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NE, Noble Corporation plc A

Oilfield Services & Equipment capital-intensive

Noble Corporation plc is a leading offshore drilling contractor for the oil and gas industry.

We provide contract drilling services to the international oil and gas industry with our global fleet of mobile offshore drilling units.

We deliver our services through a high-specification fleet of floating and jackup rigs and the deployment of our drilling rigs in oil and gas basins around the world.

Latest annual: FY2025 10-K

NE · Noble Corporation plc A

The business

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

Revenue · FY2025

$3.3B

+7.4% YoY · 36% 4-yr CAGR

Vital signs · TTM, with 5-yr average

Revenue $3.2B 5-yr avg $2.3B

Operating margin 14.2% 5-yr avg −70.4%

ROIC 6% 5-yr avg 8%

Owner-earnings margin 14% 5-yr avg 10%

Free cash flow margin 14% 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.

What it is: Revenue is Floaters (78%), Jackups (16%) and Service, Other (5%).
What moves the needle: Operating margin has run about 16% through the cycle, a solid margin the cost base and competition set as much as the price does. The operating margin has swung widely — from −423% to 22% over the years — so the through-cycle figure carries more than any single year, and the worst year more than the best. Capital spending runs about 16% of sales, so the return earned on what it sinks into that plant weighs as much as the margin. Read this kind of business on the commodity price, and the cost to lift a barrel. 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 7%). By owner earnings: roughly 11% 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 →

Floaters is 78% of revenue, with Jackups the other meaningful line at 16%.

Revenue by product line, FY2025

Floaters78%$2.6B
Jackups16%$540M
Service, Other5%$178M

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, 2020–2025

realized figures from each filing · older years to the left

2020’20	2022’22	2023’23	2024’24	2025’25	TTMTTMMar 2026
						Income statement
$964M	$1.4B	$2.6B	$3.1B	$3.3B	$3.2B	RevenueRevenue
13%	6%	5%	5%	4%	4%	SG&A / revenueSG&A/rev
($4.1B)	$229M	$575M	$604M	$416M	$454M	Operating incomeOp. inc.
−422.8%	16.2%	22.2%	19.8%	12.6%	14.2%	Operating marginOp. mgn
($4.0B)	$169M	$482M	$448M	$217M	$229M	Net incomeNet inc.
—	12%	6%	9%	21%	28%	Effective tax rateTax rate
						Cash flow & returns
$273M	$281M	$574M	$655M	$952M	$954M	Operating cash flowOp. cash
$374M	$147M	$301M	$429M	$585M	$580M	DepreciationDeprec.
$3.9B	($70M)	($247M)	($265M)	$119M	$112M	Working capital & otherWC & other
$149M	$174M	$410M	$575M	$520M	$510M	CapexCapex
15.4%	12.3%	15.8%	18.8%	15.8%	15.9%	Capex / revenueCapex/rev
$124M	$107M	$273M	$227M	$432M	$444M	Owner earningsOwner earn.
12.9%	7.5%	10.5%	7.4%	13.2%	13.9%	Owner earnings marginOE mgn
$124M	$107M	$165M	$80M	$432M	$444M	Free cash flowFCF
12.9%	7.5%	6.4%	2.6%	13.2%	13.9%	Free cash flow marginFCF mgn
—	$0	$99M	$278M	$320M	$323M	Dividends paidDiv. paid
$0	$15M	$95M	$300M	$20M	—	BuybacksBuybacks
—	5%	13%	9%	5%	6%	ROICROIC
—	5%	12%	10%	5%	5%	Return on equityROE
—	5%	10%	4%	−2%	−2%	Retained to equityRetained/eq
						Balance sheet
$365M	$476M	$361M	$247M	$471M	$663M	Cash & investmentsCash+inv
—	$469M	$549M	$797M	$590M	$596M	ReceivablesReceiv.
—	$291M	$395M	$398M	$299M	$308M	Accounts payablePayables
—	$178M	$154M	$399M	$291M	$288M	Operating working capitalOper. WC
—	$1.1B	$1.1B	$1.4B	$1.3B	$1.4B	Current assetsCur. assets
—	$667M	$642M	$940M	$760M	$719M	Current liabilitiesCur. liab.
—	1.6×	1.7×	1.5×	1.7×	2.0×	Current ratioCurr. ratio
—	$26M	$0	—	—	$0	GoodwillGoodwill
—	$5.2B	$5.5B	$8.0B	$7.5B	$7.5B	Total assetsAssets
—	$673M	$586M	$2.0B	$2.0B	$1.9B	Total debtDebt
—	$197M	$225M	$1.7B	$1.5B	$1.3B	Net debt / (cash)Net debt
-24.8×	5.4×	9.7×	6.4×	2.6×	2.8×	Interest coverageInt. cov.
($311M)	$3.6B	$3.9B	$4.7B	$4.5B	$4.6B	Shareholders’ equityEquity
1.0%	2.5%	1.5%	1.4%	0.9%	1.0%	Stock comp / revenueSBC/rev
						Per share
251M	97.6M	145M	152M	160M	162M	Shares out (diluted)Shares
$3.84	$14.49	$17.83	$20.17	$20.51	$19.78	Revenue / shareRev/sh
$-15.86	$1.73	$3.32	$2.96	$1.35	$1.42	EPS (diluted)EPS
$0.50	$1.09	$1.88	$1.50	$2.70	$2.75	Owner earnings / shareOE/sh
$0.50	$1.09	$1.13	$0.53	$2.70	$2.75	Free cash flow / shareFCF/sh
—	$0.00	$0.68	$1.83	$2.00	$2.00	Dividends / shareDiv/sh
$0.59	$1.79	$2.82	$3.79	$3.24	$3.16	Cap. spending / shareCapex/sh
$-1.24	$36.96	$27.01	$30.67	$28.39	$28.39	Book value / shareBVPS

The diluted share count moved ×1/2.57 into 2022 — shares retired, not a split the totals corroborate — and the per-share figures carry the counts as filed.

The diluted share count moved ×1.49 into 2023 — 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

	5-yr	5-yr
Revenue / share	+39.8%/yr	+39.8%/yr
Owner earnings / share	+40.3%/yr	+40.3%/yr
Capital spending / share	+40.4%/yr	+40.4%/yr

The record, charted

FY2020–2025

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

Share count

160Mpeak FY2020

ROIC

5%low FY2022

Net debt ÷ owner earnings

3.5×peak FY2024

Owner earnings vs. net income

Owner earningsNet income

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

$432Mowner earningsvs.$217Mnet incomelow FY2022

Where the cash went

ReinvestBuybacksDividendsAcquisitionsRetained

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

FY2020FY2025

Owner-earnings bridge

FY2020–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 $217M of profit into $432M 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$217M

Owner earnings$432M · 13% of revenue

	FY2025	FY2024	FY2023	FY2022	FY2020
Reported net income	$217M	$448M	$482M	$169M	($4.0B)
Depreciation & amortizationnon-cash charge added back	+$585M	+$429M	+$301M	+$147M	+$374M
Stock-based compensationreal costnon-cash, but a real cost	+$31M	+$44M	+$38M	+$35M	+$9M
Working capital & othertiming of cash in and out, other non-cash items	+$119M	−$265M	−$247M	−$70M	+$3.9B
Cash from operations	$952M	$655M	$574M	$281M	$273M
Maintenance capital expenditurethe spending needed just to hold position and volume	−$520M	−$429M	−$301M	−$174M	−$149M
Owner earnings	$432M	$227M	$273M	$107M	$124M
Growth capital expenditurediscretionary; spent to get bigger, not to stand still	—	−$147M	−$108M	—	—
Free cash flow	$432M	$80M	$165M	$107M	$124M
Owner-earnings marginowner earnings ÷ revenue	13%	7%	11%	8%	13%

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 $31M), owner earnings is nearer $402M.

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? 2.6×

Adequate

Operating income $416M ÷ interest expense $162M

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? $1.5B · 3.6× operating profit

Meaningful net debt

Cash $471M − debt $2.0B

What this means
Netting $471M of cash and short-term investments against $2.0B of debt leaves $1.5B owed, about 3.6× a year's operating profit (4.8× 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 5%

Below average through the cycle

4-yr median, range 5%–13%; 5% latest = NOPAT $330M ÷ invested capital $6.1B

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 4 years (it ran 5% 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 11%

Solid through the cycle

5-yr median margin, range 7%–13%; latest $432M = operating cash $952M − maintenance capex $520M

Industry peers: median 4%

What this means
What an owner could take out without starving the business: operating cash less the maintenance capital it must spend to hold its position — Buffett's owner earnings. That's 13% of revenue this year, a 11% median across 5 years. Treating stock comp as the real expense it is (less $31M of SBC) leaves $402M.
Are earnings backed by cash? 4.39×

Cash-backed

Cash from ops $952M ÷ net income $217M

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? 79%

Returns about half

Dividends + buybacks $340M ÷ Owner Earnings $432M

What this means
Of $432M Owner Earnings, $340M (79%) went back to shareholders, $320M dividends, $20M buybacks. But the buybacks barely exceed stock issued to employees ($31M 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? 0.89×

Maintaining

Capex $520M ÷ depreciation $585M

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 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 · $3.3B

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× · 1.67×

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 · $2.0B vs $513M 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 (5-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 · 3 of 5 yrs

What this means
An unbroken dividend was Graham's mark of durability. He wanted twenty years; the filings show about ten, and a single suspension breaks the streak. Non-payers, many fine modern compounders, fall outside his defensive net by design.
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 $2.40/share (latest year $1.36), the averaged base the calculator's gate runs on, and book value is $28.51/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, 2020–2025

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

Profitable years 4 of 5

What this means
Lost money in 1 year(s), look at what happened there before trusting the average.
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 −203% → 16% (2-yr avg ends)

What this means
Through the cycle the operating margin widened — about −203% early to 16% lately, median 16% — 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 +23%/yr

What this means
Owner earnings grew about 23% a year over the record.
Worst year 2020 · −422.8% op. margin

What this means
Operations went underwater in 2020, understand why before trusting the good years.
Share count −8.6%/yr

What this means
The share count is shrinking, buybacks are quietly growing your slice of the business.
Dividend record rising

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

Does AI threaten the moat?

Low contestability

The moat is physical, regulated or balance-sheet-funded, the kind AI cuts costs within but does not contest.

In its own filing Raised, but not as a competitor

The filing raises AI among its risks, but in other terms (security, regulation, energy or the like), not as a competitor to its product.

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$1.4B

Cash & short-term investments$663M
Receivables$596M
Other current assets$176M

Current liabilities$719M

Accounts payable$308M
Other current liabilities$412M

Current ratio1.99×all current assets ÷ what's due · Graham looked for 2×

Quick ratio—inventory untagged this quarter, so withheld rather than shown equal to the current ratio

Cash ratio0.92×strictest: cash alone against what's due

Working capital$715Mthe cushion left after near-term bills

Revenue, latest quarter vs. a year ago−10.2%the freshest read on whether the business is still growing

Current ratio, recent quarters1.5× → 2.0×

Deeper floors

Tangible book value$4.6Bequity stripped of goodwill & intangibles

Net current asset value($1.5B)Graham's net-net: current assets less all liabilities

Debt incl. operating leases$2.0B$66M of it operating leases

Deferred revenue$54Mcustomer cash collected before delivery; operating float

From the company's latest filing.

How the cash was used, 2020–2025

Over the record, the business generated $2.7B of operating cash; how management split it reads as a reinvestor, most operating cash is plowed back into the business.

Reinvested$1.8B · 67%
Dividends$697M · 25%
Buybacks$430M · 16%

Returned to owners$1.1B
97% of the owner earnings the business produced over the span, $697M as dividends and $430M as buybacks.
Source of funding−$219M
Reinvestment and shareholder returns ran $219M beyond the operating cash the business generated, so the gap was financed off the balance sheet.
Average price paid for buybacks—
Buybacks ran $430M over the span, but a stock split in the window left the reported buyback-share counts on a basis the diluted-share count doesn't match, so a comparable average price can't be drawn.
Net change in share count−35.6%
The diluted count fell from 251M to 162M, so the buybacks outran the stock issued to staff.
Dividend record$2.00/sh
Paid in 3 of the years on record. It was never cut over the span.

Buybacks are gross of stock issued to staff; the share-count line above is the net of that, the figure that decides whether owners gained. The average price paid blends a year of purchases (and any accelerated repurchase), so it is close, not exact. The record of where the cash went and on what terms.

Management, ownership & pay

read the proxy →

From the proxy: how much of the business the people running it own, and how they are paid, beside what the business earned for its owners in the same years.

Fiscal year	Pay, as filed	“Actually paid”	Owner earnings
2021	$25.3M	$38.1M	—
2022	$7.4M	$33.9M	$107M
2023	$9.6M	$34.9M	$273M
2024	$12.0M	$4.1M	$227M
2025	$11.9M	$9.1M	$432M

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 ownership1.5%
The stake all directors and executive officers hold together, per the 2026 proxy: skin in the game, the first thing Munger reads.
CEO pay ratio71:1
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$31M
The slice of the business handed to employees in shares this year, 1% of revenue, equal to 7% 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 Noble Corporation plc A 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 2020–2025.

None of the 3 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?
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 Income taxes, Acquisitions, Insurance reserves 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, Oilfield Services & Equipment

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
PTENPatterson-UTI Energy	$4.8B	—	-14.6%	-8%	9%
LBRTLiberty Energy	$4.0B	22%	7.1%	2%	4%
RIGTransocean Ltd (Switzerland)	$4.0B	37%	-13.7%	-2%	9%
HPHelmerich & Payne	$3.7B	—	0.7%	-1%	4%
NENoble Corporation plc A	$3.3B	—	16.2%	7%	11%
NBRNabors Industries	$3.2B	37%	1.8%	-2%	4%
OIIOceaneering International	$2.6B	12%	2.6%	5%	4%
SDRLSeadrill Limited	$1.1B	—	28.5%	—	-7%
Group median	—	—	2.2%	-1%	4%

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 Noble Corporation plc A has delivered.

Noble Corporation plc A’s latest year runs above its own through-cycle margin — the reported figure may flatter a peak. So the tool opens on the through-cycle base, Graham’s averaging cutting both ways; clear the toggle below to read the latest year exactly as reported.

Today’s price $

Through the cycle, Noble Corporation plc A earns about $346M on its 10.5% median owner-earnings margin. This year’s 13.2% margin runs above that; the reported figure may flatter a peak you'd be paying on. Normalize, below, values the price on that through-cycle figure rather than the latest year. It comes pre-checked here for that reason, the same rule that already normalizes a trough; clear it to price the year as filed.

Base Normalize · through-cycle ($346M) Net of stock comp (−$33M)

—

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 · ’20→’25+17%/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 $444M on 160M shares outstanding, per the 10-Q cover, as of 2026-04-24; net debt $1.3B. The base opens on the through-cycle figure (the latest year sits above the record’s own median, and Graham’s averaging cuts both ways); clear Normalize to use the year as filed. Net of stock comp treats option pay as the expense it is. The dials set the multiple a growth belief justifies; the price, and every dollar on this page, is yours.

Weigh NE against another business →

The owners of NE: the meeting and the votes →

Cite: Owner Scorecard, "Noble Corporation plc A (NE), the owner's record," https://ownerscorecard.com/c/NE, data as of 2026-07-09.

Manual order: ← NDSN its page in the Manual NECB →

Industry order: ← NBR the Oilfield Services & Equipment chapter NESR →