Owner Scorecard


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MBC, MasterBrand Inc.

Building Products diversified

MasterBrand Way enables our associates across all locations and levels of work to operate under common frameworks and a consistent lexicon to effectively develop cross-functional solutions to complex business issues.

O ur products are sold throughout the United States and Canada to the remodeling and new construction markets through three primary channels: dealers, retailers and builders.

On December 14, 2022, our former parent company, Fortune Brands Innovations, Inc.

Latest annual: FY2025 10-K
MBC · MasterBrand Inc.
I

The business

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

Revenue · FY2025
$2.7B
+1.3% YoY · −1% 4-yr CAGR
Vital signs · TTM, with 5-yr average
Revenue $2.7B 5-yr avg $2.9B
Gross margin 29% 5-yr avg 30%
Operating margin 2.4% 5-yr avg 7.7%
Owner-earnings margin 0% 5-yr avg 7%
Free cash flow margin 0% 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 Dealer (55%), Retail (32%) and Builders (13%).
What moves the needle
Gross margin has run about 30% and operating margin about 8.2% through the cycle, a solid spread between what it charges and what the product costs to make. 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 sat near the cost of capital (median 8%). By owner earnings: roughly 5% of revenue reaches owners as cash, consistently. This is price-taker territory, where the balance sheet and the cycle matter more than any multiple; 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 →

Revenue spreads across 3 lines, the largest Dealer at 55%.

Revenue by product line, FY2025
  • Dealer55%$1.5B
  • Retail32%$878M
  • Builders13%$356M
By geographyUnited States96%Canada4%Mexico1%

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, 2021–2025

realized figures from each filing · older years to the left
2021’212022’222023’232024’242025’25TTMTTMMar 2026
Income statement
$2.9B$3.3B$2.7B$2.7B$2.7B$2.7BRevenueRevenue
27%29%33%32%30%29%Gross marginGross mgn
18%20%21%22%24%25%SG&A / revenueSG&A/rev
$234M$203M$306M$236M$119M$63MOperating incomeOp. inc.
8.2%6.2%11.2%8.7%4.4%2.4%Operating marginOp. mgn
$183M$155M$182M$126M$27M($2M)Net incomeNet inc.
23%27%24%25%42%Effective tax rateTax rate
Cash flow & returns
$148M$236M$406M$292M$196M$94MOperating cash flowOp. cash
$44M$47M$49M$57M$68M$68MDepreciationDeprec.
($88M)$22M$157M$87M$85M$13MWorking capital & otherWC & other
$52M$56M$57M$81M$78M$82MCapexCapex
1.8%1.7%2.1%3.0%2.9%3.0%Capex / revenueCapex/rev
$97M$180M$348M$211M$118M$13MOwner earningsOwner earn.
3.4%5.5%12.8%7.8%4.3%0.5%Owner earnings marginOE mgn
$97M$180M$348M$211M$118M$13MFree cash flowFCF
3.4%5.5%12.8%7.8%4.3%0.5%Free cash flow marginFCF mgn
$0$0$515M$0$0AcquisitionsAcquis.
$0$0$22M$7M$18MBuybacksBuybacks
8%8%13%8%3%ROICROIC
7%15%15%10%2%-0%Return on equityROE
7%15%15%10%2%−0%Retained to equityRetained/eq
Balance sheet
$141M$101M$149M$121M$183M$138MCash & investmentsCash+inv
$290M$203M$191M$150M$218MReceivablesReceiv.
$373M$250M$276M$269M$272MInventoryInvent.
$219M$151M$181M$204M$175MAccounts payablePayables
$444M$301M$287M$216M$314MOperating working capitalOper. WC
$830M$677M$651M$696M$735MCurrent assetsCur. assets
$411M$349M$395M$416M$354MCurrent liabilitiesCur. liab.
2.0×1.9×1.6×1.7×2.1×Current ratioCurr. ratio
$926M$924M$925M$1.1B$1.1B$1.1BGoodwillGoodwill
$2.5B$2.4B$2.9B$3.1B$3.1BTotal assetsAssets
$979M$713M$1.0B$985M$1.1BTotal debtDebt
$878M$564M$899M$802M$957MNet debt / (cash)Net debt
92.4×4.7×3.2×1.6×0.9×Interest coverageInt. cov.
$2.5B$1.0B$1.2B$1.3B$1.3B$1.3BShareholders’ equityEquity
0.3%0.3%0.7%0.8%0.6%0.6%Stock comp / revenueSBC/rev
Per share
128M129M130M131M129M128MShares out (diluted)Shares
$22.31$25.37$20.99$20.63$21.17$21.12Revenue / shareRev/sh
$1.43$1.20$1.40$0.96$0.21$-0.02EPS (diluted)EPS
$0.75$1.39$2.68$1.61$0.91$0.10Owner earnings / shareOE/sh
$0.75$1.39$2.68$1.61$0.91$0.10Free cash flow / shareFCF/sh
$0.40$0.43$0.44$0.62$0.61$0.64Cap. spending / shareCapex/sh
$19.17$7.82$9.19$9.89$10.41$10.36Book value / shareBVPS
Per-share growththe realized rate an owner's share compounded
4-yr5-yr
Revenue / share−1.3%/yr−1.3%/yr (4-yr)
Owner earnings / share+4.8%/yr+4.8%/yr (4-yr)
EPS−38.3%/yr−38.3%/yr (4-yr)
Capital spending / share+10.7%/yr+10.7%/yr (4-yr)
Book value / share−14.2%/yr−14.2%/yr (4-yr)

The record, charted

FY2021–2025

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

Share count
129Mpeak FY2024
ROIC
3%low FY2025
Gross margin
30%low FY2021
Net debt ÷ owner earnings
6.8×peak FY2025

Owner earnings vs. net income

Owner earningsNet income

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

$118Mowner earningsvs.$27Mnet incomelow FY2021

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.

FY2021FY2025

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 $27M of profit into $118M of owner earnings: more cash than the profit line showed, after the non-cash charges and the capital it put back in.

Reported net income$27M
Owner earnings$118M · 4% of revenue
FY2025FY2024FY2023FY2022FY2021
Reported net income$27M$126M$182M$155M$183M
Depreciation & amortizationnon-cash charge added back+$68M+$57M+$49M+$47M+$44M
Stock-based compensationreal costnon-cash, but a real cost+$16M+$22M+$18M+$11M+$9M
Working capital & othertiming of cash in and out, other non-cash items+$85M+$87M+$157M+$22M−$88M
Cash from operations$196M$292M$406M$236M$148M
Capital expenditurecash put back in to keep running and to grow−$78M−$81M−$57M−$56M−$52M
Owner earnings$118M$211M$348M$180M$97M
Owner-earnings marginowner earnings ÷ revenue4%8%13%5%3%

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 $16M), owner earnings is nearer $101M.

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?

  • Thin
    Operating income $119M ÷ interest expense $74M
    What this means

    Operating profit covers interest, but with little room. A bad year, a refinancing at higher rates, or a revenue wobble closes the gap fast.

  • How heavy is the debt, net of cash? $802M · 6.7× operating profit
    Heavy net debt
    Cash $183M − debt $985M
    What this means

    Netting $183M of cash and short-term investments against $985M of debt leaves $802M owed, about 6.7× a year's operating profit (8.3× 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.

  • Tight
    DSO 20 + DIO 52 − DPO 39 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.

Is it a good business?

  • Below average through the cycle
    5-yr median, range 3%–13%; 3% latest = NOPAT $69M ÷ invested capital $2.1B
    Industry peers: median 6%
    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 3% 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.

  • Solid through the cycle
    5-yr median margin, range 3%–13%; latest $118M = operating cash $196M − maintenance capex $78M
    Industry peers: median 6%
    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 4% of revenue this year, a 5% median across 5 years. Treating stock comp as the real expense it is (less $16M of SBC) leaves $101M.

  • Cash-backed
    Cash from ops $196M ÷ net income $27M
    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?

  • Reinvests most of it
    Dividends + buybacks $18M ÷ Owner Earnings $118M
    What this means

    Of $118M Owner Earnings, $18M (15%) went back to shareholders, $0 dividends, $18M buybacks. Net of $16M stock comp, the real buyback was about $2M. 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? 1.15×
    Maintaining
    Capex $78M ÷ depreciation $68M
    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 Pass
    Revenue ≥ $2B · $2.7B
    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× · 1.67×
    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 · $985M vs $280M 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 Pass
    A profit every year (5-yr record) · no losses
    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.

  • 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 $0.87/share (latest year $0.21), the averaged base the calculator's gate runs on, and book value is $10.51/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, 2021–2025

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

  • Profitable years 5 of 5
    What this means

    Never lost money over the record, the earnings stability Graham insisted on.

  • Return on capital ≥ 15% 0 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 7% → 7% (2-yr avg ends)

    In the filing’s words The margin has held, but the filing names price competition — the pressure is present even where the margin has absorbed it so far.

    What this means

    Through the cycle the operating margin held roughly steady — about 7% early, 7% lately, median 8%.

  • 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 +4%/yr
    What this means

    Owner earnings grew about 4% a year over the record.

  • Worst year 2025 · 4.4% op. margin
    What this means

    Stayed profitable even in its hardest year, the resilience that survives recessions.

  • Share count +0.2%/yr
    What this means

    Roughly flat share count, little dilution, little buyback.

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.

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.

“Use of artificial intelligence in our operations could result in reputational or competitive harm, legal or regulatory liability and adverse impacts on our financial performance.”

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 29, 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$735M
  • Cash & short-term investments$138M
  • Receivables$218M
  • Inventory$272M
  • Other current assets$107M
Current liabilities$354M
  • Accounts payable$175M
  • Other current liabilities$179M
Current ratio2.08×all current assets ÷ what's due · Graham looked for 2×
Quick ratio1.31×stricter: inventory excluded
Cash ratio0.39×strictest: cash alone against what's due
Working capital$381Mthe cushion left after near-term bills
Revenue, latest quarter vs. a year ago−6.4%the freshest read on whether the business is still growing
Current ratio, recent quarters2.2× → 2.1×
Deeper floors
Tangible book value($347M)equity stripped of goodwill & intangibles
Net current asset value($1.1B)Graham's net-net: current assets less all liabilities
Debt incl. operating leases$1.3B$195M of it operating leases

From the company's latest filing.

How the cash was used, 2021–2025

Over the record, the business generated $1.3B of operating cash; how management split it reads as a balanced allocator, splitting cash between the business, owners, and the balance sheet.

  • Reinvested$324M · 25%
  • Buybacks$47M · 4%
  • Retained (debt / cash)$907M · 71%
  • Returned to owners$47M

    5% of the owner earnings the business produced over the span, $0 as dividends and $47M as buybacks.

  • Average price paid for buybacks$12.73

    Across the years where the filing reports a share count, 4M shares were bought for $47M, about $12.73 each. Year to year the price paid ranged from $11.73 (2023) to $17.50 (2024); its heaviest year, 2023, paid $11.73 ($22M).

  • Net change in share count−0.4%

    The diluted count barely moved (128M to 128M): buybacks roughly offset the stock issued to staff.

  • Dividend record

    No dividend line was reported in the filing data over the span; the record here neither confirms nor rules out a payout.

  • Return on what it retained3%

    Of the earnings it kept rather than paid out ($626M over the span), annual owner earnings (first three years vs last three) grew $17M, so each retained $1 added about 0.03 of yearly owner earnings. Buffett's test, run on owner earnings instead of market value.

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 5-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$1.7B54% of all assets; the premium carried on the balance sheet for businesses acquired
Against book equity84%goodwill is this share of book equity; the rest is the company’s own retained and paid-in capital
Cash spent acquiring$515Mover 5 years buying other businesses, against $324M of capital spent building

None written down over the record; the goodwill is still carried at full cost. That is the deals holding their value on the books so far; whether they keep doing so is the test an owner watches, since the write-down, when it comes, is the admission the price was too high.

Goodwill, acquired intangibles and equity from the latest balance sheet; acquisition spend and write-downs summed across the 5-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 yearChief executivePay, as filed“Actually paid”Owner earnings
2022Mr. Banyard$6.8M$3.1M$180M
2023Mr. Banyard$7.1M$16.3M$348M
2024Mr. Banyard$6.5M$6.0M$211M
2025Mr. Banyard$7.4M$6.3M$118M

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 ownership2.8%

    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$16M

    The slice of the business handed to employees in shares this year, 1% of revenue, equal to 14% 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 MasterBrand Inc. 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 2021–2025.

None of the 4 tests turned up a mark; each came back clean. A clean panel says only that these particular ways of being wrong are not written into the record.

Each test came back clean
  • Is it less profitable than it was?
  • Did the share count rise anyway?
  • Did reported profit become cash?
  • 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.

What an owner would ask, FY2025

read the 10-K →
  • How much of the revenue rides on one buyer?
    ≈$1.5B · 55% of revenue on the largest customers (TTM)
    “Our ten largest customers generated approximately 50 percent, 55 percent and 55 percent of our net sales for our 2025, 2024 and 2023 fiscal years, respectively.”verify →
  • Which reported numbers are a judgment call?
    Management names Revenue recognition, Income taxes, Inventory, Acquisitions 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.

CompanyRevenueGross marginOp. marginROICOwner earn. margin
SGISomnigroup International Inc.$7.5B42%12.6%16%8%
UVVUniversal Corporation$2.9B18%7.6%8%3%
CBZCBIZ$2.8B14%8.5%5%9%
VSTSVestis Corporation$2.7B6.4%6%6%
MBCMasterBrand Inc.$2.7B30%8.2%8%5%
AMNAMN Healthcare Services$2.7B33%9.2%13%8%
FTREFortrea Holdings Inc.$2.7B1.1%1%5%
GBTGGlobal Business Travel Group Inc.$2.7B-5.5%-7%-12%
Group median30%7.9%7%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 MasterBrand Inc. has delivered.

$

Through the cycle, MasterBrand Inc. earns about $150M on its 5.5% median owner-earnings margin. This year’s 4.3% 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

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+4%/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 $13M on 128M shares outstanding, per the 10-Q cover, as of 2026-05-04; net debt $957M. 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, "MasterBrand Inc. (MBC), the owner's record," https://ownerscorecard.com/c/MBC, data as of 2026-07-09.

Manual order: ← MAZE its page in the Manual MBI →

Industry order: ← MAS the Building Products chapter OC →