Share count
9Mpeak FY2016
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VALU, Value Line Inc.
Capital Markets & Asset Management financial
Value Line, Inc. is a New York corporation headquartered in New York City and formed in 1982.
Value Line markets under well-known brands including Value Line , the Value Line logo , The Value Line Investment Survey , Smart Research, Smarter Investing and The Most Trusted Name in Investment Research .
The name "Value Line" as used to describe the Company, its products, and its subsidiaries, is a registered trademark of the Company.
The business
What it sells, where the money comes from, the kind of company it is.
Revenue · FY2025
$35M
−6.4% YoY · −3% 5-yr CAGR
Vital signs · TTM, with 5-yr average
Revenue $34M 5-yr avg $39M
Net margin 65.0% 5-yr avg 54.3%
Revenue $8M −7.7% vs yr-ago qtr
Operating margin 12.1% yr-ago 17.4%
Net income $6M yr-ago $5M
Net margin 71.4% yr-ago 57.6%
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 Subscription and Circulation (70%) and License (30%).
- What moves the needle
- Assets under management and the fee rate on them. What decides it: net flows in or out, the market's move on the assets already there (the firm rises and falls with the indices it invests in), the drift toward cheaper passive products, and the operating leverage on a largely fixed cost base. 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?
- Operating margin has been modest for a fee business (median 18%). It earns this on little capital, so return on equity has run near 26%, the leverage of a model that needs almost no plant to grow. A high return that does not fade can mark a moat, but whether the assets stay (net flows, not last year's market) is what the flow disclosures and the 10-K settle, not the multiple.
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 →Subscription and Circulation is 70% of revenue, with License the other meaningful line at 30%.
Revenue by product line, FY2025
- Subscription and Circulation70%$25M
- License30%$10M
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, 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 | TTMTTMJan 2026 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Income statement | |||||||||||
| $35M | $43M | $36M | $36M | $40M | $40M | $41M | $40M | $37M | $35M | $34M | RevenueRevenue |
| 5.4% | 17.5% | 7.2% | 14.9% | 22.6% | 18.7% | 26.7% | 28.9% | 24.4% | 17.1% | 14.3% | Operating marginOp. mgn |
| 21.1% | 24.3% | 41.1% | 33.1% | 37.1% | 57.6% | 58.8% | 45.5% | 50.7% | 59.0% | 65.0% | Net marginNet mgn |
| $7M | $10M | $15M | $12M | $15M | $23M | $24M | $18M | $19M | $21M | $22M | Net incomeNet inc. |
| 27% | 33% | — | 26% | 28% | 23% | 22% | 24% | 25% | 25% | 25% | Effective tax rateTax rate |
| Cash flow & returns | |||||||||||
| $2M | $3M | $9M | $11M | $14M | $16M | $25M | $18M | $18M | $20M | $19M | Owner earningsOwner earn. |
| 21% | 27% | 34% | 25% | 28% | 35% | 30% | 22% | 21% | 21% | 20% | Return on equityROE |
| 3% | 10% | 13% | 10% | 13% | 23% | 19% | 10% | 9% | 9% | 9% | Retained to equityRetained/eq |
| Balance sheet | |||||||||||
| $87M | $87M | $87M | $92M | $110M | $121M | $129M | $131M | $136M | $145M | $151M | Total assetsAssets |
| $25M | $13M | $11M | $12M | $7M | $37M | $59M | $15M | $4M | $34M | $92M | Cash & investmentsCash+inv |
| $35M | $38M | $44M | $48M | $54M | $67M | $80M | $84M | $91M | $100M | $108M | Shareholders’ equityEquity |
| Per share | |||||||||||
| 9.8M | 9.7M | 9.7M | 9.7M | 9.6M | 9.6M | 9.5M | 9.5M | 9.4M | 9.4M | 9.4M | Shares out (diluted)Shares |
| $3.53 | $4.39 | $3.70 | $3.74 | $4.18 | $4.21 | $4.25 | $4.20 | $3.98 | $3.73 | $3.60 | Revenue / shareRev/sh |
| $0.75 | $1.07 | $1.52 | $1.24 | $1.55 | $2.43 | $2.50 | $1.91 | $2.02 | $2.20 | $2.34 | EPS (diluted)EPS |
| $0.18 | $0.28 | $0.98 | $1.19 | $1.42 | $1.71 | $2.58 | $1.92 | $1.90 | $2.13 | $2.06 | Owner earnings / shareOE/sh |
| $0.63 | $0.68 | $0.92 | $0.76 | $0.80 | $0.84 | $0.88 | $1.00 | $1.12 | $1.20 | $1.28 | Dividends / shareDiv/sh |
| $3.54 | $3.89 | $4.49 | $4.91 | $5.55 | $6.98 | $8.34 | $8.85 | $9.63 | $10.58 | $11.46 | Book value / shareBVPS |
Per-share growththe realized rate an owner's share compounded
| 9-yr | 5-yr | |
|---|---|---|
| Revenue / share | +0.6%/yr | −2.3%/yr |
| Owner earnings / share | +31.5%/yr | +8.4%/yr |
| EPS | +12.8%/yr | +7.2%/yr |
| Dividends / share | +7.4%/yr | +8.4%/yr |
| Capital spending / share | −2.3%/yr | +146.6%/yr |
| Book value / share | +13.0%/yr | +13.8%/yr |
The record, charted
FY2016–2025Each measure over its full record; the current point and the worst year marked.
Revenue
$35Mlow FY2016
Quality & stewardship
Returns, the balance sheet, capital allocation, and pay.
Owner’s Scorecard
FY2025 10-K · source on SEC EDGAR →
Is it a good business?
- Operating margin 17.1%Modest fee marginOperating income $6M ÷ revenue $35MIndustry peers: median 22%
What this means
The heart of a asset manager: how much of each fee dollar survives the cost of running the business. Fees ride on assets under management, so the swing factors are net flows in or out and the market's move on the assets already there; the cost base is largely fixed, which lifts margins in a bull market and squeezes them in a bear one. A high margin held for years, through a market it does not control, is the operational mark of a real franchise.
- Net margin 59.0%WideNet income $21M ÷ revenue $35M
What this means
What reaches the owner after tax and interest. For a capital-light fee business this should be a wide share of revenue; when it is thin despite a high operating margin, debt taken on for acquisitions is usually the reason, so read it next to the balance sheet.
- Return on equity 21%StrongNet income $21M ÷ equity $100MIndustry peers: median 6%
What this means
Because the business ties up little capital, a healthy fee stream throws off a high return on the equity behind it. Read it with the buyback record: returning capital lifts this ratio honestly, but heavy debt taken to do so can flatter it.
Does AI threaten the moat?
Moderate contestabilityAI 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.
“This, along with the popularity of artificial intelligence (AI)-related stocks, helped the major averages climb the proverbial "wall of worry," with the S&P 500 Index and technology-dominated NASDAQ Composite ending the first half of 2025 at record highs.”
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, Jan 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.
Current assets$87M
- Cash & short-term investments$92M
- Receivables$1M
Current liabilities$21M
- Accounts payable$1M
- Other current liabilities$20M
Current ratio4.07×all current assets ÷ what's due · Graham looked for 2×
Quick ratio4.07×stricter: inventory excluded
Cash ratio4.32×strictest: cash alone against what's due
Working capital$66Mthe cushion left after near-term bills
Revenue, latest quarter vs. a year ago−7.7%the freshest read on whether the business is still growing
Current ratio, recent quarters3.2× → 4.1×
Deeper floors
Tangible book value$103Mequity stripped of goodwill & intangibles
Net current asset value$44MGraham's net-net: current assets less all liabilities
Debt incl. operating leases$4M$3M of it operating leases
Deferred revenue$21Mcustomer cash collected before delivery; operating float
From the company's latest filing.
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 | Pay, as filed | “Actually paid” | Owner earnings |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2021 | $897k | $897k | $16M |
| 2022 | $790k | $790k | $25M |
| 2023 | $787k | $787k | $18M |
| 2024 | $938k | $938k | $18M |
| 2025 | $890k | $890k | $20M |
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 2025 proxy: skin in the game, the first thing Munger reads.
- Stock-based compensation$2M
The slice of the business handed to employees in shares this year, 5% of revenue, equal to 30% of operating profit. 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.
What an owner would ask, FY2025
read the 10-K →- How much of the revenue rides on one buyer?≈$10M · 30% of revenue on the largest customer (TTM)
“During the twelve months ended April 30, 2025, 29.6% of total publishing revenues of $35,079,000 were derived from a single customer.”verify →
The questions the record and the charts do not answer on their own; each carries the figure and the place to look.
Peers, Capital Markets & Asset Management
The same industry, side by side on fee margins. 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 | Op. margin | Net margin | ROE |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| HLNEHamilton Lane | $759M | 33.2% | 23.8% | 29% |
| GCMGGCM Grosvenor Inc. | $558M | 18.9% | 3.3% | 168% |
| CNSCohen & Steers | $556M | 38.3% | 28.4% | 39% |
| RPCRidgepost Capital Inc. | $297M | 21.9% | 6.6% | 5% |
| ALTIAlTi Global Inc. | $255M | -21.8% | -46.9% | -27% |
| ABXAbacus Global Management Inc. | $235M | 37.0% | 14.9% | 6% |
| DBRGDigitalBridge Group Inc. | $94M | -16.2% | -26.0% | -5% |
| VALUValue Line Inc. | $35M | 18.1% | 43.3% | 26% |
| Group median | — | 20.4% | 10.7% | 16% |
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 Value Line Inc. has delivered.
Value Line Inc.’s latest year runs above its own through-cycle margin — the reported figure may flatter a peak. So the tool opens on the through-cycle base, Graham’s averaging cutting both ways; clear the toggle below to read the latest year exactly as reported.
$
Through the cycle, Value Line Inc. earns about $13M on its 37.3% median owner-earnings margin. This year’s 57.2% margin runs above that; the reported figure may flatter a peak you'd be paying on. Normalize, below, values the price on that through-cycle figure rather than the latest year. It comes pre-checked here for that reason, the same rule that already normalizes a trough; clear it to price the year as filed.
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.
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.
Implied by the price—
Owner-earnings growth · ’21→’25−2%/yr
Owner-earnings growth · ’16→’25+27%/yr
Owner-earnings growth · ’16→’25+27%/yr
Owner-earnings yield—
What a growth belief costs, in multiples
The growth each return requires, at your price
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 yield—
High-grade bond yield—
Margin over the bond—
Owner earnings $19M on 9M shares outstanding, per the 10-Q cover, as of 2026-02-28; net cash $91M. The base opens on the through-cycle figure (the latest year sits above 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.
Cite: Owner Scorecard, "Value Line Inc. (VALU), the owner's record," https://ownerscorecard.com/c/VALU, data as of 2026-07-09.
Manual order: ← VAC its page in the Manual VC →
Industry order: ← UROY the Capital Markets & Asset Management chapter VCTR →