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MBUU, Malibu Boats Inc.

Aerospace & Defense capital-intensive Cyclical

We are a leading designer, manufacturer and marketer of a diverse range of recreational powerboats, including performance sport boats, sterndrive and outboard boats under eight brands—Malibu, Axis, Pursuit, Maverick, Cobia, Pathfinder, Hewes and Cobalt.

Our product portfolio of premium brands is used for a broad range of recreational boating activities including, among others, water sports such as water skiing, wakeboarding and wake surfing, as well as general recreational boating and fishing.

Our passion for consistent innovation, which has led to proprietary technology such as Surf Gate, has allowed us to expand the market for our products by introducing consumers to new and exciting recreational activities.

Latest annual: FY2025 10-K

MBUU · Malibu Boats Inc.

The business

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

Revenue · FY2025

$808M

−2.6% YoY · 4% 5-yr CAGR

Vital signs · TTM, with 5-yr average

Revenue $826M 5-yr avg $1.0B

Gross margin 15% 5-yr avg 22%

Operating margin 0.1% 5-yr avg 8.0%

ROIC 0% 5-yr avg 14%

Owner-earnings margin 5% 5-yr avg 8%

Free cash flow margin 5% 5-yr avg 6%

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 Malibu (39%), Saltwater Fishing (35%) and Cobalt (27%).
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 24% and operating margin about 14% through the cycle, a thin spread that turns the result on volume and the cost of what it sells far more than on the price it sets. The margin is cyclical, swinging between −6.7% and 18% 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. Read this kind of business on the backlog and program execution. 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 run high across the record (median 23%, above 15% in 8 of 10 years). Owner earnings agree: roughly 11% 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 3 segments, the largest Malibu at 39%.

Revenue by reportable segment, FY2025

Malibu39%$313M
Saltwater Fishing35%$280M
Cobalt27%$215M

By geographyNorth America94%International6%

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
$253M	$282M	$497M	$684M	$653M	$927M	$1.2B	$1.4B	$829M	$808M	$826M	RevenueRevenue
26%	27%	24%	24%	23%	26%	26%	25%	18%	18%	15%	Gross marginGross mgn
8%	9%	6%	6%	6%	7%	5%	13%	9%	11%	11%	SG&A / revenueSG&A/rev
$36M	$39M	$70M	$98M	$85M	$150M	$214M	$145M	($56M)	$22M	$585K	Operating incomeOp. inc.
14.2%	14.0%	14.1%	14.3%	13.1%	16.2%	17.6%	10.4%	−6.7%	2.7%	0.1%	Operating marginOp. mgn
$18M	$28M	$28M	$66M	$62M	$110M	$158M	$105M	($56M)	$15M	($905K)	Net incomeNet inc.
40%	38%	—	25%	24%	24%	23%	24%	—	25%	—	Effective tax rateTax rate
											Cash flow & returns
$36M	$36M	$58M	$82M	$94M	$131M	$165M	$185M	$56M	$57M	$62M	Operating cash flowOp. cash
$6M	$7M	$13M	$16M	$18M	$23M	$26M	$29M	$33M	$32M	$33M	DepreciationDeprec.
$10M	($646K)	$16M	($3M)	$11M	($7M)	($25M)	$46M	$74M	$4M	$24M	Working capital & otherWC & other
$6M	$9M	$10M	$18M	$41M	$31M	$55M	$55M	$76M	$28M	$22M	CapexCapex
2.4%	3.3%	2.1%	2.6%	6.3%	3.3%	4.5%	3.9%	9.2%	3.5%	2.6%	Capex / revenueCapex/rev
$29M	$29M	$48M	$64M	$76M	$108M	$139M	$156M	$23M	$29M	$40M	Owner earningsOwner earn.
11.6%	10.3%	9.7%	9.3%	11.6%	11.7%	11.4%	11.2%	2.7%	3.5%	4.8%	Owner earnings marginOE mgn
$29M	$27M	$48M	$64M	$53M	$101M	$110M	$130M	($20M)	$29M	$40M	Free cash flowFCF
11.6%	9.4%	9.7%	9.3%	8.1%	10.9%	9.0%	9.4%	−2.5%	3.5%	4.8%	Free cash flow marginFCF mgn
$0	$0	$126M	$100M	$0	$150M	$7M	$0	$0	—	$0	AcquisitionsAcquis.
$4M	$0	$0	$0	$14M	$0	$35M	$8M	$29M	$36M	—	BuybacksBuybacks
36%	36%	19%	25%	21%	24%	31%	21%	-9%	3%	0%	ROICROIC
118%	60%	21%	32%	24%	29%	31%	17%	-11%	3%	-0%	Return on equityROE
118%	60%	21%	32%	24%	29%	31%	17%	−11%	3%	−0%	Retained to equityRetained/eq
											Balance sheet
$26M	$33M	$62M	$27M	$34M	$41M	$84M	$79M	$27M	$37M	$50M	Cash & investmentsCash+inv
$15M	$10M	$25M	$28M	$14M	$50M	$52M	$68M	$23M	$23M	$30M	ReceivablesReceiv.
$20M	$24M	$44M	$68M	$73M	$117M	$157M	$171M	$146M	$142M	$205M	InventoryInvent.
$16M	$13M	$24M	$21M	$16M	$46M	$44M	$40M	$19M	$24M	$63M	Accounts payablePayables
$19M	$21M	$45M	$75M	$71M	$121M	$164M	$199M	$150M	$141M	$172M	Operating working capitalOper. WC
$65M	$70M	$134M	$128M	$124M	$213M	$298M	$326M	$202M	$220M	$307M	Current assetsCur. assets
$48M	$39M	$65M	$75M	$70M	$134M	$139M	$232M	$139M	$135M	$234M	Current liabilitiesCur. liab.
1.4×	1.8×	2.0×	1.7×	1.8×	1.6×	2.1×	1.4×	1.5×	1.6×	1.3×	Current ratioCurr. ratio
$12M	$13M	$32M	$51M	$51M	$101M	$101M	$101M	$51M	$51M	$85M	GoodwillGoodwill
$222M	$224M	$366M	$451M	$477M	$743M	$851M	$926M	$740M	$735M	$1.0B	Total assetsAssets
$71M	$53M	$108M	$114M	$83M	$143M	$120M	$0	$0	$18M	$165M	Total debtDebt
$45M	$21M	$47M	$86M	$49M	$102M	$36M	($79M)	($27M)	($19M)	$115M	Net debt / (cash)Net debt
9.2×	25.3×	13.0×	15.2×	21.9×	59.2×	74.4×	48.9×	-30.4×	11.6×	0.3×	Interest coverageInt. cov.
$15M	$47M	$134M	$204M	$255M	$373M	$503M	$608M	$530M	$515M	$518M	Shareholders’ equityEquity
0.8%	0.5%	0.4%	0.4%	0.5%	0.6%	0.5%	0.4%	0.6%	0.7%	0.7%	Stock comp / revenueSBC/rev
											Per share
18.0M	18.0M	20.3M	21.0M	20.9M	21.0M	21.0M	20.6M	20.4M	19.7M	19.2M	Shares out (diluted)Shares
$14.06	$15.71	$24.51	$32.62	$31.32	$44.10	$57.89	$67.26	$40.56	$41.00	$43.10	Revenue / shareRev/sh
$1.00	$1.58	$1.36	$3.15	$2.95	$5.23	$7.51	$5.06	$-2.74	$0.76	$-0.05	EPS (diluted)EPS
$1.64	$1.62	$2.37	$3.03	$3.63	$5.16	$6.60	$7.56	$1.10	$1.45	$2.09	Owner earnings / shareOE/sh
$1.64	$1.48	$2.37	$3.03	$2.53	$4.79	$5.23	$6.29	$-1.00	$1.45	$2.09	Free cash flow / shareFCF/sh
$0.34	$0.52	$0.52	$0.86	$1.98	$1.46	$2.62	$2.66	$3.72	$1.42	$1.13	Cap. spending / shareCapex/sh
$0.85	$2.63	$6.63	$9.74	$12.21	$17.77	$23.98	$29.45	$25.93	$26.17	$27.01	Book value / shareBVPS

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

	9-yr	5-yr
Revenue / share	+12.6%/yr	+5.5%/yr
Owner earnings / share	−1.3%/yr	−16.8%/yr
EPS	−3.1%/yr	−23.9%/yr
Capital spending / share	+17.1%/yr	−6.5%/yr
Book value / share	+46.3%/yr	+16.5%/yr

The year, in the company's words

the filing →

Verbatim from the 10-K's management discussion. Each sentence is shown only because its subject, direction, and stated figures check out against the filed numbers on this page. The words are the company's; the arithmetic is the record's.

Revenue-2.6%
“Net sales attributable to our Cobalt segment decreased $7.1 million, or 3.2%, to $215.2 million for fiscal year 2025 compared to fiscal year 2024.”
✓ figure matches the filed record

The record, charted

FY2016–2025

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

Share count

20Mpeak FY2021

ROIC

3%low FY2024

Gross margin

18%low FY2024

Net debt ÷ owner earnings

-0.7×peak FY2016

Owner earnings vs. net income

Owner earningsNet income

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

$29Mowner earningsvs.$15Mnet incomelow FY2024

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 $15M of profit into $29M 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$15M

Owner earnings$29M · 4% of revenue

	FY2025	FY2024	FY2023	FY2022	FY2021
Reported net income	$15M	($56M)	$105M	$158M	$110M
Depreciation & amortizationnon-cash charge added back	+$32M	+$33M	+$29M	+$26M	+$23M
Stock-based compensationreal costnon-cash, but a real cost	+$6M	+$5M	+$6M	+$6M	+$6M
Working capital & othertiming of cash in and out, other non-cash items	+$4M	+$74M	+$46M	−$25M	−$7M
Cash from operations	$57M	$56M	$185M	$165M	$131M
Maintenance capital expenditurethe spending needed just to hold position and volume	−$28M	−$33M	−$29M	−$26M	−$23M
Owner earnings	$29M	$23M	$156M	$139M	$108M
Growth capital expenditurediscretionary; spent to get bigger, not to stand still	—	−$43M	−$26M	−$29M	−$8M
Free cash flow	$29M	($20M)	$130M	$110M	$101M
Owner-earnings marginowner earnings ÷ revenue	4%	3%	11%	11%	12%

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 $6M), owner earnings is nearer $23M.

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? 11.6×

Comfortable

Operating income $22M ÷ interest expense $2M

What this means
Operating profit covers interest with the kind of margin Graham wanted for a defensive holding. Necessary, not sufficient, it says solvent, not cheap.
How heavy is the debt, net of cash? +$19M

Net cash

Cash $37M − debt $18M

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.
How long is cash tied up? 75d

Long (60+ days)

DSO 10 + DIO 78 − DPO 13 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?

Return on invested capital 21%

High through the cycle

10-yr median, range -9%–36%; 3% latest = NOPAT $16M ÷ invested capital $496M

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 10 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.
Owner-earnings margin 10%

Solid through the cycle

10-yr median margin, range 3%–12%; latest $29M = operating cash $57M − maintenance capex $28M

Industry peers: median 2%

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 10% median across 10 years. Treating stock comp as the real expense it is (less $6M of SBC) leaves $23M.
Are earnings backed by cash? 3.80×

Cash-backed

Cash from ops $57M ÷ net income $15M

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? 126%

Returned more than it generated

Dividends + buybacks $36M ÷ Owner Earnings $29M

What this means
The company returned more than it generated: against $29M of Owner Earnings, $36M (126%) went back to shareholders, $0 dividends, $36M buybacks — the excess came from the balance sheet or borrowing, not the year's operations. Net of $6M stock comp, the real buyback was about $30M. Sustained, that pattern draws down cash or adds debt; the net-debt line above shows where it stands.
Investing or harvesting? 0.88×

Maintaining

Capex $28M ÷ depreciation $32M

What this means
Descriptive, not a grade. Above ~1× means investing faster than assets wear out (growth, or, sustained for years, today's earnings carrying less depreciation than tomorrow's will). Below means spending less than it's wearing out (efficiency, or a melting asset base). The ratio won't tell you which; the filings will.

Graham’s defensive tests · 1 of 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 Miss

Revenue ≥ $2B · $808M

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× · 1.63×

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 · $18M vs $85M 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 Near

A profit every year (10-yr record) · 1 loss year

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 Miss

Earnings +33% over the record · −14%

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 $1.10/share (latest year $0.78), the averaged base the calculator's gate runs on, and book value is $26.89/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 9 of 10

What this means
Lost money in 1 year(s), look at what happened there before trusting the average.
Return on capital ≥ 15% 8 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 14% → 2% (3-yr avg ends)

In the filing’s words The filing claims pricing power in its strongest form — price raised, volume held — yet the margin here has not widened to match. The claim leads the record; weigh them together.

What this means
Through the cycle the operating margin slipped — about 14% early to 2% lately, median 14% — competition or costs are biting in.
Reinvestment, incremental ROIC 0%

What this means
Reinvested capital came back at only a modest incremental return — near the cost of capital, where extra growth adds little per dollar. The record shows whether it is a soft stretch or a thinning moat.
Owner earnings growth −1%/yr

What this means
Owner earnings shrank about 1% a year over the record.
Worst year 2024 · −6.7% op. margin

What this means
Operations went underwater in 2024, understand why before trusting the good years.
Share count +1.0%/yr

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

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.

“If we are unable to use generative AI, it could make our business less efficient and result in competitive disadvantages.”

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$307M

Cash & short-term investments$50M
Receivables$30M
Inventory$205M
Other current assets$23M

Current liabilities$234M

Accounts payable$63M
Other current liabilities$171M

Current ratio1.31×all current assets ÷ what's due · Graham looked for 2×

Quick ratio0.44×stricter: inventory excluded

Cash ratio0.21×strictest: cash alone against what's due

Working capital$73Mthe cushion left after near-term bills

Revenue, latest quarter vs. a year ago+3.1%the freshest read on whether the business is still growing

Current ratio, recent quarters1.5× → 1.3×

Deeper floors

Tangible book value$126Mequity stripped of goodwill & intangibles

Net current asset value($178M)Graham's net-net: current assets less all liabilities

Debt incl. operating leases$178M$13M of it operating leases

Deferred revenue$40Mcustomer cash collected before delivery; operating float

From the company's latest filing.

How the cash was used, 2016–2025

Over the record, the business generated $899M of operating cash; how management split it reads as a balanced allocator, splitting cash between the business, owners, and the balance sheet.

Reinvested$330M · 37%
Buybacks$126M · 14%
Retained (debt / cash)$443M · 49%

Returned to owners$126M
18% of the owner earnings the business produced over the span, $0 as dividends and $126M as buybacks.
Average price paid for buybacks—
Buybacks ran $126M over the span, but the filings don't tag the share count needed to deduce the average price paid.
Net change in share count6.6%
The diluted count rose from 18M to 19M: 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.
Return on what it retained8%
Of the earnings it kept rather than paid out ($407M over the span), annual owner earnings (first three years vs last three) grew $34M, so each retained $1 added about 0.08 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 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$220M30% of all assets; the premium carried on the balance sheet for businesses acquired

Against book equity10%goodwill is this share of book equity; the rest is the company’s own retained and paid-in capital

Cash spent acquiring$383Mover 10 years buying other businesses, against $330M of capital spent building

$49M written down across 1 year (2024): 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	$4.5M	$7.5M	$108M
2022	$4.8M	$2.1M	$139M
2023	$4.5M	$5.8M	$156M
2024	$2.9M	−$3.0M	$23M
2024	$491k	$708k	$23M
2025	$68k	$68k	$29M
2025	$4.2M	$3.7M	$29M

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 ownership<1%
The stake all directors and executive officers hold together, per the 2025 proxy: skin in the game, the first thing Munger reads.
Stock-based compensation$6M
The slice of the business handed to employees in shares this year, 1% of revenue, equal to 27% 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 Malibu Boats 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 2016–2025.

3 of the 6 tests turned up something to look into; the other 3 came back clean.

Look hereIs it less profitable than it was?5.8% vs 10.5%
The owner-earnings margin averaged 10.5% early in the record and 5.8% 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?6.6%
Diluted shares grew 6.6% over 2016–2025, even as the company spent $126M 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 receivables and inventory outpace sales?14% → 28% of sales
Receivables and inventory grew from $35M to $234M while revenue grew 227%: working capital is climbing faster than sales (14% of revenue then, 28% now). That can mean customers paying slower, stock building up, or revenue pulled forward. The filing's cash-flow and receivables notes say which.

And these came back clean

Did debt outgrow the business?
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 →

Which reported numbers are a judgment call?
Management names Revenue recognition, 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, Aerospace & Defense

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
ATROAstronics Corporation	$862M	22%	1.8%	2%	4%
DCODucommun Incorporated	$825M	21%	5.3%	5%	2%
MBUUMalibu Boats Inc.	$808M	25%	14.0%	23%	11%
MLRMiller Industries Inc.	$790M	12%	5.7%	13%	2%
HLLYHolley Inc.	$614M	40%	12.5%	6%	6%
STRTSTRATTEC SECURITY CORPORATION	$565M	12%	3.2%	5%	2%
KRMNKarman Holdings Inc.	$472M	38%	16.4%	10%	-4%
MCFTMasterCraft Boat Holdings Inc.	$284M	26%	14.7%	37%	10%
Group median	—	24%	9.1%	8%	3%

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 Malibu Boats Inc. has delivered.

Today’s price $

Through the cycle, Malibu Boats Inc. earns about $87M on its 10.8% median owner-earnings margin. This year’s 3.5% 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 ($87M) Net of stock comp (−$6M)

—

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→’25−33%/yr

Owner-earnings growth · ’16→’25−19%/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 $40M on 19M shares outstanding (a weighted basic average, the only count this filer tags); net debt $115M. 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 MBUU against another business →

Cite: Owner Scorecard, "Malibu Boats Inc. (MBUU), the owner's record," https://ownerscorecard.com/c/MBUU, data as of 2026-07-09.

Manual order: ← MBOT its page in the Manual MBWM →

Industry order: ← LUNR the Aerospace & Defense chapter MCFT →