Owner Scorecard


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OWL, Blue Owl Capital

We provide these solutions through our Permanent Capital vehicles and long-dated private funds, which we believe provide our business with a high degree of earnings stability and predictability.

Anchored by a strong Permanent Capital base, we deploy private capital across Credit, Real Assets and GP Strategic Capital platforms on behalf of institutional and private wealth clients.

Our flexible, consultative approach helps position us as a partner of choice for businesses seeking capital solutions to support their sustained growth.

Latest annual: FY2025 10-K
OWL · Blue Owl Capital
I

The business

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

Revenue · FY2025
$2.9B
+25.0% YoY · 63% 5-yr CAGR
Vital signs · TTM, with 5-yr average
Revenue $2.9B 5-yr avg $1.8B
Operating margin 16.6% 5-yr avg −10.4%
Net margin 3.0% 5-yr avg −7.1%
Return on equity 4% 5-yr avg −2%

The business in brief

read the 10-K →

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

What moves the needle
Assets under management and the fee rate on them. What decides it: net flows in or out, the market's move on the assets already there (the firm rises and falls with the indices it invests in), the drift toward cheaper passive products, and the operating leverage on a largely fixed cost base. 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?
Operating margin has been modest for a fee business (median 14%). It earns this on little capital, so return on equity has run near 4%, the leverage of a model that needs almost no plant to grow. A high return that does not fade can mark a moat, but whether the assets stay (net flows, not last year's market) is what the flow disclosures and the 10-K settle, not the multiple.

Every line is arithmetic on the company's filings, shown in full in the sections below.

II

The record

Ten years of arithmetic, read across the cycle.

The record, 2019–2025

realized figures from each filing · older years to the left
2019’192020’202021’212022’222023’232024’242025’25TTMTTMMar 2026
Income statement
$191M$250M$824M$1.4B$1.7B$2.3B$2.9B$2.9BRevenueRevenue
14.3%−23.5%−112.5%−0.2%18.4%26.4%15.9%16.6%Operating marginOp. mgn
12.0%−31.2%−45.7%−0.7%3.1%4.8%2.7%3.0%Net marginNet mgn
$23M($78M)($376M)($9M)$54M$110M$79M$87MNet incomeNet inc.
1%32%31%35%39%Effective tax rateTax rate
Cash flow & returns
$43M$5M$281M$726M$939M$983M$1.2B$1.3BOwner earningsOwner earn.
-23%-1%4%5%4%4%Return on equityROE
−25%−12%−13%−12%−21%−24%Retained to equityRetained/eq
Balance sheet
$122M$8.3B$8.9B$8.8B$11.0B$12.5B$12.4BTotal assetsAssets
$7M$12M$43M$68M$104M$152M$195M$190MCash & investmentsCash+inv
($350M)$0$1.7B$1.6B$1.5B$2.1B$2.2B$2.1BShareholders’ equityEquity
Per share
6.9M433M478M558M662M681MShares out (diluted)Shares
$36.34$3.16$3.62$4.11$4.34$4.32Revenue / shareRev/sh
$-11.32$-0.02$0.11$0.20$0.12$0.13EPS (diluted)EPS
$0.67$1.68$1.96$1.76$1.86$1.93Owner earnings / shareOE/sh
$0.00$0.42$0.52$0.66$0.83$0.86Dividends / shareDiv/sh
$0.00$3.70$3.20$3.81$3.33$3.08Book value / shareBVPS

The diluted share count moved ×63.04 into 2022 — 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
6-yr5-yr
Revenue / share−34.6%/yr (5-yr)−34.6%/yr
Owner earnings / share+22.8%/yr (5-yr)+22.8%/yr
Capital spending / share−1.7%/yr (5-yr)−1.7%/yr

The record, charted

FY2019–2025

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

Share count
662Mpeak FY2025
Revenue
$2.9Blow FY2019
III

Quality & stewardship

Returns, the balance sheet, capital allocation, and pay.

Owner’s Scorecard

FY2025 10-K · source on SEC EDGAR →

Is it a good business?

  • Modest fee margin
    Operating income $456M ÷ revenue $2.9B
    Industry peers: median 21%
    What this means

    The heart of a asset manager: how much of each fee dollar survives the cost of running the business. Fees ride on assets under management, so the swing factors are net flows in or out and the market's move on the assets already there; the cost base is largely fixed, which lifts margins in a bull market and squeezes them in a bear one. A high margin held for years, through a market it does not control, is the operational mark of a real franchise.

  • Net margin 2.7%
    Slim
    Net income $79M ÷ revenue $2.9B
    What this means

    What reaches the owner after tax and interest. For a capital-light fee business this should be a wide share of revenue; when it is thin despite a high operating margin, debt taken on for acquisitions is usually the reason, so read it next to the balance sheet.

  • Below the cost of equity
    Net income $79M ÷ equity $2.2B
    Industry peers: median 18%
    What this means

    Because the business ties up little capital, a healthy fee stream throws off a high return on the equity behind it. Read it with the buyback record: returning capital lifts this ratio honestly, but heavy debt taken to do so can flatter it.

Does AI threaten the moat?

Moderate contestability

AI is likely to reshape costs and some products here without clearly contesting or sparing the core moat; how the company itself frames it is the tell.

In its own filing A competitive risk, new this year

Its FY2025 10-K names artificial intelligence as a competitive threat, in language that was not in the prior year's filing.

“Our use of AI technologies could lead to the exposure of our data or other adverse effects and increase competitive, operational, legal and regulatory risks in ways that we cannot predict.”

The question is whether a moat the record shows as durable outlasts a technology that lowers the cost of part of what the firm sells. The durability is read in the record above, the filing's own framing of AI beside it; the industry label decides nothing on its own.

Read from the filing's own risk factors, paired with the industry's structure under its SIC code; the durability is read above, the price below.

All figures as filed; the source filing is linked above.

Current Position

as of the latest quarter, Mar 31, 2021

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$1M
  • Cash & short-term investments$190M
  • Receivables$51M
Current liabilities$91K
    Current ratio11.78×all current assets ÷ what's due · Graham looked for 2×
    Quick ratio11.78×stricter: inventory excluded
    Cash ratio2095.49×strictest: cash alone against what's due
    Working capital$980Kthe cushion left after near-term bills
    Revenue, latest quarter vs. a year ago+4.1%the freshest read on whether the business is still growing
    Deeper floors
    Tangible book value($6.3B)equity stripped of goodwill & intangibles
    Net current asset value($6.6B)Graham's net-net: current assets less all liabilities
    Debt incl. operating leases$3.8Bno operating-lease liability tagged this quarter, so debt alone; with finance leases, “total fixed claims” below reaches $3.9B (annual-report basis)

    From the company's latest filing.

    Debt by another name. What the business owes on the property, aircraft, stores and equipment it rents rather than owns is a fixed claim due on a schedule; added back to the debt, it is the true leverage. That ladder, and what it adds to the debt on the page above.

    '26$62M
    '27$63M
    '28$50M
    '29$46M
    '30$65M
    later$498M

    Lease payments by year, scaled to the largest; “later” is everything beyond year five, shown apart. These are the contractual cash payments, before the interest the filing imputes back out to the balance-sheet liability.

    Due in the next 12 months$62Ma fixed cash payment, owed whether or not the business has a good year
    Total lease payments$783Mevery year plus the tail, undiscounted: the full cash the leases will take
    On the balance sheet$538Mthe present value of those payments, the recognised lease liability

    True leverage: debt plus leases

    On-balance-sheet debt$3.3B
    Lease obligations (present value)$538M
    Total fixed claims on the business$3.9B

    Counting the leases the way Buffett does, the fixed claims on this business come to $3.9B, of which the leases are 14%. The lease wall above and the debt schedule together are the calendar of what must be paid, and when.

    Lease ladder read from the ASC 842 tags in the company’s Dec 31, 2025 annual report and reconciled: the yearly buckets sum to the undiscounted total, which less the imputed interest equals the balance-sheet liability; a ladder that doesn’t tie out is withheld.

    Acquisitions & goodwill

    from the balance sheet & the 7-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$8.5B68% 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$2.4Bover 7 years buying other businesses, against $262M of capital spent building

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

    Goodwill, acquired intangibles and equity from the latest balance sheet; acquisition spend and write-downs summed across the 7-year record, from the company's own filings.

    Management, ownership & pay

    read the proxy →

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

    Fiscal yearChief executivePay, as filed“Actually paid”Owner earnings
    2021Ostrover$11.6M$11.6M$281M
    2022Ostrover$10.1M$10.1M$726M
    2023Lipschultz$18.5M$18.5M$939M
    2023Ostrover$18.5M$18.5M$939M
    2024Lipschultz$23.9M$23.9M$983M
    2024Ostrover$23.9M$23.9M$983M
    2025Lipschultz$29.2M$29.2M$1.2B
    2025Ostrover$29.2M$29.2M$1.2B

    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.

    • CEO pay ratio84:1

      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$674M

      The slice of the business handed to employees in shares this year, 23% of revenue, equal to 148% 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.

    What an owner would ask, FY2025

    read the 10-K →
    • Which reported numbers are a judgment call?
      Management names Income taxes, Acquisitions, Stock compensation, Contingencies 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, Capital Markets & Asset Management

    The same industry, side by side on fee margins. 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.

    CompanyRevenueOp. marginNet marginROE
    BAMBrookfield Asset Mgmt$3.9B50.3%62.3%65%
    EVREvercore$3.9B21.1%15.0%29%
    LAZLazard$3.2B18.5%11.6%44%
    JHGJanus Henderson Group plc$3.1B25.0%18.8%10%
    OWLBlue Owl Capital$2.9B14.3%2.7%4%
    HLIHoulihan Lokey$2.6B20.5%16.1%18%
    MORNMorningstar Inc.$2.4B17.4%15.2%17%
    AMGAffiliated Managers Group Inc.$2.1B42.8%24.3%17%
    Group median20.8%15.6%18%
    IV

    The price

    What a price has to assume.

    What the price implies

    reverse-DCF

    Type today's close and see the owner-earnings growth you'd have to believe to justify it, beside what Blue Owl Capital has delivered.

    $

    Through the cycle, Blue Owl Capital earns about $1.2B on its 42.8% median owner-earnings margin. This year’s 42.9% margin runs in line with that. Normalize, below, values the price on that through-cycle figure rather than the latest year.

    Base

    The assumptions

    9.0% = the 4.55% 10-year Treasury (Jul 15, 2026) + 4.45 points of equity premium. The rate you require is yours to set.

    Enter a price above to run it.

    Implied by the price
    Owner-earnings growth · ’21→’25+22%/yr
    Owner-earnings growth · ’19→’25+89%/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.

    Free cash flow $1.3B on 680M shares outstanding (a weighted basic average, the only count this filer tags); net debt $3.6B. 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. Capex ($58M) runs well above depreciation ($24M), so this is a build-out; Steady-state swaps total capex for maintenance (≈ depreciation), lifting the base to about $1.3B, the cash it would throw off if it stopped expanding. The dials set the multiple a growth belief justifies; the price, and every dollar on this page, is yours.

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

    Manual order: ← OVV its page in the Manual OXM →

    Industry order: ← OPY the Capital Markets & Asset Management chapter PAX →