Owner Scorecard
An independent research publication · data as of July 9, 2026

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SILC, Silicom Ltd

Communications Equipment consumer brand CyclicalNet current asset value

A consumer-brand business, where the durable asset is the brand and the pricing power it commands.

Latest annual: FY2025 20-F · US listing is the ordinary share
SILC · Silicom Ltd
I

The business

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

Revenue · FY2025
$62M
+6.6% YoY · −10% 5-yr CAGR
Vital signs · TTM, with 5-yr average
Revenue $62M 5-yr avg $105M
Operating margin −19.8% 5-yr avg −8.5%
ROIC −12% 5-yr avg −6%
Owner-earnings margin −5% 5-yr avg 9%
Free cash flow margin −5% 5-yr avg 9%

The business in brief

read the 10-K →

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

Situation
Cyclical. Margins collapse and recover repeatedly across the record; a single year, good or bad, misstates the through-cycle earning power. 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
Gross margin has run about 31% and operating margin about 10% through the cycle, a spread the cycle sets more than the company does. The margin is cyclical, swinging between −23% and 20% 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 44% 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 7%). 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.

Where the money comes from

read the 20-F →

United States is 74% of revenue, so this is largely a single-region business.

Revenue by geography, FY2025
  • United States74%$46M
  • Europe11%$7M
  • Asia Pacific8%$5M
  • Israel6%$4M
  • North America1%$331K

From the segment footnote of the company's own 20-F. Shares are of total revenue; the profit bar shows each segment's share of segment operating profit, before unallocated corporate costs.

II

The record

Ten years of arithmetic, read across the cycle.

The record, 2016–2025

realized figures from each filing · older years to the left
2016’162017’172018’182019’192020’202021’212022’222023’232024’242025’25TTMTTMDec 2025
Income statement
$100M$126M$134M$105M$107M$128M$151M$124M$58M$62M$62MRevenueRevenue
38%37%31%34%31%35%35%23%29%31%—Gross marginGross mgn
$16M$25M$17M$10M$6M$13M$20M($29M)($13M)($12M)($12M)Operating incomeOp. inc.
15.8%20.2%12.4%9.7%5.8%10.2%13.2%−23.1%−22.8%−19.8%−19.8%Operating marginOp. mgn
$13M$22M$15M$10M$6M$11M$18M($26M)($14M)($11M)($11M)Net incomeNet inc.
17%15%17%14%21%18%18%————Effective tax rateTax rate
Cash flow & returns
($3M)$1M$46M$27M$5M$1M($4M)$32M$18M($2M)($2M)Operating cash flowOp. cash
$4M$4M$3M$2M$2M$2M$2M$2M$2M$2M$2MDepreciationDeprec.
($20M)($24M)$28M$14M($3M)($12M)($25M)$56M$30M$8M$8MWorking capital & otherWC & other
$1M$2M$1M$1M$2M$3M$2M$1M$932K$1M$1MCapexCapex
1.4%1.3%1.0%1.4%1.6%2.0%1.4%0.9%1.6%1.9%1.9%Capex / revenueCapex/rev
($4M)($282K)$44M$25M$3M($2M)($6M)$31M$17M($3M)($3M)Owner earningsOwner earn.
−4.1%−0.2%33.1%24.0%3.0%−1.2%−4.1%24.8%29.9%−5.4%−5.4%Owner earnings marginOE mgn
($4M)($282K)$44M$25M$3M($2M)($6M)$31M$17M($3M)($3M)Free cash flowFCF
−4.1%−0.2%33.1%24.0%3.0%−1.2%−4.1%24.8%29.9%−5.4%−5.4%Free cash flow marginFCF mgn
$7M$7M————————$7MDividends paidDiv. paid
———$8M$17M$14M$3M$9M$10M$2M—BuybacksBuybacks
12%17%11%6%4%8%11%-22%-14%-12%-12%ROICROIC
11%15%9%6%4%7%10%-18%-11%-10%-10%Return on equityROE
5%10%————————−16%Retained to equityRetained/eq
Balance sheet
$28M$25M$28M$30M$56M$38M$35M$55M$72M$42M$49MCash & investmentsCash+inv
$27M$41M$23M$25M$22M$31M$27M$25M$12M$9M$9MReceivablesReceiv.
$44M$51M$42M$36M$48M$76M$88M$52M$41M$53M$53MInventoryInvent.
$72M$92M$66M$61M$69M$107M$115M$77M$53M$62M$62MOperating working capitalOper. WC
$103M$123M$104M$110M$136M$149M$154M$135M$130M$113M$113MCurrent assetsCur. assets
$18M$19M$22M$26M$29M$50M$27M$13M$15M$27M$27MCurrent liabilitiesCur. liab.
5.8×6.5×4.8×4.2×4.6×3.0×5.7×10.5×8.6×4.2×4.2×Current ratioCurr. ratio
$26M$26M$26M$26M$26M$26M$26M$0——$0GoodwillGoodwill
$146M$163M$182M$195M$196M$220M$216M$168M$150M$152M$152MTotal assetsAssets
($28M)($25M)($28M)($30M)($56M)($38M)($35M)($55M)($72M)($42M)($49M)Net debt / (cash)Net debt
$121M$141M$158M$163M$155M$158M$179M$148M$128M$117M$117MShareholders’ equityEquity
Per share
7.4M7.6M7.7M7.6M7.2M7.0M6.8M6.7M6.0M5.7M5.7MShares out (diluted)Shares
$13.50$16.53$17.47$13.90$15.01$18.43$22.16$18.53$9.65$10.85$10.85Revenue / shareRev/sh
$1.77$2.86$1.91$1.35$0.80$1.51$2.69$-3.94$-2.28$-2.01$-2.01EPS (diluted)EPS
$-0.56$-0.04$5.79$3.34$0.46$-0.22$-0.91$4.60$2.88$-0.59$-0.59Owner earnings / shareOE/sh
$-0.56$-0.04$5.79$3.34$0.46$-0.22$-0.91$4.60$2.88$-0.59$-0.59Free cash flow / shareFCF/sh
$0.98$0.97————————$1.29Dividends / shareDiv/sh
$0.19$0.22$0.18$0.19$0.24$0.37$0.31$0.17$0.15$0.21$0.21Cap. spending / shareCapex/sh
$16.33$18.52$20.65$21.51$21.64$22.74$26.38$22.13$21.24$20.59$20.59Book value / shareBVPS
Per-share growththe realized rate an owner's share compounded
9-yr5-yr
Revenue / share−2.4%/yr−6.3%/yr
Dividends / share−1.3%/yr (1-yr)−1.3%/yr (1-yr)
Capital spending / share+0.8%/yr−2.5%/yr
Book value / share+2.6%/yr−1.0%/yr

The record, charted

FY2016–2025

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

Share count
6Mpeak FY2018
ROIC
−12%low FY2023
Gross margin
31%low FY2023

Owner earnings vs. net income

Owner earningsNet income

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

($3M)owner earningsvs.($11M)net incomelow FY2022

Where the cash went

ReinvestBuybacksDividendsAcquisitionsRetained

Each year's operating cash, by what management did with it: the mix, and how it drifts.

FY2017FY2024

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 $11M loss into ($3M) of owner earnings: more cash than the profit line showed, after the non-cash charges and the capital it put back in.

FY2025FY2024FY2023FY2022FY2021
Reported net income($11M)($14M)($26M)$18M$11M
Depreciation & amortizationnon-cash charge added back+$2M+$2M+$2M+$2M+$2M
Working capital & othertiming of cash in and out, other non-cash items+$8M+$30M+$56M−$25M−$12M
Cash from operations($2M)$18M$32M($4M)$1M
Capital expenditurecash put back in to keep running and to grow−$1M−$932K−$1M−$2M−$3M
Owner earnings($3M)$17M$31M($6M)($2M)
Owner-earnings marginowner earnings ÷ revenue-5%30%25%-4%-1%

Owner earnings is the cash an owner could pull out without starving the business: operating cash less the capital it must spend to hold its position .

Maintenance capex is estimated as depreciation where a growing business invests above it; free cash flow is the figure the scorecard's free-cash margin reads.

III

Quality & stewardship

Returns, the balance sheet, capital allocation, and pay.

Owner’s Scorecard

FY2025 20-F · source on SEC EDGAR →

Will it survive?

  • Can it pay its interest? -19.1×
    Does not cover its interest
    Operating income ($12M) ÷ interest expense $643K
    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? +$49M
    Net cash, debt-free
    Cash $35M + ST investments $14M − debt $0
    What this means

    Cash and short-term investments exceed every dollar of debt by $49M, 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? —
    Not enough data
    What this means

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

Is it a good business?

  • Return on invested capital —
    Not enough data
    Industry peers: median 4%
    What this means

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

  • Owner-earnings margin -0%
    Consumes cash through the cycle
    10-yr median margin, range -5%–33%; latest ($3M) = operating cash ($2M) − maintenance capex $1M
    Industry peers: median 10%
    What this means

    What an owner could take out without starving the business: operating cash less the maintenance capital it must spend to hold its position — Buffett's owner earnings. That's -5% of revenue this year, a -0% median across 10 years.

  • Are earnings backed by cash? ($2M)
    Loss, and burning cash
    Net income ($11M) · cash from operations ($2M)
    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? —
    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? 0.75×
    Harvesting
    Capex $1M ÷ 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 · 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 · $62M
    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× · 4.15×
    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.

  • 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 · 2 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 · −204%
    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 $-3.01/share (latest year $-2.01), the averaged base the calculator's gate runs on, and book value is $20.59/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.

  • Operating margin 16% → −22% (3-yr avg ends)
    What this means

    Through the cycle the operating margin slipped — about 16% early to −22% lately, median 10% — competition or costs are biting in.

  • Worst year 2023 · −23.1% op. margin
    What this means

    Operations went underwater in 2023, understand why before trusting the good years.

  • Share count −2.9%/yr
    What this means

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

  • Dividend record paid
    What this means

    Paid a dividend in 2 of the years on record.

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.

“In the AI Inference market, we compete with specialized hardware platform vendors such as Napatech and BittWare, as well as with the internal engineering teams of our potential customers who may opt for in-house designs.”

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 fiscal year-end, Dec 31, 2025

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$113M
  • Cash & short-term investments$49M
  • Receivables$9M
  • Inventory$53M
  • Other current assets$3M
Current liabilities$27M
  • Other current liabilities$27M
Current ratio4.15×all current assets ÷ what's due · Graham looked for 2×
Quick ratio2.22×stricter: inventory excluded
Cash ratio1.79×strictest: cash alone against what's due
Working capital$86Mthe cushion left after near-term bills
Cash runway14.5 yrsthe business is consuming cash; this is how long the cash on hand lasts at that rate
Deeper floors
Tangible book value$117Mequity stripped of goodwill & intangibles
Net current asset value$78MGraham's net-net: current assets less all liabilities
Debt incl. operating leases$2M$2M of it operating leases

From the company's latest filing.

How the cash was used, 2016–2025

Over the record, the business generated $121M of operating cash; how management split it reads as a cash returner, paying most of what it earns straight back to owners.

  • Reinvested$16M · 13%
  • Dividends$15M · 12%
  • Buybacks$63M · 52%
  • Retained (debt / cash)$28M · 23%
  • Returned to owners$78M

    74% of the owner earnings the business produced over the span, $15M as dividends and $63M as buybacks.

  • Average price paid for buybacks—

    Buybacks ran $63M over the span, but the filings don't tag the share count needed to deduce the average price paid.

  • Net change in share count−23.3%

    The diluted count fell from 7M to 6M, so the buybacks outran the stock issued to staff.

  • Dividend record$0.97/sh

    Paid in 2 of the years on record, the per-share dividend shrinking about 1% a year. It was never cut over the span.

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.

Inverting the record

Invert: instead of why Silicom Ltd 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.

None of the 4 tests turned up a mark; each came back clean. A clean panel says only that these particular ways of being wrong are not written into the record.

Each test came back clean
  • Is it less profitable than it was?
  • Did the share count rise anyway?
  • Did reported profit become cash?
  • Did receivables and inventory outpace sales?

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 →
  • How much of the revenue rides on one buyer?
    ≈$17M · 28% of revenue on the largest customers (TTM)
    “Significant customers The Company's top three ultimate customers accounted for approximately 28 % of its revenues in 2025.”verify →

The questions the record and the charts do not answer on their own; each carries the figure and the place to look.

Peers, Communications Equipment

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
NTGRNETGEAR Inc.$700M30%3.1%4%3%
DGIIDigi International Inc.$430M53%6.7%5%11%
ATENA10 Networks Inc.$291M78%10.6%38%16%
QMCOQuantum Corporation$280M41%-2.6%—-4%
MITKMitek Systems Inc.$180M—7.3%4%20%
EVLVEvolv Technologies Holdings Inc.$146M34%-154.2%-81%10%
SILCSilicom Ltd$62M33%9.9%7%1%
OSSOne Stop Systems Inc.$32M31%-1.6%-5%-2%
Group median—34%4.9%4%7%
IV

The price

What a price has to assume.

What the price implies

reverse-DCF

Enter the US price, in dollars: the NYSE/Nasdaq quote you hold. Silicom Ltd's US listing is the ordinary share itself. The record tables elsewhere on this page remain as filed.

Type today's close and see the owner-earnings growth you'd have to believe to justify it, beside what Silicom Ltd has delivered.

Silicom Ltd’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.

$
Base

—

The assumptions

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

Enter a price above to run it.

Implied by the price—
Owner-earnings growth, delivered—
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 ($3M) on 6M shares outstanding, per the 20-F cover, as of 2025-12-31; net cash $49M. 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 SILC against another business →

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

Manual order: ← SII its page in the Manual SIM →

Industry order: ← SATLW the Communications Equipment chapter SNT →