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LUMN, Lumen Technologies

Telecom Operators capital-intensive UnprofitableDistress / turnaroundCapital build-outCyclical

We are unleashing the world's digital potential by providing a broad array of integrated products and services to our customers.

We are a leading digital networking services company, empowering enterprise businesses to fuel growth in a multi-cloud, AI-first marketplace by connecting people, data, and applications quickly, securely, and effortlessly.

Our platform empowers our customers to swiftly adjust digital programs to meet immediate demands, create efficiencies, accelerate market access, and reduce costs, which allows our customers to rapidly evolve their IT programs to address dynamic changes.

Latest annual: FY2025 10-K

LUMN · Lumen Technologies

The business

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

Revenue · FY2025

$11.3B

−6.6% YoY · −10% 5-yr CAGR

Vital signs · TTM, with 5-yr average

Revenue $11.0B 5-yr avg $14.2B

Gross margin 42% 5-yr avg 47%

Operating margin −2.9% 5-yr avg −9.9%

ROIC −1% 5-yr avg −9%

Owner-earnings margin 4% 5-yr avg 7%

Free cash flow margin 4% 5-yr avg 7%

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 Business (87%) and Mass Markets (22%).
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. Capital build-out. Capital spending has surged to 39% of sales, today's earnings are charged less depreciation than tomorrow's will be. 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 52% and operating margin about 2.7% 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 −71% and 24% 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 −16 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 subscribers, revenue per user, and network capex. 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 2%, above 15% in 0 of 7 years). By owner earnings: roughly 10% 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 →

Business is 87% of revenue, with Mass Markets the other meaningful segment at 22%.

Revenue by reportable segment, FY2025

Business87%$9.9B
Mass Markets22%$2.5B

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
$17.5B	$17.7B	$21.0B	$19.5B	$18.8B	$17.8B	$16.1B	$13.5B	$12.1B	$11.3B	$11.0B	RevenueRevenue
56%	54%	52%	53%	52%	52%	51%	47%	45%	41%	42%	Gross marginGross mgn
20%	20%	20%	19%	18%	16%	19%	24%	25%	28%	30%	SG&A / revenueSG&A/rev
$2.3B	$2.0B	$570M	($2.7B)	$962M	$4.3B	$95M	($9.6B)	$460M	($812M)	($317M)	Operating incomeOp. inc.
13.4%	11.4%	2.7%	−14.0%	5.1%	24.1%	0.6%	−70.9%	3.8%	−7.2%	−2.9%	Operating marginOp. mgn
$626M	$1.4B	($1.7B)	($5.3B)	($1.2B)	$2.0B	($1.5B)	($10.3B)	($55M)	($1.7B)	($1.7B)	Net incomeNet inc.
											Cash flow & returns
$4.6B	$3.9B	$7.0B	$6.7B	$6.5B	$6.5B	$4.7B	$2.2B	$4.3B	$4.7B	$5.0B	Operating cash flowOp. cash
$3.9B	$3.9B	$5.1B	$4.8B	$4.7B	$4.0B	$3.2B	$3.0B	$3.0B	$2.7B	$2.7B	DepreciationDeprec.
($14M)	($1.6B)	$3.5B	$7.0B	$2.9B	$329M	$2.9B	$9.4B	$1.4B	$3.7B	$4.0B	Working capital & otherWC & other
$3.0B	$3.1B	$3.2B	$3.6B	$3.7B	$2.9B	$3.0B	$3.1B	$3.2B	$4.4B	$4.5B	CapexCapex
17.1%	17.6%	15.1%	18.6%	19.8%	16.3%	18.7%	22.9%	26.6%	38.5%	41.0%	Capex / revenueCapex/rev
$1.6B	$772M	$3.9B	$3.1B	$2.8B	$3.6B	$1.7B	($940M)	$1.1B	$371M	$447M	Owner earningsOwner earn.
9.3%	4.4%	18.3%	15.6%	14.9%	20.2%	10.7%	−7.0%	9.1%	3.3%	4.1%	Owner earnings marginOE mgn
$1.6B	$772M	$3.9B	$3.1B	$2.8B	$3.6B	$1.7B	($940M)	$1.1B	$371M	$447M	Free cash flowFCF
9.3%	4.4%	18.3%	15.6%	14.9%	20.2%	10.7%	−7.0%	9.1%	3.3%	4.1%	Free cash flow marginFCF mgn
$0	$7.3B	$0	$0	—	—	—	—	—	—	$0	AcquisitionsAcquis.
$1.2B	$1.5B	$2.3B	$1.1B	$1.1B	$1.1B	$780M	$11M	$3M	$1M	$1M	Dividends paidDiv. paid
$16M	$17M	—	$0	$0	$1.0B	$200M	$0	$0	—	—	BuybacksBuybacks
4%	3%	—	-5%	—	8%	—	-41%	2%	-4%	-1%	ROICROIC
5%	6%	-9%	-39%	-11%	17%	-15%	-2470%	-12%	—	—	Return on equityROE
−4%	−0%	−20%	−47%	−21%	8%	−22%	n/m	−13%	—	—	Retained to equityRetained/eq
											Balance sheet
$222M	$551M	$488M	$1.7B	$406M	$354M	$1.3B	$2.2B	$1.9B	$1.0B	$1.6B	Cash & investmentsCash+inv
$2.0B	$2.6B	$2.4B	$2.3B	$2.0B	$1.5B	$1.5B	$1.3B	$1.2B	$1.3B	$1.6B	ReceivablesReceiv.
$1.2B	$1.6B	$1.9B	$1.7B	$1.1B	$758M	$1.0B	$1.1B	$749M	$1.5B	$1.2B	Accounts payablePayables
$838M	$1.0B	$465M	$535M	$828M	$786M	$464M	$184M	$482M	($194M)	$411M	Operating working capitalOper. WC
$5.2B	$4.2B	$3.8B	$4.8B	$3.2B	$11.5B	$5.5B	$4.8B	$4.4B	$7.9B	$4.1B	Current assetsCur. assets
$5.3B	$4.9B	$5.5B	$7.3B	$6.6B	$7.2B	$4.9B	$3.5B	$3.6B	$4.4B	$4.2B	Current liabilitiesCur. liab.
1.0×	0.9×	0.7×	0.7×	0.5×	1.6×	1.1×	1.4×	1.2×	1.8×	1.0×	Current ratioCurr. ratio
$19.6B	$30.5B	$28.0B	$21.5B	$18.9B	$16.0B	$12.7B	$2.0B	$2.0B	$0	$0	GoodwillGoodwill
$47.0B	$75.6B	$70.3B	$64.7B	$59.4B	$58.0B	$45.6B	$34.0B	$33.5B	$34.3B	$30.6B	Total assetsAssets
$20.0B	$37.7B	$36.1B	$34.7B	$31.8B	$29.2B	$20.7B	$20.1B	$18.5B	$17.8B	$31.5B	Total debtDebt
$19.8B	$37.2B	$35.6B	$33.0B	$31.4B	$28.8B	$19.5B	$17.9B	$16.6B	$16.8B	$29.9B	Net debt / (cash)Net debt
1.8×	1.4×	0.3×	-1.3×	0.6×	2.8×	0.1×	-8.3×	0.3×	-0.6×	-0.3×	Interest coverageInt. cov.
$13.4B	$23.5B	$19.8B	$13.5B	$11.2B	$11.8B	$10.4B	$417M	$464M	($1.1B)	($1.3B)	Shareholders’ equityEquity
0.5%	0.6%	0.9%	0.8%	0.9%	0.7%	0.6%	0.4%	0.2%	0.4%	0.5%	Stock comp / revenueSBC/rev
—	—	$2.7B	$6.5B	$2.6B	—	$3.3B	$10.7B	—	$628M	$628M	Goodwill written downGW imp.
											Per share
541M	629M	1.07B	1.07B	1.08B	1.07B	1.01B	983M	988M	995M	999M	Shares out (diluted)Shares
$32.31	$28.08	$19.74	$18.20	$17.42	$16.68	$15.99	$13.75	$12.28	$11.39	$11.03	Revenue / shareRev/sh
$1.16	$2.21	$-1.63	$-4.92	$-1.14	$1.91	$-1.54	$-10.48	$-0.06	$-1.75	$-1.74	EPS (diluted)EPS
$3.01	$1.23	$3.62	$2.85	$2.59	$3.38	$1.71	$-0.96	$1.12	$0.37	$0.45	Owner earnings / shareOE/sh
$3.01	$1.23	$3.62	$2.85	$2.59	$3.38	$1.71	$-0.96	$1.12	$0.37	$0.45	Free cash flow / shareFCF/sh
$2.16	$2.31	$2.17	$1.03	$1.03	$1.02	$0.77	$0.01	$0.00	$0.00	$0.00	Dividends / shareDiv/sh
$5.51	$4.94	$2.98	$3.39	$3.46	$2.72	$2.99	$3.15	$3.27	$4.39	$4.52	Cap. spending / shareCapex/sh
$24.78	$37.36	$18.60	$12.57	$10.34	$11.04	$10.30	$0.42	$0.47	$-1.12	$-1.32	Book value / shareBVPS

The diluted share count moved ×1.7 into 2018 — 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

	9-yr	5-yr
Revenue / share	−10.9%/yr	−8.1%/yr
Owner earnings / share	−20.7%/yr	−32.1%/yr
Dividends / share	−57.4%/yr	−75.0%/yr
Capital spending / share	−2.5%/yr	+4.9%/yr

The record, charted

FY2016–2025

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

Share count

995Mpeak FY2020

ROIC

−4%low FY2023

Gross margin

41%low FY2025

Net debt ÷ owner earnings

45.3×peak FY2017

Owner earnings vs. net income

Owner earningsNet income

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

$371Mowner earningsvs.($1.7B)net incomelow FY2023

Where the cash went

ReinvestBuybacksDividendsAcquisitionsRetainedBeyond op. cash

Each 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

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 turned a $1.7B loss into $371M 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	($1.7B)	($55M)	($10.3B)	($1.5B)	$2.0B
Depreciation & amortizationnon-cash charge added back	+$2.7B	+$3.0B	+$3.0B	+$3.2B	+$4.0B
Stock-based compensationreal costnon-cash, but a real cost	+$48M	+$29M	+$52M	+$98M	+$120M
Working capital & othertiming of cash in and out, other non-cash items	+$3.7B	+$1.4B	+$9.4B	+$2.9B	+$329M
Cash from operations	$4.7B	$4.3B	$2.2B	$4.7B	$6.5B
Capital expenditurecash put back in to keep running and to grow	−$4.4B	−$3.2B	−$3.1B	−$3.0B	−$2.9B
Owner earnings	$371M	$1.1B	($940M)	$1.7B	$3.6B
Owner-earnings marginowner earnings ÷ revenue	3%	9%	-7%	11%	20%

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 $48M), owner earnings is nearer $323M.

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?

Can it pay its interest? -0.6×

Does not cover its interest

Operating income ($812M) ÷ interest expense $1.3B

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? $16.8B

Net debt against an operating loss

Cash $1.0B − debt $17.8B

What this means
Netting $1.0B of cash and short-term investments against $17.8B of debt leaves $16.8B owed, with no operating profit this year to measure it against — understand that combination before anything else about the company. 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? -39d

Negative, funded by others

DSO 42 + DIO 2 − DPO 83 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 2%

Below average through the cycle

7-yr median, range -41%–8%; -4% latest = NOPAT ($641M) ÷ invested capital $15.7B

Industry peers: median 3%

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 7 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.
Owner-earnings margin 9%

Solid through the cycle

10-yr median margin, range -7%–20%; latest $371M = operating cash $4.7B − maintenance capex $4.4B

Industry peers: median 13%

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 9% median across 10 years. Treating stock comp as the real expense it is (less $48M of SBC) leaves $323M.
Are earnings backed by cash? $4.7B

Loss, but cash-generative

Net income ($1.7B) · cash from operations $4.7B

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? 0%

Reinvests most of it

Dividends + buybacks $1M ÷ Owner Earnings $371M

What this means
Of $371M Owner Earnings, $1M (0%) went back to shareholders, $1M dividends, $0 buybacks. 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? 1.59×

Expanding

Capex $4.4B ÷ depreciation $2.7B

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 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 Pass

Revenue ≥ $2B · $11.3B

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 Near

Current ratio ≥ 2× · 1.80×

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 · $17.8B vs $3.5B 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) · 7 loss years

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

Uninterrupted dividends · paid every year (10)

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 Miss

Earnings +33% over the record · −4388%

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 $-3.91/share (latest year $-1.69), the averaged base the calculator's gate runs on, and book value is $-1.08/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 10

What this means
Lost money in 7 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 9% → −25% (3-yr avg ends)

What this means
Through the cycle the operating margin slipped — about 9% early to −25% lately, median 3% — 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 −5%/yr

What this means
Owner earnings shrank about 5% a year over the record.
Worst year 2023 · −70.9% op. margin

What this means
Operations went underwater in 2023, understand why before trusting the good years.
Dividend record paid

What this means
Paid a dividend in 10 of the years on record.
How management talks about it Owner’s terms

What this means
Returns have thinned, but the filing discusses it in an owner’s vocabulary rather than selling past it — candor about a hard stretch counts for more than an adjective.

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.

In its own filing A competitive risk, new this year

Its FY2025 10-K names artificial intelligence as a competitive threat, in language that was not in the prior year's filing.

“AI's complexity and reliance on algorithms present risks that could lead to operational disruptions or other unintended consequences.”

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, and the company is using it that way.

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$4.1B

Cash & short-term investments$1.6B
Receivables$1.6B
Inventory$35M
Other current assets$858M

Current liabilities$4.2B

Debt due within a year$12M
Accounts payable$1.2B
Other current liabilities$2.9B

Current ratio0.99×all current assets ÷ what's due · Graham looked for 2×

Quick ratio0.98×stricter: inventory excluded

Cash ratio0.39×strictest: cash alone against what's due

Working capital($50M)the cushion left after near-term bills

Debt due this year vs. cash$12M due · $1.6B 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−8.9%the freshest read on whether the business is still growing

Current ratio, recent quarters1.0× → 1.0×

Deeper floors

Tangible book value($5.6B)equity stripped of goodwill & intangibles

Debt incl. operating leases$32.9B$1.4B of it operating leases

Deferred revenue$1.8Bcustomer 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.

'26$88M

'27$72M

'28$716M

'29$3.8B

'30$2.2B

Bars scaled to the largest single year.

Due in the next 12 months$88Mthe first rung: what must be repaid or rolled over within the year

Within two years$160Mthe near wall, the part most exposed to today’s credit conditions

Biggest single year$3.8Bin 2029the lumpiest maturity, where a refinancing, if needed, is largest

Due over the next five years$6.8Bthe near slice; the balance sheet carries $17.8B of debt in all

Against what the business has and earns

Cash & short-term investments, Mar 31, 2026$1.6B

One year of owner earnings (FY2025)$371M

Together, against $88M due next year22.7×

Cash on hand as of Mar 31, 2026 plus a year’s owner earnings comes to $2.0B against the $88M due in the twelve months after the Dec 31, 2025 schedule: 23 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 $51.2B of operating cash; how management split it reads as a reinvestor, most operating cash is plowed back into the business.

Reinvested$33.2B · 65%
Dividends$9.0B · 18%
Buybacks$1.2B · 2%
Retained (debt / cash)$7.7B · 15%

Returned to owners$10.3B
57% of the owner earnings the business produced over the span, $9.0B as dividends and $1.2B as buybacks.
Source of fundingOperating cash
Operating cash covered reinvestment and returns; over the span debt rose $11.5B and cash and short-term investments rose $1.4B.
Average price paid for buybacks$10.54
Across the years where the filing reports a share count, 114M shares were bought for $1.2B, about $10.54 each.
Net change in share count84.7%
The diluted count rose from 541M to 999M: issuance (stock pay, deals) outran any buybacks, so owners were diluted on net.
Dividend record$0.00/sh
Paid in 10 of the years on record, the per-share dividend shrinking about 57% a year. 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.

Acquisitions & goodwill

from the balance sheet & the 10-year cash-flow record

Goodwill 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$4.5B13% of all assets; the premium carried on the balance sheet for businesses acquired

Against book equity—goodwill is this share of book equity; the rest is the company’s own retained and paid-in capital

Cash spent acquiring$7.3Bover 10 years buying other businesses, against $33.2B of capital spent building

$26.5B written down across 6 years (2018, 2019, 2020, 2022, 2023, 2025): goodwill the company has already conceded it overpaid for, charged against earnings. 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	$22.7M	$32.4M	$3.6B
2022	$19.8M	−$5.2M	$1.7B
2022	$4.8M	$4.4M	$1.7B
2023	$9.6M	$7.3M	($940M)
2024	$10.5M	$32.5M	$1.1B
2025	$24.9M	$59.4M	$371M

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 ownership2.3%
The stake all directors and executive officers hold together, per the 2026 proxy: skin in the game, the first thing Munger reads.
CEO pay ratio260:1
What the chief earns for every dollar the median employee makes, per the 2026 proxy. A high ratio alone settles nothing; some businesses are genuinely top-heavy in scarce skill. A runaway figure is where Buffett starts asking whether the board is doing its job.
Stock-based compensation$48M
The slice of the business handed to employees in shares this year, 0% 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 Lumen Technologies 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.

4 of the 5 tests turned up something to look into; the other 1 came back clean.

Look hereIs it less profitable than it was?1.8% vs 10.7%
The owner-earnings margin averaged 10.7% early in the record and 1.8% across the last three years, and the latest year has not recovered. Ask the filing whether that is a structural drift or a cyclical trough — price, mix, cost, or a competitor — and whether it is permanent.
Look hereDid the share count rise anyway?84.7%
Diluted shares grew 84.7% over 2016–2025, even as the company spent $1.2B 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.
Look hereDid debt outgrow the business?$20.0B → $31.5B
Debt rose from $20.0B to $31.5B while owner earnings went from about $2.1B to $178M — about 9.6 years of owner earnings in debt then, about 177 now: measured against what the business earns, the balance sheet carries more debt than it did. Debt raised for buybacks or deals rather than growth is the kind that bites in a downturn.
Look hereAre "one-time" charges a yearly habit?6 of 10 years
Management took an impairment or write-down in 6 of the last 10 years, $26.5B in all. Taken across the majority of the record, the "one-time" label is wearing thin — ask whether these are past deals coming due rather than genuinely isolated events. Read it beside the goodwill the company still carries.

And these came back clean

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.

What an owner would ask, FY2025

read the 10-K →

Which reported numbers are a judgment call?
Management names 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, Telecom Operators

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%
ECHOEchoStar Corporation	$15.0B	99%	3.0%	1%	13%
LUMNLumen Technologies	$11.3B	52%	3.3%	2%	10%
OPTUOptimum Communications Inc.	$8.6B	67%	18.6%	5%	10%
SIRISiriusXM Holdings Inc.	$8.6B	100%	21.2%	17%	20%
LBTYALiberty Global Ltd. Class A	$4.9B	72%	6.5%	1%	30%
UNITUniti Group Inc.	$2.2B	—	32.9%	3%	1%
TDSTelephone and Data Systems	$1.1B	—	2.2%	1%	3%
Group median	—	72%	12.5%	2%	12%

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 Lumen Technologies has delivered.

Today’s price $

Through the cycle, Lumen Technologies earns about $1.1B on its 10.0% median owner-earnings margin. This year’s 3.3% 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 Normalize · through-cycle ($1.1B) Net of stock comp (−$51M)

—

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 · ’21→’25−27%/yr

Owner-earnings growth · ’16→’25−5%/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 $447M on 1030M shares outstanding, per the 10-Q cover, as of 2026-05-01; net debt $29.9B. 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.

Weigh LUMN against another business →

The owners of LUMN: the meeting and the votes →

Cite: Owner Scorecard, "Lumen Technologies (LUMN), the owner's record," https://ownerscorecard.com/c/LUMN, data as of 2026-07-09.

Manual order: ← LULU its page in the Manual LUNR →

Industry order: ← KYIVW the Telecom Operators chapter PHI →