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RXO, RXO Inc.
RXO Inc. is a brokered transportation platform defined by cutting-edge technology and an asset-light business model.
Our operations also include asset-light managed transportation and last mile services, which complement our truck brokerage business.
Shippers create demand for our service, and we place their freight with qualified independent carriers using our technology.
The business
What it sells, where the money comes from, the kind of company it is.
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 Truck brokerage (74%), Last mile (21%) and Managed transportation (10%).
- What moves the needle
- Operating margin has run about 1.0% 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 −1.4% to 4.1% over the years — so the through-cycle figure carries more than any single year, and the worst year more than the best. Read this kind of business on volume, density and yield. 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 4%, 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.
Where the money comes from
read the 10-K →Truck brokerage is 74% of revenue, with Last mile the other meaningful line at 21%.
- Truck brokerage74%$4.2B
- Last mile21%$1.2B
- Managed transportation10%$549M
- Eliminations-4%($228M)
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, 2020–2025
realized figures from each filing · older years to the left| 2020’20 | 2021’21 | 2022’22 | 2023’23 | 2024’24 | 2025’25 | TTMTTMMar 2026 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Income statement | |||||||
| $3.4B | $4.7B | $4.8B | $3.9B | $4.5B | $5.7B | $5.7B | RevenueRevenue |
| 14% | 11% | 13% | 15% | 15% | 14% | 14% | SG&A / revenueSG&A/rev |
| $60M | $192M | $123M | $39M | ($56M) | ($79M) | ($77M) | Operating incomeOp. inc. |
| 1.8% | 4.1% | 2.6% | 1.0% | −1.2% | −1.4% | −1.3% | Operating marginOp. mgn |
| $43M | $150M | $92M | $4M | ($290M) | ($100M) | ($105M) | Net incomeNet inc. |
| 25% | 21% | 23% | 0% | — | — | — | Effective tax rateTax rate |
| Cash flow & returns | |||||||
| $25M | $155M | $310M | $89M | ($12M) | $51M | $46M | Operating cash flowOp. cash |
| $76M | $81M | $86M | $67M | $87M | $116M | $110M | DepreciationDeprec. |
| ($102M) | ($84M) | $100M | ($1M) | $168M | $6M | $12M | Working capital & otherWC & other |
| $47M | $39M | $57M | $64M | $45M | $59M | $61M | CapexCapex |
| 1.4% | 0.8% | 1.2% | 1.6% | 1.0% | 1.0% | 1.1% | Capex / revenueCapex/rev |
| ($22M) | $116M | $253M | $25M | ($57M) | ($8M) | ($15M) | Owner earningsOwner earn. |
| −0.7% | 2.5% | 5.3% | 0.6% | −1.3% | −0.1% | −0.3% | Owner earnings marginOE mgn |
| ($22M) | $116M | $253M | $25M | ($57M) | ($8M) | ($15M) | Free cash flowFCF |
| −0.7% | 2.5% | 5.3% | 0.6% | −1.3% | −0.1% | −0.3% | Free cash flow marginFCF mgn |
| — | — | $0 | $0 | $1.0B | $10M | $0 | AcquisitionsAcquis. |
| — | $0 | $0 | $2M | $0 | $0 | — | BuybacksBuybacks |
| 5% | 14% | 10% | 4% | -2% | -3% | -3% | ROICROIC |
| 4% | 14% | 16% | 1% | -18% | -6% | -7% | Return on equityROE |
| 4% | 14% | 16% | 1% | −18% | −6% | −7% | Retained to equityRetained/eq |
| Balance sheet | |||||||
| $70M | $29M | $98M | $5M | $35M | $17M | $21M | Cash & investmentsCash+inv |
| — | $1.0B | $900M | $743M | $1.2B | $1.2B | $1.2B | ReceivablesReceiv. |
| — | $520M | $501M | $414M | $568M | $539M | $584M | Accounts payablePayables |
| — | $490M | $399M | $329M | $659M | $687M | $632M | Operating working capitalOper. WC |
| — | $1.1B | $1.0B | $796M | $1.3B | $1.3B | $1.3B | Current assetsCur. assets |
| — | $816M | $823M | $682M | $1.1B | $1.0B | $1.0B | Current liabilitiesCur. liab. |
| — | 1.3× | 1.3× | 1.2× | 1.3× | 1.3× | 1.3× | Current ratioCurr. ratio |
| — | $630M | $630M | $630M | $1.1B | $1.1B | $1.1B | GoodwillGoodwill |
| — | $2.1B | $2.0B | $1.8B | $3.4B | $3.3B | $3.3B | Total assetsAssets |
| — | $0 | $455M | $359M | $368M | $404M | $447M | Total debtDebt |
| — | ($29M) | $357M | $354M | $333M | $387M | $426M | Net debt / (cash)Net debt |
| $1.1B | $1.1B | $587M | $594M | $1.6B | $1.5B | $1.5B | Shareholders’ equityEquity |
| 0.2% | 0.2% | 0.7% | 0.5% | 0.5% | 0.5% | 0.5% | Stock comp / revenueSBC/rev |
| Per share | |||||||
| 115M | 115M | 116M | 119M | 133M | 168M | 169M | Shares out (diluted)Shares |
| $29.15 | $40.72 | $41.42 | $32.87 | $34.10 | $34.08 | $33.91 | Revenue / shareRev/sh |
| $0.37 | $1.30 | $0.79 | $0.03 | $-2.17 | $-0.59 | $-0.62 | EPS (diluted)EPS |
| $-0.19 | $1.01 | $2.18 | $0.21 | $-0.43 | $-0.05 | $-0.09 | Owner earnings / shareOE/sh |
| $-0.19 | $1.01 | $2.18 | $0.21 | $-0.43 | $-0.05 | $-0.09 | Free cash flow / shareFCF/sh |
| $0.41 | $0.34 | $0.49 | $0.54 | $0.34 | $0.35 | $0.36 | Cap. spending / shareCapex/sh |
| $9.27 | $9.29 | $5.07 | $4.97 | $12.08 | $9.15 | $8.92 | Book value / shareBVPS |
| 5-yr | 5-yr | |
|---|---|---|
| Revenue / share | +3.2%/yr | +3.2%/yr |
| Capital spending / share | −3.0%/yr | −3.0%/yr |
| Book value / share | −0.3%/yr | −0.3%/yr |
The record, charted
FY2020–2025Each measure over its full record; the current point and the worst year marked.
Owner earnings vs. net income
Owner earningsNet incomeThe accountant's number, and the cash an owner can take; the gap is the tell.
Where the cash went
ReinvestBuybacksDividendsAcquisitionsRetainedBeyond op. cashEach 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.
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 $100M loss into ($8M) 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 | ($100M) | ($290M) | $4M | $92M | $150M |
| Depreciation & amortizationnon-cash charge added back | +$116M | +$87M | +$67M | +$86M | +$81M |
| Stock-based compensationreal costnon-cash, but a real cost | +$29M | +$23M | +$19M | +$32M | +$8M |
| Working capital & othertiming of cash in and out, other non-cash items | +$6M | +$168M | −$1M | +$100M | −$84M |
| Cash from operations | $51M | ($12M) | $89M | $310M | $155M |
| Capital expenditurecash put back in to keep running and to grow | −$59M | −$45M | −$64M | −$57M | −$39M |
| Owner earnings | ($8M) | ($57M) | $25M | $253M | $116M |
| Owner-earnings marginowner earnings ÷ revenue | 0% | -1% | 1% | 5% | 2% |
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 $29M), owner earnings is nearer ($37M).
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.
Quality & stewardship
Returns, the balance sheet, capital allocation, and pay.
Owner’s Scorecard
Will it survive?
- Interest expense not tagged in the data
What this means
No usable interest-expense line was tagged in the filing data, but the balance sheet carries real net debt — so the interest burden here is unknown, not absent. Read the debt on the net-debt check below.
- Net debt against an operating lossCash $17M − debt $404M
What this means
Netting $17M of cash and short-term investments against $404M of debt leaves $387M 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.
- Not enough data
What this means
The filing data didn't include the inputs for this check.
Is it a good business?
- Below average through the cycle6-yr median, range -3%–14%; -3% latest = NOPAT ($62M) ÷ invested capital $1.9BIndustry peers: median 10%
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 -3% 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 cycle6-yr median margin, range -1%–5%; latest ($8M) = operating cash $51M − maintenance capex $59MIndustry 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 -0% of revenue this year, a -0% median across 6 years. Treating stock comp as the real expense it is (less $29M of SBC) leaves ($37M).
- Loss, but cash-generativeNet income ($100M) · cash from operations $51M
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?
- No surplus to allocate
What this means
The business didn't generate positive Owner Earnings this year, so any distributions came from the balance sheet or borrowing, not from operations.
- Investing or harvesting? 0.51×HarvestingCapex $59M ÷ depreciation $116M
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 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 PassRevenue ≥ $2B · $5.7B
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 MissCurrent ratio ≥ 2× · 1.27×
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 NearDebt ≤ working capital · $404M vs $279M 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 MissA profit every year (6-yr record) · 2 loss years
What this means
Graham wanted earnings in each of the past ten years, the stability a defensive owner leans on.
- Dividend record MissUninterrupted 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 MissEarnings +33% over the record · −235%
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 $-0.78/share (latest year $-0.61), the averaged base the calculator's gate runs on, and book value is $9.34/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, 2020–2025
Whether the record’s returns held, and what the capital reinvested earned.
- Profitable years 4 of 6
What this means
Lost money in 2 year(s), look at what happened there before trusting the average.
- Return on capital ≥ 15% 0 of 5 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% → −1% (3-yr avg ends)
In the filing’s words The filing attributes gains to higher prices, but the margin in the record has not followed — the claim outruns the result here.
What this means
Through the cycle the operating margin slipped — about 3% early to −1% lately, median 1% — competition or costs are biting in.
- Reinvestment, incremental ROIC −19%
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 2025 · −1.4% op. margin
What this means
Operations went underwater in 2025, understand why before trusting the good years.
- Share count +7.9%/yr
What this means
The share count is rising, dilution works against you on a per-share basis.
- How management talks about it Promotional
What this means
The returns have faded, yet the filing reaches for a promoter’s vocabulary — world-class, best-in-class, disruptive — more than an owner’s. When the words sell harder than the results deliver, the gap is the thing to weigh.
Does AI threaten the moat?
Low contestabilityThe moat is physical, regulated or balance-sheet-funded, the kind AI cuts costs within but does not contest.
The filing raises AI among its risks, but in other terms (security, regulation, energy or the like), not as a competitor to its product; it frames AI mainly as a capability.
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, 2026Can 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.
- Cash & short-term investments$21M
- Receivables$1.2B
- Other current assets$98M
- Debt due within a year$17M
- Accounts payable$584M
- Other current liabilities$447M
From the company's latest filing.
Debt maturity
the debt note, SEC EDGAR →Not how much it owes, but when it falls due, and against what. The ladder the company files, beside cash on hand and a year's owner earnings.
Bars scaled to the largest single year.
Against what the business has and earns
Cash on hand as of Mar 31, 2026 comes to $21M against the $15M due in the twelve months after the Dec 31, 2025 schedule: 1.4 times it.
Maturity schedule extracted from the company’s Dec 31, 2025 annual report and reconciled to the balance-sheet debt.
How the cash was used, 2020–2025
Over the record, the business generated $618M of operating cash; how management split it reads as a reinvestor, most operating cash is plowed back into the business.
- Reinvested$311M · 50%
- Buybacks$2M · 0%
- Retained (debt / cash)$305M · 49%
- Returned to owners$2M
1% of the owner earnings the business produced over the span, $0 as dividends and $2M as buybacks.
- Average price paid for buybacks—
Buybacks ran $2M over the span, but the filings don't tag the share count needed to deduce the average price paid.
- Net change in share count46.8%
The diluted count rose from 115M to 169M: 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.
Acquisitions & goodwill
from the balance sheet & the 6-year cash-flow recordGoodwill 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.
$12M written down across 1 year (2025): goodwill the company has already conceded it overpaid for, charged against earnings. 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 6-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 year | Chief executive | Pay, as filed | “Actually paid” | Owner earnings |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2022 | Mr. Wilkerson | $11.0M | $8.4M | $253M |
| 2023 | Mr. Wilkerson | $5.7M | $8.4M | $25M |
| 2024 | Mr. Wilkerson | $7.7M | $9.4M | ($57M) |
| 2025 | Mr. Wilkerson | $7.6M | −$3.5M | ($8M) |
Both pay figures are the company’s own, from the pay-versus-performance table its proxy statement files. “As filed” is the Summary Compensation Table total: salary, bonus, and equity awards at their value on the day of grant. “Actually paid” is the SEC’s prescribed recalculation, which re-marks those equity awards to what they became as they vested; it can swing far above or below the filed figure in either direction, and negative years occur. Owner earnings are the whole business's, from the record above, for the same fiscal years.
- Insider ownership<1%
The stake all directors and executive officers hold together, per the 2026 proxy: skin in the game, the first thing Munger reads.
- Stock-based compensation$29M
The slice of the business handed to employees in shares this year, 1% 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 RXO 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 2020–2025.
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?−0.3% vs 2.4%
The owner-earnings margin averaged 2.4% early in the record and −0.3% 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 hereDid the share count rise anyway?46.8%
Diluted shares grew 46.8% over 2020–2025, even as the company spent $2M 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.
- 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 Acquisitions, Insurance reserves 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, Hotels & Resorts
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| GXOGXO Logistics | $13.2B | — | 1.9% | 4% | 2% |
| EXPDExpeditors International of Washington, Inc. | $11.1B | — | 10.0% | 66% | 7% |
| RXORXO Inc. | $5.7B | — | 1.4% | 4% | 0% |
| BCOBrinks Company (The) | $5.3B | 23% | 8.1% | 11% | 6% |
| HUBGHub Group | $3.9B | 12% | 3.6% | 9% | 3% |
| GBTGGlobal Business Travel Group Inc. | $2.7B | — | -5.5% | -7% | -12% |
| RLGTRadiant Logistics Inc. | $903M | — | 2.5% | 10% | 1% |
| Group median | — | — | 2.5% | 9% | 2% |
The price
What a price has to assume.
What the price implies
reverse-DCFType today's close and see the owner-earnings growth you'd have to believe to justify it, beside what RXO Inc. has delivered.
RXO Inc.’s latest year shows negative owner earnings, below the record’s own through-cycle owner earnings. So the tool opens on the through-cycle base, the cash it would earn at rest; clear the toggle below to read the latest year exactly as reported.
Through the cycle, RXO Inc. earns about $14M on its 0.2% median owner-earnings margin. This year’s −0.1% margin runs below that; the reported figure may understate a lean year. Normalize, below, values the price on that through-cycle figure rather than the latest year.
—
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.
A dated snapshot of the price you typed, the assumptions you set, and what the page showed for them. A snapshot is never edited after it is saved. Your notebook is yours alone — the commitment states what is stored and what we will never do.
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.
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.
Owner earnings ($15M) on 165M shares outstanding, per the 10-Q cover, as of 2026-05-05; net debt $426M. The base opens on the through-cycle figure (the latest year sits off 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. The dials set the multiple a growth belief justifies; the price, and every dollar on this page, is yours.
Manual order: ← RWTO its page in the Manual RXRX →
Industry order: ← RRR the Hotels & Resorts chapter SHO →