Owner Scorecard


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KRMN, Karman Holdings Inc.

Aerospace & Defense capital-intensive Distress / turnaround

Our engineering expertise, vertically integrated production capabilities, and successful track record with critical subcomponent and subsystem design and manufacturing position us to successfully serve our prime contractor customers.

We specialize in the upfront design, testing, manufacturing, and sale of mission-critical systems for existing and emerging, high-priority missile and defense, and space programs.

Our integrated payload protection, interstage and propulsion system solutions are deployed across a wide variety of existing and emerging programs supporting important Department of War ("DoW") and space sector initiatives.

Latest annual: FY2025 10-K
KRMN · Karman Holdings Inc.
I

The business

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

Revenue · FY2025
$472M
+36.6% YoY · 28% 3-yr CAGR
Vital signs · TTM, with 4-yr average
Revenue $590M 4-yr avg $331M
Gross margin 42% 4-yr avg 38%
Operating margin 16.8% 4-yr avg 15.0%
ROIC 6% 4-yr avg 9%
Owner-earnings margin −5% 4-yr avg −4%
Free cash flow margin −5% 4-yr avg −4%

Next report By 11/13 · the 10-Q for the quarter ended late September · due within 45 days of period end · has filed ~42 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
Revenue is Tactical Missile and Integrated Defense Systems (36%), Hypersonic and Strategic Missile Defense (32%) and Space and Launch (32%).
Situation
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
Gross margin has run about 38% and operating margin about 16% through the cycle, a solid spread between what it charges and what the product costs to make. Read this kind of business on the backlog and program execution. On its own account, the filing leans hardest on customer concentration, set against the numbers in what the filing emphasizes, below.
Is it a good business?
Return on capital has sat near the cost of capital (median 10%). 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 3 segments, the largest Tactical Missile And Integrated Defense Systems at 36%.

Revenue by reportable segment, FY2025
  • Tactical Missile And Integrated Defense Systems36%$172M
  • Hypersonic And Strategic Missile Defense32%$150M
  • Space And Launch32%$150M

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, 2022–2025

realized figures from each filing · older years to the left
2022’222023’232024’242025’25TTMTTMJun 2026
Income statement
$226M$281M$345M$472M$590MRevenueRevenue
$81M$106M$132M$190M$246MGross profitGross prof.
36%38%38%40%42%Gross marginGross mgn
13%13%13%18%17%SG&A / revenueSG&A/rev
$20M$48M$64M$73M$99MOperating incomeOp. inc.
9.0%17.3%18.4%15.5%16.8%Operating marginOp. mgn
($17M)$1M$14M$33MPretax incomePretax
($14M)$4M$13M$17M$37MNet incomeNet inc.
11%47%30%Effective tax rateTax rate
Cash flow & returns
($6M)$20M$27M($22M)$6MOperating cash flowOp. cash
$35M$27M$33M$43M$55MDepreciation & amortizationD&A
($28M)($13M)($20M)($84M)($88M)Working capital & otherWC & other
$21M$17M$15M$20M$34MCapexCapex
9.4%6.0%4.4%4.3%5.7%Capex / revenueCapex/rev
($27M)$4M$11M($42M)($28M)Owner earningsOwner earn.
−12.0%1.3%3.3%−9.0%−4.7%Owner earnings marginOE mgn
($27M)$4M$11M($42M)($28M)Free cash flowFCF
−12.0%1.3%3.3%−9.0%−4.7%Free cash flow marginFCF mgn
$31M$212M$296MAcquisitionsAcquis.
($21M)($16M)($46M)($238M)Investing cash flowInv. cash
$17M($5M)$26M$283MFinancing cash flowFin. cash
($10M)($1M)$6M$22MChange in cashΔ cash
10%11%5%6%ROICROIC
-8%2%6%5%9%Return on equityROE
−8%2%6%5%9%Retained to equityRetained/eq
Balance sheet
$5M$12M$34M$52MCash & investmentsCash+inv
$48M$51M$55M$79M$115MReceivablesReceiv.
$10M$10M$11M$16MInventoryInvent.
$21M$28M$32M$45MAccounts payablePayables
$48M$39M$37M$58M$86MOperating working capitalOper. WC
$158M$202M$291M$385MCurrent assetsCur. assets
$87M$115M$89M$108MCurrent liabilitiesCur. liab.
1.8×1.8×3.3×3.6×Current ratioCurr. ratio
$52M$61M$95MNet PP&ENet PP&E
$217M$217M$225M$353M$498MGoodwillGoodwill
$711M$774M$1.1B$1.4BTotal assetsAssets
$304M$334M$499M$757MTotal debtDebt
$299M$323M$465M$705MNet debt / (cash)Net debt
0.5×1.0×1.3×1.6×2.0×Interest coverageInt. cov.
$578M$721MTotal liabilitiesTotal liab.
$178M$182M$196M$383M$421MShareholders’ equityEquity
0.7%0.5%0.3%0.3%0.2%Stock comp / revenueSBC/rev
Per share
159M167M167M132M133MShares out (diluted)Shares
$1.42$1.68$2.07$3.56$4.45Revenue / shareRev/sh
$-0.09$0.03$0.08$0.13$0.28EPS (diluted)EPS
$-0.17$0.02$0.07$-0.32$-0.21Owner earnings / shareOE/sh
$-0.17$0.02$0.07$-0.32$-0.21Free cash flow / shareFCF/sh
$0.13$0.10$0.09$0.15$0.25Cap. spending / shareCapex/sh
$1.12$1.09$1.18$2.89$3.18Book value / shareBVPS
Per-share growththe realized rate an owner's share compounded
3-yr5-yr
Revenue / share+35.8%/yr+35.8%/yr (3-yr)
Capital spending / share+4.8%/yr+4.8%/yr (3-yr)
Book value / share+37.3%/yr+37.3%/yr (3-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 2025 the business reported $17M of profit but ($42M) of owner earnings: $60M less than the profit line, taken out by capital spending and the timing of cash.

FY2025FY2024FY2023FY2022
Reported net income$17M$13M$4M($14M)
Depreciation & amortizationnon-cash charge added back+$43M+$33M+$27M+$35M
Stock-based compensationreal costnon-cash, but a real cost+$1M+$993K+$1M+$2M
Working capital & othertiming of cash in and out, other non-cash items−$84M−$20M−$13M−$28M
Cash from operations($22M)$27M$20M($6M)
Capital expenditurecash put back in to keep running and to grow−$20M−$15M−$17M−$21M
Owner earnings($42M)$11M$4M($27M)
Owner-earnings marginowner earnings ÷ revenue-9%3%1%-12%

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 $1M), owner earnings is nearer ($44M).

Much of fiscal 2025'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 →
Material weakness in financial controls
“See 31 also " We have identified material weaknesses in our internal control over financial reporting.”

The figures below are only as sound as the controls that produced them. read the note →

Will it survive?

  • Thin
    Operating income $73M ÷ interest expense $45M
    What this means

    Operating profit covers interest, but with little room. A bad year, a refinancing at higher rates, or a revenue wobble closes the gap fast.

  • How heavy is the debt, net of cash? $465M · 6.4× operating profit
    Heavy net debt
    Cash $34M − debt $499M
    What this means

    Netting $34M of cash and short-term investments against $499M of debt leaves $465M owed, about 6.4× a year's operating profit (6.8× 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.

  • Tight
    DSO 61 + DIO 14 − DPO 41 days
    What this means

    Days cash is tied up between paying suppliers and collecting from customers. Lower is better; a long cycle means growth itself eats cash.

Is it a good business?

  • Solid through the cycle
    3-yr median, range 5%–11%; 5% latest = NOPAT $39M ÷ invested capital $848M
    Industry peers: median 5%
    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 3 years (it ran 5% 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.

  • Consumes cash through the cycle
    4-yr median margin, range -12%–3%; latest ($42M) = operating cash ($22M) − maintenance capex $20M
    Industry peers: median 3%
    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 -9% of revenue this year, a -4% median across 4 years. Treating stock comp as the real expense it is (less $1M of SBC) leaves ($44M).

  • Thinly cash-backed
    Cash from ops ($22M) ÷ net income $17M

    In the filing’s words The filing discloses a material weakness in its financial controls — the reported numbers here, and the record built on them, are only as reliable as the controls that produced them.

    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? 0.48×
    Harvesting
    Capex $20M ÷ depreciation & amortization as filed $43M
    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? 0.3%
    The count is genuinely shrinking
    Stock compensation $1M (fiscal 2025), 0.3% of revenue · no repurchases · diluted shares -16.8% 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 · 1 of 3 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 · $472M
    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× · 3.29×
    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 · $499M vs $203M 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.

  • 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 $0.09/share (latest year $0.13), the averaged base the calculator's gate runs on, and book value is $2.89/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, 2022–2025

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

  • Profitable years 3 of 4
    What this means

    Lost money in 1 year(s), look at what happened there before trusting the average.

  • Return on capital ≥ 15% 0 of 3 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 13% → 17% (2-yr avg ends)

    In the filing’s words The record and the words agree: the margin widened and the filing attributes the gain to its own pricing, not volume alone.

    What this means

    Through the cycle the operating margin widened — about 13% early to 17% lately, median 15% — pricing power intact or improving.

  • 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 · 9.0% op. margin
    What this means

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

  • Share count −6.0%/yr
    What this means

    The share count is shrinking, buybacks are quietly growing your slice of the business.

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$385M
  • Cash & short-term investments$52M
  • Receivables$115M
  • Inventory$16M
  • Other current assets$202M
Current liabilities$108M
  • Debt due within a year$6M
  • Accounts payable$45M
  • Other current liabilities$57M
Current ratio3.56×all current assets ÷ what's due · Graham looked for 2×
Quick ratio3.40×stricter: inventory excluded
Cash ratio0.48×strictest: cash alone against what's due
Working capital$277Mthe cushion left after near-term bills
Debt due this year vs. cash$6M due · $52M cash covered by cash on hand, no refinancing forced · both figures from the Jun 30, 2026 balance sheet
Revenue, latest quarter vs. a year ago+58.2%the freshest read on whether the business is still growing
Current ratio, recent quarters1.8× → 3.6×
Deeper floors
Tangible book value($404M)equity stripped of goodwill & intangibles
Net current asset value($638M)Graham's net-net: current assets less all liabilities
Debt incl. operating leases$22M$16M of it operating leases
Deferred revenue$26Mcustomer cash collected before delivery; operating float

From the company's latest filing.

How the cash was used, 2022–2025

Over the record, the business generated $19M of operating cash; how management split it reads as a reinvestor, most operating cash is plowed back into the business.

  • Reinvested$74M · 388%
  • Source of funding−$55M

    Reinvestment and shareholder returns ran $55M beyond the operating cash the business generated, so the gap was financed off the balance sheet.

  • Net change in share count−16.7%

    The diluted count fell from 159M to 133M, so the buybacks outran the stock issued to staff.

  • Dividend record

    No dividend line was reported in the filing data over the span; the record here neither confirms nor rules out a payout.

  • Return on what it retained−25%

    Of the earnings it kept rather than paid out ($20M over the span), annual owner earnings (first three years vs last three) fell $5M, so each retained $1 gave back about 0.25 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.

Acquisitions & goodwill

from the balance sheet & the 4-year cash-flow record

Goodwill 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.

Goodwill & intangibles$638M58% of all assets; the premium carried on the balance sheet for businesses acquired
Against book equity92%goodwill is this share of book equity; the rest is the company’s own retained and paid-in capital
Cash spent acquiring$243Mover 2 years since fiscal 2024 buying other businesses, against $74M of capital spent building over the 4-year record

None written down over the record; the goodwill is still carried at full cost. That is the deals holding their value on the books so far; whether they keep doing so is the test an owner watches, since the write-down, when it comes, is the admission the price was too high.

Beside that spending sits $79M of cumulative amortization of acquired intangibles charged against earnings since fiscal 2022 — 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 4-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.

  • Insider ownership5.8%

    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$1M

    The slice of the business handed to employees in shares in fiscal 2025, 0.3% of revenue, equal to 1.9% 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 →
  • How much of the revenue rides on one buyer?
    ≈$304M · 52% of revenue on the largest customers (TTM)
    “Our three largest customers accounted for approximately 51.5% of revenue during the year ended December 31, 2025.”verify →
  • Which reported numbers are a judgment call?
    Management names Revenue recognition, Acquisitions 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, Aerospace & Defense

The same industry, side by side on owner economics. Each column names the period it is read over; 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
ATROAstronics Corporation$862M22%1.8%2%4%
DCODucommun Incorporated$825M21%5.3%5%2%
MBUUMalibu Boats Inc.$808M25%14.0%23%11%
LOARLoar Holdings Inc.$496M49%21.8%5%
KRMNKarman Holdings Inc.$472M38%16.4%10%-4%
RDWRedwire Corporation$335M18%-51.0%-59%-22%
MCFTMasterCraft Boat Holdings Inc.$284M26%14.7%37%10%
TATTTAT Technologies Ltd.$178M19%3.5%0%-2%
Group median24%9.7%5%2%
IV

The price

What a price has to assume.

What the price implies

reverse-DCF

Karman Holdings Inc. is profitable, but owner earnings are negative this year because capital spending currently outruns operating cash, a build-out, so the owner-earnings reverse-DCF has no positive base to grow. We read the price from both ends instead: type a price to see the steady-state profitability it demands, then set the mature margin you would believe and weigh the two against each other. Nothing leaves your browser unless you enter it in your notebook.

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The assumptions

Revenue, delivered27%/yr’22→’25

Enter a price to run it.

Owner earnings it must reach
Margin the price demands
Owner-earnings margin today−5%

Two reads of one future. From your price: the owner earnings the company must reach, valued at a mature multiple and discounted back at your rate, expressed as the margin it implies on revenue grown at your rate. From your belief: the mature margin you would credit, set on the dial above. When the margin the price demands runs above the one you would believe, you are paying for a future taken on faith. For a deep cyclical at a trough, normalized through-cycle earnings are the better lens; this mode is for the genuinely unprofitable, and for the profitable business whose capital spending currently outruns its cash.

Cite: Owner Scorecard, "Karman Holdings Inc. (KRMN), the owner's record," https://ownerscorecard.com/c/KRMN, data as of 2026-08-17.

Manual order: ← KRG its page in the Manual KRNY →

Industry order: ← JOBY the Aerospace & Defense chapter KTOS →