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VTOL, Bristow Group Inc.

Airlines capital-intensive Cyclical

Bristow Group Inc. is the leading global provider of innovative and sustainable vertical flight solutions.

We primarily provide aviation services to a broad base of offshore energy companies and government entities.

Our aviation services include personnel transportation, search and rescue ("SAR"), medevac, fixed wing transportation, unmanned systems and ad-hoc helicopter services.

Latest annual: FY2025 10-K

VTOL · Bristow Group Inc.

The business

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

Revenue · FY2025

$1.5B

+5.3% YoY · 2% 5-yr CAGR

Vital signs · TTM, with 5-yr average

Revenue $1.5B 5-yr avg $1.3B

Operating margin 10.5% 5-yr avg 3.7%

ROIC 10% 5-yr avg 3%

Owner-earnings margin 7% 5-yr avg 3%

Free cash flow margin 4% 5-yr avg −0%

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 Offshore Energy Services (66%), Government Services (25%) and Other Services (8%).
Situation: 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: Operating margin has reached 13% at its best but run negative through the cycle (median −0.2%) — so the question is which reading is truer: whether the median was pulled below zero by one-off charges, by the cycle, or by spending it is still growing into, and whether it settles back at a profit. Read this kind of business on load factor against unit cost, and fuel. 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 2%, above 15% in 0 of 9 years). By owner earnings: roughly 4% 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 →

The biggest segment, Offshore Energy Services, is also where the profit is made: 66% of revenue and 92% of the profitable segments' operating profit. Corporate ran a $22M operating loss.

Revenue by reportable segment, FY2025

Operating profit profitable segments only

Offshore Energy Services66%$990M92% of profit
Government Services25%$379M3% of profit
Other Services8%$121M5% of profit
Corporate0%$0loss of $22M

By geographyUnited Kingdom28%Other24%Norway19%United States17%Nigeria13%

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 the profitable segments' operating profit (a loss-making segment carries its loss in dollars in the legend, not a share of the bar), before unallocated corporate costs.

The record

Ten years of arithmetic, read across the cycle.

The record, 2015–2025

realized figures from each filing · older years to the left

2015’15	2016’16	2017’17	2018’18	2019’19	2021’21	2022’22	2023’23	2024’24	2025’25	TTMTTMMar 2026
											Income statement
$282M	$247M	$231M	$222M	$1.3B	$1.1B	$1.2B	$1.3B	$1.4B	$1.5B	$1.5B	RevenueRevenue
15%	15%	18%	20%	14%	13%	14%	14%	12%	12%	11%	SG&A / revenueSG&A/rev
$24M	($3M)	($136M)	$28M	($3M)	($42M)	($28M)	$61M	$133M	$159M	$160M	Operating incomeOp. inc.
8.6%	−1.4%	−59.0%	12.7%	−0.2%	−3.7%	−2.5%	4.8%	9.4%	10.7%	10.5%	Operating marginOp. mgn
$9M	($8M)	($28M)	$14M	($337M)	($56M)	$9M	($7M)	$95M	$129M	$115M	Net incomeNet inc.
—	—	—	17%	—	—	54%	—	7%	14%	12%	Effective tax rateTax rate
											Cash flow & returns
$44M	$59M	$20M	$54M	($109M)	$97M	($8M)	$32M	$177M	$198M	$191M	Operating cash flowOp. cash
$47M	$49M	$46M	$40M	$125M	$70M	$75M	$71M	$68M	$70M	$78M	DepreciationDeprec.
($15M)	$13M	($2M)	($2M)	$96M	$71M	($104M)	($48M)	($1M)	($18M)	($19M)	Working capital & otherWC & other
$60M	$39M	$17M	$9M	$7M	$15M	$31M	$82M	$255M	$142M	$131M	CapexCapex
21.3%	15.9%	7.2%	4.2%	0.5%	1.3%	2.7%	6.4%	18.0%	9.5%	8.6%	Capex / revenueCapex/rev
($3M)	$19M	$3M	$45M	($116M)	$82M	($39M)	($49M)	$109M	$128M	$113M	Owner earningsOwner earn.
−1.0%	7.8%	1.4%	20.4%	−8.8%	7.2%	−3.4%	−3.9%	7.7%	8.6%	7.4%	Owner earnings marginOE mgn
($16M)	$19M	$3M	$45M	($116M)	$82M	($39M)	($49M)	($78M)	$56M	$59M	Free cash flowFCF
−5.5%	7.8%	1.4%	20.4%	−8.8%	7.2%	−3.4%	−3.9%	−5.5%	3.8%	3.9%	Free cash flow marginFCF mgn
$2M	$0	$0	—	—	—	$0	$0	$0	—	$0	AcquisitionsAcquis.
$2M	$161K	$52K	$0	$0	$11M	$41M	$3M	$4M	$15M	—	BuybacksBuybacks
2%	-0%	-17%	2%	—	-3%	-1%	3%	9%	9%	10%	ROICROIC
2%	-2%	-6%	1%	-41%	-6%	1%	-1%	11%	12%	11%	Return on equityROE
2%	−2%	−6%	1%	−41%	−6%	1%	−1%	11%	12%	11%	Retained to equityRetained/eq
											Balance sheet
$14M	$27M	$14M	$51M	$117M	$228M	$160M	$180M	$248M	$286M	$342M	Cash & investmentsCash+inv
$49M	$32M	$34M	$33M	—	—	$183M	$208M	—	—	$208M	ReceivablesReceiv.
$28M	$25M	$21M	$21M	$20M	$92M	$82M	$100M	$115M	$133M	$133M	InventoryInvent.
$12M	$9M	$16M	$13M	$13M	$70M	$90M	$88M	$83M	$86M	$80M	Accounts payablePayables
$65M	$49M	$39M	$41M	$7M	$23M	$175M	$220M	$31M	$46M	$261M	Operating working capitalOper. WC
$103M	$96M	$83M	$116M	$196M	$586M	$493M	$564M	$619M	$694M	$792M	Current assetsCur. assets
$32M	$26M	$32M	$29M	$51M	$305M	$286M	$310M	$326M	$365M	$367M	Current liabilitiesCur. liab.
3.2×	3.8×	2.5×	4.0×	3.9×	1.9×	1.7×	1.8×	1.9×	1.9×	2.2×	Current ratioCurr. ratio
$0	—	—	—	$18M	$0	—	—	—	—	$0	GoodwillGoodwill
$1.0B	$955M	$792M	$765M	$765M	$1.9B	$1.8B	$1.9B	$2.1B	$2.3B	$2.4B	Total assetsAssets
$268M	$232M	$205M	$162M	$160M	$543M	$511M	$548M	$690M	$671M	$755M	Total debtDebt
$253M	$205M	$191M	$112M	$43M	$315M	$351M	$368M	$442M	$385M	$413M	Net debt / (cash)Net debt
1.8×	-0.2×	-8.1×	1.9×	-0.0×	-0.8×	-0.7×	1.5×	3.5×	4.0×	3.6×	Interest coverageInt. cov.
$471M	$468M	$446M	$1.2B	$812M	$898M	$787M	$824M	$892M	$1.1B	$1.1B	Shareholders’ equityEquity
1.3%	1.9%	2.0%	1.3%	0.5%	1.0%	1.0%	1.3%	1.1%	1.1%	1.1%	Stock comp / revenueSBC/rev
$2M	—	$117M	$991K	$3M	—	—	—	—	—	$3M	Goodwill written downGW imp.
											Per share
20.3M	20.4M	20.8M	21.2M	35.7M	31.7M	28.4M	28.1M	29.6M	29.9M	30.1M	Shares out (diluted)Shares
$13.90	$12.15	$11.14	$10.47	$37.04	$35.98	$40.52	$44.91	$47.90	$49.88	$50.85	Revenue / shareRev/sh
$0.43	$-0.39	$-1.36	$0.66	$-9.42	$-1.77	$0.32	$-0.24	$3.21	$4.32	$3.82	EPS (diluted)EPS
$-0.14	$0.95	$0.16	$2.13	$-3.25	$2.59	$-1.37	$-1.76	$3.69	$4.29	$3.76	Owner earnings / shareOE/sh
$-0.77	$0.95	$0.16	$2.13	$-3.25	$2.59	$-1.37	$-1.76	$-2.64	$1.89	$1.98	Free cash flow / shareFCF/sh
$2.96	$1.93	$0.81	$0.44	$0.18	$0.47	$1.09	$2.90	$8.64	$4.75	$4.37	Cap. spending / shareCapex/sh
$23.25	$23.02	$21.47	$55.88	$22.73	$28.34	$27.72	$29.27	$30.17	$35.46	$35.23	Book value / shareBVPS

The diluted share count moved ×1.69 into 2019 — shares issued, not a split the totals corroborate — and the per-share figures carry the counts as filed.

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

	10-yr	5-yr
Revenue / share	+13.6%/yr	+8.5%/yr (4-yr)
Owner earnings / share	—	+13.4%/yr (4-yr)
EPS	+26.0%/yr	—
Capital spending / share	+4.8%/yr	+78.5%/yr (4-yr)
Book value / share	+4.3%/yr	+5.8%/yr (4-yr)

The year, in the company's words

the filing →

Verbatim from the 10-K's management discussion. Each sentence is shown only because its subject, direction, and stated figures check out against the filed numbers on this page. The words are the company's; the arithmetic is the record's.

Government Services+15.1%
“Government Services Revenues from Government Services were $49.8 million higher in the Current Year due to the commencement of the IRCG contract and higher UKSAR revenues primarily due to favorable foreign exchange rate impacts and the commencement of fixed wing services.”
✓ figure matches the filed record

The record, charted

FY2015–2025

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

Share count

30Mpeak FY2019

ROIC

9%low FY2017

Net debt ÷ owner earnings

3.0×peak FY2017

Owner earnings vs. net income

Owner earningsNet income

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

$128Mowner earningsvs.$129Mnet incomelow FY2019

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.

FY2015FY2025

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 earned $128M of owner earnings, the operating cash left after the $70M it takes just to hold its position. It put $72M more into growth; free cash flow, after that spending, was $56M.

Reported net income$129M

Owner earnings$128M · 9% of revenue

	FY2025	FY2024	FY2023	FY2022	FY2021
Reported net income	$129M	$95M	($7M)	$9M	($56M)
Depreciation & amortizationnon-cash charge added back	+$70M	+$68M	+$71M	+$75M	+$70M
Stock-based compensationreal costnon-cash, but a real cost	+$17M	+$16M	+$16M	+$12M	+$12M
Working capital & othertiming of cash in and out, other non-cash items	−$18M	−$1M	−$48M	−$104M	+$71M
Cash from operations	$198M	$177M	$32M	($8M)	$97M
Maintenance capital expenditurethe spending needed just to hold position and volume	−$70M	−$68M	−$82M	−$31M	−$15M
Owner earnings	$128M	$109M	($49M)	($39M)	$82M
Growth capital expenditurediscretionary; spent to get bigger, not to stand still	−$72M	−$187M	—	—	—
Free cash flow	$56M	($78M)	($49M)	($39M)	$82M
Owner-earnings marginowner earnings ÷ revenue	9%	8%	-4%	-3%	7%

Owner earnings is the cash an owner could pull out without starving the business: operating cash less the maintenance capital it must spend to hold its position (here about $70M, roughly its depreciation, the rate its assets wear out). The other $72M of its capital spending is growth it chose, not upkeep it owed; charged only with the maintenance it must do, the business earns well more than the year's free cash flow shows. 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 $17M), owner earnings is nearer $111M.

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? 4.0×

Adequate

Operating income $159M ÷ interest expense $40M

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? $385M · 2.4× operating profit

Meaningful net debt

Cash $286M − debt $671M

What this means
Netting $286M of cash and short-term investments against $671M of debt leaves $385M owed, about 2.4× a year's operating profit (4.2× 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? —

Not enough data

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

Is it a good business?

Return on invested capital 2%

Below average through the cycle

9-yr median, range -17%–9%; 9% latest = NOPAT $136M ÷ invested capital $1.4B

Industry peers: median 6%

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 9 years (it ran 9% 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 1%

Thin through the cycle

10-yr median margin, range -9%–20%; latest $128M = operating cash $198M − maintenance capex $70M

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 9% of revenue this year, a 1% median across 10 years. It chose to put $72M more into growth, so free cash flow this year was $56M — the gap is investment, not weakness. Treating stock comp as the real expense it is (less $17M of SBC) leaves $111M.
Are earnings backed by cash? 1.54×

Cash-backed

Cash from ops $198M ÷ net income $129M

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? 12%

Reinvests most of it

Dividends + buybacks $15M ÷ Owner Earnings $128M

What this means
Of $128M Owner Earnings, $15M (12%) went back to shareholders, $0 dividends, $15M buybacks. But the buybacks barely exceed stock issued to employees ($17M 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? 2.02×

Expanding

Capex $142M ÷ depreciation $70M

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 · 0 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 Near

Revenue ≥ $2B · $1.5B

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× · 1.90×

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 Miss

Debt ≤ working capital · $671M vs $329M 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) · 5 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 $2.44/share (latest year $4.36), the averaged base the calculator's gate runs on, and book value is $35.79/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, 2015–2025

Whether the record’s returns held, and what the capital reinvested earned.

Profitable years 5 of 10

What this means
Lost money in 5 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 −17% → 8% (3-yr avg ends)

What this means
Through the cycle the operating margin widened — about −17% early to 8% lately, median −0% — pricing power intact or improving.
Reinvestment, incremental ROIC 20%

What this means
Every extra dollar the business reinvested came back at a high incremental return — the lens GBM read for a moat that reinvests rather than merely harvests. The record and the 10-K are where you check whether the rate holds.
Owner earnings growth +31%/yr

What this means
Owner earnings grew about 31% a year over the record.
Worst year 2017 · −59.0% op. margin

What this means
Operations went underwater in 2017, understand why before trusting the good years.
Share count +4.0%/yr

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

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 Raised, but not as a competitor

The filing raises AI among its risks, but in other terms (security, regulation, energy or the like), not as a competitor to its product.

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.

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$792M

Cash & short-term investments$342M
Receivables$208M
Inventory$133M
Other current assets$108M

Current liabilities$367M

Debt due within a year$27M
Accounts payable$80M
Other current liabilities$260M

Current ratio2.15×all current assets ÷ what's due · Graham looked for 2×

Quick ratio1.79×stricter: inventory excluded

Cash ratio0.93×strictest: cash alone against what's due

Working capital$424Mthe cushion left after near-term bills

Debt due this year vs. cash$27M due · $342M 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+10.9%the freshest read on whether the business is still growing

Current ratio, recent quarters1.9× → 2.2×

Deeper floors

Tangible book value$1.0Bequity stripped of goodwill & intangibles

Net current asset value($555M)Graham's net-net: current assets less all liabilities

Debt incl. operating leases$1.0B$245M of it operating leases

Deferred revenue$63Mcustomer cash collected before delivery; operating float

From the company's latest filing.

How the cash was used, 2015–2025

Over the record, the business generated $565M of operating cash; how management split it reads as a reinvestor, most operating cash is plowed back into the business.

Reinvested$657M · 116%
Buybacks$76M · 13%

Returned to owners$76M
42% of the owner earnings the business produced over the span, $0 as dividends and $76M as buybacks.
Source of funding−$168M
Reinvestment and shareholder returns ran $168M beyond the operating cash the business generated, so the gap was financed off the balance sheet: debt rose from $268M to $755M.
Average price paid for buybacks$26.78
Across the years where the filing reports a share count, 2M shares were bought for $52M, about $26.78 each.
Net change in share count48.3%
The diluted count rose from 20M to 30M: 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$13M1% of all assets; the premium carried on the balance sheet for businesses acquired

Against book equity0%goodwill is this share of book equity; the rest is the company’s own retained and paid-in capital

Cash spent acquiring$2Mover 10 years buying other businesses, against $657M of capital spent building

$122M written down across 4 years (2015, 2017, 2018, 2019): goodwill the company has already conceded it overpaid for, charged against earnings. 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	Mr. Bradshaw	$3.1M	$5.4M	$82M
2022	Mr. Bradshaw	$4.4M	$8.0M	($39M)
2023	Mr. Bradshaw	$5.1M	$5.3M	($49M)
2024	Mr. Bradshaw	$5.5M	$9.9M	$109M
2025	Mr. Bradshaw	$5.7M	$5.9M	$128M

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 ownership12.8%
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$17M
The slice of the business handed to employees in shares this year, 1% of revenue, equal to 11% 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 Bristow Group 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 2015–2025.

2 of the 5 tests turned up something to look into; the other 3 came back clean.

Look hereDid the share count rise anyway?48.3%
Diluted shares grew 48.3% over 2015–2025, even as the company spent $76M on buybacks. The repurchases were outrun by issuance — to staff, in a raise, or in a deal — and the filing says which; owners' slice still shrank. Read the buyback line beside this one, not on its own.
Look hereAre "one-time" charges a yearly habit?7 of 10 years
Management took an impairment or write-down in 7 of the last 10 years, $539M 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?
Did debt outgrow the business?
Did receivables and inventory outpace sales?

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 →

How much of the revenue rides on one buyer?
≈$963M · 63% of revenue on the largest customers (TTM)
“During the year ended December 31, 2025, our top ten customers accounted for approximately 63% of revenues, and the combined revenues from our three largest customers accounted for 36% of our revenues.”verify →
Which reported numbers are a judgment call?
Management names Pension & retirement, Income taxes 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, Airlines

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
ALKAlaska Air	$14.2B	—	6.3%	7%	10%
JBLUJetBlue Airways Corporation	$9.1B	—	-1.9%	-2%	4%
SKYWSkyWest Inc.	$4.1B	12%	11.3%	6%	22%
ULCCFrontier Group Holdings Inc.	$3.7B	—	-1.4%	-24%	-4%
ALGTAllegiant Travel Company	$2.3B	—	12.7%	6%	12%
VTOLBristow Group Inc.	$1.5B	—	2.3%	2%	4%
RJETRepublic Airways Holdings Inc.	$1.3B	—	12.3%	5%	10%
UPWheels Up Experience Inc.	$736M	7%	-27.6%	—	-17%
Group median	—	—	4.3%	5%	7%

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 Bristow Group Inc. has delivered.

Bristow Group 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, Bristow Group Inc. earns about $64M on its 4.3% median owner-earnings margin. This year’s 8.6% 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 ($64M) Net of stock comp (−$17M) Steady-state · maintenance capex ($120M)

—

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+53%/yr

Owner-earnings growth, delivered—

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.

Free cash flow $59M on 30M shares outstanding, per the 10-Q cover, as of 2026-05-01; net debt $413M. 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. Capex ($131M) runs well above depreciation ($78M), so this is a build-out; Steady-state swaps total capex for maintenance (≈ depreciation), lifting the base to about $120M, the cash it would throw off if it stopped expanding. The dials set the multiple a growth belief justifies; the price, and every dollar on this page, is yours.

Weigh VTOL against another business →

The owners of VTOL: the meeting and the votes →

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

Manual order: ← VSXY its page in the Manual VTR →

Industry order: ← UP the Airlines chapter