Owner Scorecard


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IRWD, Ironwood Pharmaceuticals Inc.

Pharmaceuticals consumer brand Cyclical

We are a biotechnology company developing and commercializing life-changing therapies for people living with gastrointestinal, or GI, and rare diseases.

We are focused on the development and commercialization of innovative product opportunities in areas of significant unmet need, leveraging our demonstrated expertise and capabilities in GI and rare diseases.

Latest annual: FY2025 10-K
IRWD · Ironwood Pharmaceuticals Inc.
I

The business

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

Revenue · FY2025
$296M
−15.7% YoY · −5% 5-yr CAGR
Vital signs · TTM, with 5-yr average
Revenue $389M 5-yr avg $383M
Operating margin 60.1% 5-yr avg −7.3%
ROIC 102% 5-yr avg 49%
Owner-earnings margin 48% 5-yr avg 49%
Free cash flow margin 48% 5-yr avg 49%

Next report By 11/8 · the 10-Q for the quarter ended late September · due within 40 days of period end · has filed ~41 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.

Situation
Cyclical. Margins collapse and recover repeatedly across the record; a single year, good or bad, misstates the through-cycle earning power.
What moves the needle
Gross margin has run about 94% and operating margin about 27% through the cycle, a wide spread between price and the cost of what it sells — whether that advantage is durable pricing power or a margin that can erode is the question the record is for. The operating margin has swung widely — from −214% to 61% — on a steadier 94% gross margin, so what moves it sits below the gross line, in operating spend and one-off charges more than in the cost of the product itself. The cash cycle has run negative through the cycle (a median of −144 days): the operation is paid before it pays, so working capital releases cash as the business grows rather than tying it up. Read this kind of business on the pipeline against the patent cliff, and pricing. 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 run high across the record (median 44%, above 15% in 3 of 5 years), though buybacks and expensed R&D and brands shrink the capital base, so the figure overstates the underlying economics. The steadier read is owner earnings: roughly 35% of revenue reaches owners as cash, though it swings. Whether these returns reflect real pricing power or an accounting artifact is the judgment the 10-K is for.

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, 2016–2025

realized figures from each filing · older years to the left
2016’162017’172018’182019’192020’202021’212022’222023’232024’242025’25TTMTTMJun 2026
Income statement
$274M$298M$347M$428M$390M$414M$411M$443M$351M$296M$389MRevenueRevenue
$279M$314M$405MGross profitGross prof.
94%91%94%Gross marginGross mgn
63%78%63%40%36%27%28%36%41%28%17%SG&A / revenueSG&A/rev
51%30%29%27%23%17%11%26%32%32%23%R&D / revenueR&D/rev
($52M)($15M)($151M)$120M$143M$232M$250M($945M)$93M$99M$234MOperating incomeOp. inc.
−18.9%−5.2%−43.5%28.0%36.7%56.1%61.0%−213.5%26.5%33.3%60.1%Operating marginOp. mgn
($194M)$59M$109M$201M$252M($948M)$65M$70MPretax incomePretax
($82M)($117M)($282M)$22M$106M$528M$175M($1.0B)$880K$24M$130MNet incomeNet inc.
0%2%31%37%Effective tax rateTax rate
Cash flow & returns
($26M)($101M)($71M)$11M$169M$262M$274M$183M$104M$127M$186MOperating cash flowOp. cash
$10M$6M$4M$6M$2M$2M$1M$1M$1M$1MDepreciation & amortizationD&A
$16M($21M)$167M($48M)$29M($290M)$70M$1.2B$72M$85M$41MWorking capital & otherWC & other
$4M$3M$351K$7M$2M$265K$136K$273K$142K$34K$34KCapexCapex
1.5%0.9%0.1%1.7%0.5%0.1%0.0%0.1%0.0%0.0%0.0%Capex / revenueCapex/rev
($30M)($104M)($71M)$5M$167M$262M$274M$183M$103M$127M$186MOwner earningsOwner earn.
−11.0%−34.7%−20.5%1.2%42.9%63.2%66.6%41.4%29.4%42.9%47.7%Owner earnings marginOE mgn
($30M)($104M)($71M)$4M$167M$262M$274M$183M$103M$127M$186MFree cash flowFCF
−11.0%−34.7%−20.5%0.8%42.9%63.2%66.6%41.4%29.4%42.9%47.7%Free cash flow marginFCF mgn
($178M)$151M$89M($11M)($2M)($265K)($136K)($1.0B)($142K)($34K)Investing cash flowInv. cash
($4M)$20M$30M($1M)$19M($5M)($238M)$277M($107M)$216KFinancing cash flowFin. cash
($53K)($32K)($329K)Exchange-rate effectFX
($208M)$71M$48M($2M)$186M$257M$36M($566M)($4M)$127MChange in cashΔ cash
-28%-9%107%53%44%102%ROICROIC
-122%-1187%170%87%27%Return on equityROE
−122%n/m170%87%27%Retained to equityRetained/eq
Balance sheet
$305M$221M$173M$177M$363M$620M$656M$92M$89M$215M$79MCash & investmentsCash+inv
$933K$3M$21M$11M$122M$114M$115M$129M$82M$47M$113MReceivablesReceiv.
$1M$735K$648KInventoryInvent.
$18M$16M$15M$4M$661K$935K$483K$8M$2M$3M$911KAccounts payablePayables
($16M)($12M)$6M$8M$122M$113M$115M$121M$80M$44M$112MOperating working capitalOper. WC
$380M$312M$266M$307M$496M$745M$781M$233M$182M$274M$199MCurrent assetsCur. assets
$91M$66M$120M$41M$32M$162M$26M$276M$39M$242M$33MCurrent liabilitiesCur. liab.
4.2×4.7×2.2×7.5×15.4×4.6×30.6×0.8×4.7×1.1×6.1×Current ratioCurr. ratio
$21M$17M$8M$12M$9M$8M$6M$6M$4M$3MNet PP&ENet PP&E
$785K$785K$785K$785KGoodwillGoodwill
$710M$606M$332M$403M$559M$1.1B$1.1B$471M$351M$397M$285MTotal assetsAssets
$132M$249M$266M$408M$430M$454M$396M$300M$385M$385M$385MTotal debtDebt
($173M)$28M$92M$231M$68M($166M)($260M)$208M$296M$170M$306MNet debt / (cash)Net debt
-1.3×-0.4×-4.0×3.3×4.8×7.5×32.9×-43.7×2.8×3.0×7.2×Interest coverageInt. cov.
$67M$10M($196M)($93M)$63M$606M$652M($346M)($301M)($262M)($162M)Shareholders’ equityEquity
10.7%10.4%11.7%7.3%8.0%5.4%6.6%7.2%8.5%5.8%3.7%Stock comp / revenueSBC/rev
Per share
145M149M153M156M161M164M186M155M160M163M167MShares out (diluted)Shares
$1.89$2.00$2.27$2.75$2.42$2.52$2.20$2.85$2.20$1.82$2.33Revenue / shareRev/sh
$-0.56$-0.78$-1.85$0.14$0.66$3.21$0.94$-6.45$0.01$0.15$0.78EPS (diluted)EPS
$-0.21$-0.70$-0.47$0.03$1.04$1.59$1.47$1.18$0.65$0.78$1.11Owner earnings / shareOE/sh
$-0.21$-0.70$-0.47$0.02$1.04$1.59$1.47$1.18$0.65$0.78$1.11Free cash flow / shareFCF/sh
$0.03$0.02$0.00$0.05$0.01$0.00$0.00$0.00$0.00$0.00$0.00Cap. spending / shareCapex/sh
$0.46$0.07$-1.29$-0.60$0.39$3.69$3.50$-2.23$-1.88$-1.61$-0.97Book value / shareBVPS
Per-share growththe realized rate an owner's share compounded
9-yr5-yr
Revenue / share−0.4%/yr−5.6%/yr
Owner earnings / share−5.6%/yr
EPS−25.9%/yr
Capital spending / share−42.2%/yr−55.1%/yr

Where the cash went

ReinvestBuybacksDividendsAcquisitionsRetained

Each year's operating cash, by what management did with it: the mix, and how it drifts.

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 $24M of profit into $127M 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$24M
Owner earnings$127M · 43% of revenue
FY2025FY2024FY2023FY2022FY2021
Reported net income$24M$880K($1.0B)$175M$528M
Depreciation & amortizationnon-cash charge added back+$1M+$1M+$1M+$1M+$2M
Stock-based compensationreal costnon-cash, but a real cost+$17M+$30M+$32M+$27M+$22M
Working capital & othertiming of cash in and out, other non-cash items+$85M+$72M+$1.2B+$70M−$290M
Cash from operations$127M$104M$183M$274M$262M
Capital expenditurecash put back in to keep running and to grow−$34K−$142K−$273K−$136K−$265K
Owner earnings$127M$103M$183M$274M$262M
Owner-earnings marginowner earnings ÷ revenue43%29%41%67%63%

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 $17M), owner earnings is nearer $110M.

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?

  • Adequate
    Operating income $99M ÷ interest expense $33M
    What this means

    Comfortable in a normal year, but below the margin of safety Graham looked for. Worth checking how stable the coverage has been across a full cycle.

  • How heavy is the debt, net of cash? $181M · 1.8× operating profit
    Modest net debt
    Cash $215M − debt $396M
    What this means

    Netting $215M of cash and short-term investments against $396M of debt leaves $181M owed, about 1.8× a year's operating profit (4.0× on the gross debt, before the cash). 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?

  • Not meaningful here
    Invested capital ($81M) = debt $396M + equity ($262M) − cash
    Industry peers: median -38%
    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.

  • High through the cycle
    10-yr median margin, range -35%–67%; latest $127M = operating cash $127M − maintenance capex $34K
    Industry peers: median -34%
    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 43% of revenue this year, a 35% median across 10 years. Treating stock comp as the real expense it is (less $17M of SBC) leaves $110M.

  • Cash-backed
    Cash from ops $127M ÷ net income $24M
    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? 0.03×
    Harvesting
    Capex $34K ÷ depreciation & amortization as filed $1M
    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? 5.8%
    The count is genuinely shrinking
    Stock compensation $17M (fiscal 2025), 5.8% of revenue · no repurchases · diluted shares -12.5% 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 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 · $296M
    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× · 1.13×
    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 · $396M vs $32M 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
    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 $-1.97/share (latest year $0.15), the averaged base the calculator's gate runs on, and book value is $-1.58/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, 2016–2025

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% 4 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 −23% → −51% (3-yr avg ends)
    What this means

    The recent-years average (−51%) sits below the early years (−23%), but the latest year (33%) is back near the early level: a cyclical trough dragging the window down, not a one-way slide. The through-cycle median is 27% — read it across the cycle, not on the dip.

  • Reinvestment, incremental ROIC
    What this means

    The reinvested base moved too little against the change in profit to read a reliable return on it here — the figure would be a small-denominator artifact, not a moat. Judge this one on the owner-earnings record and the cash it returns instead.

  • Worst year 2023 · −213.5% op. margin
    What this means

    Operations went underwater in 2023, understand why before trusting the good years.

  • Share count +1.3%/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, Jun 30, 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$199M
  • Cash & short-term investments$79M
  • Receivables$113M
  • Other current assets$7M
Current liabilities$33M
  • Accounts payable$911K
  • Other current liabilities$32M
Current ratio6.06×all current assets ÷ what's due · Graham looked for 2×
Quick ratioinventory untagged this quarter, so withheld rather than shown equal to the current ratio
Cash ratio2.41×strictest: cash alone against what's due
Working capital$166Mthe cushion left after near-term bills
Revenue, latest quarter vs. a year ago+32.6%the freshest read on whether the business is still growing
Current ratio, recent quarters3.6× → 6.1×
Deeper floors
Tangible book value($163M)equity stripped of goodwill & intangibles
Net current asset value($248M)Graham's net-net: current assets less all liabilities
Debt incl. operating leases$12M$12M of it operating leases
Deferred revenue$1Mcustomer cash collected before delivery; operating float

From the company's latest filing.

How the cash was used, 2016–2025

Over the record, the business generated $932M of operating cash; how management split it reads as a balanced allocator, splitting cash between the business, owners, and the balance sheet.

  • Reinvested$17M · 2%
  • Buybacks$151M · 16%
  • Retained (debt / cash)$764M · 82%
  • Returned to owners$151M

    16% of the owner earnings the business produced over the span, $0 as dividends and $151M as buybacks.

  • Source of fundingOperating cash

    Operating cash covered reinvestment and returns; over the span debt rose $253M and cash and short-term investments fell $226M.

  • Average price paid for buybacks$11.40

    Across the years where the filing reports a share count, 13M shares were bought for $151M, about $11.40 each.

  • Net change in share count15.3%

    The diluted count rose from 145M to 167M: 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 yearChief executivePay, as filed“Actually paid”Owner earnings
2023Mr. McCourt$7.6M$4.6M$183M
2024Mr. McCourt$6.1M−$4.5M$103M
2025Mr. McCourt$1.9M$1.3M$127M

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 ownership9.3%

    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$17M

    The slice of the business handed to employees in shares in fiscal 2025, 5.8% of revenue, equal to 17.5% 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, Pension & retirement, Income taxes, 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, Pharmaceuticals

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
MNKDMannKind Corporation$349M72%-62.3%-45%
CRMDCorMedix Inc.$312M-12%-1.6%2y-202%-30%2y
EOLSEvolus Inc.$297M68%-44.0%-142%-34%
IRWDIronwood Pharmaceuticals Inc.$296M94%3y27.3%44%35%
HROWHarrow Inc.$272M70%0.8%-11%4y-1%
LGNDLigand Pharmaceuticals$268M96%3y31.6%2%45%
ARVNArvinas Inc.$263M-305.8%-37%-105%
SDGRSchrodinger Inc.$256M57%-80.8%-38%-53%
Group median70%-22.8%-37%-32%
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 Ironwood Pharmaceuticals Inc. has delivered.

Ironwood Pharmaceuticals 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.

$

Through the cycle, Ironwood Pharmaceuticals Inc. earns about $105M on its 35.4% median owner-earnings margin. This year’s 42.9% 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 4.71% 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 · ’21→’25−19%/yr
Owner-earnings growth · since FY2019+82%/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 (4.71%, 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 $186M on 165M shares outstanding, per the 10-Q cover, as of 2026-07-31; net debt $306M. 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, "Ironwood Pharmaceuticals Inc. (IRWD), the owner's record," https://ownerscorecard.com/c/IRWD, data as of 2026-08-17.

Manual order: ← IRTC its page in the Manual ISRG →

Industry order: ← IRD the Pharmaceuticals chapter IVA →