ROK, Rockwell Automation, Inc.

Instruments capital-intensive

Rockwell Automation, Inc. is the world's largest company dedicated to industrial automation and digital transformation.

Latest filing: FY2025 10-K

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.

ROK · Rockwell Automation, Inc.

Revenue · FY2025

$8.3B

+0.9% YoY · 6% 5-yr CAGR

Vital signs · TTM, with 5-yr average

Gross margin 49% 5-yr avg 45%

Operating margin 22.0% 5-yr avg 20.0%

ROIC 28% 5-yr avg 25%

Owner-earnings margin 15% 5-yr avg 12%

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 Products and solutions (88%) and Services (12%).
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 run high across the record (median 29%, above 15% in 10 of 10 years). Owner earnings agree: roughly 16% of revenue reaches owners as cash, consistently. High, durable returns can mark a moat, but whether this one is real pricing power or an accounting artifact is the judgment the 10-K is for.

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 →

Revenue spreads across 3 segments, the largest Intelligent Devices at 45%.

Revenue by reportable segment, FY2025

Intelligent Devices45%$3.8B
Software & Control29%$2.4B
Lifecycle Services26%$2.2B

By geographyNorth America63%EMEA18%Asia Pacific12%Latin America7%

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	$5.9B	$6.3B	$6.7B	$6.7B	$6.3B	$7.0B	$7.8B	$9.1B	$8.3B	$8.3B	$8.8B
Operating marginOp. mgn	17.3%	17.6%	21.1%	14.9%	19.6%	23.4%	15.6%	21.3%	19.3%	20.4%	22.0%
Net incomeNet inc.	$730M	$826M	$536M	$696M	$1.0B	$1.4B	$932M	$1.4B	$953M	$869M	$1.1B
EPS (diluted)EPS	$5.57	$6.36	$4.22	$5.83	$8.78	$11.60	$7.99	$12.00	$8.32	$7.68	$9.65
Owner earningsOwner earn.	—	$892M	$1.2B	$1.0B	$1.0B	$1.1B	$682M	$1.2B	$639M	$1.4B	$1.3B
ROICROIC	40%	32%	32%	47%	49%	28%	18%	29%	23%	25%	28%
CapexCapex	$117M	$142M	$126M	$133M	$114M	$120M	$141M	$161M	$225M	$186M	$196M
Capex / revenueCapex/rev	2.0%	2.2%	1.9%	2.0%	1.8%	1.7%	1.8%	1.8%	2.7%	2.2%	2.2%
Capex vs depreciationCapex/dep	0.68×	0.84×	0.76×	0.87×	0.66×	0.63×	0.59×	0.64×	0.71×	0.57×	0.60×
Total debtDebt	$1.5B	$1.5B	$1.2B	$2.3B	$2.0B	$3.5B	$3.5B	$2.9B	$2.9B	$2.6B	$2.6B
Cash & investmentsCash+inv	$2.4B	$2.5B	$910M	$1.1B	$705M	$663M	$503M	$1.1B	$471M	$468M	$429M
Net debt / (cash)Net debt	($913M)	($1.0B)	$316M	$1.2B	$1.3B	$2.8B	$3.0B	$1.8B	$2.4B	$2.1B	$2.2B

Owner’s Scorecard

FY2025 10-K · source on SEC EDGAR →

Will it survive?

Can it pay its interest? 10.9×

Comfortable

Operating income $1.7B ÷ interest expense $156M

Operating profit covers interest with the kind of margin Graham wanted for a defensive holding. Necessary, not sufficient, it says solvent, not cheap.
How heavy is the debt? 1.5×

Conservative

Total debt $2.6B ÷ operating income $1.7B

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 $2.1B

Modest net debt

Cash $468M + ST investments $300K − debt $2.6B

Netting $468M of cash and short-term investments against $2.6B of debt leaves $2.1B owed, about 1.3× 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.
How long is cash tied up? —

Not enough data

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

Is it a good business?

Return on invested capital 25%

High

NOPAT $1.4B ÷ invested capital $5.8B (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.
Owner Earnings (free cash) margin 16%

Cash machine

Owner Earnings $1.4B = operating cash $1.5B − capex $186M

What an owner could take out without starving the business. That's 16% of revenue. Treating stock comp as the real expense it is (less $85M of SBC) leaves $1.3B. Honest caveat: capex here blends maintenance and growth, so steady-state Owner Earnings may run higher (see capex vs. depreciation).
Are earnings backed by cash? 1.78×

Cash-backed

Cash from ops $1.5B ÷ net income $869M

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?

Where do the earnings go? 75%

Returns about half

Dividends + buybacks $1.0B ÷ Owner Earnings $1.4B

Of $1.4B Owner Earnings, $1.0B (75%) went back to shareholders, $591M dividends, $425M buybacks. Net of $85M stock comp, the real buyback was about $340M. Returning most of it signals a mature cash machine; reinvesting most could mean a long runway, or empire-building. The split doesn't say which; the return earned on it (see ROIC) does.
Investing or harvesting? 0.57×

Harvesting

Capex $186M ÷ depreciation $325M

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 10 of 10

Never lost money over the record, the earnings stability Graham insisted on.
Return on capital ≥ 15% 10 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 17% (FY2016) → 20% (FY2025)

Margins widened over the record, pricing power intact or improving.
Reinvestment, incremental ROIC 20%

Every extra dollar the company reinvested earned a high return, it is still compounding, not coasting on an old moat.
Owner earnings growth −0%/yr

Free cash to owners shrank about 0% a year over the record.
Worst year 2019 · 14.9% op. margin

Stayed profitable even in its hardest year, the resilience that survives recessions.
Share count −1.6%/yr

The share count is shrinking, buybacks are quietly growing your slice of the business.
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, 2017–2025

Over the record, the business generated $10.5B of operating cash, and how management split it is, as Buffett insists, the job that matters most. Here it reads as a mature cash machine, most of what it earns goes straight back to owners.

Reinvested$1.3B · 13%
Dividends$4.5B · 43%
Buybacks$5.0B · 48%

It reinvested $1.3B (13%) back into the business and returned $9.5B (91%) to owners, $4.5B in dividends, $5.0B in buybacks. Total debt rose $1.1B 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$85M
The slice of the business handed to employees in shares this year, 1% of revenue, equal to 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. 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

4 of 6 met

Graham 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 Pass

Revenue ≥ $2B · $8.3B

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× · 1.14×

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 · $2.6B vs $466M 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 Pass

A profit every year (10-yr record) · no losses

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

Uninterrupted 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 Pass

Earnings +33% over the record · +53%

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

Graham's valuation gate, the wall he kept between a sound business and a sound investment. Earnings are $7.68/share and book value $32.31/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-DCF

A price is the one input we don't pull, you bring it. Type today's close (read it off any broker or quote site) and see the owner-earnings growth you'd have to believe to justify it, set beside what Rockwell Automation, Inc. has actually delivered. Nothing is stored; the number stays in your browser.

Today’s price $

Enter a price above to run it.

Implied by the price—

Delivered (record)−0%/yr

Owner-earnings yield—

P/E (3-yr earnings)—

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. Read it as the bargain-hunter's floor, not a ceiling on good sense.

The assumptions, turn the dials Discount rate 9% Years of high growth 10 Terminal growth 2.5%

The discount rate is your interest rate, what a dollar years from now is worth today, anchored to the long-term Treasury yield (~4–5% today, plus whatever premium you want for risk). Drag it toward the risk-free rate and watch how much growth the price suddenly “needs”: interest rates are gravity on valuations.

Owner earnings $1.3B on 113M diluted shares; net debt $2.2B. This is a lens, not a price target, it says what you'd have to believe, not what the company is worth, and it runs on one year of (noisy) owner earnings at assumptions you can see and change.

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.

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.
“We conduct a significant portion of our business activities outside the United States.”
From the recordOwner-earnings margin at stake (TTM)15%
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.
“We were in compliance with all covenants under our credit agreement and credit facilities at September 30, 2025, and September 30, 2024.”
From the recordBalance sheet (TTM)$2.1B modest net debt · interest covered 10.9×
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.
“Our principal self-insurance programs include product liability and workers' compensation where we self-insure up to a specified dollar amount.”
A judgment, not a number, weigh it against the filing yourself.
Regulation & policyRisk Factors
Rules that can rewrite the economics, tariffs, antitrust, data, export controls.
“We do not provide for deferred taxes on a limited number of our non-U.S. subsidiaries established in jurisdictions that apply significant restrictions for repatriating cash.”
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.

MD&A length +11%Readability harderHedging down

“As of September 30, 2025, the carrying value of the Sensia reporting unit, after consideration of the fourth quarter intangible asset impairment, was determined to be in excess of the reporting unit's fair value, resulting in a $161 million pre-tax, non-cash goodwill impairment charge recorded in th…”
“Segment operating margin decreased to 14.5 percent in 2025 from 16.1 percent in 2024, primarily due to higher compensation, partially offset by strong project execution and productivity. 2024 Compared to 2023 For a discussion of the Company's fiscal 2024 results compared to fiscal 2023, see Item 7.”
“The decrease was primarily due to higher compensation, the non-cash impairment charge related to the Sensia joint venture, and an accounting change and accrual increase for legacy asbestos liabilities, partially offset by productivity, price realization, and prior year restructuring charges.”
“The decrease was primarily due to higher compensation, the non-cash impairment charge related to the Sensia joint venture, and an accounting change and accrual increase for legacy asbestos liabilities, partially offset by productivity, price realization, and prior year restructuring charges.”
“How the Critical Audit Matter Was Addressed in the Audit Our audit procedures related to forecasts of future revenues and EBITDA margins and selection of the discount rate for the Sensia reporting unit included the following, among others: We tested the effectiveness of controls over management's go…”

Classic text analysis over the filing itself, no model wrote a word of this, and every quote is the company's own.

Peers, Instruments

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
KLACKLA Corporation	$12.2B	61%	6.4%	8%	31%
ROKRockwell Automation, Inc.	$8.3B	48%	20.4%	25%	16%
ROPRoper Technologies Inc	$7.9B	69%	28.3%	6%	32%
AMEAmetek, Inc.	$7.4B	36%	25.8%	13%	23%
AAgilent Technologies, Inc.	$6.9B	52%	21.3%	17%	17%
KEYSKeysight Technologies, Inc.	$5.4B	62%	16.3%	11%	24%
MTDMettler-toledo International Inc.	$4.0B	79%	27.8%	45%	21%
WATWaters Corporation	$3.2B	59%	25.4%	20%	17%