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VTS, Vitesse Energy Inc.

Oil & Gas Producers capital-intensive Cyclical

An oil and gas business, whose fortunes rise and fall with a price it does not set.

Latest annual: FY2025 10-K

VTS · Vitesse Energy Inc.

The business

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

Revenue · FY2025

$274M

+13.2% YoY · 23% 5-yr CAGR

Vital signs · TTM, with 5-yr average

Revenue $275M 5-yr avg $240M

Operating margin 6.4% 5-yr avg 25.0%

Owner-earnings margin 62% 5-yr avg 47%

Free cash flow margin 62% 5-yr avg 47%

The business in brief

read the 10-K →

What this business is and what moves its needle, from its own SEC filings.

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 run about 15% through the cycle, a solid margin the cost base and competition set as much as the price does. The margin is cyclical, swinging between −35% and 55% 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. Capital spending runs about 9.5% of sales, so the return earned on what it sinks into that plant weighs as much as the margin. 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 rarely cleared the cost of capital (median 4%, above 15% in 1 of 4 years). By owner earnings: roughly 50% of revenue reaches owners as cash, consistently. 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.

The record

Ten years of arithmetic, read across the cycle.

The record, 2020–2025

realized figures from each filing · older years to the left

2020’20	2021’21	2022’22	2023’23	2024’24	2025’25	TTMTTMMar 2026
							Income statement
$97M	$168M	$282M	$234M	$242M	$274M	$275M	RevenueRevenue
9%	6%	7%	10%	10%	9%	8%	SG&A / revenueSG&A/rev
($34M)	$54M	$154M	$35M	$41M	$17M	$18M	Operating incomeOp. inc.
−34.8%	32.1%	54.6%	14.9%	16.9%	6.3%	6.4%	Operating marginOp. mgn
($9M)	$18M	$119M	($20M)	$21M	$25M	($20M)	Net incomeNet inc.
—	0%	0%	—	27%	28%	—	Effective tax rateTax rate
							Cash flow & returns
$76M	$87M	$147M	$142M	$155M	$170M	$177M	Operating cash flowOp. cash
$86M	$67M	$39M	$129M	$126M	$135M	$188M	Working capital & otherWC & other
$9M	$29M	$29M	$36M	$21M	$7M	$5M	CapexCapex
9.5%	17.0%	10.1%	15.2%	8.7%	2.4%	1.9%	Capex / revenueCapex/rev
$67M	$58M	$118M	$106M	$134M	$164M	$172M	Owner earningsOwner earn.
69.0%	34.8%	42.0%	45.4%	55.3%	59.8%	62.4%	Owner earnings marginOE mgn
$67M	$58M	$118M	$106M	$134M	$164M	$172M	Free cash flowFCF
69.0%	34.8%	42.0%	45.4%	55.3%	59.8%	62.4%	Free cash flow marginFCF mgn
—	$12M	$36M	$58M	$64M	$92M	$90M	Dividends paidDiv. paid
—	$0	$0	$248K	$0	$0	—	BuybacksBuybacks
—	—	26%	3%	5%	2%	—	ROICROIC
—	4%	21%	-4%	4%	4%	-3%	Return on equityROE
—	1%	15%	−14%	−8%	−11%	−19%	Retained to equityRetained/eq
							Balance sheet
$2M	$5M	$10M	$552K	$3M	$1M	$3M	Cash & investmentsCash+inv
—	$32M	$41M	$45M	$40M	$31M	$41M	ReceivablesReceiv.
—	$5M	$7M	$28M	$34M	$12M	$16M	Accounts payablePayables
—	$27M	$34M	$17M	$5M	$19M	$26M	Operating working capitalOper. WC
—	$36M	$54M	$58M	$51M	$52M	$49M	Current assetsCur. assets
—	$32M	$37M	$60M	$100M	$51M	$87M	Current liabilitiesCur. liab.
—	1.1×	1.5×	1.0×	0.5×	1.0×	0.6×	Current ratioCurr. ratio
—	$614M	$660M	$766M	$811M	$893M	$883M	Total assetsAssets
—	$68M	$48M	$81M	$117M	$125M	$145M	Total debtDebt
—	$63M	$38M	$80M	$114M	$123M	$141M	Net debt / (cash)Net debt
-7.2×	16.8×	37.0×	6.6×	4.1×	1.7×	1.8×	Interest coverageInt. cov.
—	$480M	$564M	$546M	$500M	$629M	$570M	Shareholders’ equityEquity
−0.6%	0.8%	−3.8%	13.8%	3.4%	3.7%	3.1%	Stock comp / revenueSBC/rev
							Per share
29.2M	29.2M	29.2M	29.6M	32.9M	39.6M	40.1M	Shares out (diluted)Shares
$3.33	$5.74	$9.64	$7.91	$7.35	$6.93	$6.87	Revenue / shareRev/sh
$-0.30	$0.62	$4.07	$-0.67	$0.64	$0.64	$-0.49	EPS (diluted)EPS
$2.29	$2.00	$4.05	$3.60	$4.07	$4.14	$4.28	Owner earnings / shareOE/sh
$2.29	$2.00	$4.05	$3.60	$4.07	$4.14	$4.28	Free cash flow / shareFCF/sh
—	$0.41	$1.23	$1.96	$1.93	$2.33	$2.24	Dividends / shareDiv/sh
$0.32	$0.97	$0.98	$1.21	$0.64	$0.17	$0.13	Cap. spending / shareCapex/sh
—	$16.42	$19.30	$18.49	$15.20	$15.91	$14.23	Book value / shareBVPS

Share counts before 2023 are restated ×1/15 for a stock split, so per-share figures sit on one basis.

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

	5-yr	5-yr
Revenue / share	+15.8%/yr	+15.8%/yr
Owner earnings / share	+12.5%/yr	+12.5%/yr
Dividends / share	+54.4%/yr (4-yr)	+54.4%/yr (4-yr)
Capital spending / share	−11.9%/yr	−11.9%/yr
Book value / share	−0.8%/yr (4-yr)	−0.8%/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 check out against the filed numbers on this page. The words are the company's; the arithmetic is the record's.

Oil+6.2%
“Oil and natural gas revenue increased to $274.0 million for the year ended December 31, 2025 from $242.0 million for the year ended December 31, 2024. The increase in oil and natural gas revenue was due to a 34% increase in production volumes, and was partially offset by a 15% decrease in the average realized prices per Boe before hedging for the year ended December 31, 2025.”
✓ direction matches the filed record

The record, charted

FY2020–2025

Each measure over its full record; the current point and the worst year marked. Share counts on the current split basis.

Share count

40Mpeak FY2025

ROIC

2%low FY2025

Net debt ÷ owner earnings

0.8×peak FY2021

Owner earnings vs. net income

Owner earningsNet income

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

$164Mowner earningsvs.$25Mnet incomelow FY2021

Where the cash went

ReinvestBuybacksDividendsAcquisitionsRetained

Each year's operating cash, by what management did with it: the mix, and how it drifts.

FY2020FY2025

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 $25M of profit into $164M 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$25M

Owner earnings$164M · 60% of revenue

	FY2025	FY2024	FY2023	FY2022	FY2021
Reported net income	$25M	$21M	($20M)	$119M	$18M
Stock-based compensationreal costnon-cash, but a real cost	+$10M	+$8M	+$32M	−$11M	+$1M
Working capital & othertiming of cash in and out, other non-cash items	+$135M	+$126M	+$129M	+$39M	+$67M
Cash from operations	$170M	$155M	$142M	$147M	$87M
Capital expenditurecash put back in to keep running and to grow	−$7M	−$21M	−$36M	−$29M	−$29M
Owner earnings	$164M	$134M	$106M	$118M	$58M
Owner-earnings marginowner earnings ÷ revenue	60%	55%	45%	42%	35%

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 $10M), owner earnings is nearer $153M.

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? 1.7×

Thin

Operating income $17M ÷ interest expense $10M

What this means
Operating profit covers interest, but with little room. A bad year, a refinancing at higher rates, or a revenue wobble closes the gap fast.
How heavy is the debt, net of cash? $123M · 7.2× operating profit

Heavy net debt

Cash $1M − debt $125M

What this means
Netting $1M of cash and short-term investments against $125M of debt leaves $123M owed, about 7.2× a year's operating profit (7.3× 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 3%

Below average through the cycle

4-yr median, range 2%–26%; 2% latest = NOPAT $12M ÷ invested capital $752M

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 4 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.
Owner-earnings margin 45%

High through the cycle

6-yr median margin, range 35%–69%; latest $164M = operating cash $170M − maintenance capex $7M

Industry peers: median 31%

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 60% of revenue this year, a 45% median across 6 years. Treating stock comp as the real expense it is (less $10M of SBC) leaves $153M.
Are earnings backed by cash? 6.74×

Cash-backed

Cash from ops $170M ÷ net income $25M

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? 56%

Returns about half

Dividends + buybacks $92M ÷ Owner Earnings $164M

What this means
Of $164M Owner Earnings, $92M (56%) went back to shareholders, $92M dividends, $0 buybacks. 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? —

Not enough data

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

Graham’s defensive tests · 0 of 6 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 · $274M

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 Miss

Current ratio ≥ 2× · 1.02×

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 · $125M vs $916K 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 (6-yr record) · 2 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 · 5 of 6 yrs

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 Miss

Earnings +33% over the record · −79%

What this means
At least a third more earnings than a decade ago, averaging three years at each end. Net income (not per-share), so stock splits don't distort it, buybacks and dilution show up in the share-count line instead.
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 $0.21/share (latest year $0.61), the averaged base the calculator's gate runs on, and book value is $15.09/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, 2020–2025

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

Profitable years 4 of 6

What this means
Lost money in 2 year(s), look at what happened there before trusting the average.
Return on capital ≥ 15% 1 of 5 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% → 13% (3-yr avg ends)

In the filing’s words The filing attributes gains to higher prices but names price competition too — and the margin slipped, so the pressure is winning here.

What this means
Through the cycle the operating margin slipped — about 17% early to 13% lately, median 15% — competition or costs are biting in.
Reinvestment, incremental ROIC returns capital

What this means
The capital base barely grew: this business returns cash through dividends and buybacks rather than reinvesting. Judge it on the cash returned, not on compounding.
Owner earnings growth +19%/yr

What this means
Owner earnings grew about 19% a year over the record.
Worst year 2020 · −34.8% op. margin

What this means
Operations went underwater in 2020, understand why before trusting the good years.
Dividend record rising

What this means
Paid and raised the dividend across the record, the continuity Graham prized.

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$49M

Cash & short-term investments$3M
Receivables$41M
Other current assets$4M

Current liabilities$87M

Accounts payable$16M
Other current liabilities$71M

Current ratio0.56×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 ratio0.04×strictest: cash alone against what's due

Working capital($38M)the cushion left after near-term bills

Revenue, latest quarter vs. a year ago+1.9%the freshest read on whether the business is still growing

Current ratio, recent quarters0.8× → 0.6×

Deeper floors

Tangible book value$570Mequity stripped of goodwill & intangibles

Net current asset value($263M)Graham's net-net: current assets less all liabilities

Deferred revenue$2Mcustomer cash collected before delivery; operating float

From the company's latest filing.

How the cash was used, 2020–2025

Over the record, the business generated $778M of operating cash; how management split it reads as a balanced allocator, splitting cash between the business, owners, and the balance sheet.

Reinvested$130M · 17%
Dividends$262M · 34%
Buybacks$248K · 0%
Retained (debt / cash)$386M · 50%

Returned to owners$262M
40% of the owner earnings the business produced over the span, $262M as dividends and $248K as buybacks.
Average price paid for buybacks$16.99
Across the years where the filing reports a share count, 0M shares were bought for $248K, about $16.99 each.
Net change in share count37.1%
The diluted count rose from 29M to 40M: issuance (stock pay, deals) outran any buybacks, so owners were diluted on net.
Dividend record$2.33/sh
Paid in 5 of the years on record, the per-share dividend growing about 54% a year. It was never cut over the span.

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.

Management, ownership & pay

read the proxy →

From the proxy: how much of the business the people running it own, and how they are paid.

Insider ownership13.9%
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$10M
The slice of the business handed to employees in shares this year, 4% of revenue, equal to 60% 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 Vitesse Energy 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 2020–2025.

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

Look hereDid the share count rise anyway?37.1%
Diluted shares grew 37.1% over 2020–2025, even as the company spent $248K 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.

And these came back clean

Is it less profitable than it was?
Did reported profit become cash?

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.

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
WTIW&T Offshore Inc.	$501M	—	13.8%	3%	16%
BSMBlack Stone Minerals L.P. Common	$422M	—	50.6%	—	65%
REPXRiley Exploration Permian Inc.	$392M	—	21.7%	10%	31%
TXOTXO Partners L.P. Common	$363M	—	-5.7%	—	25%
EGYVAALCO Energy Inc.	$359M	—	27.2%	18%	23%
INRInfinity Natural Resources Inc.	$350M	—	33.0%	3%	69%
VTSVitesse Energy Inc.	$274M	—	15.9%	4%	50%
DMLPDorchester Minerals L.P. Common	$153M	—	67.0%	—	87%
Group median	—	—	24.5%	4%	41%

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 Vitesse Energy Inc. has delivered.

Vitesse Energy 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, Vitesse Energy Inc. earns about $138M on its 50.4% median owner-earnings margin. This year’s 59.8% 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 ($138M) Net of stock comp (−$9M)

—

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+14%/yr

Owner-earnings growth · ’20→’25+19%/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 $172M on 42M shares outstanding, per the 10-Q cover, as of 2026-05-01; net debt $141M. 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 VTS against another business →

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

Manual order: ← VTRS its page in the Manual VVV →

Industry order: ← VNOM the Oil & Gas Producers chapter WDS →