← All companies ← NLY Manual NMIH → ← LILAP Media & Broadcasting NXST →
NMAX, Newsmax Inc.
Newsmax Inc. is a holding company that owns 100% of the equity interests of its operating company Newsmax Media, Inc.
The business
What it sells, where the money comes from, the kind of company it is.
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 Broadcasting (81%) and Digital (19%).
- Situation
- Unprofitable. No sustained operating profit across the record; an earnings multiple has nothing to rest on. What the record does show is revenue, the gross-margin trajectory, and the burn against the cash on hand.
- What moves the needle
- Whether the heavy assets earn more than they cost to keep. What decides it: the return on the capital sunk into them, how much of the capex is merely standing still versus growing, and what a downturn does to a fixed-cost base. Here the balance sheet is the defense and cyclicality the enemy. On its own account, the filing leans hardest on pricing power & competition, set against the numbers in what the filing emphasizes, below.
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 →Broadcasting is 81% of revenue, with Digital the other meaningful segment at 19%.
- Broadcasting81%$153M
- Digital19%$36M
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 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.
- Advertising+10.2%
“Advertising revenue increased by approximately $11.2 million as a result of higher linear cable and satellite advertising from higher Nielsen ratings in key dayparts offset by reductions in digital advertising driven by coming out of a political voting year.”
✓ figure matches the filed record - Affiliate fee+14.9%
“Affiliate fee revenues increased by approximately $4.0 million due to new contractual relationships as well as rate increases for renewals.”
✓ figure matches the filed record - Subscription revenue+2.3%
“Subscription revenue increased by approximately $0.6 million with increases to Newsmax+ offset by reductions in publication subscriptions due to decreased new customer acquisition.”
✓ figure matches the filed record
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 reported a $99M loss but ($107M) of owner earnings: $8M less than the profit line, taken out by capital spending and the timing of cash.
| FY2025 | FY2024 | |
|---|---|---|
| Reported net income | ($99M) | ($72M) |
| Depreciation & amortizationnon-cash charge added back | +$6M | +$6M |
| Stock-based compensationreal costnon-cash, but a real cost | +$12M | — |
| Working capital & othertiming of cash in and out, other non-cash items | −$23M | +$17M |
| Cash from operations | ($104M) | ($49M) |
| Capital expenditurecash put back in to keep running and to grow | −$3M | −$996K |
| Owner earnings | ($107M) | ($50M) |
| Owner-earnings marginowner earnings ÷ revenue | -57% | -29% |
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 $12M), owner earnings is nearer ($119M).
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.
Quality & stewardship
Returns, the balance sheet, capital allocation, and pay.
Owner’s Scorecard
“We have identified material weaknesses in our internal control over financial reporting.”
The figures below are only as sound as the controls that produced them. read the note →
Will it survive?
- Can it pay its interest? -4310.2×Does not cover its interestOperating income ($100M) ÷ interest expense $23K
What this means
A full year of operating profit didn't cover the interest bill. This is the zombie zone: the business depends on refinancing, asset sales, or forbearance to service its debt.
- Net cash, debt-freeCash $20M − debt $0
What this means
Cash and short-term investments exceed every dollar of debt by $20M, 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.
- Not enough data
What this means
The filing data didn't include the inputs for this check.
Is it a good business?
- Not enough dataIndustry peers: median 4%
What this means
The filing data didn't include the inputs for this check.
- Consumes cashOwner earnings ($107M) = operating cash ($104M) − maintenance capex $3MIndustry peers: median 10%
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 -57% of revenue this year. Treating stock comp as the real expense it is (less $12M of SBC) leaves ($119M).
- Are earnings backed by cash? ($104M)Loss, and burning cashNet income ($99M) · cash from operations ($104M)
In the filing’s words The filing discloses a material weakness in its financial controls — the reported numbers here, and the record built on them, are only as reliable as the controls that produced them.
What this means
The company reported a net loss, so a conversion ratio isn't meaningful. What matters then is whether operations still threw off cash, here, they did not.
How is the cash used?
- No surplus to allocate
What this means
The business didn't generate positive Owner Earnings this year, so any distributions came from the balance sheet or borrowing, not from operations.
- Investing or harvesting? 0.42×HarvestingCapex $3M ÷ depreciation $6M
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 2 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 MissRevenue ≥ $2B · $189M
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 PassCurrent ratio ≥ 2× · 2.40×
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.
- 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 $-0.67/share (latest year $-0.77), the averaged base the calculator's gate runs on, and book value is $0.83/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.
Does AI threaten the moat?
Low contestabilityThe moat is physical, regulated or balance-sheet-funded, the kind AI cuts costs within but does not contest.
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, 2026Can 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.
- Cash & short-term investments$17M
- Receivables$38M
- Inventory$2M
- Other current assets$143M
- Accounts payable$16M
- Other current liabilities$70M
From the company's latest filing.
Management, ownership & pay
From the proxy: how much of the business the people running it own, and how they are paid.
- Stock-based compensation$12M
The slice of the business handed to employees in shares this year, 6% of revenue. Buffett's oldest accounting fight: this is compensation, compensation is an expense, real whether or not the headline earnings admit it. One trap: the cash-flow statement adds SBC back, so the operating cash, and the owner earnings drawn from it, are flattered by exactly this amount; counted as the cost it is, what an owner keeps is lower.
Peers, Media & Broadcasting
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| SBGISinclair Inc. | $3.2B | — | 5.5% | 11% | 4% |
| GTNGray Media Inc. | $3.1B | — | 25.1% | 8% | 15% |
| ATNIATN International Inc. | $667M | — | 2.5% | 1% | 3% |
| EVCEntravision Communications Corporation | $448M | 70% | 4.9% | 4% | 16% |
| ADEAAdeia Inc. | $443M | — | 34.5% | 13% | 47% |
| GSATGlobalstar Inc. | $273M | 96% | -47.3% | -6% | 10% |
| NMAXNewsmax Inc. | $189M | — | -52.8% | -92% | -57% |
| ADArray Digital Infrastructure Inc. | $163M | 72% | 1.4% | 1% | 5% |
| Group median | — | — | 3.7% | 2% | 8% |
The price
What a price has to assume.
What the price implies
reverse-DCFNewsmax Inc. is profitable, but owner earnings are negative this year because capital spending currently outruns operating cash, a build-out, so the owner-earnings reverse-DCF has no positive base to grow. We read the price from both ends instead: type a price to see the steady-state profitability it demands, then set the mature margin you would believe and weigh the two against each other. Nothing leaves your browser unless you enter it in your notebook.
Enter a price to run it.
A dated snapshot of the price you typed, the assumptions you set, and what the page showed for them. A snapshot is never edited after it is saved. Your notebook is yours alone — the commitment states what is stored and what we will never do.
Two reads of one future. From your price: the owner earnings the company must reach, valued at a mature multiple and discounted back at your rate, expressed as the margin it implies on revenue grown at your rate. From your belief: the mature margin you would credit, set on the dial above. When the margin the price demands runs above the one you would believe, you are paying for a future taken on faith. For a deep cyclical at a trough, normalized through-cycle earnings are the better lens; this mode is for the genuinely unprofitable, and for the profitable business whose capital spending currently outruns its cash.
Manual order: ← NLY its page in the Manual NMIH →
Industry order: ← LILAP the Media & Broadcasting chapter NXST →