CENX · Materials(primary production of aluminum) · 10 years of annual accounts filed with the SEC · latest fiscal year ended 2025-12-31
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Century Aluminum Co reported revenue of $2.5 billion in fiscal 2025, after shrinking 1.0% a year over the previous 9 years. Its operating margin widened from -5.4% in 2022 to 6.3%. Of the $291.9 million its operations generated over 10 years, 124.6% went back into the business; the share count rose 4.3%. On the accounting screens, it passes 4 of 4 Piotroski tests and its Altman Z'' of 0.18 is in the distress zone; none of the six cross-checks between its statements fires.
Revenue, fiscal 20252.5B-1.0% a year over 9 years
Operating margin6.3%gross margin 10.1%
Return on invested capital—
Free cash flow after stock pay37.8M1.5% of revenue
Net debt ÷ EBITDA—net debt —
Piotroski F-score4/4tests of improvement passed
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
-1B01B2B3B
2022Revenue 2.8BOperating income -150.2M
2023Revenue 2.2BOperating income 27.5M
2024
2024
2024
2024Revenue 2.2BOperating income 108.4M
2025
2025
2025
2025Revenue 2.5BOperating income 158.1M
2022202320242024202420242025202520252025
Compound growth a year
3 yrs
5 yrs
9 yrs
Revenue
—
—
-1.0%
Shares
—
—
+0.5%
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.
Needs a cost of capital, which comes from the valuation below.
Return on equity
5.2%
Return on assets
1.8%
Asset turnover
1.11×
Overheads (SG&A)
3.2% 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
-200M0200M400M
2022Net income -14.1MFree cash flow -60.4MAfter stock-based pay -59.8M
2023Net income -43.1MFree cash flow 10.6MAfter stock-based pay 4.0M
2024
2024
2024
2024Net income 336.8MFree cash flow -106.9MAfter stock-based pay -122.3M
2025
2025
2025
2025Net income 41.8MFree cash flow 84.8MAfter stock-based pay 37.8M
2022202320242024202420242025202520252025
Where 10 years of operating cash went, 2022–2025
291.9M generated by the business. Each band is its share of that total.
Reinvested in the business 125%363.8M
Acquisitions 4%11.5M
Dividends 0%0
Share buybacks 0%0
More than it generated: funded with cash or new debt -29%-83.4M
Over the same years it paid 68.4M in stock. The share count rose 4.3%.
Per share
Earnings per shareFree cash flow per shareDividend per share
-$2$0$2$4
2022Earnings per share $-0.15Free cash flow per share $-0.66
2023Earnings per share $-0.47Free cash flow per share $0.11
2024
2024
2024
2024Earnings per share $3.42Free cash flow per share $-1.09
2025
2025
2025
2025Earnings per share $0.44Free cash flow per share $0.89
2022202320242024202420242025202520252025
Shares outstanding
Diluted shares
90M92M94M96M98M100M
2022Diluted shares 91.4M
2023Diluted shares 92.4M
2024
2024
2024
2024Diluted shares 98.4M
2025
2025
2025
2025Diluted shares 95.3M
2022202320242024202420242025202520252025
Debt and liquidity
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
0100M200M300M400M
2022Net debt 327.3M
2023Net debt 342.1M
2024
2024
2024
2024
2025
2025
2025
2025
2022202320242024202420242025202520252025
Net debt ÷ EBITDA
—
Interest coverage
— operating income ÷ interest
Current ratio
1.97 current assets ÷ current liabilities
Cash conversion cycle
— collects in 16d
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.
4of 4 tests passed
✓ProfitableReturn on assets above zeropassed
✓Cash from operationsOperating cash flow above zeropassed
–Profitability improvedReturn on assets higher than a year before — not reportedno data
✓Profit backed by cashOperating cash flow above net income (low accruals)passed
–Less long-term debtLong-term debt as a share of assets fell — not reportedno data
✓More liquidCurrent ratio higher than a year beforepassed
–No new sharesShare count did not grow — not reportedno data
–Better gross marginGross margin higher than a year before — not reportedno data
–Sells more per assetAsset turnover higher than a year before — not reportedno data
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?
0.18distress zone
1.12.6
Working capital ÷ assets 0.22 × 6.56+1.47
Retained earnings ÷ assets -0.72 × 3.26-2.34
Operating income ÷ assets 0.07 × 6.72+0.47
Equity ÷ liabilities 0.55 × 1.05+0.58
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?
The accounts lack too many of the lines it needs.
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.
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.
Every Form 4 filed in the last twelve months, read line by line: 6 filings by 6 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$845,4871 sale(s) by 1 insider(s)
Under pre-arranged plans0%of the sales followed a 10b5-1 plan set months earlier
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.
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.