Owner Scorecard


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PPLI, People Incorporated

Software asset-light Distress / turnaround

A software business, earning high margins on code once it is written.

Latest annual: FY2025 10-K
PPLI · People Incorporated
I

The business

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

Revenue · FY2025
$2.4B
−8.7% YoY · −3% 5-yr CAGR
Vital signs · TTM, with 5-yr average
Revenue $2.3B 5-yr avg $3.4B
Gross margin 66% 5-yr avg 63%
Operating margin −6.9% 5-yr avg −5.2%
ROIC −2% 5-yr avg −2%
Owner-earnings margin 3% 5-yr avg 3%
Free cash flow margin 3% 5-yr avg 3%

The business in brief

read the 10-K →

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

Situation
Distress / turnaround. Thin interest coverage, or operating cash burned against real debt, across the record. The balance sheet carries this situation; the debt schedule sets the clock.
What moves the needle
Operating margin has run around −4.1% through the cycle on a 65% gross margin, the operating line in the red even at its best — so the lever is whether the spending below the gross line can come down enough to clear a profit: revenue growth against the cost curve, and the cash runway until it does. Stock-based pay runs about 5.9% of sales, a real and recurring claim on owners that the GAAP margin understates. Read this kind of business on retention and the cost of growth. 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 rarely cleared the cost of capital (median −2%, above 15% in 0 of 7 years). The steadier read is owner earnings: roughly 3% 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.

II

The record

Ten years of arithmetic, read across the cycle.

The record, 2018–2025

realized figures from each filing · older years to the left
2018’182019’192020’202021’212022’222023’232024’242025’25TTMTTMMar 2026
Income statement
$2.5B$2.5B$2.8B$3.7B$5.2B$2.9B$2.6B$2.4B$2.3BRevenueRevenue
80%78%73%65%63%58%62%66%66%Gross marginGross mgn
22%23%27%22%19%18%19%17%21%SG&A / revenueSG&A/rev
7%5%7%6%6%8%9%8%9%R&D / revenueR&D/rev
$36M$6M($538M)($137M)($475M)($238M)($29M)($97M)($162M)Operating incomeOp. inc.
1.4%0.2%−19.4%−3.7%−9.1%−8.1%−1.1%−4.1%−6.9%Operating marginOp. mgn
$247M$23M$270M$598M($1.2B)$266M($540M)($104M)$41MNet incomeNet inc.
5%19%27%Effective tax rateTax rate
Cash flow & returns
$369M$252M$155M$119M($83M)$190M$355M$64M$101MOperating cash flowOp. cash
$42M$55M$69M$75M$131M$81M$41M$38M$34MDepreciationDeprec.
($68M)$39M($381M)($554M)$956M($157M)$854M$131M($170M)Working capital & otherWC & other
$55M$95M$61M$90M$140M$94M$15M$19M$23MCapexCapex
2.2%3.8%2.2%2.4%2.7%3.2%0.6%0.8%1.0%Capex / revenueCapex/rev
$315M$157M$94M$29M($223M)$96M$340M$45M$78MOwner earningsOwner earn.
12.4%6.2%3.4%0.8%−4.3%3.3%12.9%1.9%3.4%Owner earnings marginOE mgn
$315M$157M$94M$29M($223M)$96M$340M$45M$78MFree cash flowFCF
12.4%6.2%3.4%0.8%−4.3%3.3%12.9%1.9%3.4%Free cash flow marginFCF mgn
$66M$28M$685M$2.7B$0$0$0AcquisitionsAcquis.
$57M$64M$35M$166M$0$315MBuybacksBuybacks
2%-14%-2%-5%-2%-0%-1%-2%ROICROIC
9%1%4%8%-20%4%-10%-2%1%Return on equityROE
9%1%4%8%−20%4%−10%−2%1%Retained to equityRetained/eq
Balance sheet
$884M$838M$3.6B$2.1B$1.3B$1.1B$1.4B$960M$1.1BCash & investmentsCash+inv
$182M$258M$696M$608M$537M$483M$449M$329MReceivablesReceiv.
$317K$31M$31MInventoryInvent.
$72M$89M$203M$133M$106M$54M$38M$36MAccounts payablePayables
$109M$169M$523M$475M$431M$429M$411M$324MOperating working capitalOper. WC
$1.2B$4.1B$3.1B$2.6B$2.2B$2.5B$1.5B$1.6BCurrent assetsCur. assets
$585M$751M$1.4B$1.1B$950M$886M$561M$420MCurrent liabilitiesCur. liab.
2.1×5.5×2.2×2.4×2.4×2.8×2.8×3.7×Current ratioCurr. ratio
$1.5B$1.4B$1.7B$3.2B$3.0B$2.1B$2.0B$1.8B$1.5BGoodwillGoodwill
$4.1B$9.2B$12.3B$10.4B$10.4B$9.7B$7.1B$6.8BTotal assetsAssets
$246M$712M$2.1B$2.0B$2.0B$1.5B$1.4B$1.4BTotal debtDebt
($592M)($2.9B)($62M)$714M$941M$88M$466M$308MNet debt / (cash)Net debt
2.7×0.5×-33.3×-4.0×-4.3×-1.5×-0.2×-0.8×-1.4×Interest coverageInt. cov.
$2.7B$2.5B$6.6B$7.2B$5.9B$6.1B$5.6B$4.7B$4.5BShareholders’ equityEquity
5.9%5.4%7.1%8.4%Stock comp / revenueSBC/rev
$3M$265M$113M$9M$207M$207MGoodwill written downGW imp.
Per share
85.1M85.1M90.9M91.8M86.3M86.5M83.1M80.1M76.7MShares out (diluted)Shares
$29.75$29.48$30.40$40.29$60.63$33.76$31.54$29.89$30.42Revenue / shareRev/sh
$2.90$0.27$2.97$6.51$-13.55$3.08$-6.49$-1.30$0.53EPS (diluted)EPS
$3.70$1.84$1.03$0.31$-2.58$1.11$4.08$0.56$1.02Owner earnings / shareOE/sh
$3.70$1.84$1.03$0.31$-2.58$1.11$4.08$0.56$1.02Free cash flow / shareFCF/sh
$0.64$1.12$0.67$0.98$1.62$1.08$0.18$0.24$0.30Cap. spending / shareCapex/sh
$31.53$29.78$72.54$78.14$68.69$70.29$67.10$59.12$59.28Book value / shareBVPS
Per-share growththe realized rate an owner's share compounded
7-yr5-yr
Revenue / share+0.1%/yr−0.3%/yr
Owner earnings / share−23.6%/yr−11.5%/yr
Capital spending / share−13.1%/yr−18.5%/yr
Book value / share+9.4%/yr−4.0%/yr

The record, charted

FY2018–2025

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

Share count
80Mpeak FY2021
ROIC
−1%low FY2020
Gross margin
66%low FY2023
Net debt ÷ owner earnings
10.4×peak FY2025

Owner earnings vs. net income

Owner earningsNet income

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

$45Mowner earningsvs.($104M)net incomelow FY2022

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.

FY2018FY2025

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 a $104M loss into $45M of owner earnings: more cash than the profit line showed, after the non-cash charges and the capital it put back in.

FY2025FY2024FY2023FY2022FY2021
Reported net income($104M)($540M)$266M($1.2B)$598M
Depreciation & amortizationnon-cash charge added back+$38M+$41M+$81M+$131M+$75M
Working capital & othertiming of cash in and out, other non-cash items+$131M+$854M−$157M+$956M−$554M
Cash from operations$64M$355M$190M($83M)$119M
Capital expenditurecash put back in to keep running and to grow−$19M−$15M−$94M−$140M−$90M
Owner earnings$45M$340M$96M($223M)$29M
Owner-earnings marginowner earnings ÷ revenue2%13%3%-4%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 .

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?

  • Does not cover its interest
    Operating income ($97M) ÷ interest expense $120M
    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 debt against an operating loss
    Cash $960M − debt $1.4B
    What this means

    Netting $960M of cash and short-term investments against $1.4B of debt leaves $466M owed, with no operating profit this year to measure it against — understand that combination before anything else about the company. Net debt is the leverage figure that matters: the cash is already set against the debt. Strategic or illiquid investments aren't counted here.

  • Long (60+ days)
    DSO 68 + DIO 14 − DPO 17 days
    What this means

    Days cash is tied up between paying suppliers and collecting from customers. Lower is better; a long cycle means growth itself eats cash.

Is it a good business?

  • Below average through the cycle
    7-yr median, range -14%–2%; -1% latest = NOPAT ($77M) ÷ invested capital $5.2B
    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 7 years (it ran -1% 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.

  • Thin, recently turned positive
    latest $45M = operating cash $64M − maintenance capex $19M; positive each of the last 3 years, after an earlier loss stretch (8-yr median 3%)
    Industry 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 2% of revenue this year, a 3% median across 8 years. Treating stock comp as the real expense it is (less $197M of SBC) leaves ($152M).

  • Loss, but cash-generative
    Net income ($104M) · cash from operations $64M
    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.

How is the cash used?

  • Returned more than it generated
    Dividends + buybacks $315M ÷ Owner Earnings $45M
    What this means

    The company returned more than it generated: against $45M of Owner Earnings, $315M (703%) went back to shareholders, $0 dividends, $315M buybacks — the excess came from the balance sheet or borrowing, not the year's operations. Net of $197M stock comp, the real buyback was about $118M. Sustained, that pattern draws down cash or adds debt; the net-debt line above shows where it stands.

  • Investing or harvesting? 0.51×
    Harvesting
    Capex $19M ÷ depreciation $38M
    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 6 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 · $2.4B
    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 Pass
    Current ratio ≥ 2× · 2.75×
    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 · $1.4B vs $984M 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 (8-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 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 Miss
    Earnings +33% over the record · −170%
    What this means

    At least a third more earnings than a decade ago, averaging three years at each end. Net income (not per-share), so stock splits don't distort it, buybacks and dilution show up in the share-count line instead.

  • 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 $-1.64/share (latest year $-1.36), the averaged base the calculator's gate runs on, and book value is $61.68/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, 2018–2025

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

  • Profitable years 5 of 8
    What this means

    Lost money in 3 year(s), look at what happened there before trusting the average.

  • Return on capital ≥ 15% 0 of 7 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 −6% → −4% (3-yr avg ends)
    What this means

    Through the cycle the operating margin widened — about −6% early to −4% lately, median −4% — pricing power intact or improving.

  • Reinvestment, incremental ROIC 5%
    What this means

    Reinvested capital came back at only a modest incremental return — near the cost of capital, where extra growth adds little per dollar. The record shows whether it is a soft stretch or a thinning moat.

  • Owner earnings growth −3%/yr
    What this means

    Owner earnings shrank about 3% a year over the record.

  • Worst year 2020 · −19.4% op. margin
    What this means

    Operations went underwater in 2020, understand why before trusting the good years.

  • Share count −0.9%/yr
    What this means

    The share count is shrinking, buybacks are quietly growing your slice of the business.

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.

“In addition, AI has the potential to generate digital content, information, products, and services at significantly greater scale and lower cost than traditional methods, which could increase competition for user attention and advertising spending.”

AI has 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$1.6B
  • Cash & short-term investments$1.1B
  • Receivables$329M
  • Inventory$31M
  • Other current assets$79M
Current liabilities$420M
  • Debt due within a year$25M
  • Accounts payable$36M
  • Other current liabilities$359M
Current ratio3.69×all current assets ÷ what's due · Graham looked for 2×
Quick ratio3.62×stricter: inventory excluded
Cash ratio2.65×strictest: cash alone against what's due
Working capital$1.1Bthe cushion left after near-term bills
Debt due this year vs. cash$25M due · $1.1B 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−12.2%the freshest read on whether the business is still growing
Current ratio, recent quarters2.7× → 3.7×
Deeper floors
Tangible book value$2.7Bequity stripped of goodwill & intangibles
Debt incl. operating leases$1.6B$200M of it operating leases
Deferred revenue$21Mcustomer cash collected before delivery; operating float

From the company's latest filing.

How the cash was used, 2018–2025

Over the record, the business generated $1.4B of operating cash; how management split it reads as a balanced allocator, splitting cash between the business, owners, and the balance sheet.

  • Reinvested$568M · 40%
  • Buybacks$637M · 45%
  • Retained (debt / cash)$215M · 15%
  • Returned to owners$637M

    75% of the owner earnings the business produced over the span, $0 as dividends and $637M as buybacks.

  • Average price paid for buybacks$44.10

    Across the years where the filing reports a share count, 11M shares were bought for $481M, about $44.10 each.

  • Net change in share count−9.9%

    The diluted count fell from 85M to 77M, so the buybacks outran the stock issued to staff.

  • 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.

Acquisitions & goodwill

from the balance sheet & the 8-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$2.3B32% of all assets; the premium carried on the balance sheet for businesses acquired
Against book equity38%goodwill is this share of book equity; the rest is the company’s own retained and paid-in capital
Cash spent acquiring$3.5Bover 8 years buying other businesses, against $568M of capital spent building

$598M written down across 5 years (2019, 2020, 2022, 2023, 2025): goodwill the company has already conceded it overpaid for, charged against earnings. That is roughly 17% 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 8-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
2021Mr. Levin$5.4M−$94.0M$29M
2022Mr. Levin$4.5M−$156.1M($223M)
2023Mr. Levin$5.0M$16.1M$96M
2024Mr. Levin$5.0M−$17.3M$340M
2025Mr. Levin$17.6M−$22.5M$45M

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 ownership11.2%

    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$197M

    The slice of the business handed to employees in shares this year, 8% 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.

Inverting the record

Invert: instead of why People Incorporated 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 2018–2025.

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

  • Look hereIs it less profitable than it was?6.0% vs 7.4%

    The owner-earnings margin averaged 7.4% early in the record and 6.0% 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 hereAre "one-time" charges a yearly habit?5 of 8 years

    Management took an impairment or write-down in 5 of the last 8 years, $619M in all. Taken across the majority of the record, the "one-time" label is wearing thin — ask whether these are past deals coming due rather than genuinely isolated events. Read it beside the goodwill the company still carries.

And these came back clean
  • Did the share count rise anyway?

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.

Peers, Software

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
MTCHMatch Group Inc.$3.5B73%26.1%17%27%
TTDThe Trade Desk Inc.$2.9B79%17.4%22%28%
SABRSabre$2.8B57%9.0%8%-0%
RXTRackspace Technology Inc.$2.7B29%-6.7%-10%6%
PPLIPeople Incorporated$2.4B66%-3.9%-2%3%
FDSFactSet$2.3B53%30.0%30%27%
TBLATaboola.com Ltd.$1.9B30%0.3%-2%6%
TRIPTripAdvisor Inc.$1.9B93%6.9%9%10%
Group median61%7.9%8%8%
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 People Incorporated has delivered.

$
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 · ’18→’25−3%/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 $78M on 77M shares outstanding (a weighted basic average, the only count this filer tags); net debt $308M. 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 ($23M) runs well above depreciation ($34M), so this is a build-out; Steady-state swaps total capex for maintenance (≈ depreciation), lifting the base to about $82M, 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, "People Incorporated (PPLI), the owner's record," https://ownerscorecard.com/c/PPLI, data as of 2026-07-09.

Manual order: ← PPLC its page in the Manual PR →

Industry order: ← PONY the Software chapter PRCH →