Share count
143Mpeak FY2025
← All companies ← VNO Manual VNT → ← VIST Oil & Gas Producers VTS →
VNOM, Viper Energy
Oil & Gas Producers capital-intensive
Revenue is Oil income (84%), Natural gas liquids income (12%) and Natural gas income (4%).
The business
What it sells, where the money comes from, the kind of company it is.
Revenue · FY2025
$1.3B
+57.6% YoY
Vital signs · TTM, with 3-yr average
Revenue $511M +108.6% vs yr-ago qtr
Operating margin 49.5% yr-ago 63.3%
Net income $215M yr-ago $153M
Net margin 42.1% yr-ago 62.4%
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
- An oil and gas business, whose fortunes rise and fall with a price it does not set.
- What moves the needle
- Operating margin has run about 66% through the cycle, a wide margin for the work it does — whether that reflects a durable edge or one that can fade is what the record weighs. The operating margin has swung widely — from −10% to 86% over the years — so the through-cycle figure carries more than any single year, and the worst year more than the best. Read this kind of business on the commodity price, and the cost to lift a barrel. On its own account, the filing leans hardest on pricing power & competition, set against the numbers in what the filing emphasizes, below.
- Is it a good business?
- Return on capital has run in the teens (median 18%, above 15% in 2 of 3 years). Returns like these are solid but short of clear franchise economics; whether they hold is what the 10-K settles, 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 →Oil income is 84% of revenue, with Natural gas liquids income the other meaningful line at 12%.
Revenue by product line, FY2025
- Oil income84%$1.1B
- Natural gas liquids income12%$159M
- Natural gas income4%$56M
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, 2023–2025
realized figures from each filing · older years to the left| 2023’23 | 2024’24 | 2025’25 | TTMTTMMar 2026 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Income statement | ||||
| $717M | $854M | $1.3B | $1.6B | RevenueRevenue |
| $620M | $567M | ($140M) | ($42M) | Operating incomeOp. inc. |
| 86.5% | 66.4% | −10.4% | −2.6% | Operating marginOp. mgn |
| $200M | $359M | ($68M) | ($46M) | Net incomeNet inc. |
| Cash flow & returns | ||||
| $638M | $620M | $1.1B | $1.2B | Operating cash flowOp. cash |
| $438M | $261M | $1.1B | $1.2B | Working capital & otherWC & other |
| $129M | $219M | $328M | $343M | Dividends paidDiv. paid |
| 18% | 21% | -2% | -0% | ROICROIC |
| 7% | 21% | -2% | -1% | Return on equityROE |
| 2% | 8% | −9% | −8% | Retained to equityRetained/eq |
| Balance sheet | ||||
| — | $27M | $13M | $28M | Cash & investmentsCash+inv |
| — | $238M | $413M | $469M | Current assetsCur. assets |
| — | $49M | $111M | $76M | Current liabilitiesCur. liab. |
| — | 4.9× | 3.7× | 6.2× | Current ratioCurr. ratio |
| — | $5.1B | $12.7B | $12.0B | Total assetsAssets |
| — | $1.1B | $2.2B | $2.6B | Total debtDebt |
| — | $1.1B | $2.2B | $2.6B | Net debt / (cash)Net debt |
| $2.9B | $1.7B | $4.4B | $5.1B | Shareholders’ equityEquity |
| Per share | ||||
| 74.2M | 93.9M | 143M | 181M | Shares out (diluted)Shares |
| $9.67 | $9.09 | $9.44 | $8.81 | Revenue / shareRev/sh |
| $2.70 | $3.82 | $-0.48 | $-0.25 | EPS (diluted)EPS |
| $1.74 | $2.33 | $2.30 | $1.89 | Dividends / shareDiv/sh |
| $38.52 | $17.96 | $31.21 | $28.19 | Book value / shareBVPS |
The diluted share count moved ×1.52 into 2025 — shares issued, not a split the totals corroborate — and the per-share figures carry the counts as filed.
The record, charted
FY2023–2025Each measure over its full record; the current point and the worst year marked.
ROIC
−2%low FY2025
Where the cash went
ReinvestBuybacksDividendsAcquisitionsRetainedEach year's operating cash, by what management did with it: the mix, and how it drifts.
FY2023FY2025
Quality & stewardship
Returns, the balance sheet, capital allocation, and pay.
Owner’s Scorecard
FY2025 10-K · source on SEC EDGAR →
Will it survive?
- Interest expense not tagged in the data
What this means
No usable interest-expense line was tagged in the filing data, but the balance sheet carries real net debt — so the interest burden here is unknown, not absent. Read the debt on the net-debt check below.
- Net debt against an operating lossCash $13M − debt $2.2B
What this means
Netting $13M of cash and short-term investments against $2.2B of debt leaves $2.2B owed, with no operating profit this year to measure it against — understand that combination before anything else about the company. Net debt is the leverage figure that matters: the cash is already set against the debt. Strategic or illiquid investments aren't counted here.
- Not enough data
What this means
The filing data didn't include the inputs for this check.
Is it a good business?
- High through the cycle3-yr median, range -2%–21%; -2% latest = NOPAT ($111M) ÷ invested capital $6.6BIndustry peers: median 7%
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 -2% 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.
- Not enough dataIndustry peers: median 23%
What this means
The filing data didn't include the inputs for this check.
- Loss, but cash-generativeNet income ($68M) · cash from operations $1.1B
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.
How is the cash used?
- Not enough data
What this means
The filing data didn't include the inputs for this check.
- Investing or harvesting? —Not enough data
What this means
The filing data didn't include the inputs for this check.
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 NearRevenue ≥ $2B · $1.3B
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 PassCurrent ratio ≥ 2× · 3.72×
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 MissDebt ≤ working capital · $2.2B vs $302M 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.
- 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 $0.90/share (latest year $-0.38), the averaged base the calculator's gate runs on, and book value is $24.53/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.
Does AI threaten the moat?
Low contestabilityThe moat is physical, regulated or balance-sheet-funded, the kind AI cuts costs within but does not contest.
In its own filing Framed as a capability
The filing positions AI as something the company uses, not something it fears.
“More recently, advancements in AI pose serious risks for many of the traditional tools used to identify individuals, including voice recognition (whether by machine or the human ear), facial recognition or screening questions to confirm identities.”
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, 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$469M
- Cash & short-term investments$28M
- Other current assets$441M
Current liabilities$76M
- Debt due within a year$380M
Current ratio6.17×all current assets ÷ what's due · Graham looked for 2×
Quick ratio—inventory untagged this quarter, so withheld rather than shown equal to the current ratio
Cash ratio0.37×strictest: cash alone against what's due
Working capital$393Mthe cushion left after near-term bills
Debt due this year vs. cash$380M due · $28M cash
cash alone won't cover the maturities; it leans on refinancing or operating cash · both figures from the Mar 31, 2026 balance sheet
Revenue, latest quarter vs. a year ago+108.6%the freshest read on whether the business is still growing
Current ratio, recent quarters4.9× → 6.2×
Deeper floors
Tangible book value$5.1Bequity stripped of goodwill & intangibles
Net current asset value($1.2B)Graham's net-net: current assets less all liabilities
Debt incl. operating leases$2.0Bno operating-lease liability tagged this quarter, so debt alone
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 | Chief executive | Pay, as filed | “Actually paid” | Net income |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2024 | Travis D. Stice | $1.2M | $1.9M | $359M |
| 2025 | Kaes Van’t Hof | $1.8M | $986k | ($68M) |
| 2025 | Travis D. Stice | $69k | −$194k | ($68M) |
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. Net income is the whole business's, as filed, for the same fiscal years.
- Insider ownership<1%
The stake all directors and executive officers hold together, per the 2026 proxy: skin in the game, the first thing Munger reads.
Peers, Oil & Gas Producers
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| TALOTalos Energy Inc. | $1.8B | — | 12.7% | 6% | 5% |
| HESMHess Midstream LP | $1.6B | — | 60.4% | — | 48% |
| GPORGulfport Energy | $1.4B | 69% | 0.5% | 7% | 23% |
| VNOMViper Energy | $1.3B | — | 66.4% | 18% | — |
| MGYMagnolia Oil & Gas | $1.3B | — | 41.2% | 19% | 32% |
| KOSKosmos Energy Ltd. Common Shares (DE) | $1.3B | — | -5.2% | -1% | 12% |
| MNRMach Natural Resources LP Common | $1.2B | — | 39.6% | — | 41% |
| AESIAtlas Energy Solutions Inc. | $1.1B | — | 27.3% | 9% | 15% |
| Group median | — | — | 33.4% | 8% | — |
The price
What a price has to assume.
What the price implies
reverse-DCFThe owner-earnings base could not be formed from this filing’s tagged data (operating cash flow or capital spending is missing), so the owner-earnings reverse-DCF has no base to grow. We read the price from both ends instead: type a price to see the profitability it demands, then set the mature margin you would believe and weigh the two against each other. Nothing leaves your browser unless you enter it in your notebook.
$
The assumptions
Enter a price to run it.
Owner earnings it must reach—
Margin the price demands—
Owner-earnings margin today—
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.
Two reads of one future. From your price: the owner earnings the company must reach, valued at a mature multiple and discounted back at your rate, expressed as the margin it implies on revenue grown at your rate. From your belief: the mature margin you would credit, set on the dial above. When the margin the price demands runs above the one you would believe, you are paying for a future taken on faith. For a deep cyclical at a trough, normalized through-cycle earnings are the better lens; this mode is for the genuinely unprofitable, and for the profitable business whose capital spending currently outruns its cash.
Cite: Owner Scorecard, "Viper Energy (VNOM), the owner's record," https://ownerscorecard.com/c/VNOM, data as of 2026-07-09.
Manual order: ← VNO its page in the Manual VNT →
Industry order: ← VIST the Oil & Gas Producers chapter VTS →