FE, Firstenergy Corp
Read top to bottom, the owner's questions in the order an owner asks them: what the business is, whether the record holds, whether it survives and is any good, and what you would be paying. New to the questions? Start with the Method.
The business in brief
read the 10-K →What this business is and what moves its needle, read from the numbers in its filings. The quantitative detail is in the sections below; the verdict is left to you.
- What it is
- Revenue is Electricity, US Regulated (81%), Transmission (15%) and Other (4%).
- What moves the needle
- How hard the assets work, and what the inputs cost. What decides it: utilization, how much of the capex merely keeps the assets running, and what a downturn does to a heavy fixed-cost base.
- Is it a good business?
- Return on capital has rarely cleared the cost of capital (median 5%, above 15% in 0 of 10 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 10-K is where you look.
Every line here is arithmetic from the company's own filings, not a model's opinion, and each figure appears in full in the sections below.
Where the money comes from
read the 10-K →Electricity, US Regulated is 81% of revenue, so this is largely a single-line business.
- Electricity, US Regulated81%$12.2B
- Transmission15%$2.3B
- Other4%$590M
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.
The record, 2016–2025
realized figures from each filing, no estimates| 2016’16 | 2017’17 | 2018’18 | 2019’19 | 2020’20 | 2021’21 | 2022’22 | 2023’23 | 2024’24 | 2025’25 | TTMTTMMar 2026 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| RevenueRevenue | $10.7B | $10.9B | $10.9B | $10.8B | $10.7B | $11.1B | $12.5B | $12.9B | $13.5B | $15.1B | $15.5B |
| Operating marginOp. mgn | 19.2% | 22.2% | 22.9% | 23.2% | 20.2% | 15.5% | 15.3% | 17.6% | 17.6% | 14.6% | 14.7% |
| Net incomeNet inc. | ($6.2B) | ($1.7B) | $1.3B | $912M | $1.1B | $1.3B | $406M | $1.1B | $978M | $1.0B | $1.1B |
| EPS (diluted)EPS | $-14.50 | $-3.88 | $2.73 | $1.68 | $1.99 | $2.35 | $0.71 | $1.92 | $1.69 | $1.76 | $1.84 |
| Owner earningsOwner earn. | $548M | $1.2B | ($1.3B) | ($198M) | ($1.2B) | $324M | ($165M) | ($2.0B) | ($1.1B) | ($1.0B) | ($1.7B) |
| ROICROIC | 7% | 9% | 8% | 8% | 7% | 5% | 3% | 5% | 5% | 5% | 5% |
| CapexCapex | $2.8B | $2.6B | $2.7B | $2.7B | $2.7B | $2.5B | $2.8B | $3.4B | $4.0B | $4.7B | $5.0B |
| Capex / revenueCapex/rev | 26.5% | 23.7% | 24.4% | 24.7% | 24.8% | 22.4% | 22.9% | 26.1% | 29.9% | 31.2% | 31.9% |
| Capex vs depreciationCapex/dep | 1.44× | 1.52× | 1.93× | 2.19× | 2.22× | 1.49× | 2.16× | — | — | — | 3.76× |
| Total debtDebt | $18.2B | $18.7B | $17.8B | $19.6B | $22.1B | $22.2B | $21.2B | $22.9B | $22.5B | $25.5B | $26.3B |
| Cash & investmentsCash+inv | $199M | $588M | $367M | $627M | $1.7B | $1.5B | $160M | $137M | $111M | $57M | $52M |
| Net debt / (cash)Net debt | $18.0B | $18.1B | $17.4B | $19.0B | $20.4B | $20.8B | $21.0B | $22.7B | $22.4B | $25.5B | $26.3B |
Owner’s Scorecard
Will it survive?
- ThinOperating income $2.2B ÷ interest expense $1.2B
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? 11.6×HighTotal debt $25.5B ÷ operating income $2.2B
Years of operating profit it would take to repay all debt. A first read, not a credit rating: it's gross debt (not netted against cash) over EBIT (not EBITDA), and a cyclical year distorts it.
- Debt, net of cash $25.5BHeavy net debtCash $57M − debt $25.5B
Netting $57M of cash and short-term investments against $25.5B of debt leaves $25.5B owed, about 11.5× a year's operating profit, versus the gross figure above. Net debt is the leverage figure that matters; the gross ratio above ignores the cash already set against it. Strategic or illiquid investments aren't counted here.
- Not enough data
The filing data didn't include the inputs for this check.
Is it a good business?
- Below averageNOPAT $1.7B ÷ invested capital $38.0B (debt + equity − cash)
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; below ~8% the company may destroy value as it grows. Asset-light businesses (R&D expensed, little capital) read artificially high, pair this with Owner Earnings.
- Consumes cashOwner Earnings ($1.0B) = operating cash $3.7B − capex $4.7B
What an owner could take out without starving the business. That's -7% of revenue. Treating stock comp as the real expense it is (less ($10M) of SBC) leaves ($995M). Honest caveat: capex here blends maintenance and growth, so steady-state Owner Earnings may run higher (see capex vs. depreciation).
- Cash-backedCash from ops $3.7B ÷ net income $1.0B
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?
- No surplus to allocate
The business didn't generate positive Owner Earnings this year, so any distributions came from the balance sheet or borrowing, not from operations.
- Investing or harvesting? 3.57×ExpandingCapex $4.7B ÷ depreciation $1.3B
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.
Durability & moat, 2016–2025
A moat is a high return that doesn’t fade, reinvested at high returns. Here is what the record says, judgments, not another chart of the numbers.
- Profitable years 8 of 10
Lost money in 2 year(s), look at what happened there before trusting the average.
- Return on capital ≥ 15% 0 of 10 yrs
A moat shows up as a high return on invested capital that holds year after year, not one good vintage.
- Operating margin 19% (FY2016) → 15% (FY2025)
Margins slipped over the record, competition or costs are biting in.
- Reinvestment, incremental ROIC −0%
Reinvested capital earned a negative return, the business spent money to shrink its own economics.
- Worst year 2025 · 14.6% op. margin
Stayed profitable even in its hardest year, the resilience that survives recessions.
- Share count +3.4%/yr
The share count is rising, dilution works against you on a per-share basis.
- Dividend record rising
Paid and raised the dividend across the record, the continuity Graham prized.
Solvent is not the same as cheap; growing is not the same as good. These are vital signs, not a verdict, the judgment is yours, and the filing is one click away.
How the cash was used, 2016–2025
Over the record, the business generated $26.0B of operating cash, and how management split it is, as Buffett insists, the job that matters most. Here it reads as a reinvestor, most operating cash is plowed back into the business.
- Reinvested$30.8B · 119%
- Dividends$8.3B · 32%
It reinvested $30.8B (119%) back into the business and returned $8.3B (32%) to owners, $8.3B in dividends, $0 in buybacks. Total debt rose $8.1B across the span. It returned and reinvested more than it generated, the gap was covered by debt or existing cash.
Buybacks are gross of stock issued to employees; net of that, the real return to owners is lower (see Management & pay). And the mix alone doesn't grade management, what matters is the return earned on the dollars reinvested (see incremental ROIC in the durability report).
Management & pay
Two questions Buffett actually asks about pay: is stock compensation, a real expense, whatever the income statement pretends, quietly large, and is the top wildly out of line with the floor. He's no populist about it; he just wants pay that's rational and earned, and comp committees that aren't lapdogs.
- Stock-based compensation($10M)
The slice of the business handed to employees in shares this year, -0% of revenue, equal to -0% of operating profit. Buffett's oldest accounting fight: this is compensation, compensation is an expense, real whether or not the headline earnings admit it. And note the 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.
Graham’s defensive-investor test
2 of 5 metGraham gave the defensive investor seven numerical criteria in The Intelligent Investor. Here they are, run mechanically on the filings, his framework, not our verdict. Meeting them is a floor of safety, not a reason to buy; missing one is no veto, since many fine modern businesses fail his strictest liquidity tests by design. The worth is in seeing exactly where a company stands against the canon, every number sourced.
- Adequate size PassRevenue ≥ $2B · $15.1B
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 MissCurrent ratio ≥ 2× · 0.57×
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 MissDebt ≤ working capital · $25.5B vs ($2.3B) WC
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 MissA profit every year (10-yr record) · 2 loss years
Graham wanted earnings in each of the past ten years, the stability a defensive owner leans on.
- Dividend record PassUninterrupted dividends · paid every year (10)
An unbroken dividend was Graham's mark of durability. He wanted twenty years; the filings show about ten, and a single suspension breaks the streak. Non-payers, many fine modern compounders, fall outside his defensive net by design.
- Earnings growth —Earnings +33% over the record · —
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
Graham's valuation gate, the wall he kept between a sound business and a sound investment. Earnings are $1.76/share and book value $21.64/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.
Graham would be the first to say a checklist is a starting point, not an answer. These are his defensive, bargain-hunter's tests, the cigar-butt lens. Buffett and Munger grew past it, paying fair prices for wonderful businesses; that lens lives in the moat and owner-earnings work above, and both still matter. Clearing Graham’s tests earns a closer look; failing them earns harder questions, not a dismissal.
What the price implies
reverse-DCFOwner earnings are negative today, so the usual reverse-DCF has nothing to grow. But that's exactly when a price makes its boldest promise. So we flip the question: type a price, and see the future profitability you'd have to believe to justify it.
Enter a price to run it.
It flips the reverse-DCF: the company must reach owner earnings that, valued at a mature multiple and discounted back at your rate, equal today's market cap, shown as the margin it must earn on revenue grown at your rate, from negative today. For a deep cyclical at a trough, normalized through-cycle earnings are the better lens; this is for the genuinely unprofitable.
What the filing emphasizes, FY2025
read the 10-K →Each year a 10-K must name what could go wrong, in the company's own words. Here are the ones Graham and Buffett would stop on, each set against the figure from the same filings that bears on it, anchored to a period you can find in the record above. We point; the judgment is yours.
- Customer concentrationMD&A
Who the revenue leans on. When one buyer is a large slice of sales, that buyer holds the pricing power, and its troubles become the company's.
“On April 21, 2022, the WVPSC issued an order approving, effective May 1, 2022, a tariff to offer solar power on a voluntary basis to West Virginia customers and requiring MP and PE to subscribe at least 85% of the planned 50 MWs of solar generation before seeking approval for surcharge cost recovery…”
From the recordRevenue exposed (TTM)$15.5B - Pricing power & competitionMD&A
Whether the company sets its price or takes it. Durable pricing power is the surest mark of a moat; price competition is the surest mark there isn't one.
“FERC regulates the sale of power for resale in interstate commerce in part by granting authority to public utilities to sell wholesale power at market-based rates upon showing that the seller cannot exert market power in generation or transmission or erect barriers to entry into markets.”
From the recordOperating margin14.7% now (TTM), off a 23.2% peak (FY2019) - Concentrated dependenceRisk Factors
What the whole business leans on, a product, a platform, a partner. Concentration cuts both ways, and the filing is where management has to admit it.
“Energy markets depend heavily on active participation by multiple counterparties, which could be adversely affected should there be disruptions in the bank and capital markets.”
From the recordOwner-earnings margin at stake (TTM)−11% - Debt terms & refinancingMD&A
The fine print behind the debt. Covenants and near-term maturities decide who is really in control when a year goes badly.
“Each of the Amended Credit Facilities contain financial covenants requiring each borrower, with the exception of FE, to maintain a consolidated debt-to-total-capitalization ratio (as defined under each of the Amended Credit Facilities) of no more than 65%, and 75% for FET, measured at the end of eac…”
From the recordBalance sheet (TTM)$25.5B heavy net debt · interest covered 1.8× - Litigation & contingenciesRisk Factors
Claims an owner inherits. Most disclosure is boilerplate; this fires only on an actual matter, a named suit, a settlement, a contingency, a number.
“Ohio of the investigation surrounding HB 6 in July 2020, certain of FE's stockholders and customers filed several lawsuits against us and certain current and former directors, officers and other employees, including the federal securities class action litigation In re FirstEnergy Corp.”
A judgment, not a number, weigh it against the filing yourself. - Regulation & policyMD&A
Rules that can rewrite the economics, tariffs, antitrust, data, export controls.
“On November 19, 2025, the PUCO issued a separate order which assessed approximately $250 million in monetary penalties upon the Ohio Companies in connection with the PUCO's ongoing HB 6 audits and investigations.”
A judgment, not a number, weigh it against the filing yourself.
What changed, FY2025 vs FY2024
read the 10-K →Most of a 10-K is boilerplate carried over verbatim; the signal is in what's new. These lines appear this year and weren't there last, figure updates filtered out, so only the language shift remains.
- “Impairment of assets decreased $70 million in 2025, as compared to 2024, due to: The absence of a $53 million pre-tax charge at JCP&L in the first quarter of 2024 associated with certain corporate support costs recorded to capital accounts from the FERC Audit that were determined, as a result of the…”
- “In addition, FE and its subsidiaries expect to continually evaluate any planned financings, which may result in changes from time to time. 48 While supply lead times have not fully returned to levels prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, FirstEnergy continues to monitor the situation in light of demand in…”
- “As discussed, in Note 1.,"Organization and Basis of Presentation," of the Combined Notes to Financial Statements of the Registrants, during the fourth quarter of 2025, JCP&L identified an error in the recording of certain expenses for smart meter cost of removal associated with the deployment of its…”
- “On September 15, 2020, the PUCO opened a new proceeding to review the political and charitable spending by the Ohio Companies in support of HB 6 and the subsequent referendum effort, and directed the Ohio Companies to show cause, demonstrating that the costs of any political or charitable spending i…”
- “Any future downgrades in FirstEnergy or its subsidiaries' credit ratings from the nationally recognized credit rating agencies, particularly to levels below investment grade, could negatively affect our ability to access the bank and capital markets, especially in a time of uncertainty in either of …”
Classic text analysis over the filing itself, no model wrote a word of this, and every quote is the company's own.
Peers, Utilities
The same industry, side by side on owner economics, compare, don't rank by a single number.● marks best in the group.
| Company | Revenue | Gross margin | Op. margin | ROIC | Owner earn. margin |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| EIXEdison International | $19.3B | — | 36.7% | 10% | -4% |
| DDominion Energy, Inc | $16.5B | — | 26.7% | 5% | 2% |
| FEFirstenergy Corp | $15.1B | — | 14.6% | 5% | -7% |
| ESEversource Energy | $13.5B | — | 22.1% | 6% | -0% |
| ETREntergy Corp /de/ | $12.9B | — | 24.7% | 6% | -20% |
| DTEDTE Energy Co | $12.6B | — | 18.8% | 6% | — |
| CNPCenterpoint Energy Inc | $9.3B | 100% | 22.6% | 5% | -26% |
| PPLPPL Corp | $9.2B | — | 23.2% | 5% | -15% |