Owner Scorecard
An independent research publication · data as of July 9, 2026

← Japan catalog ← 4704 Manual 4755 → ← 4689 Interactive Media & Platforms BMBL →

4751 · CyberAgent

Internet platforms Asset-light compounder J-GAAP
Latest filing: FY2025 annual securities report (有価証券報告書) · EDINET

This is a quantitative scorecard. The numbers below are read directly from CyberAgent’s EDINET filing, in yen. The Japanese-language narrative, what the business does, its risks, what changed this year, is not machine-read here, so we do not paraphrase it. Find it on EDINET (code 4751) →

I

The record

What the business has done across the cycle, read straight from the EDINET filing: the multi-year record, and the walk from reported profit to the cash an owner could take out.

The record, 2016–2025

realized figures from each filing · older years to the left
2016’162017’172018’182019’192020’202021’212022’222023’232024’242025’25
Income statement
¥310.7B¥371.4B¥419.5B¥453.6B¥478.6B¥666.1B¥709.9B¥719.5B¥801.2B¥874.0BRevenueRevenue
———29%29%———27%30%Gross marginGross mgn
———23%22%———22%22%SG&A / revenueSG&A/rev
¥36.8B¥30.7B¥30.2B¥30.8B¥33.9B¥104.4B¥69.1B¥24.6B¥40.1B¥71.7BOperating incomeOp. inc.
11.8%8.3%7.2%6.8%7.1%15.7%9.7%3.4%5.0%8.2%Operating marginOp. mgn
¥13.6B¥4.0B¥4.8B¥1.7B¥6.6B¥41.2B¥22.9B¥3.5B¥16.0B¥31.7BNet incomeNet inc.
Cash flow & returns
¥28.2B¥21.6B¥28.4B¥14.9B¥37.0B¥109.6B¥17.9B¥20.8B¥53.2B¥79.5BOperating cash flowOp. cash
¥6.7B¥8.4B¥8.8B¥8.9B¥8.7B¥10.1B¥8.7B¥8.1B¥10.4B¥9.1BDepreciationDeprec.
¥7.9B¥9.2B¥14.8B¥4.3B¥21.7B¥58.3B(¥13.6B)¥9.2B¥26.8B¥38.7BWorking capital & otherWC & other
¥2.8B¥2.8B¥4.0B¥6.2B¥4.1B¥3.8B————CapexCapex
0.9%0.7%1.0%1.4%0.9%0.6%————Capex / revenueCapex/rev
¥25.5B¥18.9B¥24.4B¥8.8B¥32.9B¥105.8B————Owner earningsOwner earn.
8.2%5.1%5.8%1.9%6.9%15.9%————Owner earnings marginOE mgn
¥25.5B¥18.9B¥24.4B¥8.8B¥32.9B¥105.8B————Free cash flowFCF
8.2%5.1%5.8%1.9%6.9%15.9%————Free cash flow marginFCF mgn
¥234M¥4.3B¥396M¥4.0B¥4.2B¥617M¥5.6B¥7.1B¥7.6B¥8.1BDividends paidDiv. paid
—¥1M¥0——¥0—¥0¥0¥0BuybacksBuybacks
70%46%————92%27%——ROICROIC
15%4%4%2%8%21%10%2%11%19%Return on equityROE
14%−0%4%−3%3%21%8%−2%6%14%Retained to equityRetained/eq
Balance sheet
¥51.8B¥46.6B¥92.4B¥84.6B¥102.4B¥184.1B¥168.0B¥201.8B¥211.1B¥226.2BCash & investmentsCash+inv
¥42.6B¥47.5B¥50.0B¥54.9B¥58.5B¥75.3B¥72.4B¥83.4B¥81.2B¥88.5BReceivablesReceiv.
¥192M¥476M¥750M¥924M¥2.1B¥3.2B¥4.3B¥9.0B¥11.6B¥10.3BInventoryInvent.
¥42.8B¥47.9B¥50.7B¥55.8B¥60.6B¥78.5B¥76.6B¥92.3B¥92.7B¥98.8BOperating working capitalOper. WC
¥114.6B¥117.0B¥170.4B¥168.7B¥203.7B¥301.6B¥293.9B¥351.2B¥358.6B¥390.2BCurrent assetsCur. assets
¥62.1B¥62.8B¥72.4B¥70.7B¥87.9B¥140.7B¥130.0B¥133.4B¥168.2B¥177.8BCurrent liabilitiesCur. liab.
1.8×1.9×2.4×2.4×2.3×2.1×2.3×2.6×2.1×2.2×Current ratioCurr. ratio
¥1.8B¥1.7B¥1.6B¥1.2B¥1.2B¥5.0B¥4.8B¥7.1B¥14.8B¥13.9BGoodwillGoodwill
¥156.6B¥164.0B¥225.5B¥224.9B¥260.8B¥382.2B¥381.9B¥475.2B¥516.7B¥557.2BTotal assetsAssets
¥945M¥1.1B¥991M¥1.0B¥1.1B¥2.2B¥6.1B¥46.5B¥46.3B¥53.0BTotal debtDebt
(¥50.8B)(¥45.5B)(¥91.4B)(¥83.5B)(¥101.3B)(¥181.9B)(¥161.9B)(¥155.3B)(¥164.8B)(¥173.1B)Net debt / (cash)Net debt
4087.8×2361.5×3016.3×2802.3×2420.0×6140.1×1279.9×193.4×163.6×167.5×Interest coverageInt. cov.
¥92.6B¥98.8B¥109.3B¥74.0B¥78.5B¥193.8B¥221.2B¥228.4B¥142.4B¥166.3BShareholders’ equityEquity
Per share
506M506M506M506M506M506M506M506M506M507MShares out (diluted)Shares
¥614.32¥734.34¥829.56¥896.98¥946.33¥1317.26¥1403.22¥1421.30¥1582.39¥1724.67Revenue / shareRev/sh
¥26.92¥7.96¥9.59¥3.35¥13.07¥81.55¥45.27¥6.99¥31.55¥62.49EPS (diluted)EPS
¥50.34¥37.31¥48.20¥17.32¥65.12¥209.16————Owner earnings / shareOE/sh
¥50.34¥37.31¥48.20¥17.32¥65.12¥209.16————Free cash flow / shareFCF/sh
¥0.46¥8.52¥0.78¥7.96¥8.22¥1.22¥10.98¥13.98¥14.97¥15.97Dividends / shareDiv/sh
¥5.52¥5.45¥7.95¥12.18¥8.10¥7.58————Cap. spending / shareCapex/sh
¥183.14¥195.34¥216.03¥146.36¥155.16¥383.21¥437.31¥451.31¥281.31¥328.12Book value / shareBVPS

Share counts before 2017 are restated ×2 for a stock split, so per-share figures sit on one basis.

Share counts before 2021 are restated ×4 for a stock split, so per-share figures sit on one basis.

Per-share growththe realized rate an owner's share compounded
9-yr5-yr
Revenue / share+12.2%/yr+12.8%/yr
Owner earnings / share+33.0%/yr (5-yr)+33.0%/yr
EPS+9.8%/yr+36.7%/yr
Dividends / share+48.2%/yr+14.2%/yr
Capital spending / share+6.6%/yr (5-yr)+6.6%/yr
Book value / share+6.7%/yr+16.2%/yr

Owner-earnings bridge

FY2017–FY2021cash-flow statement, EDINET →

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 2021 the business turned ¥41.2B of profit into ¥105.8B 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¥41.2B
Owner earnings¥105.8B · 16% of revenue
FY2021FY2020FY2019FY2018FY2017
Reported net income¥41.2B¥6.6B¥1.7B¥4.8B¥4.0B
Depreciation & amortizationnon-cash charge added back+¥10.1B+¥8.7B+¥8.9B+¥8.8B+¥8.4B
Working capital & othertiming of cash in and out, other non-cash items+¥58.3B+¥21.7B+¥4.3B+¥14.8B+¥9.2B
Cash from operations¥109.6B¥37.0B¥14.9B¥28.4B¥21.6B
Capital expenditurecash put back in to keep running and to grow−¥3.8B−¥4.1B−¥6.2B−¥4.0B−¥2.8B
Owner earnings¥105.8B¥32.9B¥8.8B¥24.4B¥18.9B
Owner-earnings marginowner earnings ÷ revenue16%7%2%6%5%

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 .

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.

II

Quality & stewardship

Returns, the balance sheet, and stewardship. The same checks the US pages run, in yen.

Owner’s Scorecard

FY2025 Annual securities report · source on EDINET →

Will it survive?

  • Can it pay its interest? 167.5×
    Comfortable
    Operating income ¥71.7B ÷ interest expense ¥428M
    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.

  • How heavy is the debt, net of cash? +¥173.1B
    Net cash
    Cash ¥226.2B − debt ¥53.0B
    What this means

    Cash and short-term investments exceed every dollar of debt by ¥173.1B, 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.

  • 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 —
    Not meaningful here
    Invested capital (¥6.8B) = debt ¥53.0B + equity ¥166.3B − cash
    Industry peers: median 16%
    What this means

    Invested capital is near zero or negative, usually years of buybacks pulling equity down. ROIC explodes or flips sign and stops meaning anything. Judge this one on Owner Earnings instead.

  • Owner-earnings margin —
    Not enough data
    Industry peers: median 2%
    What this means

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

  • Are earnings backed by cash? 2.51×
    Cash-backed
    Cash from ops ¥79.5B ÷ net income ¥31.7B
    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? —
    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.

Durability & moat, 2016–2025

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

  • Profitable years 10 of 10
    What this means

    Never lost money over the record, the earnings stability Graham insisted on.

  • Return on capital ≥ 15% 6 of 6 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 9% → 6% (3-yr avg ends)
    What this means

    The recent-years average (6%) sits below the early years (9%), but the latest year (8%) is back near the early level: a cyclical trough dragging the window down, not a one-way slide. The through-cycle median is 7% — read it across the cycle, not on the dip.

  • 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 +26%/yr
    What this means

    Owner earnings grew about 26% a year over the record.

  • Worst year 2023 · 3.4% op. margin
    What this means

    Stayed profitable even in its hardest year, the resilience that survives recessions.

  • Dividend record rising
    What this means

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

All figures as filed; the source filing is linked above.

How the cash was used, 2016–2021

Over the record, the business generated ¥239.8B 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¥23.7B · 10%
  • Dividends¥13.7B · 6%
  • Buybacks¥1M · 0%
  • Retained (debt / cash)¥202.4B · 84%
  • Returned to owners¥13.7B

    6% of the owner earnings the business produced over the span, ¥13.7B as dividends and ¥1M as buybacks.

  • Source of fundingOperating cash

    Operating cash covered reinvestment and returns; over the span debt rose ¥1.3B and cash and short-term investments rose ¥132.3B.

  • Average price paid for buybacks—

    Buybacks ran ¥1M over the span, but the filings don't tag the share count needed to deduce the average price paid.

  • Net change in share count0.0%

    The diluted count barely moved (506M to 506M): buybacks roughly offset the stock issued to staff.

  • Dividend record¥1.22/sh

    Paid in 6 of the years on record, the per-share dividend growing about 21% a year. It was cut at least once along the way.

  • Return on what it retained45%

    Of the earnings it kept rather than paid out (¥58.3B over the span), annual owner earnings (first three years vs last three) grew ¥26.3B, so each retained ¥1 added about 0.45 of yearly owner earnings. Buffett's test, run on owner earnings instead of market value.

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.

Inverting the record

Invert: instead of why CyberAgent 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.

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

  • Look hereDid debt outgrow the business?¥945M → ¥53.0B

    Debt rose from ¥945M to ¥53.0B while owner earnings went from about ¥22.9B to ¥49.2B — under 0.1 years of owner earnings in debt then, about 1.1 now: 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.

And these came back clean
  • Is it less profitable than it was?
  • Did the share count rise anyway?
  • Did reported profit become cash?
  • 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.

III

The price

What a price would have to assume, set against the record above.

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 CyberAgent has delivered.

CyberAgent’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, CyberAgent earns about ¥55.5B on its 6.3% median owner-earnings margin. This year’s — 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 · ’17→’21+34%/yr
Owner-earnings growth · ’16→’21+26%/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 — on 507M diluted shares; net cash ¥173.1B. 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 4751 against another business →

Figures from EDINET, the Financial Services Agency’s disclosure system, the same kind of filing the US pages draw from EDGAR. A separate pool: these names never pass through the US industry classifier.

Manual order: ← 4704 its page in the Manual 4755 →

Industry order: ← 4689 the Interactive Media & Platforms chapter BMBL →