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DBRG, DigitalBridge Group Inc.
An asset manager, paid a fee on the money it runs for other people.
Following consummation of the Merger, the Company will become an indirect, wholly-owned subsidiary of SoftBank, but will continue to operate as a separately managed platform.
In providing institutional investors access to investments across different segments of the digital infrastructure ecosystem, our investment offerings have expanded to include core equity, credit and liquid securities.
The business
What it sells, where the money comes from, the kind of company it is.
Next report By 11/8 · the 10-Q for the quarter ended late September · due within 40 days of period end · has filed ~32 days after · the wire records it on arrival
The business in brief
read the 10-K →What this business is and what moves its needle, from its own SEC filings.
- What moves the needle
- Assets under management and the fee rate on them. What decides it: net flows in or out, the market's move on the assets already there (the firm rises and falls with the indices it invests in), the drift toward cheaper passive products, and the operating leverage on a largely fixed cost base. 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?
- Operating margin has been modest for a fee business (median −16%). It earns this on little capital, so return on equity has run near −5%, the leverage of a model that needs almost no plant to grow. A high return that does not fade can mark a moat, but whether the assets stay (net flows, not last year's market) is what the flow disclosures and the 10-K settle, not the multiple.
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, 2016–2025
realized figures from each filing · older years to the left| 2016’16 | 2017’17 | 2018’18 | 2019’19 | 2020’20 | 2021’21 | 2022’22 | 2023’23 | 2024’24 | 2025’25 | TTMTTMJun 2026 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Income statement | |||||||||||
| $839M | $2.5B | $1.2B | $61M | $416M | $388M | $695M | $821M | $607M | $94M | $633M | RevenueRevenue |
| 12.4% | −23.2% | −57.7% | −273.7% | −89.1% | −9.3% | 17.7% | 32.8% | 18.1% | −97.4% | 30.2% | Operating marginOp. mgn |
| 13.7% | −7.8% | −44.3% | n/m | −642.5% | −80.0% | −46.3% | 22.6% | 11.6% | 151.0% | 54.3% | Net marginNet mgn |
| $296M | ($221M) | ($468M) | ($560M) | ($638M) | ($56M) | ($47M) | $366M | $169M | ($17M) | — | Pretax incomePretax |
| $115M | ($198M) | ($520M) | ($1.0B) | ($2.7B) | ($310M) | ($322M) | $185M | $71M | $142M | $344M | Net incomeNet inc. |
| 2% | — | — | — | — | — | — | 0% | 2% | — | 2% | Effective tax rateTax rate |
| Cash flow & returns | |||||||||||
| — | — | — | — | — | $248M | $263M | $234M | $57M | $258M | $179M | Owner earningsOwner earn. |
| $215M | $1.7B | ($268M) | $4.2B | ($1.9B) | $147M | ($1.9B) | ($979M) | ($11M) | ($126M) | — | Investing cash flowInv. cash |
| ($491M) | ($1.4B) | ($788M) | ($3.8B) | $1.4B | $411M | $924M | $58M | ($91M) | ($48M) | — | Financing cash flowFin. cash |
| ($5M) | $11M | ($12M) | $2M | $7M | ($3M) | ($2M) | $766K | ($2M) | $4M | — | Exchange-rate effectFX |
| $125M | $896M | ($561M) | $592M | ($462M) | $803M | ($730M) | ($686M) | ($44M) | $89M | — | Change in cashΔ cash |
| 63% | -2% | -7% | -20% | -107% | -14% | -19% | 10% | 4% | 7% | 15% | Return on equityROE |
| −36% | −8% | −12% | −24% | −111% | −14% | −19% | 10% | 3% | 6% | 14% | Retained to equityRetained/eq |
| Balance sheet | |||||||||||
| $9.8B | $24.8B | $22.2B | $19.8B | $20.2B | $14.2B | $11.0B | $3.6B | $3.5B | $3.4B | $3.8B | Total assetsAssets |
| $376M | $922M | $462M | $1.2B | $704M | $1.2B | $856M | $345M | $302M | $383M | $508M | Cash & investmentsCash+inv |
| $4.1B | $12.4B | $11.1B | $10.9B | $12.9B | $8.9B | $6.5B | $1.1B | $1.0B | $969M | — | Total liabilitiesTotal liab. |
| $0 | $34M | $9M | $6M | $305M | $359M | $101M | $18M | $24M | $33M | — | Redeemable interestsRedeemable |
| $184M | $8.4B | $7.0B | $5.2B | $2.5B | $2.1B | $1.7B | $1.8B | $2.0B | $2.1B | $2.3B | Shareholders’ equityEquity |
| Per share | |||||||||||
| 41.1M | 133M | 124M | 120M | 118M | 123M | 154M | 170M | 169M | 176M | 181M | Shares out (diluted)Shares |
| $20.39 | $19.15 | $9.43 | $0.51 | $3.52 | $3.16 | $4.50 | $4.84 | $3.60 | $0.53 | $3.49 | Revenue / shareRev/sh |
| $2.80 | $-1.49 | $-4.18 | $-8.75 | $-22.60 | $-2.52 | $-2.08 | $1.09 | $0.42 | $0.81 | $1.90 | EPS (diluted)EPS |
| — | — | — | — | — | $2.02 | $1.70 | $1.38 | $0.33 | $1.47 | $0.99 | Owner earnings / shareOE/sh |
| $4.40 | $3.62 | $2.50 | $1.79 | $0.90 | $0.00 | $0.01 | $0.04 | $0.04 | $0.04 | $0.04 | Dividends / shareDiv/sh |
| $4.47 | $63.15 | $56.39 | $43.50 | $21.13 | $17.47 | $10.75 | $10.67 | $11.60 | $11.99 | $12.95 | Book value / shareBVPS |
The diluted share count moved ×3.24 into 2017 — shares issued, not a split the totals corroborate — and the per-share figures carry the counts as filed.
Share counts before 2020 are restated ×1/4 for a stock split, so per-share figures sit on one basis.
| 9-yr | 5-yr | |
|---|---|---|
| Revenue / share | −33.3%/yr | −31.4%/yr |
| Owner earnings / share | −7.7%/yr (4-yr) | −7.7%/yr (4-yr) |
| EPS | −12.9%/yr | — |
| Dividends / share | −40.6%/yr | −46.2%/yr |
| Book value / share | +11.6%/yr | −10.7%/yr |
Quality & stewardship
Returns, the balance sheet, capital allocation, and pay.
Owner’s Scorecard
Is it a good business?
- Operating margin −97.4%Thin for a fee businessOperating income ($91M) ÷ revenue $94MIndustry peers: median 22%
What this means
The heart of a asset manager: how much of each fee dollar survives the cost of running the business. Fees ride on assets under management, so the swing factors are net flows in or out and the market's move on the assets already there; the cost base is largely fixed, which lifts margins in a bull market and squeezes them in a bear one. A high margin held for years, through a market it does not control, is the operational mark of a real franchise.
- Net margin 151.0%WideNet income $142M ÷ revenue $94M
What this means
What reaches the owner after tax and interest. For a capital-light fee business this should be a wide share of revenue; when it is thin despite a high operating margin, debt taken on for acquisitions is usually the reason, so read it next to the balance sheet.
- Below the cost of equityNet income $142M ÷ equity $2.1BIndustry peers: median 6%
What this means
Because the business ties up little capital, a healthy fee stream throws off a high return on the equity behind it. Read it with the buyback record: returning capital lifts this ratio honestly, but heavy debt taken to do so can flatter it.
All figures as filed; the source filing is linked above.
Acquisitions & goodwill
from the balance sheet & the 10-year cash-flow recordGoodwill 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.
$1.7B written down across 3 years (2017, 2019, 2020): 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.
Beside that spending sits $588M of cumulative amortization of acquired intangibles charged against earnings since fiscal 2015 — the purchase price of past deals, expensed over time.
Goodwill, acquired intangibles and equity from the latest balance sheet; acquisition spend and amortization summed across the company's full tagged history, write-downs 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. Ganzi | $22.5M | $63.3M | $248M |
| 2022 | Mr. Ganzi | $38.3M | −$23.4M | $263M |
| 2023 | Mr. Ganzi | $7.8M | $10.6M | $234M |
| 2024 | Mr. Ganzi | $6.0M | $633k | $57M |
| 2025 | Mr. Ganzi | $7.5M | $9.9M | $258M |
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 ownership3.4%
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$34M
The slice of the business handed to employees in shares in fiscal 2025, 36.4% of revenue. 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 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, Capital Markets & Asset Management
The same industry, side by side on fee margins. Each column names the period it is read over; the group median at the foot is the line to read each figure against.
| Company | Revenuelatest FY, USD | Op. marginmedian over the record | Net marginmedian over the record | ROEmedian over the record |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| NOAHNoah Holdings Limited | $387M | 28.0% | 24.9% | 11% |
| PAXPatria Investments Limited Class A | $374M | 44.0% | 41.3% | 22% |
| RPCRidgepost Capital Inc. | $297M | 21.9% | 6.6% | 5% |
| ALTIAlTi Global Inc. | $255M | -21.8% | -46.9% | -27% |
| ABXAbacus Global Management Inc. | $235M | 37.0% | 14.9% | 6% |
| MAASMaase Inc. | $116M | -39.0% | -35.9% | -17% |
| DBRGDigitalBridge Group Inc. | $94M | -16.2% | -26.0% | -5% |
| VALUValue Line Inc. | $33M | 18.1% | 48.1% | 26% |
| Group median | — | 20.0% | 10.7% | 5% |
The price
What a price has to assume.
What the price implies
reverse-DCFType today's close and see the owner-earnings growth you'd have to believe to justify it, beside what DigitalBridge Group Inc. has delivered.
—
9.0% = the 4.71% 10-year Treasury (Aug 18, 2026) + 4.29 points of equity premium. The rate you require is yours to set.
Enter a price above to run it.
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.
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.
Prefilled with the 10-year Treasury (4.71%, as of Aug 18, 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 $179M on 187M shares outstanding, per the 10-Q cover, as of 2026-07-31; net cash $216M. The base is the latest year by default; Normalize values it on the through-cycle median owner-earnings margin (to avoid paying on a peak year). 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.
Manual order: ← DBI its page in the Manual DBVT →
Industry order: ← DAVE the Capital Markets & Asset Management chapter DEFT →