Owner Scorecard


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RCAT, Red Cat Holdings Inc.

Software asset-light UnprofitableNet current asset value

Compared to traditional manned platforms, many unmanned systems can be deployed more rapidly, operate in high-risk or contested environments, and be procured at significantly lower cost.

We are a U.S.-based provider of advanced all-domain drone and robotic solutions for defense, national security, and commercial applications.

We develop American-made hardware and software that supports military, government, and public safety operations across air, land, and sea.

Latest annual: FY2025 10-K
RCAT · Red Cat Holdings Inc.
I

The business

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

Revenue · FY2025
$41M
+128.4% YoY · 152% 5-yr CAGR
Vital signs · TTM
Cash & investments $22M
Cash burn · annual $105M
Runway 3 mo

The business in brief

read the 10-K →

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

Situation
Unprofitable. No meaningful revenue yet; the record is the cash on hand against the burn. Net current asset value. Current assets alone exceed every liability combined, and the surplus is most of the balance sheet: the shape Graham called a net-net.
What moves the needle
Operating margin has run around −713% through the cycle on a 19% gross margin, the operating line deeply negative — so the lever is the path to a margin at all: revenue growth against the cost curve and the cash runway, not the level of a margin that isn't there yet. Stock-based pay runs about 67% 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 −53%, above 15% in 0 of 6 years). Owner earnings, the cash-based check, have been thin too. 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, 2015–2025

realized figures from each filing · older years to the left
2015’152016’162017’172018’182020’202021’212022’222023’232024’242025’25TTMTTMMar 2026
Income statement
$59K$204K$933$105K$404K$5M$6M$1M$18M$41M$55MRevenueRevenue
16%19%21%14%21%3%7%Gross marginGross mgn
235%26%86%971%63%91%89%SG&A / revenueSG&A/rev
423%n/m121%10%41%447%35%44%41%R&D / revenueR&D/rev
($239K)($1M)($1M)($2M)($2M)($26M)($19M)($67M)($81M)Operating incomeOp. inc.
−402.4%−713.2%n/mn/m−410.7%n/m−108.2%−163.5%−149.2%Operating marginOp. mgn
($4M)($3M)$1M($3M)($2M)($13M)($12M)($28M)($24M)($72M)($76M)Net incomeNet inc.
Cash flow & returns
($113K)($2M)($1M)($944K)($812K)($1M)($16M)($29M)($18M)($89M)($105M)Operating cash flowOp. cash
$5K$12K$13K$155K$40K$312K$1M$2M$2MDepreciationDeprec.
$3M$2M($3M)$2M$520K$8M($8M)($5M)$5M($19M)($36M)Working capital & otherWC & other
$0$9K$974K$364K$2M$259K$7M$13MCapexCapex
0.0%4.3%926.8%5.7%186.7%1.5%16.3%24.1%Capex / revenueCapex/rev
($113K)($2M)($1M)($16M)($30M)($18M)($91M)($108M)Owner earningsOwner earn.
−189.5%−786.0%n/m−249.8%n/m−100.8%−224.4%−197.3%Owner earnings marginOE mgn
($113K)($2M)($2M)($16M)($32M)($18M)($96M)($118M)Free cash flowFCF
−189.5%−786.0%n/m−254.8%n/m−100.8%−235.2%−216.8%Free cash flow marginFCF mgn
-2443%-66%-66%-40%-41%-21%-27%ROICROIC
-514%-105%-251%-15%-51%-55%-29%-32%Return on equityROE
−514%−105%−251%−15%−51%−55%−29%−32%Retained to equityRetained/eq
Balance sheet
$3K$225K$559K$6K$277K$4M$16M$6M$22MCash & investmentsCash+inv
$624$38$938$322K$496K$720K$489K$26M$11MReceivablesReceiv.
$79K$362K$4M$9M$13M$23M$51MInventoryInvent.
$59K$34K$145K$139K$249K$542K$1M$1M$2M$4M$9MAccounts payablePayables
($59K)($145K)($138K)($170K)$142K$3M$8M$11M$46M$52MOperating working capitalOper. WC
$7K$500K$691K$171K$318K$2M$56M$32M$26M$227M$210MCurrent assetsCur. assets
$313K$34K$2M$3M$829K$5M$5M$4M$4M$15M$19MCurrent liabilitiesCur. liab.
0.0×14.5×0.3×0.1×0.4×0.4×10.2×7.9×6.2×15.3×11.0×Current ratioCurr. ratio
$0$2M$8M$25M$17M$18M$18M$32MGoodwillGoodwill
$129K$583K$750K$262K$3M$12M$85M$61M$56M$274M$282MTotal assetsAssets
$254K$2M$450K$974K$402K$8MTotal debtDebt
$250K$2M$450K($3M)($16M)($14M)Net debt / (cash)Net debt
-2.3×-56.8×-215.9×-281.3×Interest coverageInt. cov.
($243K)($4M)($3M)$514K$2M$5M$79M$55M$44M$246M$239MShareholders’ equityEquity
0.0%66.8%67.8%51.2%278.6%6.7%Stock comp / revenueSBC/rev
Per share
21.9M42.0M69.7M197M13.7M23.7M53.7M53.9M60.1M99.0M121MShares out (diluted)Shares
$0.00$0.00$0.00$0.00$0.03$0.21$0.12$0.02$0.30$0.41$0.45Revenue / shareRev/sh
$-0.16$-0.08$0.02$-0.01$-0.12$-0.56$-0.22$-0.52$-0.40$-0.73$-0.62EPS (diluted)EPS
$-0.01$-0.04$-0.01$-0.30$-0.55$-0.30$-0.92$-0.89Owner earnings / shareOE/sh
$-0.01$-0.04$-0.01$-0.30$-0.59$-0.30$-0.97$-0.98Free cash flow / shareFCF/sh
$0.00$0.00$0.00$0.01$0.05$0.00$0.07$0.11Cap. spending / shareCapex/sh
$-0.01$-0.09$-0.05$0.00$0.11$0.22$1.47$1.02$0.72$2.48$1.98Book value / shareBVPS

The diluted share count moved ×1.92 into 2016 — shares issued, not a split the totals corroborate — and the per-share figures carry the counts as filed.

The diluted share count moved ×1.66 into 2017 — shares issued, not a split the totals corroborate — and the per-share figures carry the counts as filed.

The diluted share count moved ×2.82 into 2018 — shares issued, not a split the totals corroborate — and the per-share figures carry the counts as filed.

The diluted share count moved ×1/14.33 into 2020 — shares retired, not a split the totals corroborate — and the per-share figures carry the counts as filed.

The diluted share count moved ×1.72 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 ×2.27 into 2022 — shares issued, not a split the totals corroborate — and the per-share figures carry the counts as filed.

The diluted share count moved ×1.65 into 2025 — 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
10-yr5-yr
Revenue / share+65.2%/yr+69.5%/yr
Capital spending / share+114.9%/yr (3-yr)
Book value / share+86.1%/yr

The record, charted

FY2015–2025

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

Share count
99Mpeak FY2018
ROIC
−21%low FY2015
Gross margin
3%low 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.

($91M)owner earningsvs.($72M)net incomelow FY2025

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 earned ($91M) of owner earnings, the operating cash left after the $2M it takes just to hold its position. It put $4M more into growth; free cash flow, after that spending, was ($96M).

FY2025FY2024FY2023FY2022FY2018
Reported net income($72M)($24M)($28M)($12M)($3M)
Depreciation & amortizationnon-cash charge added back+$2M+$1M+$312K+$40K+$155K
Stock-based compensationreal costnon-cash, but a real cost+$4M+$3M
Working capital & othertiming of cash in and out, other non-cash items−$19M+$5M−$5M−$8M+$2M
Cash from operations($89M)($18M)($29M)($16M)($944K)
Maintenance capital expenditurethe spending needed just to hold position and volume−$2M−$259K−$312K−$40K−$155K
Owner earnings($91M)($18M)($30M)($16M)($1M)
Growth capital expenditurediscretionary; spent to get bigger, not to stand still−$4M−$2M−$324K−$820K
Free cash flow($96M)($18M)($32M)($16M)($2M)
Owner-earnings marginowner earnings ÷ revenue-224%-101%-2249%-250%-1045%

Owner earnings is the cash an owner could pull out without starving the business: operating cash less the maintenance capital it must spend to hold its position (here about $2M, roughly its depreciation, the rate its assets wear out). The other $4M of its capital spending is growth it chose, not upkeep it owed; charged only with the maintenance it must do, the business earns well more than the year's free cash flow shows.

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 ($67M) ÷ interest expense $69K
    What this means

    A full year of operating profit didn't cover the interest bill. This is the zombie zone: the business depends on refinancing, asset sales, or forbearance to service its debt.

  • Net cash
    Cash $6M + ST investments $13M − debt $2M
    What this means

    Cash and short-term investments exceed every dollar of debt by $17M, 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.

  • Long (60+ days)
    DSO 234 + DIO 217 − DPO 33 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
    6-yr median, range -2443%–-21%; -22% latest = NOPAT ($53M) ÷ invested capital $242M
    Industry peers: median -31%
    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 6 years (it ran -22% 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.

  • Consumes cash through the cycle
    7-yr median margin, range -2249%–-101%; latest ($91M) = operating cash ($89M) − maintenance capex $2M
    Industry peers: median -3%
    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 -224% of revenue this year, a -250% median across 7 years. Treating stock comp as the real expense it is (less $4M of SBC) leaves ($95M).

  • Loss, and burning cash
    Net income ($72M) · cash from operations ($89M)
    What this means

    The company reported a net loss, so a conversion ratio isn't meaningful. What matters then is whether operations still threw off cash, here, they did not.

How is the cash used?

  • Not enough data
    What this means

    The filing data didn't include the inputs for this check.

  • Investing or harvesting? 2.93×
    Expanding
    Capex $7M ÷ depreciation $2M
    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 Miss
    Revenue ≥ $2B · $41M
    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× · 15.29×
    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 Pass
    Debt ≤ working capital · $2M vs $212M 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) · 9 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 $-0.34/share (latest year $-0.59), the averaged base the calculator's gate runs on, and book value is $2.00/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, 2015–2025

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

  • Profitable years 1 of 10
    What this means

    Lost money in 9 year(s), look at what happened there before trusting the average.

  • Return on capital ≥ 15% 0 of 4 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 −39393% → −760% (3-yr avg ends)
    What this means

    Through the cycle the operating margin widened — about −39393% early to −760% lately, median −713% — pricing power intact or improving.

  • Reinvestment, incremental ROIC
    What this means

    The reinvested base moved too little against the change in profit to read a reliable return on it here — the figure would be a small-denominator artifact, not a moat. Judge this one on the owner-earnings record and the cash it returns instead.

  • Worst year 2017 · −117064.7% op. margin
    What this means

    Operations went underwater in 2017, understand why before trusting the good years.

  • How management talks about it Owner’s terms
    What this means

    The record and the register agree: capital is compounding and the filing reasons in an owner’s terms — per-share value, return on capital, the long term — not a promoter’s.

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.

“There are difficult issues to navigate in the development and use of machine learning and artificial intelligence technologies ("AI Technologies"), which may result in reputational harm or liability, and failure to introduce new and innovative products that have AI Technology capabilities could put us at a competitive …”

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$210M
  • Cash & short-term investments$22M
  • Receivables$11M
  • Inventory$51M
  • Other current assets$127M
Current liabilities$19M
  • Accounts payable$9M
  • Other current liabilities$10M
Current ratio10.99×all current assets ÷ what's due · Graham looked for 2×
Quick ratio8.34×stricter: inventory excluded
Cash ratio1.15×strictest: cash alone against what's due
Working capital$191Mthe cushion left after near-term bills
Cash runway0.2 yrsthe business is consuming cash; this is how long the cash on hand lasts at that rate
Revenue, latest quarter vs. a year ago+849.1%the freshest read on whether the business is still growing
Current ratio, recent quarters1.4× → 11.0×
Deeper floors
Tangible book value$195Mequity stripped of goodwill & intangibles
Net current asset value$167MGraham's net-net: current assets less all liabilities
Debt incl. operating leases$14M$13M of it operating leases
Deferred revenue$281Kcustomer cash collected before delivery; operating float

From the company's latest filing.

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
2023Jeffrey Thompson$826k$826k($30M)
2024Jeffrey Thompson$1.8M$2.3M($18M)
2025Jeffrey Thompson$6.8M$263k($91M)

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 ownership12.5%

    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$4M

    The slice of the business handed to employees in shares this year, 9% 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 Red Cat Holdings Inc. 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 2015–2025.

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

  • Look hereDid debt outgrow the business?$254K → $8M

    Debt rose from $254K to $8M while owner earnings went from about ($937K) to ($46M): the borrowing grew and the earnings that would carry it are not there now. Debt raised for buybacks or deals rather than growth is the kind that bites in a downturn.

  • Look hereDid receivables and inventory outpace sales?1% → 19% of sales

    Receivables and inventory grew from $624 to $11M while revenue grew 91763%: working capital is climbing faster than sales (1% of revenue then, 19% now). That can mean customers paying slower, stock building up, or revenue pulled forward. The filing's cash-flow and receivables notes say which.

And these came back clean
  • 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 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, 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
BLZEBackblaze Inc.$146M52%-32.1%-88%1%
BBAIBigBear.ai Inc.$128M25%-62.6%-31%-19%
RDVTRed Violet Inc. Common Stock$90M-3.0%-3%20%
SVCOSilvaco Group Inc.$63M80%-67.5%-40%-34%
RCATRed Cat Holdings Inc.$41M18%-562.0%-53%-250%
QXLQuantum X Labs Inc.$27M95%-9.4%-2%3%
QBTSD-Wave Quantum Inc.$25M68%-724.6%-1142%-582%
GEGGLGreat Elm Group, Inc.$16M93%-46.5%-12%-3%
Group median68%-54.6%-36%-11%
IV

The price

What a price has to assume.

What the price implies

reverse-DCF

Red Cat Holdings Inc. is profitable, but owner earnings are negative this year because capital spending currently outruns operating cash, a build-out, so the owner-earnings reverse-DCF has no positive base to grow. We read the price from both ends instead: type a price to see the steady-state profitability it demands, then set the mature margin you would believe and weigh the two against each other. Nothing leaves your browser unless you enter it in your notebook.

$
The assumptions

Revenue, delivered68%/yr’20→’25

Enter a price to run it.

Owner earnings it must reach
Margin the price demands
Owner-earnings margin today−217%

Two reads of one future. From your price: the owner earnings the company must reach, valued at a mature multiple and discounted back at your rate, expressed as the margin it implies on revenue grown at your rate. From your belief: the mature margin you would credit, set on the dial above. When the margin the price demands runs above the one you would believe, you are paying for a future taken on faith. For a deep cyclical at a trough, normalized through-cycle earnings are the better lens; this mode is for the genuinely unprofitable, and for the profitable business whose capital spending currently outruns its cash.

Cite: Owner Scorecard, "Red Cat Holdings Inc. (RCAT), the owner's record," https://ownerscorecard.com/c/RCAT, data as of 2026-07-09.

Manual order: ← RBRK its page in the Manual RCL →

Industry order: ← RBRK the Software chapter RDVT →