GTE, Gran Tierra Energy Inc.

Will it survive?

• Can it pay its interest? —
  Interest expense not tagged in the data
  What this means

  No usable interest-expense line was tagged in the filing data, but the balance sheet carries real net debt — so the interest burden here is unknown, not absent. Read the debt on the net-debt check below.

• How heavy is the debt, net of cash? $625M
  Net debt against an operating loss
  Cash $83M − debt $708M
  What this means

  Netting $83M of cash and short-term investments against $708M of debt leaves $625M 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.

• How long is cash tied up? -171d
  Negative, funded by others
  DSO 20 + DIO 76 − DPO 267 days
  What this means

  Days cash is tied up between paying suppliers and collecting from customers. A negative cycle is a quiet moat: suppliers and customers fund the operation (Buffett's “float”), the company grows on other people's money.

Is it a good business?

• Return on invested capital 3%
  Below average through the cycle
  9-yr median, range -66%–16%; -22% latest = NOPAT ($188M) ÷ invested capital $854M
  Industry peers: median 9%
  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 9 years (it ran -22% 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 10%
  Solid through the cycle
  10-yr median margin, range -8%–31%; latest $37M = operating cash $313M − maintenance capex $276M
  Industry peers: median 23%
  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 6% of revenue this year, a 10% median across 10 years. Treating stock comp as the real expense it is (less $3M of SBC) leaves $34M.

• Are earnings backed by cash? $313M
  Loss, but cash-generative
  Net income ($193M) · cash from operations $313M
  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?

• Where do the earnings go? 9%
  Reinvests most of it
  Dividends + buybacks $3M ÷ Owner Earnings $37M — this fiscal year
  What this means

  Of $37M Owner Earnings, $3M (9%) went back to shareholders, $0 dividends, $3M buybacks. Net of $3M stock comp, the real buyback was about $252K. 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. This year's proportion is 9%; across the record (2010–2025) it is 26%, the capital-allocation section below.

• Investing or harvesting? 1.03×
  Maintaining
  Capex $276M ÷ depreciation & amortization as filed $268M
  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.

The promise and the pay packet

• Is the buyback buying ownership, or mopping up? 0.5%
  The count is edging down
  Stock compensation $3M (fiscal 2025), 0.5% of revenue · repurchases $3M · diluted shares -4.0% since 2022
  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 · 0 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 Miss
  Revenue ≥ $2B · $597M
  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× · 0.60×
  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 Miss
  Debt ≤ working capital · $708M vs ($142M) 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 (10-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 Miss
  Earnings +33% over the record · −282%
  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 $-1.85/share (latest year $-5.46), the averaged base the calculator's gate runs on, and book value is $6.47/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, 2010–2025

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

• Profitable years 6 of 10
  What this means

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

• Return on capital ≥ 15% 1 of 9 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 23% → −6% (3-yr avg ends)
  What this means

  Through the cycle the operating margin slipped — about 23% early to −6% lately, median 17% — 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 −6%/yr
  What this means

  Owner earnings shrank about 6% a year over the record.

• Worst year 2020 · −358.7% op. margin
  What this means

  Operations went underwater in 2020, understand why before trusting the good years.