← All companies ← NRDS Manual NRGV → ← NEE Electric Utilities OGE →

NRG, NRG Energy

Electric Utilities capital-intensive Regulated utilityCyclical

NRG Energy is a competitive power company in the United States: it owns a fleet of electricity-generating plants and it sells electricity and natural gas directly to homes and businesses in deregulated retail markets, where customers choose their own supplier. So it earns its keep two ways — generating power and selling it into wholesale markets, and signing up retail customers to capture the spread between what it pays to source energy and what it charges them. It is capital-intensive and carries debt against its plants.

Across North America, NRG is redefining customers' experience with energy under brand names such as NRG, Reliant, Direct Energy, Green Mountain Energy, and Vivint.

As of the end of 2025, NRG had recurring electricity and/or natural gas sales in 25 U.S. states, the District of Columbia, and 8 provinces in Canada, and Vivint Smart Home served customers in all 50 U.S. states and the District of Columbia.

Latest annual: FY2025 10-K

NRG · NRG Energy

The business

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

Revenue · FY2025

$30.3B

+9.4% YoY · 28% 5-yr CAGR

Vital signs · TTM, with 5-yr average

Revenue $32.0B 5-yr avg $28.9B

Operating margin 3.2% 5-yr avg 7.0%

ROIC 4% 5-yr avg 15%

Owner-earnings margin −1% 5-yr avg 1%

Free cash flow margin −1% 5-yr avg 1%

The business in brief

read the 10-K →

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

Situation: Regulated utility. Returns are set by regulation on an approved rate base; the capital spending regulators approve becomes the growth, recovered through allowed rates. 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: The governing question is franchise versus commodity, and this business straddles both. Wholesale electricity is a commodity sold into markets where price is set by supply, demand, and fuel — a price-taker whose margin turns on running plants cheaply; the retail side is the only place a real franchise could live, in brand, in customer relationships, and in how readily a household switches away, so the test is whether retention and the spread over procurement cost hold up rather than assuming they do. The bad case is plain: commodity power and fuel prices swing, and weather and the rules of deregulated markets sit outside the company's hands, while a debt load rests against assets that earn a thin owner-margin. The figures for margins, returns on capital, and leverage are in the record below.
Is it a good business?: Return on capital has sat near the cost of capital (median 13%). By owner earnings: roughly 9% of revenue reaches owners as cash, though it swings, and customers and suppliers fund the business through negative working capital. 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.

Drafted from the company's filings and reviewed by hand; every number is shown in full in the sections below.

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
$8.9B	$9.1B	$8.1B	$8.0B	$8.7B	$26.8B	$31.5B	$28.3B	$27.7B	$30.3B	$32.0B	RevenueRevenue
25%	24%	13%	—	25%	—	—	—	—	—	58%	Gross marginGross mgn
12%	9%	10%	10%	9%	5%	4%	7%	8%	9%	8%	SG&A / revenueSG&A/rev
1%	0%	0%	0%	0%	—	—	—	—	—	0%	R&D / revenueR&D/rev
$33M	($741M)	$982M	$1.3B	$1.1B	$3.3B	$2.0B	$384M	$2.4B	$1.8B	$1.0B	Operating incomeOp. inc.
0.4%	−8.2%	12.1%	16.1%	12.7%	12.5%	6.4%	1.4%	8.7%	6.1%	3.2%	Operating marginOp. mgn
($774M)	($2.2B)	$268M	$4.4B	$510M	$2.2B	$1.2B	($202M)	$1.1B	$864M	$239M	Net incomeNet inc.
—	—	3%	—	33%	24%	27%	—	22%	24%	-3%	Effective tax rateTax rate
											Cash flow & returns
$1.9B	$1.6B	$1.4B	$1.4B	$1.8B	$493M	$360M	($221M)	$2.3B	$1.9B	$889M	Operating cash flowOp. cash
$756M	$596M	$421M	$373M	$435M	$785M	$720M	$1.3B	$1.4B	$1.4B	$1.5B	DepreciationDeprec.
$1.9B	$3.1B	$663M	($3.4B)	$870M	($2.5B)	($1.6B)	($1.4B)	($324M)	($491M)	($1.0B)	Working capital & otherWC & other
$544M	$254M	$388M	$228M	$230M	$269M	$367M	$598M	$472M	$1.1B	$1.2B	CapexCapex
6.1%	2.8%	4.8%	2.9%	2.6%	1.0%	1.2%	2.1%	1.7%	3.8%	3.9%	Capex / revenueCapex/rev
$1.4B	$1.4B	$989M	$1.2B	$1.6B	$224M	($7M)	($819M)	$1.8B	$766M	($358M)	Owner earningsOwner earn.
15.3%	14.9%	12.1%	14.8%	18.5%	0.8%	−0.0%	−2.9%	6.6%	2.5%	−1.1%	Owner earnings marginOE mgn
$1.4B	$1.4B	$989M	$1.2B	$1.6B	$224M	($7M)	($819M)	$1.8B	$766M	($358M)	Free cash flowFCF
15.3%	14.9%	12.1%	14.8%	18.5%	0.8%	−0.0%	−2.9%	6.6%	2.5%	−1.1%	Free cash flow marginFCF mgn
$0	$14M	$243M	$355M	—	—	—	—	—	—	$355M	AcquisitionsAcquis.
$76M	$38M	$37M	$32M	$295M	$319M	$332M	$381M	$405M	$411M	$411M	Dividends paidDiv. paid
$0	$0	$1.3B	$1.4B	$229M	$48M	$600M	$1.1B	$935M	$1.3B	—	BuybacksBuybacks
—	-5%	—	18%	11%	22%	13%	—	15%	10%	4%	ROICROIC
-17%	-109%	—	268%	30%	61%	32%	-7%	45%	51%	5%	Return on equityROE
−19%	−111%	—	266%	13%	52%	23%	−20%	29%	27%	−4%	Retained to equityRetained/eq
											Balance sheet
$591M	$770M	$563M	$345M	$3.9B	$250M	$430M	$541M	$966M	$4.7B	$178M	Cash & investmentsCash+inv
$1.1B	$900M	$1.0B	$1.0B	$904M	$3.2B	$4.8B	$3.5B	$3.5B	$4.1B	$3.8B	ReceivablesReceiv.
$721M	$453M	$412M	$383M	$327M	$498M	$751M	$607M	$478M	$461M	$665M	InventoryInvent.
$782M	$684M	$863M	$722M	$649M	$2.3B	$3.6B	$2.3B	$2.5B	$2.8B	$2.5B	Accounts payablePayables
$997M	$669M	$573M	$686M	$582M	$1.5B	$1.9B	$1.8B	$1.5B	$1.7B	$2.0B	Operating working capitalOper. WC
$6.7B	$4.4B	$3.6B	$3.1B	$6.0B	$10.8B	$16.2B	$9.7B	$9.0B	$13.1B	$9.9B	Current assetsCur. assets
$4.7B	$3.4B	$2.4B	$2.4B	$1.9B	$7.9B	$13.0B	$9.5B	$8.8B	$8.0B	$11.8B	Current liabilitiesCur. liab.
1.4×	1.3×	1.5×	1.3×	3.1×	1.4×	1.3×	1.0×	1.0×	1.6×	0.8×	Current ratioCurr. ratio
$662M	$539M	$573M	$579M	$579M	$1.8B	$1.6B	$5.1B	$5.0B	$5.0B	$8.9B	GoodwillGoodwill
$30.7B	$23.4B	$10.6B	$12.5B	$14.9B	$23.2B	$29.1B	$26.0B	$24.0B	$29.1B	$40.1B	Total assetsAssets
$16.7B	$9.5B	$6.7B	$6.0B	$8.9B	$8.1B	$8.1B	$11.0B	$10.9B	$16.6B	$23.2B	Total debtDebt
$16.1B	$8.7B	$6.1B	$5.7B	$5.0B	$7.9B	$7.7B	$10.4B	$9.9B	$11.9B	$23.0B	Net debt / (cash)Net debt
0.1×	-1.3×	2.0×	3.1×	2.8×	6.9×	4.8×	0.6×	3.7×	2.5×	1.2×	Interest coverageInt. cov.
$4.4B	$2.0B	($1.2B)	$1.7B	$1.7B	$3.6B	$3.8B	$2.9B	$2.5B	$1.7B	$4.9B	Shareholders’ equityEquity
0.1%	0.4%	0.3%	0.3%	0.3%	0.1%	0.1%	0.4%	0.4%	0.4%	0.5%	Stock comp / revenueSBC/rev
$337M	—	—	—	—	$35M	$130M	—	$15M	—	$15M	Goodwill written downGW imp.
											Per share
316M	317M	308M	264M	246M	245M	236M	228M	212M	199M	208M	Shares out (diluted)Shares
$28.21	$28.62	$26.45	$30.27	$35.33	$109.29	$133.42	$123.93	$130.89	$152.50	$153.82	Revenue / shareRev/sh
$-2.45	$-6.79	$0.87	$16.81	$2.07	$8.93	$5.17	$-0.89	$5.31	$4.34	$1.15	EPS (diluted)EPS
$4.32	$4.28	$3.21	$4.49	$6.53	$0.91	$-0.03	$-3.59	$8.65	$3.85	$-1.72	Owner earnings / shareOE/sh
$4.32	$4.28	$3.21	$4.49	$6.53	$0.91	$-0.03	$-3.59	$8.65	$3.85	$-1.72	Free cash flow / shareFCF/sh
$0.24	$0.12	$0.12	$0.12	$1.20	$1.30	$1.41	$1.67	$1.91	$2.07	$1.98	Dividends / shareDiv/sh
$1.72	$0.80	$1.26	$0.86	$0.93	$1.10	$1.56	$2.62	$2.23	$5.76	$6.00	Cap. spending / shareCapex/sh
$14.07	$6.21	$-4.01	$6.28	$6.83	$14.69	$16.22	$12.75	$11.69	$8.45	$23.43	Book value / shareBVPS

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

	9-yr	5-yr
Revenue / share	+20.6%/yr	+34.0%/yr
Owner earnings / share	−1.3%/yr	−10.0%/yr
EPS	—	+15.9%/yr
Dividends / share	+27.0%/yr	+11.5%/yr
Capital spending / share	+14.4%/yr	+43.9%/yr
Book value / share	−5.5%/yr	+4.3%/yr

The record, charted

FY2016–2025

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

Share count

199Mpeak FY2017

ROIC

10%low FY2017

Gross margin

25%low FY2018

Net debt ÷ owner earnings

15.5×peak 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.

$766Mowner earningsvs.$864Mnet incomelow FY2023

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 reported $864M of profit but $766M of owner earnings: $98M less than the profit line, taken out by capital spending and the timing of cash.

Reported net income$864M

Owner earnings$766M · 3% of revenue

	FY2025	FY2024	FY2023	FY2022	FY2021
Reported net income	$864M	$1.1B	($202M)	$1.2B	$2.2B
Depreciation & amortizationnon-cash charge added back	+$1.4B	+$1.4B	+$1.3B	+$720M	+$785M
Stock-based compensationreal costnon-cash, but a real cost	+$134M	+$102M	+$101M	+$28M	+$21M
Working capital & othertiming of cash in and out, other non-cash items	−$491M	−$324M	−$1.4B	−$1.6B	−$2.5B
Cash from operations	$1.9B	$2.3B	($221M)	$360M	$493M
Capital expenditurecash put back in to keep running and to grow	−$1.1B	−$472M	−$598M	−$367M	−$269M
Owner earnings	$766M	$1.8B	($819M)	($7M)	$224M
Owner-earnings marginowner earnings ÷ revenue	3%	7%	-3%	0%	1%

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 $134M), owner earnings is nearer $632M.

Much of fiscal 2025's profit didn't arrive as operating cash; it sits in “working capital & other” above. That can be a real inventory or timing swing, or profit that doesn't run through operating cash at all: a heavy tax year, equity-method earnings, or investment income booked through investing. For a year like this, owner earnings understates the cash earned; the full cash-flow statement carries the rest.

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? 2.5×

Adequate

Operating income $1.8B ÷ interest expense $741M

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? $11.9B · 6.4× operating profit

Heavy net debt

Cash $4.7B − debt $16.6B

What this means
Netting $4.7B of cash and short-term investments against $16.6B of debt leaves $11.9B owed, about 6.4× a year's operating profit (9.0× 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? -84d

Negative, funded by others

DSO 49 + DIO 26 − DPO 158 days

What this means
Days cash is tied up between paying suppliers and collecting from customers. A negative cycle is a quiet moat: suppliers and customers fund the operation (Buffett's “float”), the company grows on other people's money.

Is it a good business?

Return on invested capital 13%

Solid through the cycle

7-yr median, range -5%–22%; 10% latest = NOPAT $1.4B ÷ invested capital $13.6B

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 7 years (it ran 10% 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 7%

Solid through the cycle

10-yr median margin, range -3%–18%; latest $766M = operating cash $1.9B − maintenance capex $1.1B

Industry peers: median 12%

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 7% median across 10 years. Treating stock comp as the real expense it is (less $134M of SBC) leaves $632M.
Are earnings backed by cash? 2.21×

Cash-backed

Cash from ops $1.9B ÷ net income $864M

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? 225%

Returned more than it generated

Dividends + buybacks $1.7B ÷ Owner Earnings $766M

What this means
The company returned more than it generated: against $766M of Owner Earnings, $1.7B (225%) went back to shareholders, $411M dividends, $1.3B buybacks — the excess came from the balance sheet or borrowing, not the year's operations. Net of $134M stock comp, the real buyback was about $1.2B. Sustained, that pattern draws down cash or adds debt; the net-debt line above shows where it stands.
Investing or harvesting? 0.82×

Maintaining

Capex $1.1B ÷ depreciation $1.4B

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 · $30.3B

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× · 1.64×

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 · $16.6B vs $5.1B 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 Pass

Uninterrupted dividends · paid every year (10)

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 —

Earnings +33% over the record · —

What this means
Earnings were negative early in the record, a growth rate isn't meaningful.
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 $2.82/share (latest year $4.10), the averaged base the calculator's gate runs on, and book value is $7.97/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% 4 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 1% → 5% (3-yr avg ends)

What this means
Through the cycle the operating margin widened — about 1% early to 5% lately, median 6% — 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 −1%/yr

What this means
Owner earnings shrank about 1% a year over the record.
Worst year 2017 · −8.2% op. margin

What this means
Operations went underwater in 2017, understand why before trusting the good years.
Share count −5.0%/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 Named as a competitive risk

Its FY2025 10-K names artificial intelligence as a competitive threat.

“Advances in these or other technologies, including through AI, could reduce the costs of power production to a level below what the Company has currently forecasted, which could adversely affect its cash flows, results of operations or competitive position.”

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, and the company is using it that way.

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$9.9B

Cash & short-term investments$178M
Receivables$3.8B
Inventory$665M
Other current assets$5.3B

Current liabilities$11.8B

Debt due within a year$3.4B
Accounts payable$2.5B
Other current liabilities$6.0B

Current ratio0.84×all current assets ÷ what's due · Graham looked for 2×

Quick ratio0.78×stricter: inventory excluded

Cash ratio0.02×strictest: cash alone against what's due

Working capital($1.9B)the cushion left after near-term bills

Debt due this year vs. cash$3.4B due · $178M cash cash alone won't cover the maturities; it leans on refinancing or operating cash · both figures from the Mar 31, 2026 balance sheet

Revenue, latest quarter vs. a year ago+19.5%the freshest read on whether the business is still growing

Current ratio, recent quarters1.2× → 0.8×

Deeper floors

Tangible book value($6.3B)equity stripped of goodwill & intangibles

Net current asset value($25.3B)Graham's net-net: current assets less all liabilities

Debt incl. operating leases$23.4B$203M of it operating leases

Deferred revenue$1.6Bcustomer 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 $13.0B of operating cash; how management split it reads as a cash returner, paying most of what it earns straight back to owners.

Reinvested$4.5B · 35%
Dividends$2.3B · 18%
Buybacks$7.0B · 54%

Returned to owners$9.3B
109% of the owner earnings the business produced over the span, $2.3B as dividends and $7.0B as buybacks.
Source of funding−$790M
Reinvestment and shareholder returns ran $790M beyond the operating cash the business generated, so the gap was financed off the balance sheet: debt rose from $16.7B to $23.2B, and cash and short-term investments drew down $413M.
Average price paid for buybacks$50.53
Across the years where the filing reports a share count, 138M shares were bought for $7.0B, about $50.53 each. Year to year the price paid ranged from $35.48 (2018) to $131.47 (2025); its heaviest year, 2019, paid $39.67 ($1.4B).
Net change in share count−34.2%
The diluted count fell from 316M to 208M, so the buybacks outran the stock issued to staff.
Dividend record$2.07/sh
Paid in 10 of the years on record, the per-share dividend growing about 27% a year. It was cut at least once along the way.

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$7.3B25% 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$612Mover 10 years buying other businesses, against $4.5B of capital spent building

$517M written down across 4 years (2016, 2021, 2022, 2024): goodwill the company has already conceded it overpaid for, charged against earnings. That is roughly 84% of the cash it put into acquisitions over the span. 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	Lawrence Coben	$10.9M	$10.7M	$224M
2022	Lawrence Coben	$10.2M	−$939k	($7M)
2023	Lawrence Coben	$13.1M	−$5.2M	($819M)
2023	Lawrence Coben	$11.9M	$12.7M	($819M)
2024	Lawrence Coben	$5.5M	$18.1M	$1.8B
2025	Lawrence Coben	$20.1M	$35.5M	$766M

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 2026 proxy: skin in the game, the first thing Munger reads.
Stock-based compensation$134M
The slice of the business handed to employees in shares this year, 0% 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 NRG Energy 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?2.1% vs 14.1%
The owner-earnings margin averaged 14.1% early in the record and 2.1% 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 debt outgrow the business?$16.7B → $23.2B
Debt rose from $16.7B to $23.2B while owner earnings went from about $1.2B to $594M — about 14 years of owner earnings in debt then, about 39 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.
Look hereAre "one-time" charges a yearly habit?9 of 10 years
Management took an impairment or write-down in 9 of the last 10 years, $3.5B in all. A charge taken almost every year is not one-time; it is the business — past deals coming due, and an admission the assets were worth less than what was paid. Munger's rule: when the "one-time" keeps happening, it is the business. Read it beside the goodwill the company still carries.

And these came back clean

Did the share count rise anyway?
Did reported profit become cash?
Did receivables and inventory outpace sales?

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 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, Electric Utilities

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
NRGNRG Energy	$30.3B	24%	7.6%	13%	9%
SOSouthern Company (The)	$29.6B	—	22.8%	6%	12%
NEENextEra Energy Inc.	$27.4B	—	28.2%	6%	—
CEGConstellation Energy	$22.7B	—	5.0%	8%	-17%
AEPAmerican Electric Power Company Inc.	$21.7B	—	19.2%	6%	26%
EIXEdison International	$19.3B	—	13.1%	4%	7%
VSTVistra	$17.6B	—	10.8%	7%	17%
DTBDTE Energy Co	$15.8B	—	13.6%	6%	—
Group median	—	—	13.3%	6%	11%

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 NRG Energy has delivered.

NRG Energy’s latest year shows negative owner earnings, a cyclical trough. So the tool opens on the through-cycle base, the cash it would earn at rest; clear the toggle below to read the latest year exactly as reported.

Today’s price $

Through the cycle, NRG Energy earns about $2.8B on its 9.4% median owner-earnings margin. This year’s 2.5% 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 ($2.8B) Net of stock comp (−$146M)

—

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+86%/yr

Owner-earnings growth · ’16→’25−1%/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 ($358M) on 211M shares outstanding, per the 10-Q cover, as of 2026-04-30; net debt $23.0B. The base opens on the through-cycle figure (the latest year sits off 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 NRG against another business →

The owners of NRG: the meeting and the votes →

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

Manual order: ← NRDS its page in the Manual NRGV →

Industry order: ← NEE the Electric Utilities chapter OGE →