USAS, AMERICAS GOLD AND SILVER CORPORATION

Will it survive?

• Can it pay its interest? -14.6×
  Does not cover its interest
  Operating income ($78M) ÷ interest expense $5M
  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? +$119M
  Net cash
  Cash $130M − debt $11M
  What this means

  Cash and short-term investments exceed every dollar of debt by $119M, 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? -94d
  Negative, funded by others
  DSO 27 + DIO 46 − DPO 167 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.

Is it a good business?

• Return on invested capital -69%
  Below average through the cycle
  3-yr median, range -137%–-67%; -60% latest = NOPAT ($61M) ÷ invested capital $103M
  Industry peers: median -12%
  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 3 years (it ran -60% 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
  10-yr median margin, range -141%–4%; latest ($25M) = operating cash ($4M) − maintenance capex $21M
  Industry peers: median -105%
  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 -21% of revenue this year, a -22% median across 10 years. It chose to put $48M more into growth, so free cash flow this year was ($73M) — the gap is investment, not weakness.

• Are earnings backed by cash? ($4M)
  Loss, and burning cash
  Net income ($87M) · cash from operations ($4M)

  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? 3.26×
  Expanding
  Capex $69M ÷ depreciation $21M
  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 · $118M
  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× · 1.78×
  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 · $11M vs $68M 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 (8-yr record) · 8 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.

• 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 $-0.17/share (latest year $-0.27), the averaged base the calculator's gate runs on, and book value is $0.69/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 0 of 8
  What this means

  Lost money in 8 year(s), look at what happened there before trusting the average.

• Operating margin −66% (median, 3 yrs)

  In the filing’s words The record and the words agree: the margin widened and the filing attributes the gain to its own pricing, not volume alone.

  What this means

  Over the 3 years on record the operating margin has run around −66% — too short a record to call a through-cycle trend, but that is the level the business earns at.

• Reinvestment, incremental ROIC 0%
  What this means

  Reinvested capital came back at only a modest incremental return — near the cost of capital, where extra growth adds little per dollar. The record shows whether it is a soft stretch or a thinning moat.

• Worst year 2021 · −346.8% op. margin
  What this means

  Operations went underwater in 2021, understand why before trusting the good years.