Owner Scorecard


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PAYO, Payoneer

Commercial Services & Supplies diversified Cyclical

Payoneer is a financial technology company purpose-built to enable the world's small and medium-sized businesses") to grow and operate their businesses around the world by reliably and securely connecting them to the global digital economy.

Payoneer's core value proposition is that we remove the complexity and barriers of doing business across borders for our customers.

With a multi-currency Payoneer Account, businesses around the world can serve and transact with their global customers, suppliers, vendors, and partners as if they were local.

Latest annual: FY2025 10-K
PAYO · Payoneer
I

The business

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

Revenue · FY2025
$813M
+14.5% YoY · 19% 5-yr CAGR
Vital signs · TTM, with 5-yr average
Revenue $835M 5-yr avg $628M
Operating margin 15.0% 5-yr avg 8.7%
ROIC 22% 5-yr avg 13%
Owner-earnings margin 24% 5-yr avg 18%
Free cash flow margin 24% 5-yr avg 18%

The business in brief

read the 10-K →

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

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
Operating margin has run about 1.2% through the cycle, a thin margin, where volume, cost discipline and the price it gets all bear on the result. The operating margin has swung widely — from −6.6% to 21% over the years — so the through-cycle figure carries more than any single year, and the worst year more than the best. Stock-based pay runs about 9.0% of sales, a real and recurring claim on owners that the GAAP margin understates. On its own account, the filing leans hardest on customer concentration, 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 27%, above 15% in 3 of 5 years). Owner earnings agree: roughly 13% 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 →

88% of revenue comes from outside the United States.

Revenue by geography, FY2025
  • Europe, Middle East, and Africa33%$265M
  • Asia Pacific27%$221M
  • Latin America14%$111M
  • North America12%$102M
  • United States12%$97M

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.

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
$301M$340M$461M$564M$591M$710M$813M$835MRevenueRevenue
10%11%14%16%17%16%17%18%SG&A / revenueSG&A/rev
12%15%18%20%20%19%19%19%R&D / revenueR&D/rev
$4M($17M)($30M)($22M)$104M$149M$125M$125MOperating incomeOp. inc.
1.2%−5.1%−6.6%−3.9%17.5%21.0%15.3%15.0%Operating marginOp. mgn
($625K)($24M)($34M)($12M)$93M$121M$73M$72MNet incomeNet inc.
30%13%37%38%Effective tax rateTax rate
Cash flow & returns
($14M)$10M$20M$84M$159M$177M$233M$232MOperating cash flowOp. cash
$10M$17M$18M$21M$28M$47M$66M$70MDepreciationDeprec.
($34M)$5M($1M)$23M($27M)($56M)$22M$16MWorking capital & otherWC & other
$9M$5M$7M$11M$8M$8M$27M$32MCapexCapex
3.0%1.5%1.5%1.9%1.4%1.2%3.3%3.9%Capex / revenueCapex/rev
($23M)$5M$13M$73M$151M$169M$207M$199MOwner earningsOwner earn.
−7.8%1.3%2.8%13.0%25.6%23.8%25.4%23.9%Owner earnings marginOE mgn
($23M)$5M$13M$73M$151M$169M$207M$199MFree cash flowFCF
−7.8%1.3%2.8%13.0%25.6%23.8%25.4%23.9%Free cash flow marginFCF mgn
$15M$48M$33M$33MAcquisitionsAcquis.
$55M$138M$174MBuybacksBuybacks
-69%-61%111%57%27%22%ROICROIC
-98%-7%-2%14%17%10%11%Return on equityROE
−98%−7%−2%14%17%10%11%Retained to equityRetained/eq
Balance sheet
$115M$103M$466M$543M$617M$497M$416M$339MCash & investmentsCash+inv
$18M$14M$13M$8M$12M$10M$13MReceivablesReceiv.
$17M$17M$42M$34M$37M$45M$42MAccounts payablePayables
$598K($3M)($29M)($26M)($25M)($34M)($29M)Operating working capitalOper. WC
$3.6B$5.0B$6.5B$7.1B$7.1B$8.1B$7.7BCurrent assetsCur. assets
$3.4B$4.5B$6.0B$6.5B$7.1B$8.1B$7.8BCurrent liabilitiesCur. liab.
1.0×1.1×1.1×1.1×1.0×1.0×1.0×Current ratioCurr. ratio
$23M$21M$20M$20M$78M$78M$86MGoodwillGoodwill
$3.7B$5.1B$6.6B$7.3B$7.9B$9.0B$8.6BTotal assetsAssets
$40M$14M$16M$18M$28MTotal debtDebt
($63M)($452M)($527M)($599M)($311M)Net debt / (cash)Net debt
($5M)$24M$487M$545M$664M$725M$704M$659MShareholders’ equityEquity
3.2%3.3%8.0%9.3%11.1%9.1%9.0%8.7%Stock comp / revenueSBC/rev
Per share
36.1M47.0M203M348M393M386M377M350MShares out (diluted)Shares
$8.32$7.22$2.27$1.62$1.50$1.84$2.16$2.38Revenue / shareRev/sh
$-0.02$-0.51$-0.17$-0.03$0.24$0.31$0.19$0.21EPS (diluted)EPS
$-0.65$0.10$0.06$0.21$0.38$0.44$0.55$0.57Owner earnings / shareOE/sh
$-0.65$0.10$0.06$0.21$0.38$0.44$0.55$0.57Free cash flow / shareFCF/sh
$0.25$0.11$0.03$0.03$0.02$0.02$0.07$0.09Cap. spending / shareCapex/sh
$-0.15$0.52$2.40$1.57$1.69$1.88$1.87$1.88Book value / shareBVPS

The diluted share count moved ×4.32 into 2021 — shares issued, not a split the totals corroborate — and the per-share figures carry the counts as filed.

The diluted share count moved ×1.72 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−20.1%/yr−21.5%/yr
Owner earnings / share+41.6%/yr
Capital spending / share−19.0%/yr−7.6%/yr
Book value / share+29.3%/yr

The record, charted

FY2019–2025

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

Share count
377Mpeak FY2023
ROIC
27%low 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.

$207Mowner earningsvs.$73Mnet incomelow FY2019

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.

FY2020FY2025

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 $73M of profit into $207M 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$73M
Owner earnings$207M · 25% of revenue
FY2025FY2024FY2023FY2022FY2021
Reported net income$73M$121M$93M($12M)($34M)
Depreciation & amortizationnon-cash charge added back+$66M+$47M+$28M+$21M+$18M
Stock-based compensationreal costnon-cash, but a real cost+$73M+$65M+$66M+$52M+$37M
Working capital & othertiming of cash in and out, other non-cash items+$22M−$56M−$27M+$23M−$1M
Cash from operations$233M$177M$159M$84M$20M
Capital expenditurecash put back in to keep running and to grow−$27M−$8M−$8M−$11M−$7M
Owner earnings$207M$169M$151M$73M$13M
Owner-earnings marginowner earnings ÷ revenue25%24%26%13%3%

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 $73M), owner earnings is nearer $134M.

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?

  • No meaningful interest burden
    Little or no interest expense reported
    What this means

    Little or no interest expense reported, the business isn't leaning on lenders to operate.

  • Net cash
    Cash $416M − debt $32M
    What this means

    Cash and short-term investments exceed every dollar of debt by $384M, 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?

  • Very high (≥25%) through the cycle
    5-yr median, range -69%–111%; 25% latest = NOPAT $79M ÷ invested capital $321M
    Industry peers: median -9%
    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 5 years (it ran 25% 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.

  • Solid through the cycle
    7-yr median margin, range -8%–26%; latest $207M = operating cash $233M − maintenance capex $27M
    Industry peers: median 6%
    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 25% of revenue this year, a 13% median across 7 years. Treating stock comp as the real expense it is (less $73M of SBC) leaves $134M.

  • Cash-backed
    Cash from ops $233M ÷ net income $73M
    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?

  • Returns about half
    Dividends + buybacks $174M ÷ Owner Earnings $207M
    What this means

    Of $207M Owner Earnings, $174M (84%) went back to shareholders, $0 dividends, $174M buybacks. Net of $73M stock comp, the real buyback was about $100M. 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? 0.41×
    Harvesting
    Capex $27M ÷ depreciation $66M
    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 · 0 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 Miss
    Revenue ≥ $2B · $813M
    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 Miss
    Current ratio ≥ 2× · 1.00×
    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 Near
    Debt ≤ working capital · $32M vs $27M 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 (7-yr record) · 4 loss years
    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
    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 $0.29/share (latest year $0.22), the averaged base the calculator's gate runs on, and book value is $2.10/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, 2019–2025

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

  • Profitable years 3 of 7
    What this means

    Lost money in 4 year(s), look at what happened there before trusting the average.

  • Return on capital ≥ 15% 1 of 3 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 −3% → 18% (3-yr avg ends)
    What this means

    Through the cycle the operating margin widened — about −3% early to 18% lately, median 1% — 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.

  • Worst year 2021 · −6.6% op. margin
    What this means

    Operations went underwater in 2021, understand why before trusting the good years.

Does AI threaten the moat?

Elevated contestability

The product is software or information, the very thing capable AI now produces more cheaply, so the moat is more contestable than the record alone implies.

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.

“These sectors could face disruption as artificial intelligence enables companies to handle such functions internally, reducing reliance on outsourced services.”

The moat the record shows, a high return on capital held across years, was earned before AI collapsed the cost of building a capable substitute for the very thing this business sells. When a credible alternative can be assembled for a fraction of the incumbent's price, it is pricing power that erodes first, not revenue tomorrow. The live question is whether the moat survives that, not whether it held in the past. Whether that question is answerable at all is yours to decide, against your own circle of competence.

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$7.7B
  • Cash & short-term investments$339M
  • Receivables$13M
  • Other current assets$7.4B
Current liabilities$7.8B
  • Debt due within a year$14M
  • Accounts payable$42M
  • Other current liabilities$7.7B
Current ratio1.00×all current assets ÷ what's due · Graham looked for 2×
Quick ratio1.00×stricter: inventory excluded
Cash ratio0.04×strictest: cash alone against what's due
Working capital($38M)the cushion left after near-term bills
Debt due this year vs. cash$14M due · $339M cash covered by cash on hand, no refinancing forced · both figures from the Mar 31, 2026 balance sheet
Revenue, latest quarter vs. a year ago+6.1%the freshest read on whether the business is still growing
Current ratio, recent quarters1.1× → 1.0×
Deeper floors
Tangible book value$358Mequity stripped of goodwill & intangibles
Net current asset value($215M)Graham's net-net: current assets less all liabilities
Debt incl. operating leases$41M$13M of it operating leases
Deferred revenue$7Mcustomer cash collected before delivery; operating float

From the company's latest filing.

How the cash was used, 2019–2025

Over the record, the business generated $669M of operating cash; how management split it reads as a cash builder, a large share of cash simply built up on the balance sheet.

  • Reinvested$75M · 11%
  • Buybacks$367M · 55%
  • Retained (debt / cash)$227M · 34%
  • Returned to owners$367M

    62% of the owner earnings the business produced over the span, $0 as dividends and $367M as buybacks.

  • Source of fundingOperating cash

    Operating cash covered reinvestment and returns; over the span cash and short-term investments rose $224M.

  • Average price paid for buybacks$5.81

    Across the years where the filing reports a share count, 63M shares were bought for $367M, about $5.81 each. Year to year the price paid ranged from $5.01 (2023) to $6.37 (2025), and 2025, near the top of that range, was also its heaviest buyback year ($174M).

  • Net change in share count870.4%

    The diluted count rose from 36M to 350M: 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.

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 yearChief executivePay, as filed“Actually paid”Owner earnings
2021John Caplan$5.2M$25.8M$13M
2022John Caplan$3.1M$426k$73M
2022John Caplan$15.1M$23.4M$73M
2023John Caplan$964k$825k$151M
2023John Caplan$951k−$1.6M$151M
2024John Caplan$9.8M$38.5M$169M
2025John Caplan$11.7M−$13.3M$207M

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 ownership2.1%

    The stake all directors and executive officers hold together, per the 2026 proxy: skin in the game, the first thing Munger reads.

  • CEO pay ratio119:1

    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$73M

    The slice of the business handed to employees in shares this year, 9% of revenue, equal to 59% 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 Payoneer 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 2019–2025.

1 of the 4 tests turned up something to look into; the other 3 came back clean.

  • Look hereDid the share count rise anyway?870.4%

    Diluted shares grew 870.4% over 2019–2025, even as the company spent $367M 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.

And these came back clean
  • Is it less profitable than it was?
  • 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, Income taxes, Credit & receivables, 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, Commercial Services & Supplies

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.

CompanyRevenueGross marginOp. marginROICOwner earn. margin
PAYPaymentus Holdings Inc.$1.2B30%5.1%13%7%
MAXMediaAlpha Inc.$1.1B16%2.7%-12%6%
ANDGAndersen Group Inc.$839M17.7%20%
PAYOPayoneer$813M1.2%27%13%
ACVAACV Auctions Inc.$760M-19.5%-19%3%
XMTRXometry Inc.$687M38%-20.2%-10%-18%
FLYWFlywire$623M-6.6%-9%8%
IMXIInternational Money Express Inc.$608M14.5%40%6%
Group median1.9%-9%6%
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 Payoneer has delivered.

Payoneer’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.

$

Through the cycle, Payoneer earns about $106M on its 13.0% median owner-earnings margin. This year’s 25.4% 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

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+44%/yr
Owner-earnings growth · since FY2020+115%/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 $199M on 335M shares outstanding, per the 10-Q cover, as of 2026-04-30; net cash $311M. The if-converted diluted count is 350M, 5% above the shares outstanding: the dilution overhang (convertibles, options) a buyer inherits. 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. Capex ($32M) runs well above depreciation ($70M), so this is a build-out; Steady-state swaps total capex for maintenance (≈ depreciation), lifting the base to about $205M, 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, "Payoneer (PAYO), the owner's record," https://ownerscorecard.com/c/PAYO, data as of 2026-07-09.

Manual order: ← PAYC its page in the Manual PAYS →

Industry order: ← PAY the Commercial Services & Supplies chapter PAYS →