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RDW, Redwire Corporation

Aerospace & Defense capital-intensive UnprofitableDistress / turnaround

Redwire is an integrated space and defense technology company focused on advanced technologies.

Powered by this vision, Redwire is building the future of aerospace infrastructure, autonomous systems, and multi-domain operations, leveraging digital engineering and artificial intelligence ("AI") automation.

Redwire's broad portfolio of airborne and space-based systems combine decades of flight heritage with an agile and innovative culture.

Latest annual: FY2025 10-K

RDW · Redwire Corporation

The business

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

Revenue · FY2025

$335M

+10.3% YoY · 25% 4-yr CAGR

Vital signs · TTM, with 5-yr average

Revenue $371M 5-yr avg $236M

Gross margin 9% 5-yr avg 17%

Operating margin −76.8% 5-yr avg −46.2%

ROIC −22% 5-yr avg −102%

Owner-earnings margin −42% 5-yr avg −23%

Free cash flow margin −42% 5-yr avg −23%

The business in brief

read the 10-K →

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

What it is: Revenue is Space (63%) and Defense Tech (37%).
Situation: Unprofitable. No sustained operating profit across the record; an earnings multiple has nothing to rest on. What the record does show is revenue, the gross-margin trajectory, and the burn against the cash on hand. 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 −51% through the cycle on a 18% 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 6.7% of sales, a real and recurring claim on owners that the GAAP margin understates. Read this kind of business on the backlog and program execution. 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 rarely cleared the cost of capital (median −59%, above 15% in 0 of 4 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.

Where the money comes from

read the 10-K →

Space is 63% of revenue, with Defense Tech the other meaningful segment at 37%.

Revenue by reportable segment, FY2025

Space63%$210M
Defense Tech37%$126M

By geographyUnited States58%Europe37%Other4%

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.

The record

Ten years of arithmetic, read across the cycle.

The record, 2021–2025

realized figures from each filing · older years to the left

2021’21	2022’22	2023’23	2024’24	2025’25	TTMTTMMar 2026
						Income statement
$138M	$161M	$244M	$304M	$335M	$371M	RevenueRevenue
21%	18%	24%	15%	5%	9%	Gross marginGross mgn
57%	44%	28%	23%	51%	63%	SG&A / revenueSG&A/rev
3%	3%	2%	2%	6%	8%	R&D / revenueR&D/rev
($70M)	($146M)	($16M)	($42M)	($230M)	($285M)	Operating incomeOp. inc.
−51.0%	−91.2%	−6.4%	−13.9%	−68.5%	−76.8%	Operating marginOp. mgn
($62M)	($131M)	($27M)	($114M)	($227M)	($300M)	Net incomeNet inc.
						Cash flow & returns
($37M)	($32M)	$1M	($17M)	($177M)	($139M)	Operating cash flowOp. cash
$11M	$11M	$11M	$12M	$33M	$41M	DepreciationDeprec.
($14M)	$77M	$9M	$74M	($42M)	$18M	Working capital & otherWC & other
$2M	$4M	$6M	$6M	$13M	$16M	CapexCapex
1.5%	2.3%	2.3%	2.1%	4.0%	4.4%	Capex / revenueCapex/rev
($39M)	($35M)	($4M)	($24M)	($191M)	($155M)	Owner earningsOwner earn.
−28.7%	−22.0%	−1.8%	−7.8%	−56.9%	−41.9%	Owner earnings marginOE mgn
($39M)	($35M)	($4M)	($24M)	($191M)	($155M)	Free cash flowFCF
−28.7%	−22.0%	−1.8%	−7.8%	−56.9%	−41.9%	Free cash flow marginFCF mgn
$41M	$33M	$0	$881K	$152M	$152M	AcquisitionsAcquis.
-34%	-273%	-85%	—	-17%	-22%	ROICROIC
-57%	—	—	—	-21%	-28%	Return on equityROE
−57%	—	—	—	−21%	−28%	Retained to equityRetained/eq
						Balance sheet
$21M	$28M	$30M	$34M	$94M	$145M	Cash & investmentsCash+inv
$16M	$27M	$32M	$22M	$37M	$24M	ReceivablesReceiv.
$688K	$1M	$2M	$2M	$56M	$69M	InventoryInvent.
$13M	$18M	$19M	$32M	$32M	$42M	Accounts payablePayables
$4M	$11M	$15M	($8M)	$61M	$51M	Operating working capitalOper. WC
$55M	$96M	$109M	$126M	$253M	$321M	Current assetsCur. assets
$51M	$95M	$112M	$149M	$156M	$183M	Current liabilitiesCur. liab.
1.1×	1.0×	1.0×	0.8×	1.6×	1.8×	Current ratioCurr. ratio
$96M	$65M	$66M	$71M	$779M	$776M	GoodwillGoodwill
$262M	$258M	$271M	$293M	$1.4B	$1.5B	Total assetsAssets
$78M	$77M	$88M	$126M	$85M	$88M	Total debtDebt
$57M	$49M	$58M	$92M	($9M)	($56M)	Net debt / (cash)Net debt
$107M	($7M)	($44M)	($189M)	$1.1B	$1.1B	Shareholders’ equityEquity
19.7%	6.7%	3.6%	3.7%	17.6%	27.7%	Stock comp / revenueSBC/rev
—	$50M	—	—	$21M	$21M	Goodwill written downGW imp.
						Per share
67.6M	63.3M	64.7M	66.1M	120M	194M	Shares out (diluted)Shares
$2.03	$2.54	$3.77	$4.60	$2.81	$1.92	Revenue / shareRev/sh
$-0.91	$-2.06	$-0.42	$-1.73	$-1.90	$-1.55	EPS (diluted)EPS
$-0.58	$-0.56	$-0.07	$-0.36	$-1.60	$-0.80	Owner earnings / shareOE/sh
$-0.58	$-0.56	$-0.07	$-0.36	$-1.60	$-0.80	Free cash flow / shareFCF/sh
$0.03	$0.06	$0.09	$0.10	$0.11	$0.08	Cap. spending / shareCapex/sh
$1.59	$-0.11	$-0.67	$-2.85	$8.87	$5.62	Book value / shareBVPS

Share counts before 2022 are restated ×1.5 for a stock split, so per-share figures sit on one basis.

The diluted share count moved ×1.81 into 2025 — shares issued, not a split the totals corroborate — and the per-share figures carry the counts as filed.

The diluted share count moved ×1.62 into TTM — 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

	4-yr	5-yr
Revenue / share	+8.4%/yr	+8.4%/yr (4-yr)
Capital spending / share	+38.1%/yr	+38.1%/yr (4-yr)
Book value / share	+53.8%/yr	+53.8%/yr (4-yr)

The record, charted

FY2021–2025

Each measure over its full record; the current point and the worst year marked. Share counts on the current split basis.

Share count

120Mpeak FY2025

ROIC

−17%low FY2022

Gross margin

5%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.

($191M)owner earningsvs.($227M)net incomelow FY2025

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 turned a $227M loss into ($191M) of owner earnings: more cash than the profit line showed, after the non-cash charges and the capital it put back in.

	FY2025	FY2024	FY2023	FY2022	FY2021
Reported net income	($227M)	($114M)	($27M)	($131M)	($62M)
Depreciation & amortizationnon-cash charge added back	+$33M	+$12M	+$11M	+$11M	+$11M
Stock-based compensationreal costnon-cash, but a real cost	+$59M	+$11M	+$9M	+$11M	+$27M
Working capital & othertiming of cash in and out, other non-cash items	−$42M	+$74M	+$9M	+$77M	−$14M
Cash from operations	($177M)	($17M)	$1M	($32M)	($37M)
Capital expenditurecash put back in to keep running and to grow	−$13M	−$6M	−$6M	−$4M	−$2M
Owner earnings	($191M)	($24M)	($4M)	($35M)	($39M)
Owner-earnings marginowner earnings ÷ revenue	-57%	-8%	-2%	-22%	-29%

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 $59M), owner earnings is nearer ($250M).

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 →

Material weakness in financial controls

“We identified material weaknesses in internal control over financial reporting.”

The figures below are only as sound as the controls that produced them. read the note →

Will it survive?

Can it pay its interest? —

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.
How heavy is the debt, net of cash? +$9M

Net cash

Cash $94M − debt $85M

What this means
Cash and short-term investments exceed every dollar of debt by $9M, 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.
How long is cash tied up? 68d

Long (60+ days)

DSO 41 + DIO 64 − DPO 37 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?

Return on invested capital -85%

Below average through the cycle

4-yr median, range -273%–-17%; -17% latest = NOPAT ($181M) ÷ invested capital $1.1B

Industry peers: median 5%

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 4 years (it ran -17% 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 -22%

Consumes cash through the cycle

5-yr median margin, range -57%–-2%; latest ($191M) = operating cash ($177M) − maintenance capex $13M

Industry peers: median 1%

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 -57% of revenue this year, a -22% median across 5 years. Treating stock comp as the real expense it is (less $59M of SBC) leaves ($250M).
Are earnings backed by cash? ($177M)

Loss, and burning cash

Net income ($227M) · cash from operations ($177M)

In the filing’s words The filing discloses a material weakness in its financial controls — the reported numbers here, and the record built on them, are only as reliable as the controls that produced them.

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?

Where do the earnings go? —

Not enough data

What this means
The filing data didn't include the inputs for this check.
Investing or harvesting? 0.41×

Harvesting

Capex $13M ÷ depreciation $33M

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 · 1 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 · $335M

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× · 1.62×

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 · $85M vs $97M 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 (5-yr record) · 5 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.
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 $-0.62/share (latest year $-1.14), the averaged base the calculator's gate runs on, and book value is $5.33/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, 2021–2025

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

Profitable years 0 of 5

What this means
Lost money in 5 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 −71% → −41% (2-yr avg ends)

What this means
Through the cycle the operating margin widened — about −71% early to −41% lately, median −51% — pricing power intact or improving.
Reinvestment, incremental ROIC −5%

What this means
Reinvested capital came back at a negative incremental return over this window — the invested base grew while operating profit did not. The filings show where it went.
Worst year 2022 · −91.2% op. margin

What this means
Operations went underwater in 2022, understand why before trusting the good years.

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 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.

“Additionally, as a result of the Edge Acquisition, we face competition from various entities, including established defense contractors, autonomous flight system specialists, security technology providers, and companies focused on sensor technology and AI software development, many of which are larger than us and have …”

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$321M

Cash & short-term investments$145M
Receivables$24M
Inventory$69M
Other current assets$83M

Current liabilities$183M

Debt due within a year$5M
Accounts payable$42M
Other current liabilities$136M

Current ratio1.75×all current assets ÷ what's due · Graham looked for 2×

Quick ratio1.37×stricter: inventory excluded

Cash ratio0.79×strictest: cash alone against what's due

Working capital$138Mthe cushion left after near-term bills

Debt due this year vs. cash$5M due · $145M cash covered by cash on hand, no refinancing forced · both figures from the Mar 31, 2026 balance sheet

Cash runway0.9 yrsthe business is consuming cash; this is how long the cash on hand lasts at that rate

Revenue, latest quarter vs. a year ago+57.9%the freshest read on whether the business is still growing

Current ratio, recent quarters1.0× → 1.8×

Deeper floors

Tangible book value($15M)equity stripped of goodwill & intangibles

Net current asset value($26M)Graham's net-net: current assets less all liabilities

Debt incl. operating leases$127M$39M of it operating leases

Deferred revenue$80Mcustomer cash collected before delivery; operating float

From the company's latest filing.

Acquisitions & goodwill

from the balance sheet & the 5-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$1.1B77% of all assets; the premium carried on the balance sheet for businesses acquired

Against book equity74%goodwill is this share of book equity; the rest is the company’s own retained and paid-in capital

Cash spent acquiring$226Mover 5 years buying other businesses, against $31M of capital spent building

$71M written down across 2 years (2022, 2025): goodwill the company has already conceded it overpaid for, charged against earnings. That is roughly 31% 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 5-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.

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$59M
The slice of the business handed to employees in shares this year, 18% 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 Redwire Corporation 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 2021–2025.

2 of the 4 tests turned up something to look into; the other 2 came back clean.

Look hereIs it less profitable than it was?−32.4% vs −25.3%
The business ran at a loss early in the record (an owner-earnings margin of −25.3%) and the loss has widened to −32.4% across the last three years, with the latest year at −56.9%. Ask the filing where the widening sits — price, cost, or spending growing faster than revenue — and what would narrow it.
Look hereDid receivables and inventory outpace sales?12% → 25% of sales
Receivables and inventory grew from $17M to $94M while revenue grew 170%: working capital is climbing faster than sales (12% of revenue then, 25% 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

Did debt outgrow the business?
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, Acquisitions, 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, Aerospace & Defense

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
KTOSKratos Defense & Security Solutions Inc.	$1.3B	26%	2.8%	2%	1%
HLLYHolley Inc.	$614M	40%	12.5%	6%	6%
RKLBRocket Lab Corporation	$602M	15%	-68.4%	-28%	-59%
STRTSTRATTEC SECURITY CORPORATION	$565M	12%	3.2%	5%	2%
KRMNKarman Holdings Inc.	$472M	38%	16.4%	10%	-4%
RDWRedwire Corporation	$335M	18%	-51.0%	-59%	-22%
MCFTMasterCraft Boat Holdings Inc.	$284M	26%	14.7%	37%	10%
FLYFirefly Aerospace Inc.	$160M	19%	-238.8%	-30%	-178%
Group median	—	23%	3.0%	3%	-1%

The price

What a price has to assume.

What the price implies

reverse-DCF

Redwire Corporation 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.

Today’s price $

The assumptions Required return 9% Years to get there 10 Revenue growth 0%

Revenue, delivered27%/yr’21→’25

Mature owner-earnings margin 15%

Enter a price to run it.

Owner earnings it must reach—

Margin the price demands—

Owner-earnings margin today−42%

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.

Weigh RDW against another business →

The owners of RDW: the meeting and the votes →

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

Manual order: ← RDVT its page in the Manual REAL →

Industry order: ← PKE the Aerospace & Defense chapter RGR →