Owner Scorecard


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GEGGL, Great Elm Group, Inc.

Capital Markets & Asset Management asset-light UnprofitableDistress / turnaround

Revenue is led by Management Fees (43%) and Incentive Fees (25%), with 5 more lines behind.

GECM, our wholly-owned registered investment adviser subsidiary, is an investment adviser providing investment management services to GECC, as well as other private funds.

MCRE, another wholly-owned subsidiary, provides investment management services to Monomoy UpREIT.

Latest annual: FY2025 10-K
GEGGL · Great Elm Group, Inc.
I

The business

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

Revenue · FY2025
$16M
−8.5% YoY · −23% 5-yr CAGR
Vital signs · TTM, with 5-yr average
Revenue $23M 5-yr avg $22M
Gross margin 70% 5-yr avg 81%
Operating margin −58.7% 5-yr avg −84.4%
ROIC −35% 5-yr avg −14%

Next report By 9/27 · the annual report (10-K) for the fiscal year ended late June · due within 90 days of period end · has filed ~64 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 it is
A software business, earning high margins on code once it is written.
Situation
Unprofitable. No meaningful revenue yet; the record is the cash on hand against the burn. Distress / turnaround. Thin interest coverage, or operating cash burned against real debt, across the record. The balance sheet carries this situation; the debt schedule sets the clock.
What moves the needle
Operating margin has run around −46% through the cycle, the operating line deeply negative — so the lever is the path to a margin at all: revenue growth against the cost curve and the cash runway, not the level of a margin that isn't there yet. Stock-based pay runs about 12% 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 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 −12%, above 15% in 0 of 6 years). Owner earnings, the cash-based check, have been thin too. 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.

Where the money comes from

read the 10-K →

Revenue spreads across 7 lines, the largest Management Fees at 43%.

Revenue by product line, FY2025
  • Management Fees43%$7M
  • Incentive Fees25%$4M
  • Administration and Service Fees9%$2M
  • Property Management Fees8%$1M
  • Real Estate Property Sales7%$1M
  • Project Management Fees6%$941K
  • Real Estate Rental Income2%$317K

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 segment operating profit, before unallocated corporate costs.

II

The record

Ten years of arithmetic, read across the cycle.

The record, 2020–2025

realized figures from each filing · older years to the left
2020’202021’212022’222023’232024’242025’25TTMTTMMar 2026
Income statement
$59M$61M$5M$9M$18M$16M$23MRevenueRevenue
$12M$15M$16MGross profitGross prof.
69%93%70%Gross marginGross mgn
11%10%132%98%43%40%36%SG&A / revenueSG&A/rev
($2M)($4M)($9M)($11M)($8M)($8M)($13M)Operating incomeOp. inc.
−3.7%−6.1%−193.6%−129.4%−43.9%−49.1%−58.7%Operating marginOp. mgn
($13M)($7M)($19M)$15M($841K)$16MPretax incomePretax
($13M)($7M)($15M)$28M($1M)$13M($23M)Net incomeNet inc.
Cash flow & returns
$13M($19M)$29M($2M)($16M)($9M)$10MOperating cash flowOp. cash
$11M$9M$524K$1M$1M$1M$1MDepreciation & amortizationD&A
$15M($22M)$41M($34M)($18M)($25M)$29MWorking capital & otherWC & other
$737K$287K$3K$53KCapexCapex
1.2%0.5%0.1%0.6%Capex / revenueCapex/rev
$13M($19M)$29M($2M)Owner earningsOwner earn.
21.2%−31.7%648.3%−28.0%Owner earnings marginOE mgn
$13M($19M)$29M($2M)Free cash flowFCF
21.2%−31.7%648.3%−28.0%Free cash flow marginFCF mgn
$748K$1M$0$3M$0AcquisitionsAcquis.
($7M)($15M)($40M)$84M$2M($1M)Investing cash flowInv. cash
$22M$18M$10M($48M)$3M($9M)Financing cash flowFin. cash
$28M($16M)($10M)($19M)Change in cashΔ cash
-5%-6%-15%-27%-13%-11%-35%ROICROIC
-21%-17%-44%43%-2%18%-58%Return on equityROE
−21%−17%−44%43%−2%18%−58%Retained to equityRetained/eq
Balance sheet
$41M$24M$22M$60M$48M$31M$46MCash & investmentsCash+inv
$8M$7M$6MReceivablesReceiv.
$1M$1M$898KInventoryInvent.
$5M$6M$8K$191KAccounts payablePayables
$4M$2M$7MOperating working capitalOper. WC
$61M$89M$84M$123M$128M$138M$97MCurrent assetsCur. assets
$29M$33M$20M$7M$8M$10M$7MCurrent liabilitiesCur. liab.
2.1×2.7×4.3×16.7×15.3×14.3×13.2×Current ratioCurr. ratio
$1M$981K$538KNet PP&ENet PP&E
$50M$51M$52M$0$440K$440KGoodwillGoodwill
$195M$162M$168M$136M$140M$154M$112MTotal assetsAssets
$17M$33M$35M$37M$35M$35M$36MTotal debtDebt
($23M)$9M$13M($23M)($13M)$4M($10M)Net debt / (cash)Net debt
-0.5×-0.8×-1.6×-1.8×-1.8×-1.9×-3.2×Interest coverageInt. cov.
$127M$106M$126M$72M$70M$73MTotal liabilitiesTotal liab.
$4M$3M$2MRedeemable interestsRedeemable
$4M$10M$7M$7M$10MNoncontrolling interestsNCI
$61M$43M$33M$64M$63M$70M$40MShareholders’ equityEquity
0.9%2.9%62.0%30.2%13.3%12.0%9.8%Stock comp / revenueSBC/rev
Per share
25.4M25.7M26.8M41.0M30.0M38.8M30.5MShares out (diluted)Shares
$2.32$2.37$0.17$0.21$0.60$0.42$0.75Revenue / shareRev/sh
$-0.51$-0.28$-0.56$0.68$-0.05$0.33$-0.75EPS (diluted)EPS
$0.49$-0.75$1.09$-0.06Owner earnings / shareOE/sh
$0.49$-0.75$1.09$-0.06Free cash flow / shareFCF/sh
$0.03$0.01$0.00$0.00Cap. spending / shareCapex/sh
$2.39$1.68$1.25$1.56$2.09$1.81$1.31Book value / shareBVPS

The diluted share count moved ×1.53 into 2023 — 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
5-yr5-yr
Revenue / share−28.9%/yr−28.9%/yr
Capital spending / share−64.5%/yr (3-yr)−64.5%/yr (3-yr)
Book value / share−5.4%/yr−5.4%/yr

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 2023 the business reported $28M of profit but ($2M) of owner earnings: $30M less than the profit line, taken out by capital spending and the timing of cash.

FY2023FY2022FY2021FY2020
Reported net income$28M($15M)($7M)($13M)
Depreciation & amortizationnon-cash charge added back+$1M+$524K+$9M+$11M
Stock-based compensationreal costnon-cash, but a real cost+$3M+$3M+$2M+$548K
Working capital & othertiming of cash in and out, other non-cash items−$34M+$41M−$22M+$15M
Cash from operations($2M)$29M($19M)$13M
Capital expenditurecash put back in to keep running and to grow−$53K−$3K−$287K−$737K
Owner earnings($2M)$29M($19M)$13M
Owner-earnings marginowner earnings ÷ revenue-28%648%-32%21%

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 $3M), owner earnings is nearer ($5M).

Much of fiscal 2023's profit didn't arrive as operating cash; it sits in “working capital & other” above. That can be a real inventory or timing swing, or profit that doesn't run through operating cash at all: a heavy tax year, equity-method earnings, or investment income booked through investing. For a year like this, owner earnings understates the cash earned; the full cash-flow statement carries the rest.

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?

  • Does not cover its interest
    Operating income ($8M) ÷ interest expense $4M
    What this means

    A full year of operating profit didn't cover the interest bill. This is the zombie zone: the business depends on refinancing, asset sales, or forbearance to service its debt.

  • Net debt against an operating loss
    Cash $31M − debt $35M
    What this means

    Netting $31M of cash and short-term investments against $35M of debt leaves $4M owed, with no operating profit this year to measure it against — understand that combination before anything else about the company. Net debt is the leverage figure that matters: the cash is already set against the debt. Strategic or illiquid investments aren't counted here.

  • Not enough data
    What this means

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

Is it a good business?

  • Below average through the cycle
    6-yr median, range -27%–-5%; -11% latest = NOPAT ($8M) ÷ invested capital $74M
    Industry peers: median -20%
    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 6 years (it ran -11% 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.

  • Not enough data
    Industry peers: median -39%
    What this means

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

  • Thinly cash-backed
    Cash from ops ($9M) ÷ net income $13M

    In the filing’s words Read against the cash, reported earnings have run ahead of the operating cash the business generated over the record — about 7% of assets a year, among the widest gaps in the catalogue. For an inventory- or content-heavy grower that can be cash tied up in real assets as it expands; elsewhere it can mean the earnings lean on accounting estimates — the cash-flow statement against the income statement is where to tell which.

    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?

  • 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.

The promise and the pay packet

  • Is the buyback buying ownership, or mopping up? 12.0%
    Stock pay, share count unread
    Stock compensation $2M (fiscal 2025), 12.0% of revenue · repurchases $7M · the share count is not comparable across these years (a split or a first listing sits in the record), so the drift is withheld
    What this means

    Stock handed to employees is a real cost paid in the owner's own currency: it is charged against profit, but the shares it creates are permanent. Many companies repurchase stock at the same time, which looks like a return of capital and often is not — if the count barely moves, the cash merely cancelled the pay packet and bought the owner nothing. The three states worth telling apart are a count genuinely shrinking, a count standing still despite large repurchases, and a count rising because the issuance was never offset at all.

Graham’s defensive tests · 2 of 4 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 · $16M
    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 Pass
    Current ratio ≥ 2× · 14.34×
    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 · $35M vs $128M 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) · 4 loss years
    What this means

    Graham wanted earnings in each of the past ten years, the stability a defensive owner leans on.

  • Dividend record
    Uninterrupted dividends · no dividend line tagged in the data
    What this means

    An unbroken dividend was Graham's mark of durability. This record carries no dividends-paid line in any year — common for partnerships, whose distributions file under tags the chain doesn't read — so the criterion is withheld rather than judged on silence.

  • 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 $0.42/share (latest year $0.41), the averaged base the calculator's gate runs on, and book value is $2.24/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 2 of 6
    What this means

    Lost money in 4 year(s), look at what happened there before trusting the average.

  • Return on capital ≥ 15% 0 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 −68% → −74% (3-yr avg ends)
    What this means

    The recent-years average (−74%) sits below the early years (−68%), but the latest year (−49%) is back near the early level: a cyclical trough dragging the window down, not a one-way slide. The through-cycle median is −49% — 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.

  • Worst year 2022 · −193.6% op. margin
    What this means

    Operations went underwater in 2022, understand why before trusting the good years.

  • Share count +8.8%/yr
    What this means

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

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$97M
  • Cash & short-term investments$46M
  • Other current assets$52M
Current liabilities$7M
  • Other current liabilities$7M
Current ratio13.18×all current assets ÷ what's due · Graham looked for 2×
Quick ratio13.18×stricter: inventory excluded
Cash ratio6.17×strictest: cash alone against what's due
Working capital$90Mthe cushion left after near-term bills
Revenue, latest quarter vs. a year ago+6.5%the freshest read on whether the business is still growing
Current ratio, recent quarters15.3× → 13.2×
Deeper floors
Tangible book value$28Mequity stripped of goodwill & intangibles
Net current asset value$25MGraham's net-net: current assets less all liabilities
Debt incl. operating leases$1M$1M of it operating leases

From the company's latest filing.

How the cash was used, 2020–2023

Over the record, the business generated $21M of operating cash; how management split it reads as a balanced allocator, splitting cash between the business, owners, and the balance sheet.

  • Reinvested$1M · 5%
  • Retained (debt / cash)$20M · 95%
  • Source of fundingOperating cash

    Operating cash covered reinvestment and returns; over the span debt rose $18M and cash and short-term investments rose $5M.

  • Net change in share count19.8%

    The diluted count rose from 25M 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.

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 yearPay, as filed“Actually paid”Net income
2023$1.5M$1.7M$28M
2023$694k$609k$28M
2024$1.5M$1.3M($1M)
2025$1.2M$1.1M$13M

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. Net income is the whole business's, as filed, for the same fiscal years.

  • Insider ownership49.7%

    The stake all directors and executive officers hold together, per the 2025 proxy: skin in the game, the first thing Munger reads.

  • Stock-based compensation$2M

    The slice of the business handed to employees in shares in fiscal 2025, 12.0% 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.

Peers, Capital Markets & Asset Management

The same industry, side by side on owner economics. Each column names the period it is read over, and a median resting on fewer than three years carries that count beside it; the group median at the foot is the line to read each figure against.

CompanyRevenuelatest FY, USDGross marginmedian over the recordOp. marginmedian over the recordROICmedian over the recordOwner earn. marginmedian over the record
MATHMetalpha Technology Holding Limited$37M35%3y8.5%-19%-4%
DGXXDigi Power X Inc.$34M-20%2y-76%2y
SLNHPSoluna Holdings, Inc.$30M19%2y-113.3%-33%-55%
SBETSharplink Inc.$28M31%-179.6%-308%-171%
JFU9F Inc.$20M76%3y-31.6%-5%32%
FWDIForward Industries Inc.$18M19%-3.9%-21%-1%
GEGGLGreat Elm Group, Inc.$16M81%2y-46.5%-12%-3%
SORAAsiaStrategy$11M8%1.3%2%2y-39%1y
Group median25%-31.6%-19%-22%
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 Great Elm Group, Inc. has delivered.

Great Elm 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.

$
Base

The assumptions

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.

Implied by the price
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 (4.71%, 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 — on 31M shares outstanding, per the 10-Q cover, as of 2026-04-30; net cash $10M. The base opens on the through-cycle figure (the latest year sits off 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, "Great Elm Group, Inc. (GEGGL), the owner's record," https://ownerscorecard.com/c/GEGGL, data as of 2026-08-17.

Manual order: ← GEF its page in the Manual GEHC →

Industry order: ← GDOT the Capital Markets & Asset Management chapter GEMI →