sits off 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. The dials set the multiple a growth belief justifies; the price, and every dollar on this page, is yours.

Cite: Owner Scorecard, "Open Lending Corporation (LPRO), the owner's record," https://ownerscorecard.com/c/LPRO, data as of 2026-07-09.

Manual order: ← LPLA its page in the Manual LPTH →

Industry order: ← JCAP the Consumer Finance chapter OMF →