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Acacia Research Corp

ACTG · Financials (patent owners & lessors) · 10 years of annual accounts filed with the SEC · latest fiscal year ended 2025-12-31

Signed in, this page also says what this company is inside your own portfolio: its weight, its share of your risk, and what buying or selling some of it would change. Sign in ›

Acacia Research Corp reported revenue of $285.2 million in fiscal 2025. Of the $78.8 million its operations generated over 10 years, 189.8% went back into the business and 166.9% to acquisitions. On the accounting screens, it passes 8 of 9 Piotroski tests, its Altman Z'' of 5.45 is in the safe zone and its Beneish M-score is below the -1.78 line; none of the six cross-checks between its statements fires.

Revenue, fiscal 2025 285.2M  
Operating margin 2.2% gross margin 29.6%
Return on invested capital 0.8% -3.1% on average over 2 years
Free cash flow —  
Net debt ÷ EBITDA Net cash 214.8M more cash than debt
Piotroski F-score 8/9 tests of improvement passed

Share counts are in today's shares. The SEC's filings restate only recent years after a split, so these jumps were read as splits and the older years scaled to match — otherwise per-share figures would compare different units: 2-for-1 before fiscal 2023.

Is it growing?

Revenue and the operating income it turns into. Growth that does not reach operating income is growth bought with margin.

RevenueOperating income
Compound growth a year
3 yrs5 yrs9 yrs
Revenue+31.6%+36.9%—
Operating income-32.6%——
Net income-31.4%——
Earnings per share-32.5%——
Shares+1.7%+2.7%—

Falling shares are buybacks: each remaining share owns more of the company.

Does it earn more than its capital costs?

Margins say how much of each sale is kept; return on invested capital says how much the business earns on the money it needs to operate. Growth only creates value when that return is above the cost of the capital.

GrossOperatingNetFree cash flow

Return on invested capital

Return on invested capital

Economic profit

Needs a cost of capital, which comes from the valuation below.

Return on equity
4.0%
Return on assets
2.8%
Asset turnover
0.37×
Overheads (SG&A)
22.8% of revenue

Is the profit cash, and where does the cash go?

Net income is an accounting opinion; free cash flow is what was left in the bank after investing. Stock-based pay does not leave the bank — shareholders pay it through dilution — so it is shown taken off as well.

Net incomeFree cash flowAfter stock-based pay

Where 10 years of operating cash went, 2021–2025

78.8M generated by the business. Each band is its share of that total.

  • Reinvested in the business 190% 149.7M
  • Acquisitions 167% 131.6M
  • Dividends 7% 5.7M
  • Share buybacks 95% 75.3M
  • More than it generated: funded with cash or new debt -359% -283.3M

Over the same years it paid 19.7M in stock. 55.6M of the buybacks went beyond offsetting that dilution.

Per share

Earnings per shareFree cash flow per shareDividend per share

Shares outstanding

Diluted shares

How strong is the balance sheet?

Debt is not bad in itself; debt the business cannot service in a bad year is. Net debt is debt minus cash, and below zero the company holds more cash than it owes.

Net debt
Net debt ÷ EBITDA
-4.3×
Interest coverage
1× operating income ÷ interest
Current ratio
9.18 current assets ÷ current liabilities
Cash conversion cycle
57 days collects in 33d, stock 48d, pays in 24d

Three classic screens of the accounts

Each asks a different question of the same statements — is it improving, does it look like a company heading for distress, do the accounts resemble ones that were manipulated. None is a verdict; each shows what moves it.

Piotroski F-score

Is the business improving? Nine yes-or-no tests, this year against last.

8of 9 tests passed
  • ProfitableReturn on assets above zero passed
  • Cash from operationsOperating cash flow above zero passed
  • Profitability improvedReturn on assets higher than a year before passed
  • Profit backed by cashOperating cash flow above net income (low accruals) passed
  • Less long-term debtLong-term debt as a share of assets fell failed
  • More liquidCurrent ratio higher than a year before passed
  • No new sharesShare count did not grow passed
  • Better gross marginGross margin higher than a year before passed
  • Sells more per assetAsset turnover higher than a year before passed

Where it misleads: it measures change, not level. An excellent business that stood still for a year scores low; a poor one recovering from a disaster scores high.

Altman Z''-score

Does the balance sheet look like those of companies that went bankrupt?

5.45safe zone
  • Working capital ÷ assets 0.52 × 6.56+3.41
  • Retained earnings ÷ assets -0.33 × 3.26-1.07
  • Operating income ÷ assets 0.01 × 6.72+0.06
  • Equity ÷ liabilities 2.91 × 1.05+3.05

Where it misleads: buybacks. A company that returns so much cash that its equity turns small or negative sinks the last two ratios without being anywhere near bankruptcy. Banks and insurers do not fit the model at all.

Beneish M-score

Do the accounts resemble those of companies that manipulated their earnings?

-2.79below the -1.78 line
  • Receivables vs sales 0.42+0.38
  • Gross margin slipping 0.82+0.43
  • Soft assets 0.94+0.38
  • Sales growth 2.33+2.08
  • Slower depreciation 0.87+0.10
  • Overheads vs sales 0.50-0.09
  • Profit not in cash -0.07-0.33
  • Leverage rising 2.79-0.91

Where it misleads: fast growth and acquisitions. Sales growth carries a heavy weight, so a company growing 50% a year scores like a suspect without having done anything. It is a screen from a 1999 study, not an accusation.

Where the statements disagree

Cross-checks between the income statement, the balance sheet and the cash flow for the latest year, each with the benign reading and the worrying one.

None of the six cross-checks fires for the latest year: receivables and inventory move with revenue, profit turns into cash, investment keeps up with depreciation, the tax rate is ordinary and debt is moderate.

What is it worth, under which assumptions?

A company is worth the cash it will generate, brought back to today. This model projects revenue with growth that fades over the years, applies a free cash flow margin, and discounts the result at the cost of capital. Every assumption says where it came from, and all of them can be changed.

Revenue
M $

revenue of fiscal 2025

%

revenue grew +68.9% a year over the last 3 years; it fades to the terminal rate by the last year

yrs

ten years for growth to fade to the terminal rate

Cash from each sale
%

free cash flow to the firm after stock-based pay ÷ revenue, last 1 fiscal years together

%

the margin in year ten; by default the business keeps today's

The long run
%

growth forever after year ten, below the risk-free rate: no company outgrows the economy forever

The discount rate
%

10-year US Treasury par yield (U.S. Treasury), 2026-09-25

not measured on this public page, which uses only public filings: 1.0 assumes it moves like the market. Sign in to measure it from prices

%

the extra return demanded for holding shares; it cannot be measured, and 4–6% is the common range

%

interest expense ÷ debt = 9.8%, kept between the risk-free rate and +8 points

%

effective rate in the last fiscal year, 21.8%, kept within 0–35%

The price
$

Type the price you see at your broker. It is used only for the reverse questions: what that price implies.

Back to the defaults

SEC from the filings Treasury the 10-year yield measured from prices assumption cannot be measured yours you changed it

With a free cash flow margin at or below zero in year ten, the business never generates cash for its owners and a DCF says nothing useful. Set a positive margin for year ten to see what it would take.

What it has filed lately

The last twelve months at the SEC, most important first: annual and quarterly reports, events, large holders and insiders.

Quarterly 2026-08-06
Quarterly report
Results 2026-08-05
Reported results
Event 2026-06-25
Published the results of a shareholder vote
Quarterly 2026-05-07
Quarterly report
Results 2026-05-07
Reported results
Annual 2026-03-12
Annual report
Results 2026-03-11
Reported results
Event 2026-02-06
Changed a director or officer
Estimatein 40d
Results for the period ending 2026-09-29

What its own directors and officers did

Every Form 4 filed in the last twelve months, read line by line: 6 filings by 4 people. Open-market purchases and sales are counted apart from awards, option exercises and shares withheld for taxes.

Bought on the open market—none in the period
Sold on the open market$457,5605 sale(s) by 2 insider(s)
Under pre-arranged plans0%of the sales followed a 10b5-1 plan set months earlier
Other lines31 awards · 0 option exercises · 0 tax withholdings
DateWhoWhatSharesPriceValueHolds after
15 Sep 2026 Kohlberg Isaac T.Director Sold on the open market 24,000 $4.55 $109,200 54,310
3 Sep 2026 Oconnell MaureenDirector Sold on the open market 12,466 $4.57 $56,970 254,655
2 Sep 2026 Oconnell MaureenDirector Sold on the open market 20,534 $4.63 $95,072 267,121
28 Aug 2026 Felman MichelleDirector Gave as a gift 16,086 $4.49 $72,226 25,052
28 Aug 2026 Felman MichelleDirector Gave as a gift 16,086 $4.49 $72,226 41,138
19 Aug 2026 Oconnell MaureenDirector Sold on the open market 10,000 $4.60 $46,000 287,655
12 Aug 2026 Kohlberg Isaac T.Director Sold on the open market 32,188 $4.67 $150,318 78,310
30 Jun 2026 Molinelli GavinDirector Received as an award 6,438 $4.66 $30,001 205,966

A Form 4 says what happened, when, how many shares and at what price. It does not say why: a sale can be diversification, a tax bill or a plan fixed months earlier, and an award is pay, not a purchase. Nothing here is a reason to buy or sell anything.

Which large funds report holding it

From the Form 13F of the 28 institutions followed on this site, as of the end of their last reported quarter. A 13F is filed up to 45 days later and shows only long positions in US-listed shares.

FundSharesValueShare of the fundSince the quarter before
Starboard Value 30 Jun 2026 61.1M $284.8M 6.3% Unchanged

All the funds and what they reported ›

Companies like this one

Same SEC industry (patent owners & lessors) first, then the rest of financials.

IDCC InterDigital, Inc.DLB Dolby Laboratories, Inc.BRK-B Berkshire Hathaway IncJPM Jpmorgan Chase & CoV Visa Inc.MA Mastercard IncBAC Bank OF America CorpC Citigroup Inc

Every figure, year by year

10 fiscal years · 30 measures
2021202120212021202220232023202420242025
Size
Revenue———88.0M59.2M—125.1M—122.3M285.2M
Revenue growth————-32.7%————+133.2%
Operating income———14.5M-40.1M—20.9M—-32.9M6.4M
Net income———149.2M-125.1M—67.1M—-36.1M21.7M
Margins
Gross margin———59.0%36.9%—57.8%—24.2%29.6%
Operating margin———16.5%-67.7%—16.7%—-26.9%2.2%
Net margin———169.5%-211.2%—53.6%—-29.5%7.6%
Free cash flow margin———15.0%-64.3%—-18.1%—-80.6%—
R&D ÷ revenue———0.2%1.1%—0.6%———
SG&A ÷ revenue———40.5%89.0%—35.5%—45.3%22.8%
Cash
Free cash flow———13.2M-38.1M—-22.7M—-98.5M—
Stock-based pay———2.1M3.8M—3.3M—4.8M5.7M
Free cash flow after stock pay———11.2M-41.9M—-26.0M—-103.3M—
Free cash flow to the firm———23.1M-35.8M—35.0M—-151.0M—
Free cash flow ÷ net income———0.1×0.3×—-0.3×—2.7×—
Capex ÷ revenue———0.1%1.2%—0.2%—121.5%—
Returns
Return on invested capital————————-6.9%0.8%
Return on equity———35.6%-48.4%—11.8%—-7.0%4.0%
Return on assets———18.7%-25.9%—10.6%—-4.8%2.8%
Asset turnover———0.1×0.1×—0.2×—0.2×0.4×
Economic profit——————————
Per share
Earnings per share———$0.76$-1.47—$0.73—$-0.36$0.22
Free cash flow per share———$0.07$-0.45—$-0.25—$-0.99—
Dividend per share———$0.01$0.03—$0.02—$0.00—
Payout ratio———1.0%——2.1%———
Book value per share———$8.59$5.94—$5.69—$5.36$5.63
Diluted shares———196.9M84.9M99.9M92.4M99.9M99.2M97.2M
Balance sheet
Net debt————————-271.5M-214.8M
Net debt ÷ EBITDA————————-419.0×-4.3×
Interest coverage———1.8×-6.2×—10.1×—-5.1×0.7×
Current ratio———3.6×4.9×—20.1×—8.5×9.2×
Cash conversion cycle (days)———75131—288—14157
Scores
Piotroski F-score—002401038
Altman Z''———4.983.40—18.02—4.385.45
Beneish M————-3.03————-2.79

Accounts from the company's own SEC filings; lines some companies do not report are shown as a dash rather than estimated. The risk-free rate is the 10-year US Treasury yield. A DCF is a way of making assumptions explicit, not a forecast: it states what the company would be worth if the assumptions held. The scores are screens that point where to look, not verdicts. Nothing here is a recommendation to buy or sell.