TRVG, trivago N.V.

Will it survive?

• Can it pay its interest? 127.5×
  Comfortable
  Operating income €2M ÷ interest expense €12K
  What this means

  Operating profit covers interest with the kind of margin Graham wanted for a defensive holding. Necessary, not sufficient, it says solvent, not cheap.

• How heavy is the debt, net of cash? +€202M
  Net cash, debt-free
  Cash €190M + ST investments €12M − debt €0
  What this means

  Cash and short-term investments exceed every dollar of debt by €202M, 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? -2084d
  Negative, funded by others
  DSO 17 + DIO 0 − DPO 2101 days
  What this means

  Days cash is tied up between paying suppliers and collecting from customers. A negative cycle is a quiet moat: suppliers and customers fund the operation (Buffett's “float”), the company grows on other people's money. (Little or no inventory, a services / asset-light model, so the inventory leg is ~0.)

Is it a good business?

• Return on invested capital —
  Not enough data
  Industry peers: median -7%
  What this means

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

• Owner-earnings margin 1%
  Thin, recently turned positive
  latest €3M = operating cash €8M − maintenance capex €5M; positive each of the last 3 years, after an earlier loss stretch (10-yr median 3%)
  Industry peers: median 4%
  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 3% median across 10 years.

• Are earnings backed by cash? 0.72×
  Mostly cash-backed
  Cash from ops €8M ÷ net income €11M
  What this means

  How much of reported profit showed up as operating cash. Above 1× is reassuring; well below suggests earnings lean on accruals. One year is noisy, growth and working-capital swings distort it, and this is operating cash, not free cash. Watch the multi-year trend.

How is the cash used?

• Where do the earnings go? 5728%
  Returned more than it generated
  Dividends + buybacks €184M ÷ Owner Earnings €3M
  What this means

  The company returned more than it generated: against €3M of Owner Earnings, €184M (5728%) went back to shareholders, €184M dividends, €0 buybacks — the excess came from the balance sheet or borrowing, not the year's operations. Sustained, that pattern draws down cash or adds debt; the net-debt line above shows where it stands.

• Investing or harvesting? 1.09×
  Maintaining
  Capex €5M ÷ depreciation €4M
  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 3 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 —
  Revenue ≥ $2B (a dollar floor) · €549M
  What this means

  Big enough to weather a storm. Graham's floor is a dollar figure — about $2B of revenue as a conservative modern stand-in. This company reports in its home currency and we carry no exchange rate, so we show the figure and leave the size bar for you to apply rather than convert it with a number we don't have.

• Strong liquidity Pass
  Current ratio ≥ 2× · 2.22×
  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) · 7 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 · 1 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 —
  Earnings +33% over the record · —
  What this means

  Earnings were negative early in the record, a growth rate isn't meaningful.

• Moderate price —
  P/E ≤ 15 and P/E × P/B ≤ 22.5 · decided by the price
  What this means

  Graham's valuation gate, the wall he kept between a sound business and a sound investment. Three-year average earnings are €-0.16/share (latest year €0.03), the averaged base the calculator's gate runs on, and book value is €0.60/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 3 of 10
  What this means

  Lost money in 7 year(s), look at what happened there before trusting the average.

• Operating margin −3% → −13% (3-yr avg ends)

  In the filing’s words The margin has held, but the filing names price competition — the pressure is present even where the margin has absorbed it so far.

  What this means

  The recent-years average (−13%) sits below the early years (−3%), but the latest year (0%) is back near the early level: a cyclical trough dragging the window down, not a one-way slide. The through-cycle median is −6% — read it across the cycle, not on the dip.

• Worst year 2020 · −101.5% op. margin
  What this means

  Operations went underwater in 2020, understand why before trusting the good years.

• Share count +4.6%/yr
  What this means

  The share count is rising, dilution works against you on a per-share basis.

• Dividend record paid
  What this means

  Paid a dividend in 1 of the years on record.