Owner Scorecard


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ZETA, Zeta Global Holdings Corp.

Software asset-light UnprofitableSerial acquirer

Zeta is a leading AI-powered omnichannel data-driven cloud platform that provides enterprises with consumer intelligence and marketing automation software.

We empower our customers to target, connect and engage consumers through software that delivers personalized marketing across all addressable channels, including email, social media, web, chat, Connected TV ("CTV") and video, among others.

Our Generative AI (GenAI)-driven marketing solutions enable brands to personalize experiences at scale, measure impact with precision and optimize marketing spend to increase return on investment ("ROI").

Latest annual: FY2025 10-K
ZETA · Zeta Global Holdings Corp.
I

The business

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

Revenue · FY2025
$1.3B
+29.7% YoY · 29% 5-yr CAGR
Vital signs · TTM, with 5-yr average
Revenue $1.4B 5-yr avg $818M
Gross margin 60% 5-yr avg 62%
Operating margin 0.2% 5-yr avg −25.5%
Owner-earnings margin 14% 5-yr avg 10%
Free cash flow margin 14% 5-yr avg 10%

The business in brief

read the 10-K →

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

Situation
Unprofitable. No sustained operating profit across the record; an earnings multiple has nothing to rest on. What the record does show is revenue, the gross-margin trajectory, and the burn against the cash on hand. Serial acquirer. Goodwill and acquired intangibles are 50% of assets, with meaningful acquisition spending in 5 of the record's 7 years; much of what this business is was bought, at prices the record carries.
What moves the needle
Operating margin has run around −6.8% through the cycle on a 62% gross margin, the operating line in the red even at its best — so the lever is whether the spending below the gross line can come down enough to clear a profit: revenue growth against the cost curve, and the cash runway until it does. Stock-based pay runs about 19% of sales, a real and recurring claim on owners that the GAAP margin understates. Read this kind of business on retention and the cost of growth. 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 −82%, above 15% in 0 of 4 years). The steadier read is owner earnings: roughly 10% of revenue reaches owners as cash, consistently. This is price-taker territory, where the balance sheet and the cycle matter more than any multiple; the rest is in the 10-K.

Every line is arithmetic on the company's filings, shown in full in the sections below.

II

The record

Ten years of arithmetic, read across the cycle.

The record, 2019–2025

realized figures from each filing · older years to the left
2019’192020’202021’212022’222023’232024’242025’25TTMTTMMar 2026
Income statement
$306M$368M$458M$591M$729M$1.0B$1.3B$1.4BRevenueRevenue
64%60%62%64%62%60%61%60%Gross marginGross mgn
24%19%41%36%28%20%18%18%SG&A / revenueSG&A/rev
9%9%14%12%10%9%9%9%R&D / revenueR&D/rev
($18M)($8M)($248M)($259M)($168M)($68M)$5M$3MOperating incomeOp. inc.
−5.7%−2.2%−54.2%−43.8%−23.0%−6.8%0.4%0.2%Operating marginOp. mgn
($38M)($53M)($250M)($279M)($187M)($70M)($32M)($23M)Net incomeNet inc.
Cash flow & returns
$31M$36M$44M$78M$91M$134M$199M$214MOperating cash flowOp. cash
$34M$40M$46M$52M$51M$56M$72M$78MDepreciationDeprec.
$35M$49M($11M)$7M($16M)($47M)($19M)($30M)Working capital & otherWC & other
$3M$2M$9M$22M$20M$26M$14M$14MCapexCapex
1.1%0.6%2.1%3.8%2.8%2.6%1.1%1.0%Capex / revenueCapex/rev
$27M$33M$35M$56M$70M$108M$185M$200MOwner earningsOwner earn.
8.9%9.0%7.6%9.5%9.6%10.8%14.2%13.9%Owner earnings marginOE mgn
$27M$33M$35M$56M$70M$108M$185M$200MFree cash flowFCF
8.9%9.0%7.6%9.5%9.6%10.8%14.2%13.9%Free cash flow marginFCF mgn
$39M$20M$9M$18M$56M$90M$137MAcquisitionsAcquis.
-115%-107%-57%-11%ROICROIC
-276%-218%-104%-10%-4%-3%Return on equityROE
−276%−218%−104%−10%−4%−3%Retained to equityRetained/eq
Balance sheet
$38M$51M$104M$121M$132M$366M$320M$289MCash & investmentsCash+inv
$79M$84M$106M$170M$235M$322M$322MReceivablesReceiv.
$41M$22M$34M$64M$44M$40M$32MAccounts payablePayables
$38M$62M$73M$107M$192M$282M$290MOperating working capitalOper. WC
$141M$196M$236M$310M$617M$686M$649MCurrent assetsCur. assets
$104M$106M$129M$176M$199M$429M$314MCurrent liabilitiesCur. liab.
1.4×1.9×1.8×1.8×3.1×1.6×2.1×Current ratioCurr. ratio
$78M$76M$115M$133M$141M$326M$528M$522MGoodwillGoodwill
$286M$397M$467M$551M$1.1B$1.5B$1.4BTotal assetsAssets
$190M$184M$184M$184M$196M$197M$197MTotal debtDebt
$139M$80M$63M$52M($170M)($123M)($91M)Net debt / (cash)Net debt
-1.1×-0.5×-35.3×-35.5×-15.3×-9.5×14.5×3.3×Interest coverageInt. cov.
($186M)($239M)$90M$128M$181M$677M$805M$880MShareholders’ equityEquity
0.1%0.0%56.5%50.6%33.3%19.4%13.6%13.1%Stock comp / revenueSBC/rev
Per share
31.6M32.6M86.9M139M157M186M221M239MShares out (diluted)Shares
$9.69$11.30$5.27$4.25$4.65$5.41$5.91$6.02Revenue / shareRev/sh
$-1.22$-1.63$-2.87$-2.01$-1.20$-0.38$-0.14$-0.10EPS (diluted)EPS
$0.86$1.02$0.40$0.40$0.45$0.58$0.84$0.84Owner earnings / shareOE/sh
$0.86$1.02$0.40$0.40$0.45$0.58$0.84$0.84Free cash flow / shareFCF/sh
$0.10$0.07$0.11$0.16$0.13$0.14$0.06$0.06Cap. spending / shareCapex/sh
$-5.90$-7.34$1.04$0.92$1.15$3.64$3.65$3.69Book value / shareBVPS

The diluted share count moved ×2.67 into 2021 — shares issued, not a split the totals corroborate — and the per-share figures carry the counts as filed.

The diluted share count moved ×1.6 into 2022 — 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
6-yr5-yr
Revenue / share−7.9%/yr−12.1%/yr
Owner earnings / share−0.5%/yr−3.9%/yr
Capital spending / share−8.2%/yr−1.9%/yr

The record, charted

FY2019–2025

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

Share count
221Mpeak FY2025
ROIC
−11%low FY2021
Gross margin
61%low FY2020

Owner earnings vs. net income

Owner earningsNet income

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

$185Mowner earningsvs.($32M)net 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.

FY2019FY2025

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 a $32M loss into $185M of owner earnings: more cash than the profit line showed, after the non-cash charges and the capital it put back in.

FY2025FY2024FY2023FY2022FY2021
Reported net income($32M)($70M)($187M)($279M)($250M)
Depreciation & amortizationnon-cash charge added back+$72M+$56M+$51M+$52M+$46M
Stock-based compensationreal costnon-cash, but a real cost+$178M+$195M+$243M+$299M+$259M
Working capital & othertiming of cash in and out, other non-cash items−$19M−$47M−$16M+$7M−$11M
Cash from operations$199M$134M$91M$78M$44M
Capital expenditurecash put back in to keep running and to grow−$14M−$26M−$20M−$22M−$9M
Owner earnings$185M$108M$70M$56M$35M
Owner-earnings marginowner earnings ÷ revenue14%11%10%10%8%

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 $178M), owner earnings is nearer $7M.

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?

  • Comfortable
    Operating income $5M ÷ interest expense $371K
    What this means

    Operating profit covers interest with the kind of margin Graham wanted for a defensive holding. Necessary, not sufficient, it says solvent, not cheap.

  • Net cash
    Cash $320M − debt $197M
    What this means

    Cash and short-term investments exceed every dollar of debt by $123M, on net the company owes nothing, and can act from strength when others can't. Net debt is the leverage figure that matters: the cash is already set against the debt. Strategic or illiquid investments aren't counted here.

  • Long (60+ days)
    DSO 90 + DIO 0 − DPO 29 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. (Little or no inventory, a services / asset-light model, so the inventory leg is ~0.)

Is it a good business?

  • Below average through the cycle
    4-yr median, range -115%–-11%; the latest year is left out — large non-operating charges put its operating line well above pretax profit
    Industry peers: median -11%
    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, 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.

  • Solid through the cycle
    7-yr median margin, range 8%–14%; latest $185M = operating cash $199M − maintenance capex $14M
    Industry peers: median 17%
    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 14% of revenue this year, a 10% median across 7 years. Treating stock comp as the real expense it is (less $178M of SBC) leaves $7M.

  • Loss, but cash-generative
    Net income ($32M) · cash from operations $199M
    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? 0.19×
    Harvesting
    Capex $14M ÷ depreciation $72M
    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 · 1 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 · $1.3B
    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 Near
    Current ratio ≥ 2× · 1.60×
    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 · $197M vs $256M 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 (7-yr record) · 7 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 $-0.40/share (latest year $-0.13), the averaged base the calculator's gate runs on, and book value is $3.37/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, 2019–2025

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

  • Profitable years 0 of 7
    What this means

    Lost money in 7 year(s), look at what happened there before trusting the average.

  • Return on capital ≥ 15% 0 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 −21% → −10% (3-yr avg ends)
    What this means

    Through the cycle the operating margin widened — about −21% early to −10% lately, median −7% — pricing power intact or improving.

  • Reinvestment, incremental ROIC 4%
    What this means

    Reinvested capital came back at only a modest incremental return — near the cost of capital, where extra growth adds little per dollar. The record shows whether it is a soft stretch or a thinning moat.

  • Owner earnings growth +30%/yr
    What this means

    Owner earnings grew about 30% a year over the record.

  • Worst year 2021 · −54.2% op. margin
    What this means

    Operations went underwater in 2021, understand why before trusting the good years.

Does AI threaten the moat?

Elevated contestability

The product is software or information, the very thing capable AI now produces more cheaply, so the moat is more contestable than the record alone implies.

In its own filing Framed as a capability

Despite the structural exposure, the filing positions AI as something it uses, not a threat to its product.

“Overview Zeta is a leading AI-powered omnichannel data-driven cloud platform that provides enterprises with consumer intelligence and marketing automation software.”

AI has collapsed the cost of building a capable substitute for the very thing this business sells. When a credible alternative can be assembled for a fraction of the incumbent's price, it is pricing power that erodes first, not revenue tomorrow. The live question is whether the moat survives that, not whether it held in the past. Whether that question is answerable at all is yours to decide, against your own circle of competence.

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$649M
  • Cash & short-term investments$289M
  • Receivables$322M
  • Other current assets$39M
Current liabilities$314M
  • Accounts payable$32M
  • Other current liabilities$282M
Current ratio2.07×all current assets ÷ what's due · Graham looked for 2×
Quick ratio2.07×stricter: inventory excluded
Cash ratio0.92×strictest: cash alone against what's due
Working capital$335Mthe cushion left after near-term bills
Revenue, latest quarter vs. a year ago+49.9%the freshest read on whether the business is still growing
Current ratio, recent quarters2.0× → 2.1×
Deeper floors
Tangible book value$155Mequity stripped of goodwill & intangibles
Net current asset value$82MGraham's net-net: current assets less all liabilities
Debt incl. operating leases$219M$21M of it operating leases
Deferred revenue$37Mcustomer cash collected before delivery; operating float

From the company's latest filing.

How the cash was used, 2019–2025

Over the record, the business generated $612M of operating cash; how management split it reads as a cash builder, a large share of cash simply built up on the balance sheet.

  • Reinvested$97M · 16%
  • Retained (debt / cash)$515M · 84%
  • Source of fundingOperating cash

    Operating cash covered reinvestment and returns; over the span cash and short-term investments rose $251M.

  • Net change in share count655.4%

    The diluted count rose from 32M to 239M: 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 7-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$746M50% of all assets; the premium carried on the balance sheet for businesses acquired
Against book equity66%goodwill is this share of book equity; the rest is the company’s own retained and paid-in capital
Cash spent acquiring$233Mover 7 years buying other businesses, against $97M of capital spent building

None written down over the record; the goodwill is still carried at full cost. That is the deals holding their value on the books so far; whether they keep doing so is the test an owner watches, since the write-down, when it comes, is the admission the price was too high.

Goodwill, acquired intangibles and equity from the latest balance sheet; acquisition spend and write-downs summed across the 7-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 yearChief executivePay, as filed“Actually paid”Owner earnings
2021Mr. Steinberg$216.5M$191.7M$35M
2022Mr. Steinberg$20.7M$7.3M$56M
2023Mr. Steinberg$18.9M$32.6M$70M
2024Mr. Steinberg$26.2M$227.2M$108M
2025Mr. Steinberg$6.1M$7.8M$185M

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 ownership1.4%

    The stake all directors and executive officers hold together, per the 2026 proxy: skin in the game, the first thing Munger reads.

  • CEO pay ratio59:1

    What the chief earns for every dollar the median employee makes, per the 2026 proxy. A high ratio alone settles nothing; some businesses are genuinely top-heavy in scarce skill. A runaway figure is where Buffett starts asking whether the board is doing its job.

  • Stock-based compensation$178M

    The slice of the business handed to employees in shares this year, 14% of revenue, equal to 3310% of operating profit. Buffett's oldest accounting fight: this is compensation, compensation is an expense, real whether or not the headline earnings admit it. One trap: the cash-flow statement adds SBC back, so the operating cash, and the owner earnings drawn from it, are flattered by exactly this amount; counted as the cost it is, what an owner keeps is lower.

What an owner would ask, FY2025

read the 10-K →
  • Which reported numbers are a judgment call?
    Management names Revenue recognition, Income taxes, Acquisitions, Stock compensation 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, Software

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.

CompanyRevenueGross marginOp. marginROICOwner earn. margin
PCTYPaylocity$1.5B66%11.0%22%19%
PCORProcore Technologies$1.3B82%-22.7%-21%5%
RBRKRubrik Inc.$1.3B73%-46.2%-118%1%
ZETAZeta Global Holdings Corp.$1.3B62%-6.8%-82%10%
KVYOKlaviyo Inc. Series A$1.2B75%-11.6%-44%17%
GWREGuidewire Software$1.2B55%-2.8%-1%16%
CVLTCommvault Systems$1.2B83%0.3%-1%18%
BOXBox, Inc.$1.2B73%-4.0%18%
Group median73%-5.4%-21%16%
IV

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 Zeta Global Holdings Corp. has delivered.

Zeta Global Holdings Corp.’s latest year runs above its own through-cycle margin — the reported figure may flatter a peak. So the tool opens on the through-cycle base, Graham’s averaging cutting both ways; clear the toggle below to read the latest year exactly as reported.

$

Through the cycle, Zeta Global Holdings Corp. earns about $124M on its 9.5% median owner-earnings margin. This year’s 14.2% margin runs above that; the reported figure may flatter a peak you'd be paying on. Normalize, below, values the price on that through-cycle figure rather than the latest year. It comes pre-checked here for that reason, the same rule that already normalizes a trough; clear it to price the year as filed.

Base

The assumptions

9.0% = the 4.55% 10-year Treasury (Jul 15, 2026) + 4.45 points of equity premium. The rate you require is yours to set.

Enter a price above to run it.

Implied by the price
Owner-earnings growth · ’21→’25+34%/yr
Owner-earnings growth · ’19→’25+30%/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 $200M on 239M shares outstanding (a weighted basic average, the only count this filer tags); net cash $91M. The base opens on the through-cycle figure (the latest year sits above the record’s own median, and Graham’s averaging cuts both ways); clear Normalize to use the year as filed. Net of stock comp treats option pay as the expense it is. The dials set the multiple a growth belief justifies; the price, and every dollar on this page, is yours.

Cite: Owner Scorecard, "Zeta Global Holdings Corp. (ZETA), the owner's record," https://ownerscorecard.com/c/ZETA, data as of 2026-07-09.

Manual order: ← ZD its page in the Manual ZG →

Industry order: ← ZENA the Software chapter ZIP →