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LYV, Live Nation

Entertainment & Studios diversified Cyclical

We are the largest live entertainment company in the world, connecting over 805 million fans across all of our concerts and ticketing platforms in 55 countries during 2025.

Ticketmaster provides ticket sales services and marketing and distribution globally through www.ticketmaster.com and www.livenation.com and our mobile apps, other websites and numerous retail outlets, distributing 646 million tickets through our systems in 2025.

Ticketmaster serves 10,500 clients worldwide across multiple event categories, providing ticketing services for leading arenas, stadiums, festival and concert promoters, professional sports franchises and leagues, college sports teams, performing arts venues, museums and theaters.

Latest annual: FY2025 10-K

LYV · Live Nation

The business

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

Revenue · FY2025

$25.2B

+8.8% YoY · 68% 5-yr CAGR

Vital signs · TTM, with 5-yr average

Revenue $25.6B 5-yr avg $18.8B

Operating margin 3.0% 5-yr avg 2.2%

Owner-earnings margin 7% 5-yr avg 9%

Free cash flow margin 5% 5-yr avg 9%

The business in brief

read the 10-K →

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

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: Operating margin has run about 2.5% through the cycle, a thin margin, where volume, cost discipline and the price it gets all bear on the result. The operating margin has swung widely — from −89% to 5.0% over the years — so the through-cycle figure carries more than any single year, and the worst year more than the best. 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 sat near the cost of capital (median 8%). The steadier read is owner earnings: roughly 4% of revenue reaches owners as cash, consistently. 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 →

43% of revenue comes from outside the United States.

Revenue by geography, FY2025

Total Domestic Operations57%$14.3B
Europe23%$5.8B
Total Other Foreign Operations20%$5.1B

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
$7.8B	$9.7B	$10.8B	$11.5B	$1.9B	$6.3B	$16.7B	$22.7B	$23.2B	$25.2B	$25.6B	RevenueRevenue
20%	20%	19%	19%	82%	28%	18%	15%	17%	16%	17%	SG&A / revenueSG&A/rev
$195M	$91M	$273M	$325M	($1.7B)	($418M)	$722M	$1.1B	$825M	$1.3B	$766M	Operating incomeOp. inc.
2.5%	0.9%	2.5%	2.8%	−88.8%	−6.7%	4.3%	4.8%	3.6%	5.0%	3.0%	Operating marginOp. mgn
$3M	($6M)	$60M	$70M	($1.7B)	($651M)	$266M	$557M	$896M	$496M	$84M	Net incomeNet inc.
—	—	40%	49%	—	—	30%	27%	—	41%	—	Effective tax rateTax rate
											Cash flow & returns
$599M	$624M	$942M	$470M	($1.1B)	$1.8B	$1.8B	$1.4B	$1.7B	$1.4B	$2.4B	Operating cash flowOp. cash
$319M	$372M	$387M	$444M	$485M	$416M	$450M	$517M	$550M	$639M	$659M	DepreciationDeprec.
$244M	$215M	$449M	($93M)	$39M	$1.8B	$1.0B	$173M	$169M	$105M	$1.5B	Working capital & otherWC & other
$174M	$238M	$240M	$324M	$214M	$153M	$347M	$439M	$647M	$1.1B	$1.2B	CapexCapex
2.2%	2.5%	2.2%	2.8%	11.5%	2.4%	2.1%	1.9%	2.8%	4.2%	4.7%	Capex / revenueCapex/rev
$425M	$385M	$702M	$146M	($1.3B)	$1.6B	$1.5B	$924M	$1.1B	$756M	$1.8B	Owner earningsOwner earn.
5.4%	4.0%	6.5%	1.3%	−69.7%	26.0%	8.9%	4.1%	4.7%	3.0%	6.8%	Owner earnings marginOE mgn
$425M	$385M	$702M	$146M	($1.3B)	$1.6B	$1.5B	$924M	$1.1B	$334M	$1.2B	Free cash flowFCF
5.4%	4.0%	6.5%	1.3%	−69.7%	26.0%	8.9%	4.1%	4.7%	1.3%	4.7%	Free cash flow marginFCF mgn
$212M	$48M	$120M	$235M	$41M	$384M	$257M	$18M	$98M	$80M	$162M	AcquisitionsAcquis.
—	—	—	—	—	—	—	$0	$0	$24M	—	BuybacksBuybacks
—	—	11%	8%	-69%	-125%	—	—	—	54%	—	ROICROIC
0%	-1%	5%	6%	—	—	—	—	517%	183%	—	Return on equityROE
0%	−1%	5%	6%	—	—	—	—	517%	183%	—	Retained to equityRetained/eq
											Balance sheet
$1.5B	$1.8B	$2.4B	$2.5B	$2.5B	$4.9B	$5.6B	$6.2B	$6.1B	$7.1B	$9.1B	Cash & investmentsCash+inv
$569M	$725M	$829M	$995M	$487M	$1.1B	$1.5B	$2.0B	$1.7B	$2.0B	$2.0B	ReceivablesReceiv.
$15M	$17M	$13M	$16M	$22M	$34M	$39M	$45M	$50M	$57M	$57M	InventoryInvent.
$55M	$86M	$90M	$100M	$86M	$111M	$180M	$267M	$243M	$253M	$253M	Accounts payablePayables
$529M	$657M	$752M	$910M	$422M	$990M	$1.3B	$1.8B	$1.6B	$1.8B	$1.8B	Operating working capitalOper. WC
$2.7B	$3.2B	$3.8B	$4.2B	$3.6B	$6.7B	$8.2B	$9.5B	$9.3B	$11.0B	$13.6B	Current assetsCur. assets
$2.5B	$3.6B	$3.7B	$4.1B	$3.8B	$6.9B	$8.3B	$10.0B	$9.4B	$11.0B	$15.4B	Current liabilitiesCur. liab.
1.1×	0.9×	1.0×	1.0×	1.0×	1.0×	1.0×	1.0×	1.0×	1.0×	0.9×	Current ratioCurr. ratio
$1.7B	$1.8B	$1.8B	$2.0B	$2.1B	$2.6B	$2.5B	$2.7B	$2.6B	$2.9B	$2.9B	GoodwillGoodwill
$6.8B	$7.5B	$8.5B	$11.0B	$10.6B	$14.4B	$16.5B	$19.0B	$19.6B	$22.9B	$26.1B	Total assetsAssets
$2.3B	$2.3B	$2.8B	$3.3B	$4.9B	$5.7B	$5.9B	$6.6B	$6.4B	$8.2B	$8.5B	Total debtDebt
$786M	$475M	$443M	$839M	$2.4B	$846M	$297M	$362M	$343M	$1.1B	($568M)	Net debt / (cash)Net debt
1.8×	0.8×	1.9×	2.1×	-7.3×	-1.5×	2.6×	3.1×	2.5×	4.0×	2.3×	Interest coverageInt. cov.
$1.1B	$1.2B	$1.1B	$1.1B	($472M)	($583M)	($368M)	($52M)	$173M	$271M	($139M)	Shareholders’ equityEquity
0.4%	0.4%	0.4%	0.4%	6.3%	3.3%	0.7%	0.5%	0.5%	0.6%	0.6%	Stock comp / revenueSBC/rev
											Per share
202M	205M	207M	210M	212M	217M	232M	231M	236M	232M	232M	Shares out (diluted)Shares
$38.73	$47.27	$52.00	$54.97	$8.77	$28.86	$72.04	$98.39	$97.97	$108.70	$110.21	Revenue / shareRev/sh
$0.01	$-0.03	$0.29	$0.33	$-8.12	$-3.00	$1.15	$2.41	$3.79	$2.14	$0.36	EPS (diluted)EPS
$2.10	$1.88	$3.38	$0.70	$-6.11	$7.49	$6.43	$4.00	$4.56	$3.26	$7.55	Owner earnings / shareOE/sh
$2.10	$1.88	$3.38	$0.70	$-6.11	$7.49	$6.43	$4.00	$4.56	$1.44	$5.22	Free cash flow / shareFCF/sh
$0.86	$1.16	$1.16	$1.54	$1.01	$0.70	$1.50	$1.90	$2.74	$4.58	$5.16	Cap. spending / shareCapex/sh
$5.57	$5.76	$5.30	$5.45	$-2.22	$-2.68	$-1.59	$-0.23	$0.73	$1.17	$-0.60	Book value / shareBVPS

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

	9-yr	5-yr
Revenue / share	+12.1%/yr	+65.4%/yr
Owner earnings / share	+5.0%/yr	—
EPS	+74.1%/yr	—
Capital spending / share	+20.4%/yr	+35.4%/yr
Book value / share	−15.9%/yr	—

The record, charted

FY2016–2025

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

Share count

232Mpeak FY2024

ROIC

54%low FY2021

Owner earnings vs. net income

Owner earningsNet income

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

$756Mowner earningsvs.$496Mnet incomelow FY2020

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 earned $756M of owner earnings, the operating cash left after the $639M it takes just to hold its position. It put $423M more into growth; free cash flow, after that spending, was $334M.

Reported net income$496M

Owner earnings$756M · 3% of revenue

	FY2025	FY2024	FY2023	FY2022	FY2021
Reported net income	$496M	$896M	$557M	$266M	($651M)
Depreciation & amortizationnon-cash charge added back	+$639M	+$550M	+$517M	+$450M	+$416M
Stock-based compensationreal costnon-cash, but a real cost	+$155M	+$110M	+$116M	+$110M	+$209M
Working capital & othertiming of cash in and out, other non-cash items	+$105M	+$169M	+$173M	+$1.0B	+$1.8B
Cash from operations	$1.4B	$1.7B	$1.4B	$1.8B	$1.8B
Maintenance capital expenditurethe spending needed just to hold position and volume	−$639M	−$647M	−$439M	−$347M	−$153M
Owner earnings	$756M	$1.1B	$924M	$1.5B	$1.6B
Growth capital expenditurediscretionary; spent to get bigger, not to stand still	−$423M	—	—	—	—
Free cash flow	$334M	$1.1B	$924M	$1.5B	$1.6B
Owner-earnings marginowner earnings ÷ revenue	3%	5%	4%	9%	26%

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 $639M, roughly its depreciation, the rate its assets wear out). The other $423M 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. 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 $155M), owner earnings is nearer $601M.

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? 4.0×

Adequate

Operating income $1.3B ÷ interest expense $316M

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? $1.1B · 0.9× operating profit

Modest net debt

Cash $7.1B − debt $8.2B

What this means
Netting $7.1B of cash and short-term investments against $8.2B of debt leaves $1.1B owed, about 0.9× a year's operating profit (6.6× 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? —

Not enough data

What this means
The filing data didn't include the inputs for this check.

Is it a good business?

Return on invested capital 8%

Solid through the cycle

5-yr median, range -125%–54%; 54% latest = NOPAT $743M ÷ invested capital $1.4B

Industry peers: median -1%

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 5 years (it ran 54% 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 3%

Thin, recently turned positive

latest $756M = operating cash $1.4B − maintenance capex $639M; positive each of the last 3 years, after an earlier loss stretch (10-yr median 4%)

Industry peers: median 7%

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 4% median across 10 years. It chose to put $423M more into growth, so free cash flow this year was $334M — the gap is investment, not weakness. Treating stock comp as the real expense it is (less $155M of SBC) leaves $601M.
Are earnings backed by cash? 2.81×

Cash-backed

Cash from ops $1.4B ÷ net income $496M

What this means
How much of reported profit showed up as operating cash. Above 1× is reassuring; well below suggests earnings lean on accruals. One year is noisy, growth and working-capital swings distort it, and this is operating cash, not free cash. Watch the multi-year trend.

How is the cash used?

Where do the earnings go? 3%

Reinvests most of it

Dividends + buybacks $24M ÷ Owner Earnings $756M

What this means
Of $756M Owner Earnings, $24M (3%) went back to shareholders, $0 dividends, $24M buybacks. But the buybacks barely exceed stock issued to employees ($155M SBC), net of dilution, little was truly returned. 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? 1.66×

Expanding

Capex $1.1B ÷ depreciation $639M

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 · $25.2B

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× · 1.00×

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 · $8.2B vs ($54M) 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) · 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 · 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 Pass

Earnings +33% over the record · +3309%

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 $2.76/share (latest year $2.11), the averaged base the calculator's gate runs on, and book value is $1.15/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 7 of 10

What this means
Lost money in 3 year(s), look at what happened there before trusting the average.
Return on capital ≥ 15% 3 of 9 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% → 4% (3-yr avg ends)

What this means
Through the cycle the operating margin widened — about 2% early to 4% lately, median 3% — pricing power intact or improving.
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 +10%/yr

What this means
Owner earnings grew about 10% a year over the record.
Worst year 2020 · −88.8% op. margin

What this means
Operations went underwater in 2020, understand why before trusting the good years.
Share count +1.5%/yr

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

Does AI threaten the moat?

Moderate contestability

AI 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.

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 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$13.6B

Cash & short-term investments$9.1B
Receivables$2.0B
Inventory$57M
Other current assets$2.5B

Current liabilities$15.4B

Accounts payable$253M
Other current liabilities$15.2B

Current ratio0.88×all current assets ÷ what's due · Graham looked for 2×

Quick ratio0.88×stricter: inventory excluded

Cash ratio0.59×strictest: cash alone against what's due

Working capital($1.8B)the cushion left after near-term bills

Revenue, latest quarter vs. a year ago+12.1%the freshest read on whether the business is still growing

Current ratio, recent quarters0.9× → 0.9×

Deeper floors

Tangible book value($4.1B)equity stripped of goodwill & intangibles

Debt incl. operating leases$4.0B$2.2B of it operating leases; with finance leases, “total fixed claims” below reaches $10.4B (annual-report basis)

Deferred revenue$7.5Bcustomer 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.

'26$286M

'27$254M

'28$289M

'29$269M

'30$251M

later$2.4B

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$286Ma fixed cash payment, owed whether or not the business has a good year

Total lease payments$3.8Bevery year plus the tail, undiscounted: the full cash the leases will take

On the balance sheet$2.2Bthe present value of those payments, the recognised lease liability

True leverage: debt plus leases

On-balance-sheet debt$8.2B

Lease obligations (present value)$2.2B

Total fixed claims on the business$10.4B

Counting the leases the way Buffett does, the fixed claims on this business come to $10.4B, of which the leases are 21%. 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 Dec 31, 2025 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, 2016–2025

Over the record, the business generated $9.6B of operating cash; how management split it reads as a cash builder, a large share of cash simply built up on the balance sheet.

Reinvested$3.8B · 40%
Buybacks$24M · 0%
Retained (debt / cash)$5.8B · 60%

Returned to owners$24M
0% of the owner earnings the business produced over the span, $0 as dividends and $24M as buybacks.
Source of fundingOperating cash
Operating cash covered reinvestment and returns; over the span debt rose $6.2B and cash and short-term investments rose $7.6B.
Average price paid for buybacks$141.66
Across the years where the filing reports a share count, 0M shares were bought for $24M, about $141.66 each.
Net change in share count15.0%
The diluted count rose from 202M to 232M: 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.

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$4.0B17% of all assets; the premium carried on the balance sheet for businesses acquired

Against book equityexceeds itgoodwill alone is larger than the company’s entire book equity; stripped of the acquisition premium, there is no net book worth

Cash spent acquiring$1.5Bover 10 years buying other businesses, against $3.8B of capital spent building

$31M written down across 2 years (2017, 2018): 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	Chief executive	Pay, as filed	“Actually paid”	Owner earnings
2021	Michael Rapino	$13.8M	$84.3M	$1.6B
2022	Michael Rapino	$139.0M	$35.6M	$1.5B
2023	Michael Rapino	$23.4M	$68.2M	$924M
2024	Michael Rapino	$33.0M	$94.3M	$1.1B
2025	Michael Rapino	$32.6M	$52.3M	$756M

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 ownership2.9%
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$155M
The slice of the business handed to employees in shares this year, 1% of revenue, equal to 12% 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.

Inverting the record

Invert: instead of why Live Nation 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.

3 of the 5 tests turned up something to look into; the other 2 came back clean.

Look hereIs it less profitable than it was?3.9% vs 5.3%
The owner-earnings margin averaged 5.3% early in the record and 3.9% 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?15.0%
Diluted shares grew 15.0% over 2016–2025, even as the company spent $24M 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?$2.3B → $8.5B
Debt rose from $2.3B to $8.5B while owner earnings went from about $504M to $920M — about 4.6 years of owner earnings in debt then, about 9.3 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.

And these came back clean

Did receivables and inventory outpace sales?
Are "one-time" charges a yearly habit?

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, Entertainment & Studios

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
LYVLive Nation	$25.2B	—	2.7%	8%	4%
WMGWarner Music	$6.7B	47%	9.2%	13%	9%
DKNGDraftKings Inc.	$6.1B	38%	-44.5%	-79%	-15%
TKOTKO Group Holdings Inc.	$4.7B	—	17.6%	—	—
STUBStubHub Holdings Inc.	$1.7B	—	7.8%	-73%	15%
ACELAccel Entertainment Inc.	$1.3B	—	7.7%	14%	7%
RSIRush Street Interactive Inc.	$1.1B	32%	-19.3%	—	-1%
LLYVALiberty Live Holdings, Inc.	$382M	19%	-13.5%	-1%	—
Group median	—	—	5.2%	3%	6%

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 Live Nation has delivered.

Today’s price $

Through the cycle, Live Nation earns about $1.1B on its 4.4% median owner-earnings margin. This year’s 3.0% 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 (−$163M) Steady-state · maintenance capex ($1.8B)

—

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→’25−12%/yr

Owner-earnings growth · ’16→’25+6%/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.

Free cash flow $1.2B on 236M shares outstanding, per the 10-Q cover, as of 2026-04-28; net cash $568M. 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. Capex ($1.2B) runs well above depreciation ($659M), so this is a build-out; Steady-state swaps total capex for maintenance (≈ depreciation), lifting the base to about $1.8B, 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 LYV against another business →

The owners of LYV: the meeting and the votes →

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

Manual order: ← LYTS its page in the Manual LZ →

Industry order: ← LUCK the Entertainment & Studios chapter MANU →