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VECO, Veeco Instruments Inc.

Semiconductor Equipment capital-intensive Distress / turnaroundCyclical

Veeco Instruments Inc. markets Description Applicable Veeco Technologies Semiconductor The Semiconductor market refers to process steps in logic and memory applications where silicon wafers are processed.

We are a manufacturer of advanced semiconductor process equipment that solves an array of challenging materials engineering problems for our customers.

Serving a global and highly interconnected customer base, we have comprehensive sales and service operations across the Asia-Pacific, Europe, and North America regions to ensure real-time close collaboration and responsiveness.

Latest annual: FY2025 10-K

VECO · Veeco Instruments Inc.

The business

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

Revenue · FY2025

$664M

−7.4% YoY · 8% 5-yr CAGR

Vital signs · TTM, with 5-yr average

Revenue $655M 5-yr avg $655M

Gross margin 39% 5-yr avg 41%

Operating margin 2.9% 5-yr avg 8.9%

ROIC 2% 5-yr avg 7%

Owner-earnings margin 7% 5-yr avg 8%

Free cash flow margin 7% 5-yr avg 7%

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 led by Semiconductor (72%) and Scientific and Other (13%), with 2 more lines behind.
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 40% and operating margin about 5.0% through the cycle, a spread the cycle sets more than the company does. The margin is cyclical, swinging between −77% 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 32% of sales, so how fast it turns back into cash — and the risk of writing it down when demand softens — sits alongside the margin. Read this kind of business on the capital-goods cycle and the aftermarket. 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 rarely cleared the cost of capital (median −1%, above 15% in 0 of 8 years). By owner earnings: roughly 6% of revenue reaches owners as cash, though it swings. 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 10-K →

Semiconductor is 72% of revenue, with Scientific And Other the other meaningful line at 13%.

Revenue by product line, FY2025

Semiconductor72%$477M
Scientific And Other13%$89M
Compound Semiconductor9%$60M
Data Storage6%$39M

By geographyRest of APAC50%China27%United States15%EMEA8%Rest Of World0%

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	TTMTTMMar 2026
											Income statement
$332M	$476M	$542M	$419M	$454M	$583M	$646M	$666M	$717M	$664M	$655M	RevenueRevenue
40%	37%	36%	38%	43%	42%	41%	43%	42%	40%	39%	Gross marginGross mgn
23%	21%	17%	19%	17%	14%	14%	14%	14%	15%	15%	SG&A / revenueSG&A/rev
24%	17%	18%	22%	17%	15%	16%	17%	17%	18%	18%	R&D / revenueR&D/rev
($120M)	($72M)	($416M)	($40M)	$23M	$57M	$60M	$70M	$67M	$36M	$19M	Operating incomeOp. inc.
−36.2%	−15.1%	−76.6%	−9.4%	5.0%	9.7%	9.3%	10.5%	9.3%	5.4%	2.9%	Operating marginOp. mgn
($122M)	($51M)	($407M)	($79M)	($8M)	$26M	$167M	($30M)	$74M	$35M	$23M	Net incomeNet inc.
—	—	—	—	—	-1%	—	—	-7%	10%	-1%	Effective tax rateTax rate
											Cash flow & returns
($24M)	$35M	($38M)	($7M)	$43M	$68M	$108M	$62M	$64M	$69M	$57M	Operating cash flowOp. cash
$33M	$50M	$50M	$34M	$31M	$26M	$26M	$25M	$25M	$20M	$20M	DepreciationDeprec.
$50M	$12M	$303M	$22M	$8M	$397K	($107M)	$39M	($71M)	($23M)	($22M)	Working capital & otherWC & other
$11M	$24M	$13M	$11M	$7M	$41M	$25M	$28M	$18M	$16M	$15M	CapexCapex
3.5%	5.1%	2.3%	2.6%	1.5%	7.0%	3.8%	4.2%	2.5%	2.4%	2.2%	Capex / revenueCapex/rev
($35M)	$11M	($50M)	($18M)	$36M	$42M	$84M	$34M	$46M	$53M	$43M	Owner earningsOwner earn.
−10.6%	2.3%	−9.3%	−4.4%	8.0%	7.1%	13.0%	5.1%	6.4%	8.0%	6.5%	Owner earnings marginOE mgn
($35M)	$11M	($50M)	($18M)	$36M	$27M	$84M	$34M	$46M	$53M	$43M	Free cash flowFCF
−10.6%	2.3%	−9.3%	−4.4%	8.0%	4.6%	13.0%	5.1%	6.4%	8.0%	6.5%	Free cash flow marginFCF mgn
—	$402M	$3M	—	—	—	—	$30M	—	—	$30M	AcquisitionsAcquis.
$13M	$3M	$11M	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	BuybacksBuybacks
-29%	-7%	-64%	-6%	—	10%	9%	—	7%	3%	2%	ROICROIC
-20%	-6%	-93%	-21%	-2%	6%	29%	-5%	10%	4%	3%	Return on equityROE
−20%	−6%	−93%	−21%	−2%	6%	29%	−5%	10%	4%	3%	Retained to equityRetained/eq
											Balance sheet
$277M	$280M	$212M	$129M	$130M	$120M	$155M	$159M	$146M	$163M	$606M	Cash & investmentsCash+inv
$58M	$99M	$67M	$46M	$80M	$110M	$124M	$103M	$97M	$111M	$151M	ReceivablesReceiv.
$77M	$120M	$156M	$133M	$146M	$171M	$207M	$238M	$247M	$275M	$282M	InventoryInvent.
$23M	$50M	$40M	$21M	$34M	$44M	$52M	$42M	$44M	$55M	$60M	Accounts payablePayables
$112M	$169M	$184M	$157M	$192M	$236M	$279M	$298M	$300M	$331M	$373M	Operating working capitalOper. WC
$502M	$597M	$520M	$476M	$587M	$549M	$669M	$706M	$765M	$845M	$873M	Current assetsCur. assets
$144M	$224M	$160M	$118M	$147M	$189M	$258M	$218M	$192M	$178M	$207M	Current liabilitiesCur. liab.
3.5×	2.7×	3.2×	4.0×	4.0×	2.9×	2.6×	3.2×	4.0×	4.7×	4.2×	Current ratioCurr. ratio
$115M	$307M	$184M	$182M	$182M	$182M	$182M	$215M	$215M	$215M	$215M	GoodwillGoodwill
$759M	$1.4B	$901M	$818M	$898M	$899M	$1.1B	$1.2B	$1.3B	$1.3B	$1.4B	Total assetsAssets
$1M	$276M	$287M	$300M	$321M	$229M	$275M	$275M	$276M	$226M	$253M	Total debtDebt
($276M)	($4M)	$75M	$171M	$191M	$110M	$120M	$116M	$131M	$63M	($353M)	Net debt / (cash)Net debt
-541.3×	-3.7×	-19.3×	-1.8×	0.9×	2.0×	5.2×	5.9×	6.1×	3.9×	2.2×	Interest coverageInt. cov.
$602M	$840M	$438M	$375M	$408M	$438M	$578M	$672M	$771M	$886M	$884M	Shareholders’ equityEquity
4.7%	5.1%	3.0%	3.6%	2.8%	2.6%	3.6%	4.3%	5.0%	5.6%	5.5%	Stock comp / revenueSBC/rev
											Per share
39.3M	44.2M	47.2M	47.5M	48.4M	53.6M	65.6M	53.8M	61.6M	60.6M	60.4M	Shares out (diluted)Shares
$8.43	$10.77	$11.50	$8.83	$9.39	$10.87	$9.85	$12.39	$11.65	$10.96	$10.85	Revenue / shareRev/sh
$-3.10	$-1.16	$-8.63	$-1.66	$-0.17	$0.49	$2.54	$-0.56	$1.20	$0.58	$0.38	EPS (diluted)EPS
$-0.90	$0.24	$-1.07	$-0.39	$0.75	$0.78	$1.28	$0.63	$0.74	$0.88	$0.71	Owner earnings / shareOE/sh
$-0.90	$0.24	$-1.07	$-0.39	$0.75	$0.51	$1.28	$0.63	$0.74	$0.88	$0.71	Free cash flow / shareFCF/sh
$0.29	$0.55	$0.27	$0.23	$0.14	$0.76	$0.38	$0.52	$0.29	$0.27	$0.24	Cap. spending / shareCapex/sh
$15.29	$19.02	$9.28	$7.89	$8.44	$8.16	$8.81	$12.51	$12.51	$14.61	$14.63	Book value / shareBVPS

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

	9-yr	5-yr
Revenue / share	+3.0%/yr	+3.1%/yr
Owner earnings / share	—	+3.3%/yr
Capital spending / share	−1.0%/yr	+13.7%/yr
Book value / share	−0.5%/yr	+11.6%/yr

The record, charted

FY2016–2025

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

Share count

61Mpeak FY2022

ROIC

3%low FY2018

Gross margin

40%low FY2018

Owner earnings vs. net income

Owner earningsNet income

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

$53Mowner earningsvs.$35Mnet incomelow FY2018

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.

FY2017FY2025

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 $35M of profit into $53M of owner earnings: more cash than the profit line showed, after the non-cash charges and the capital it put back in.

Reported net income$35M

Owner earnings$53M · 8% of revenue

	FY2025	FY2024	FY2023	FY2022	FY2021
Reported net income	$35M	$74M	($30M)	$167M	$26M
Depreciation & amortizationnon-cash charge added back	+$20M	+$25M	+$25M	+$26M	+$26M
Stock-based compensationreal costnon-cash, but a real cost	+$37M	+$36M	+$29M	+$23M	+$15M
Working capital & othertiming of cash in and out, other non-cash items	−$23M	−$71M	+$39M	−$107M	+$397K
Cash from operations	$69M	$64M	$62M	$108M	$68M
Maintenance capital expenditurethe spending needed just to hold position and volume	−$16M	−$18M	−$28M	−$25M	−$26M
Owner earnings	$53M	$46M	$34M	$84M	$42M
Growth capital expenditurediscretionary; spent to get bigger, not to stand still	—	—	—	—	−$15M
Free cash flow	$53M	$46M	$34M	$84M	$27M
Owner-earnings marginowner earnings ÷ revenue	8%	6%	5%	13%	7%

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 $37M), owner earnings is nearer $16M.

Much of fiscal 2025's profit didn't arrive as operating cash; it sits in “working capital & other” above. That can be a real inventory or timing swing, or profit that doesn't run through operating cash at all: a heavy tax year, equity-method earnings, or investment income booked through investing. For a year like this, owner earnings understates the cash earned; the full cash-flow statement carries the rest.

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? 3.9×

Adequate

Operating income $36M ÷ interest expense $9M

What this means
Comfortable in a normal year, but below the margin of safety Graham looked for. Worth checking how stable the coverage has been across a full cycle.
How heavy is the debt, net of cash? $89M · 2.5× operating profit

Meaningful net debt

Cash $163M − debt $253M

What this means
Netting $163M of cash and short-term investments against $253M of debt leaves $89M owed, about 2.5× a year's operating profit (7.1× on the gross debt, before the cash). 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? 262d

Long (60+ days)

DSO 61 + DIO 252 − DPO 51 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 -6%

Below average through the cycle

8-yr median, range -64%–10%; 3% latest = NOPAT $32M ÷ invested capital $975M

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 8 years (it ran 3% 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 5%

Solid through the cycle

10-yr median margin, range -11%–13%; latest $53M = operating cash $69M − maintenance capex $16M

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 8% of revenue this year, a 5% median across 10 years. Treating stock comp as the real expense it is (less $37M of SBC) leaves $16M.
Are earnings backed by cash? 1.96×

Cash-backed

Cash from ops $69M ÷ net income $35M

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? 21%

Reinvests most of it

Dividends + buybacks $11M ÷ Owner Earnings $53M

What this means
Of $53M Owner Earnings, $11M (21%) went back to shareholders, $0 dividends, $11M buybacks. But the buybacks barely exceed stock issued to employees ($37M SBC), net of dilution, little was truly returned. 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? 0.81×

Maintaining

Capex $16M ÷ depreciation $20M

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 · 2 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 · $664M

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× · 4.75×

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 · $253M vs $667M 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) · 6 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 $0.43/share (latest year $0.58), 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 4 of 10

What this means
Lost money in 6 year(s), look at what happened there before trusting the average.
Return on capital ≥ 15% 0 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 −43% → 8% (3-yr avg ends)

What this means
Through the cycle the operating margin widened — about −43% early to 8% lately, median 5% — pricing power intact or improving.
Reinvestment, incremental ROIC —

What this means
The reinvested base moved too little against the change in profit to read a reliable return on it here — the figure would be a small-denominator artifact, not a moat. Judge this one on the owner-earnings record and the cash it returns instead.
Worst year 2018 · −76.6% op. margin

What this means
Operations went underwater in 2018, understand why before trusting the good years.
Share count +4.9%/yr

What this means
The share count is rising, dilution works against you on a per-share basis.
How management talks about it Promotional

What this means
The record is compounding, but the filing leans on a promoter’s vocabulary rather than the per-share, return-on-capital terms an owner uses. The results back the talk here; the register is still worth noting.

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.

“We are exposed to risks related to the use of artificial intelligence by us and by our competitors.”

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 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$873M

Cash & short-term investments$606M
Receivables$151M
Inventory$282M

Current liabilities$207M

Debt due within a year$26M
Accounts payable$60M
Other current liabilities$120M

Current ratio4.23×all current assets ÷ what's due · Graham looked for 2×

Quick ratio2.86×stricter: inventory excluded

Cash ratio2.93×strictest: cash alone against what's due

Working capital$667Mthe cushion left after near-term bills

Debt due this year vs. cash$26M due · $606M cash covered by cash on hand, no refinancing forced · both figures from the Mar 31, 2026 balance sheet

Revenue, latest quarter vs. a year ago−5.4%the freshest read on whether the business is still growing

Current ratio, recent quarters3.5× → 4.2×

Deeper floors

Tangible book value$664Mequity stripped of goodwill & intangibles

Net current asset value$404MGraham's net-net: current assets less all liabilities

Debt incl. operating leases$288M$35M of it operating leases

Deferred revenue$93Mcustomer cash collected before delivery; operating float

From the company's latest filing.

How the cash was used, 2016–2025

Over the record, the business generated $380M of operating cash; how management split it reads as a reinvestor, most operating cash is plowed back into the business.

Reinvested$194M · 51%
Buybacks$28M · 7%
Retained (debt / cash)$159M · 42%

Returned to owners$28M
14% of the owner earnings the business produced over the span, $0 as dividends and $28M as buybacks.
Source of fundingOperating cash
Operating cash covered reinvestment and returns; over the span debt rose $252M and cash and short-term investments rose $328M.
Average price paid for buybacks$19.07
Across the years where the filing reports a share count, 1M shares were bought for $13M, about $19.07 each.
Net change in share count53.6%
The diluted count rose from 39M to 60M: issuance (stock pay, deals) outran any buybacks, so owners were diluted on net.
Dividend record—
No dividend line was reported in the filing data over the span; the record here neither confirms nor rules out a payout.

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$221M17% of all assets; the premium carried on the balance sheet for businesses acquired

Against book equity24%goodwill is this share of book equity; the rest is the company’s own retained and paid-in capital

Cash spent acquiring$435Mover 10 years buying other businesses, against $194M of capital spent building

$123M written down across 1 year (2018): goodwill the company has already conceded it overpaid for, charged against earnings. That is roughly 28% of the cash it put into acquisitions over the span. A write-down costs no cash (the cash went out when the deal was signed), but it is management marking its own past judgment to market.

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	Dr. Miller	$4.5M	$13.1M	$42M
2022	Dr. Miller	$5.9M	$895k	$84M
2023	Dr. Miller	$4.6M	$13.1M	$34M
2024	Dr. Miller	$6.9M	$2.8M	$46M
2025	Dr. Miller	$4.6M	$5.7M	$53M

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 ownership2.7%
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$37M
The slice of the business handed to employees in shares this year, 6% of revenue, equal to 104% 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.

Inverting the record

Invert: instead of why Veeco Instruments Inc. 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.

4 of the 5 tests turned up something to look into; the other 1 came back clean.

Look hereDid the share count rise anyway?53.6%
Diluted shares grew 53.6% over 2016–2025, even as the company spent $28M on buybacks. The repurchases were a treadmill: stock issued to staff outran them, so owners' slice still shrank. Read the buyback line beside this one, not on its own.
Look hereDid debt outgrow the business?$1M → $253M
Debt rose from $1M to $253M while owner earnings went from about ($25M) to $44M: measured against what the business earns, the balance sheet carries more debt than it did. Debt raised for buybacks or deals rather than growth is the kind that bites in a downturn.
Look hereDid receivables and inventory outpace sales?41% → 66% of sales
Receivables and inventory grew from $135M to $433M while revenue grew 98%: working capital is climbing faster than sales (41% of revenue then, 66% now). That can mean customers paying slower, stock building up, or revenue pulled forward. The filing's cash-flow and receivables notes say which.
Look hereAre "one-time" charges a yearly habit?6 of 10 years
Management took an impairment or write-down in 6 of the last 10 years, $601M in all. Taken across the majority of the record, the "one-time" label is wearing thin — ask whether these are past deals coming due rather than genuinely isolated events. Read it beside the goodwill the company still carries.

And these came back clean

Is it less profitable than it was?

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 →

Which reported numbers are a judgment call?
Management names Revenue recognition, Income taxes, Inventory as critical estimates
each rests partly on management's judgment; the filing's note sets out the assumptionsverify →

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

Peers, Semiconductor 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.

Company	Revenue	Gross margin	Op. margin	ROIC	Owner earn. margin
KAIKadant	$1.1B	44%	14.0%	12%	12%
ACMRACM Research Inc.	$901M	47%	14.3%	20%	-12%
ACLSAxcelis Technologies	$839M	43%	13.9%	21%	13%
CRCTCricut Inc.	$709M	39%	11.0%	32%	—
GRCGorman-Rupp Company (The)	$682M	26%	11.0%	11%	11%
VECOVeeco Instruments Inc.	$664M	40%	5.2%	-1%	6%
PLOWDouglas Dynamics Inc.	$656M	27%	12.6%	12%	9%
AZTAAzenta Inc.	$594M	44%	-6.1%	-3%	6%
Group median	—	42%	11.8%	12%	9%

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 Veeco Instruments Inc. has delivered.

Veeco Instruments 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.

Today’s price $

Through the cycle, Veeco Instruments Inc. earns about $38M on its 5.7% median owner-earnings margin. This year’s 8.0% 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 Normalize · through-cycle ($38M) Net of stock comp (−$36M)

—

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→’25−6%/yr

Owner-earnings growth · since FY2020+8%/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 $43M on 61M shares outstanding, per the 10-Q cover, as of 2026-04-30; net cash $353M. 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.

Weigh VECO against another business →

The owners of VECO: the meeting and the votes →

Cite: Owner Scorecard, "Veeco Instruments Inc. (VECO), the owner's record," https://ownerscorecard.com/c/VECO, data as of 2026-07-09.

Manual order: ← VCYT its page in the Manual VEEV →

Industry order: ← ONTO the Semiconductor Equipment chapter VELO →