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RYZ, Ryerson Holding Corporation

Steel capital-intensive Distress / turnaroundCyclical

Ryerson Holding Corporation is the parent company of Joseph T.

Through this network we serve approximately 40,000 customers across a wide range of manufacturing end-markets.

We carry a full line of approximately 75,000 products in stainless steel, aluminum, carbon steel, and alloy steels and a limited line of nickel and red metals in various shapes and forms.

Latest annual: FY2025 10-K

RYZ · Ryerson Holding Corporation

The business

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

Revenue · FY2025

$4.6B

−0.6% YoY · 6% 5-yr CAGR

Vital signs · TTM, with 5-yr average

Revenue $5.0B 5-yr avg $5.3B

Gross margin 17% 5-yr avg 19%

Operating margin −0.2% 5-yr avg 4.6%

ROIC −0% 5-yr avg 21%

Owner-earnings margin −2% 5-yr avg 3%

Free cash flow margin −2% 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. Cyclical. Margins collapse and recover repeatedly across the record; a single year, good or bad, misstates the through-cycle earning power.
What moves the needle: Gross margin has run about 18% and operating margin about 3.2% through the cycle, a thin spread that turns the result on volume and the cost of what it sells far more than on the price it sets. The margin is cyclical, swinging between −0.7% and 10% over the years, so the through-cycle figure carries more than any single year — and the balance sheet at the trough more than the peak. Inventory runs near 15% of sales, so how fast it turns back into cash — and the risk of writing it down when demand softens — sits alongside the margin. 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 sat near the cost of capital (median 12%). Owner earnings, the cash-based check, have been thin too. The cycle and the balance sheet decide this one; the worst year tells more than the median, and the rest is in the 10-K.

Every line is arithmetic on the company's filings, shown in full in the sections below.

The record

Ten years of arithmetic, read across the cycle.

The record, 2016–2025

realized figures from each filing · older years to the left

2016’16	2017’17	2018’18	2019’19	2020’20	2021’21	2022’22	2023’23	2024’24	2025’25	TTMTTMMar 2026
											Income statement
$2.9B	$3.4B	$4.4B	$4.5B	$3.5B	$5.7B	$6.3B	$5.1B	$4.6B	$4.6B	$5.0B	RevenueRevenue
20%	17%	17%	18%	18%	20%	21%	20%	18%	17%	17%	Gross marginGross mgn
16%	14%	14%	14%	16%	13%	12%	16%	17%	18%	17%	SG&A / revenueSG&A/rev
$122M	$101M	$139M	$211M	$65M	$545M	$579M	$228M	$32M	($31M)	($10M)	Operating incomeOp. inc.
4.3%	3.0%	3.2%	4.7%	1.9%	9.6%	9.2%	4.5%	0.7%	−0.7%	−0.2%	Operating marginOp. mgn
$19M	$17M	$106M	$82M	($66M)	$294M	$391M	$146M	($9M)	($56M)	($46M)	Net incomeNet inc.
28%	-8%	9%	28%	—	24%	25%	25%	—	—	—	Effective tax rateTax rate
											Cash flow & returns
$25M	($3M)	$57M	$193M	$278M	$35M	$501M	$365M	$205M	$87M	($51M)	Operating cash flowOp. cash
$43M	$47M	$53M	$58M	$54M	$56M	$59M	$63M	$78M	$80M	$84M	DepreciationDeprec.
($38M)	($69M)	($105M)	$49M	$288M	($321M)	$42M	$143M	$124M	$55M	($99M)	Working capital & otherWC & other
$23M	$25M	$38M	$46M	$26M	$59M	$105M	$122M	$100M	$52M	$56M	CapexCapex
0.8%	0.7%	0.9%	1.0%	0.8%	1.0%	1.7%	2.4%	2.2%	1.1%	1.1%	Capex / revenueCapex/rev
$2M	($28M)	$19M	$147M	$252M	($24M)	$442M	$303M	$127M	$36M	($107M)	Owner earningsOwner earn.
0.1%	−0.8%	0.4%	3.3%	7.3%	−0.4%	7.0%	5.9%	2.8%	0.8%	−2.1%	Owner earnings marginOE mgn
$2M	($28M)	$19M	$147M	$252M	($24M)	$396M	$243M	$105M	$36M	($107M)	Free cash flowFCF
0.1%	−0.8%	0.4%	3.3%	7.3%	−0.4%	6.3%	4.8%	2.3%	0.8%	−2.1%	Free cash flow marginFCF mgn
$1M	$49M	$170M	—	—	$15M	$57M	$138M	$44M	$0	$0	AcquisitionsAcquis.
—	—	—	—	—	$6M	$20M	$25M	$25M	$24M	$28M	Dividends paidDiv. paid
—	—	—	—	—	$2M	$50M	$114M	$51M	$0	—	BuybacksBuybacks
11%	11%	11%	13%	—	37%	36%	13%	—	-2%	-0%	ROICROIC
—	—	145%	48%	-47%	55%	44%	16%	-1%	-7%	-4%	Return on equityROE
—	—	—	—	—	54%	42%	13%	−4%	−11%	−6%	Retained to equityRetained/eq
											Balance sheet
$81M	$77M	$23M	$11M	$61M	$51M	$39M	$54M	$28M	$27M	$25M	Cash & investmentsCash+inv
$326M	$376M	$521M	$425M	$379M	$631M	$514M	$468M	$426M	$461M	$847M	ReceivablesReceiv.
$563M	$617M	$806M	$743M	$605M	$832M	$799M	$783M	$685M	$648M	$1.1B	InventoryInvent.
$230M	$275M	$390M	$312M	$365M	$481M	$438M	$463M	$441M	$516M	$749M	Accounts payablePayables
$659M	$718M	$937M	$857M	$618M	$982M	$875M	$787M	$669M	$593M	$1.2B	Operating working capitalOper. WC
$998M	$1.1B	$1.4B	$1.3B	$1.1B	$1.6B	$1.4B	$1.4B	$1.2B	$1.2B	$2.1B	Current assetsCur. assets
$332M	$403M	$569M	$492M	$528M	$751M	$619M	$634M	$580M	$668M	$954M	Current liabilitiesCur. liab.
3.0×	2.7×	2.5×	2.6×	2.1×	2.1×	2.3×	2.2×	2.1×	1.8×	2.2×	Current ratioCurr. ratio
$103M	$115M	$120M	$120M	$120M	$124M	$129M	$158M	$162M	$162M	$162M	GoodwillGoodwill
$1.6B	$1.7B	$2.1B	$2.0B	$1.8B	$2.4B	$2.3B	$2.6B	$2.4B	$2.4B	$3.7B	Total assetsAssets
$964M	$1.0B	$1.2B	$982M	$740M	$639M	$367M	$437M	$467M	$463M	$908M	Total debtDebt
$883M	$968M	$1.1B	$971M	$679M	$588M	$328M	$382M	$440M	$436M	$883M	Net debt / (cash)Net debt
1.4×	1.1×	1.4×	2.3×	0.8×	10.7×	17.4×	6.6×	0.7×	-0.8×	-0.2×	Interest coverageInt. cov.
($51M)	($10M)	$73M	$173M	$139M	$537M	$885M	$906M	$815M	$753M	$1.3B	Shareholders’ equityEquity
0.0%	0.1%	0.1%	0.1%	0.1%	0.1%	0.1%	0.3%	0.3%	0.2%	0.2%	Stock comp / revenueSBC/rev
											Per share
34.4M	37.3M	37.7M	38.0M	38.0M	38.9M	38.3M	35.6M	33.2M	32.1M	43.2M	Shares out (diluted)Shares
$83.13	$90.22	$117.02	$118.58	$91.17	$145.86	$165.18	$143.64	$138.56	$142.34	$115.89	Revenue / shareRev/sh
$0.54	$0.46	$2.81	$2.17	$-1.73	$7.56	$10.21	$4.10	$-0.26	$-1.76	$-1.07	EPS (diluted)EPS
$0.05	$-0.74	$0.50	$3.88	$6.62	$-0.62	$11.55	$8.51	$3.84	$1.11	$-2.47	Owner earnings / shareOE/sh
$0.05	$-0.74	$0.50	$3.88	$6.62	$-0.62	$10.35	$6.84	$3.17	$1.11	$-2.47	Free cash flow / shareFCF/sh
—	—	—	—	—	$0.16	$0.52	$0.70	$0.75	$0.75	$0.64	Dividends / shareDiv/sh
$0.67	$0.67	$1.02	$1.21	$0.68	$1.52	$2.75	$3.43	$3.00	$1.60	$1.29	Cap. spending / shareCapex/sh
$-1.48	$-0.27	$1.94	$4.55	$3.65	$13.81	$23.12	$25.47	$24.57	$23.45	$29.71	Book value / shareBVPS

Per-share growththe realized rate an owner's share compounded

	9-yr	5-yr
Revenue / share	+6.2%/yr	+9.3%/yr
Owner earnings / share	+40.3%/yr	−30.1%/yr
Dividends / share	+46.1%/yr (4-yr)	+46.1%/yr (4-yr)
Capital spending / share	+10.2%/yr	+18.6%/yr
Book value / share	—	+45.1%/yr

The record, charted

FY2016–2025

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

Share count

32Mpeak FY2021

ROIC

−2%low FY2025

Gross margin

17%low FY2025

Net debt ÷ owner earnings

12.3×peak FY2016

Owner earnings vs. net income

Owner earningsNet income

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

$36Mowner earningsvs.($56M)net incomelow FY2017

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.

FY2016FY2025

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 $56M loss into $36M 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	($56M)	($9M)	$146M	$391M	$294M
Depreciation & amortizationnon-cash charge added back	+$80M	+$78M	+$63M	+$59M	+$56M
Stock-based compensationreal costnon-cash, but a real cost	+$9M	+$12M	+$14M	+$9M	+$6M
Working capital & othertiming of cash in and out, other non-cash items	+$55M	+$124M	+$143M	+$42M	−$321M
Cash from operations	$87M	$205M	$365M	$501M	$35M
Maintenance capital expenditurethe spending needed just to hold position and volume	−$52M	−$78M	−$63M	−$59M	−$59M
Owner earnings	$36M	$127M	$303M	$442M	($24M)
Growth capital expenditurediscretionary; spent to get bigger, not to stand still	—	−$22M	−$59M	−$46M	—
Free cash flow	$36M	$105M	$243M	$396M	($24M)
Owner-earnings marginowner earnings ÷ revenue	1%	3%	6%	7%	0%

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 $9M), owner earnings is nearer $27M.

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?

Can it pay its interest? -0.8×

Does not cover its interest

Operating income ($31M) ÷ interest expense $39M

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.
How heavy is the debt, net of cash? $586M

Net debt against an operating loss

Cash $27M − debt $612M

What this means
Netting $27M of cash and short-term investments against $612M of debt leaves $586M 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.
How long is cash tied up? 50d

Tight

DSO 37 + DIO 62 − DPO 50 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 11%

Solid through the cycle

8-yr median, range -2%–37%; -2% latest = NOPAT ($24M) ÷ invested capital $1.3B

Industry peers: median 13%

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 8 years (it ran -2% 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 1%

Thin, recently turned positive

latest $36M = operating cash $87M − maintenance capex $52M; positive each of the last 3 years, after an earlier loss stretch (10-yr median 1%)

Industry peers: median 7%

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 1% of revenue this year, a 1% median across 10 years. Treating stock comp as the real expense it is (less $9M of SBC) leaves $27M.
Are earnings backed by cash? $87M

Loss, but cash-generative

Net income ($56M) · cash from operations $87M

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?

Where do the earnings go? 68%

Returns about half

Dividends + buybacks $24M ÷ Owner Earnings $36M

What this means
Of $36M Owner Earnings, $24M (68%) went back to shareholders, $24M dividends, $0 buybacks. Returning most of it is the mark of a mature business with little left to reinvest at a high return; reinvesting most could mean a long runway, or empire-building. The split doesn't say which; the return earned on it (see ROIC) does.
Investing or harvesting? 0.65×

Harvesting

Capex $52M ÷ depreciation $80M

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 Pass

Revenue ≥ $2B · $4.6B

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× · 1.83×

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 · $612M vs $555M 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) · 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 · 5 of 10 yrs

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 · −43%

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 $0.52/share (latest year $-1.09), the averaged base the calculator's gate runs on, and book value is $14.51/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, 2016–2025

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

Profitable years 7 of 10

What this means
Lost money in 3 year(s), look at what happened there before trusting the average.
Return on capital ≥ 15% 2 of 10 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 ties gains to its own pricing, but names price competition too — pricing power that is real yet contested, not unopposed. The margin shows who is winning.

What this means
Through the cycle the operating margin slipped — about 3% early to 1% lately, median 3% — competition or costs are biting in.
Reinvestment, incremental ROIC returns capital

What this means
The capital base barely grew: this business returns cash through dividends and buybacks rather than reinvesting. Judge it on the cash returned, not on compounding.
Worst year 2025 · −0.7% op. margin

What this means
Operations went underwater in 2025, understand why before trusting the good years.
Share count −0.8%/yr

What this means
The share count is shrinking, buybacks are quietly growing your slice of the business.
Dividend record rising

What this means
Paid and raised the dividend across the record, the continuity Graham prized.
How management talks about it Owner’s terms

What this means
The filing reasons in an owner’s terms — per-share, return on capital, the long term — and the record has held; the words and the results are of a piece.

Does AI threaten the moat?

Moderate contestability

AI is likely to reshape costs and some products here without clearly contesting or sparing the core moat; how the company itself frames it is the tell.

In its own filing Framed as a capability

The filing positions AI as something the company uses, not something it fears.

“The use or anticipated use of artificial intelligence technologies by us or third parties may increase operational risks or create new or unanticipated operational risks.”

The question is whether a moat the record shows as durable outlasts a technology that lowers the cost of part of what the firm sells. The durability is read in the record above, the filing's own framing of AI beside it; the industry label decides nothing on its own.

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$2.1B

Cash & short-term investments$25M
Receivables$847M
Inventory$1.1B
Other current assets$108M

Current liabilities$954M

Debt due within a year$3M
Accounts payable$749M
Other current liabilities$203M

Current ratio2.21×all current assets ÷ what's due · Graham looked for 2×

Quick ratio1.03×stricter: inventory excluded

Cash ratio0.03×strictest: cash alone against what's due

Working capital$1.2Bthe cushion left after near-term bills

Debt due this year vs. cash$3M due · $25M cash covered by cash on hand, no refinancing forced · both figures from the Mar 31, 2026 balance sheet

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+37.9%the freshest read on whether the business is still growing

Current ratio, recent quarters2.4× → 2.2×

Deeper floors

Tangible book value$963Mequity stripped of goodwill & intangibles

Net current asset value($320M)Graham's net-net: current assets less all liabilities

Debt incl. operating leases$914M$385M of it operating leases; with finance leases, “total fixed claims” below reaches $978M (annual-report basis)

From the company's latest filing.

Lease obligations

the lease note, SEC EDGAR →

Debt by another name. What the business owes on the property, aircraft, stores and equipment it rents rather than owns is a fixed claim due on a schedule; added back to the debt, it is the true leverage. That ladder, operating and finance leases together, and what it adds to the debt on the page above.

Operating leasesFinance leases

'26$48M

'27$52M

'28$45M

'29$46M

'30$40M

later$227M

Lease payments by year, scaled to the largest; “later” is everything beyond year five, shown apart. These are the contractual cash payments, before the interest the filing imputes back out to the balance-sheet liability.

Due in the next 12 months$48Ma fixed cash payment, owed whether or not the business has a good year

Total lease payments$456Mevery year plus the tail, undiscounted: the full cash the leases will take

On the balance sheet$366Mthe present value of those payments, the recognised lease liability

True leverage: debt plus leases

On-balance-sheet debt$612M

Lease obligations (present value)$366M

Total fixed claims on the business$978M

Counting the leases the way Buffett does, the fixed claims on this business come to $978M, of which the leases are 37%. The lease wall above and the debt schedule together are the calendar of what must be paid, and when.

Lease ladder read from the ASC 842 tags in the company’s Dec 31, 2025 annual report and reconciled: the yearly buckets sum to the undiscounted total, which less the imputed interest equals the balance-sheet liability; a ladder that doesn’t tie out is withheld.

How the cash was used, 2016–2025

Over the record, the business generated $1.7B of operating cash; how management split it reads as a balanced allocator, splitting cash between the business, owners, and the balance sheet.

Reinvested$596M · 34%
Dividends$100M · 6%
Buybacks$217M · 12%
Retained (debt / cash)$832M · 48%

Returned to owners$317M
25% of the owner earnings the business produced over the span, $100M as dividends and $217M as buybacks.
Average price paid for buybacks—
Buybacks ran $217M over the span, but the filings don't tag the share count needed to deduce the average price paid.
Net change in share count25.5%
The diluted count rose from 34M to 43M: issuance (stock pay, deals) outran any buybacks, so owners were diluted on net.
Dividend record$0.75/sh
Paid in 5 of the years on record, the per-share dividend growing about 46% a year. It was never cut over the span.
Return on what it retained26%
Of the earnings it kept rather than paid out ($608M over the span), annual owner earnings (first three years vs last three) grew $157M, so each retained $1 added about 0.26 of yearly owner earnings. Buffett's test, run on owner earnings instead of market value.

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 10-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$220M9% of all assets; the premium carried on the balance sheet for businesses acquired

Against book equity21%goodwill is this share of book equity; the rest is the company’s own retained and paid-in capital

Cash spent acquiring$473Mover 10 years buying other businesses, against $596M of capital spent building

None written down over the record; the goodwill is still carried at full cost. That is the deals holding their value on the books so far; whether they keep doing so is the test an owner watches, since the write-down, when it comes, is the admission the price was too high.

Goodwill, acquired intangibles and equity from the latest balance sheet; acquisition spend and write-downs summed across the 10-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
2021	Edward J. Lehner	$5.3M	$8.9M	($24M)
2022	Edward J. Lehner	$8.9M	$10.1M	$442M
2023	Edward J. Lehner	$6.5M	$7.9M	$303M
2024	Edward J. Lehner	$5.0M	$394k	$127M
2025	Edward J. Lehner	$17.9M	$21.3M	$36M

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$9M
The slice of the business handed to employees in shares this year, 0% 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 Ryerson Holding 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 2016–2025.

2 of the 6 tests turned up something to look into; the other 4 came back clean.

Look hereDid the share count rise anyway?25.5%
Diluted shares grew 25.5% over 2016–2025, even as the company spent $217M 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.
Look hereDid receivables and inventory outpace sales?31% → 40% of sales
Receivables and inventory grew from $889M to $2.0B while revenue grew 75%: working capital is climbing faster than sales (31% of revenue then, 40% 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

Is it less profitable than it was?
Did debt outgrow the business?
Did reported profit become cash?
Are "one-time" charges a yearly habit?

Each test is read from the filings and is noisy alone; a flag can mark a cyclical trough or a year of heavy investment as easily as a problem. The filing says which.

Peers, Steel

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
RSReliance Inc.	$14.3B	29%	8.3%	11%	7%
QXOQXO Inc.	$6.8B	40%	-2.4%	-7%	3%
BCCBoise Cascade L.L.C.	$6.4B	56%	4.7%	20%	4%
POOLPool Corporation	$5.3B	29%	11.3%	29%	7%
SITESiteOne Landscape	$4.7B	—	5.3%	12%	5%
RYZRyerson Holding Corporation	$4.6B	18%	3.7%	12%	2%
AITApplied Industrial	$4.6B	29%	8.4%	13%	7%
MSMMSC Industrial Direct Company Inc.	$3.8B	42%	12.0%	15%	8%
Group median	—	29%	6.8%	13%	6%

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 Ryerson Holding Corporation has delivered.

Ryerson Holding Corporation’s latest year shows negative owner earnings, a cyclical trough. 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.

Today’s price $

Through the cycle, Ryerson Holding Corporation earns about $81M on its 1.8% median owner-earnings margin. This year’s 0.8% 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.

Base Normalize · through-cycle ($81M) Net of stock comp (−$10M)

—

The assumptions Required return 9% Years of high growth 10 Terminal growth 2.5%

9.0% = the 4.55% 10-year Treasury (Jul 15, 2026) + 4.45 points of equity premium. The rate you require is yours to set.

Enter a price above to run it.

Implied by the price—

Owner-earnings growth · ’21→’25−21%/yr

Owner-earnings growth · since FY2022−55%/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.

Owner earnings ($107M) on 52M shares outstanding, per the 10-Q cover, as of 2026-05-01; net debt $883M. 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.

Weigh RYZ against another business →

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

Manual order: ← RYTM its page in the Manual RZC →

Industry order: ← RS the Steel chapter SID →