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NWE, NorthWestern Energy

Multi-Utilities capital-intensive Regulated utility

NorthWestern Energy - Delivering a Bright Future NorthWestern Energy Group, doing business as NorthWestern Energy, provides essential energy infrastructure and valuable services that enrich lives and empower communities while serving as long-term partners to our customers and communities.

We work to deliver safe, reliable, and innovative energy solutions that create value for customers, communities, employees, and investors.

We do this by providing low-cost and reliable service performed by highly-adaptable and skilled employees.

Latest annual: FY2025 10-K

NWE · NorthWestern Energy

The business

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

Revenue · FY2025

$1.6B

+6.4% YoY · 4% 4-yr CAGR

Vital signs · TTM, with 5-yr average

Revenue $1.7B 5-yr avg $1.5B

Operating margin 18.8% 5-yr avg 20.1%

ROIC 5% 5-yr avg 6%

Owner-earnings margin −11% 5-yr avg −11%

Free cash flow margin −11% 5-yr avg −11%

The business in brief

read the 10-K →

What this business is and what moves its needle, from its own SEC filings.

Situation: Regulated utility. Returns are set by regulation on an approved rate base; the capital spending regulators approve becomes the growth, recovered through allowed rates.
What moves the needle: Operating margin has run about 20% through the cycle, a solid margin the cost base and competition set as much as the price does. That margin has held in a narrow 18%–21% band over the years, so steadiness itself is the evidence — the lever is unit growth and cost discipline, not a moving line. Capital spending runs about 35% of sales, well above depreciation, so the return earned on what it sinks into that plant weighs as much as the margin. Read this kind of business on rate base and the allowed return. On its own account, the filing leans hardest on concentrated dependence, set against the numbers in what the filing emphasizes, below.
Is it a good business?: Return on capital has rarely cleared the cost of capital (median 5%, above 15% in 0 of 5 years). Owner earnings, the cash-based check, have been thin too. Modest returns here are the design, not a verdict: a regulated utility's prices are set by commission, so the questions are the return the regulator allows, how fast the invested base it earns that return on is growing, and the health of the relationship with the commissions that decide both — all of which live in the 10-K, not the multiple.

Every line is arithmetic on the company's filings, shown in full in the sections below.

The record

Ten years of arithmetic, read across the cycle.

Most recent quarterly filing 10-Q filed Jul 30, 2026 Source at SEC EDGAR →

Revenue up 14.6% year over year; operating income up 5.7%

figures computed from the filing's XBRL

The record, 2021–2025

realized figures from each filing · older years to the left

2021’21	2022’22	2023’23	2024’24	2025’25	TTMTTMJun 2026
						Income statement
$1.4B	$1.5B	$1.4B	$1.5B	$1.6B	$1.7B	RevenueRevenue
7%	8%	8%	9%	10%	10%	SG&A / revenueSG&A/rev
$276M	$263M	$300M	$323M	$326M	$319M	Operating incomeOp. inc.
20.1%	17.8%	21.1%	21.4%	20.2%	18.8%	Operating marginOp. mgn
$190M	$182M	$202M	$215M	$188M	—	Pretax incomePretax
$187M	$183M	$194M	$224M	$181M	$171M	Net incomeNet inc.
2%	-0%	4%	-4%	3%	3%	Effective tax rateTax rate
						Cash flow & returns
$220M	$307M	$489M	$407M	$394M	$416M	Operating cash flowOp. cash
$187M	$195M	$210M	$228M	$250M	$259M	DepreciationDeprec.
($160M)	($76M)	$79M	($50M)	($43M)	($21M)	Working capital & otherWC & other
$434M	$515M	$567M	$549M	$524M	$608M	CapexCapex
31.6%	34.9%	39.9%	36.3%	32.6%	36.0%	Capex / revenueCapex/rev
($214M)	($208M)	($78M)	($143M)	($130M)	($192M)	Owner earningsOwner earn.
−15.6%	−14.1%	−5.5%	−9.4%	−8.1%	−11.4%	Owner earnings marginOE mgn
($214M)	($208M)	($78M)	($143M)	($130M)	($192M)	Free cash flowFCF
−15.6%	−14.1%	−5.5%	−9.4%	−8.1%	−11.4%	Free cash flow marginFCF mgn
—	—	$0	$0	$36M	$36M	AcquisitionsAcquis.
$128M	$140M	$154M	$159M	$161M	$163M	Dividends paidDiv. paid
($436M)	($517M)	($571M)	($554M)	($571M)	—	Investing cash flowInv. cash
$218M	$213M	$84M	$152M	$178M	—	Financing cash flowFin. cash
$2M	$4M	$3M	$4M	$2M	—	Change in cashΔ cash
12%	5%	5%	6%	5%	5%	ROICROIC
8%	7%	7%	8%	6%	6%	Return on equityROE
2%	2%	1%	2%	1%	0%	Retained to equityRetained/eq
						Balance sheet
$3M	$8M	$9M	$4M	$9M	$4M	Cash & investmentsCash+inv
—	$245M	$212M	$188M	$210M	$169M	ReceivablesReceiv.
—	$107M	$115M	$123M	$133M	$146M	InventoryInvent.
—	$201M	$124M	$112M	$130M	$115M	Accounts payablePayables
—	$151M	$202M	$199M	$213M	$200M	Operating working capitalOper. WC
—	$539M	$407M	$418M	$504M	$482M	Current assetsCur. assets
—	$621M	$535M	$802M	$697M	$583M	Current liabilitiesCur. liab.
—	0.9×	0.8×	0.5×	0.7×	0.8×	Current ratioCurr. ratio
—	$5.7B	$6.0B	$6.4B	$6.7B	—	Net PP&ENet PP&E
—	$853M	$774M	$804M	$866M	—	Regulatory assetsReg. assets
—	$675M	$719M	$693M	$717M	—	Regulatory liabilitiesReg. liab.
—	$358M	$358M	$358M	$368M	$368M	GoodwillGoodwill
$6.8B	$7.3B	$7.6B	$8.0B	$8.5B	$8.7B	Total assetsAssets
—	$2.6B	$2.8B	$3.0B	$3.3B	$3.5B	Total debtDebt
—	$2.6B	$2.8B	$3.0B	$3.3B	$3.5B	Net debt / (cash)Net debt
$94M	$100M	$115M	$132M	$150M	$158M	Interest expenseInt. exp.
2.9×	2.6×	2.6×	2.5×	2.2×	2.0×	Interest coverageInt. cov.
—	$4.7B	$4.8B	$5.1B	$5.6B	—	Total liabilitiesTotal liab.
$2.3B	$2.7B	$2.8B	$2.9B	$2.9B	$2.9B	Shareholders’ equityEquity
0.4%	0.4%	0.4%	0.3%	0.4%	0.4%	Stock comp / revenueSBC/rev
						Per share
51.9M	56.3M	60.4M	61.4M	61.5M	61.7M	Shares out (diluted)Shares
$26.46	$26.25	$23.56	$24.67	$26.17	$27.41	Revenue / shareRev/sh
$3.60	$3.25	$3.22	$3.65	$2.94	$2.78	EPS (diluted)EPS
$-4.13	$-3.69	$-1.29	$-2.32	$-2.11	$-3.11	Owner earnings / shareOE/sh
$-4.13	$-3.69	$-1.29	$-2.32	$-2.11	$-3.11	Free cash flow / shareFCF/sh
$2.48	$2.49	$2.55	$2.58	$2.62	$2.64	Dividends / shareDiv/sh
$8.37	$9.15	$9.39	$8.95	$8.52	$9.86	Cap. spending / shareCapex/sh
$45.11	$47.35	$46.15	$46.56	$46.89	$46.92	Book value / shareBVPS

Per-share growththe realized rate an owner's share compounded

	4-yr	5-yr
Revenue / share	−0.3%/yr	−0.3%/yr (4-yr)
EPS	−4.9%/yr	−4.9%/yr (4-yr)
Dividends / share	+1.4%/yr	+1.4%/yr (4-yr)
Capital spending / share	+0.4%/yr	+0.4%/yr (4-yr)
Book value / share	+1.0%/yr	+1.0%/yr (4-yr)

Where the cash went

ReinvestBuybacksDividendsAcquisitionsRetainedBeyond op. cash

Each year's outlays against its operating cash: the mix, and how it drifts. The hatched cap is spending beyond that year's operating cash — financed from the balance sheet or borrowing, not operations.

FY2021FY2025

Owner-earnings bridge

FY2021–FY2025cash-flow statement, SEC EDGAR →

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 $181M of profit but ($130M) of owner earnings: $311M less than the profit line, taken out by capital spending and the timing of cash.

	FY2025	FY2024	FY2023	FY2022	FY2021
Reported net income	$181M	$224M	$194M	$183M	$187M
Depreciation & amortizationnon-cash charge added back	+$250M	+$228M	+$210M	+$195M	+$187M
Stock-based compensationreal costnon-cash, but a real cost	+$7M	+$5M	+$5M	+$5M	+$5M
Working capital & othertiming of cash in and out, other non-cash items	−$43M	−$50M	+$79M	−$76M	−$160M
Cash from operations	$394M	$407M	$489M	$307M	$220M
Capital expenditurecash put back in to keep running and to grow	−$524M	−$549M	−$567M	−$515M	−$434M
Owner earnings	($130M)	($143M)	($78M)	($208M)	($214M)
Owner-earnings marginowner earnings ÷ revenue	-8%	-9%	-5%	-14%	-16%

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 $7M), owner earnings is nearer ($137M).

A regulated utility reads differently here. What it spends above depreciation goes into rate base, where the commission lets it earn the allowed return and recover the capital, with interest, over decades — growth that is financed, not taken out of owners' pockets this year. So the truth sits between the bridge's two ends: owner earnings excuses the build-out entirely, free cash flow charges it entirely, and the scorecard's utility-plant figure shows how fast the base earning that return is compounding.

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 →

The allowed return, earned and credited

Earned return on equity 7.0%

Below the typical allowed band

Median over 5 readable years · latest FY2025: 6.3% (net income $181M ÷ equity $2.9B)

What this means
A commission caps what a regulated utility may earn on shareholders' capital, so the question is not whether the return is high but whether the company actually earns what it is allowed — persistent under-earning means costs the regulator will not put in rates, and a return above the band usually means unregulated businesses in the mix. Read through the record, because a single year carries rate-case timing noise.
AFUDC in earnings 5.5%

Construction credit in earnings

Equity allowance for funds used during construction $10M ÷ net income $181M

What this means
While a plant is under construction the commission lets the utility credit itself the allowed return on the capital tied up — a real, allowed profit that arrives as a bookkeeping entry now and as cash only after the plant enters rates. A large share means heavy reinvestment at the allowed return, the thing Berkshire's utility letters prize; it also means that much of this year's earnings has not yet been collected from anyone.

The invested base and the regulatory ledger

Net utility plant $6.7B

Growing ≈ 6.0%/yr

Utility plant net of depreciation, as filed · FY2022→FY2025: $5.7B → $6.7B, ≈ 6.0%/yr

What this means
The closest filed figure to the rate base — the invested capital the commission sets the allowed return on. Its growth rate is the utility's reinvestment runway: under regulation, earnings power compounds roughly as fast as the base the return is earned on, funded by capital the regulator lets the company recover with interest. Rate base itself is not tagged in any structured filing, so this is the proxy, labeled as what it is.
Regulatory assets & liabilities $866M / $717M

Owed recovery from ratepayers

Regulatory assets $866M · regulatory liabilities $717M · net $148M asset position, as filed

What this means
The ledger of the regulatory relationship: assets are costs the commission has agreed the utility may collect from ratepayers in future rates, liabilities are amounts it must give back. Both are promises whose worth depends entirely on the commissions that made them — which is why they are shown as filed and never netted into earnings adjustments here.

Graham’s defensive tests · 3 of 4 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 Near

Revenue ≥ $2B · $1.6B

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 —

Current ratio ≥ 2× (waived for utilities) · exempt

What this means
Graham exempted public utilities from this test: their working capital “takes care of itself” through the continuous bond-and-share financing of growth, so a thin current ratio is the industry's structure, not a warning. His substitute test — debt no more than twice book equity — is the next line.
Conservative debt Pass

Debt ≤ 2× equity (Graham's utility test) · $3.3B vs $2.9B equity

What this means
Graham's own substitution for public utilities: debt not exceeding twice the stock equity at book value, in place of the working-capital tests an industrial faces. A utility finances its plant with bonds by design; the question is whether the borrowing stays inside the equity behind it.
Earnings stability Pass

A profit every year (5-yr record) · no losses

What this means
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 (5)

What this means
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.
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 $3.25/share (latest year $2.94), the averaged base the calculator's gate runs on, and book value is $46.91/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, 2021–2025

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

Profitable years 5 of 5

What this means
Never lost money over the record, the earnings stability Graham insisted on.
Return on capital ≥ 15% 0 of 4 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 19% → 21% (2-yr avg ends)

What this means
Through the cycle the operating margin held roughly steady — about 19% early, 21% lately, median 20%.
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 · 17.8% op. margin

What this means
Stayed profitable even in its hardest year, the resilience that survives recessions.
Share count +4.4%/yr

What this means
The share count is rising, dilution works against you on a per-share basis.
Dividend record rising

What this means
Paid and raised the dividend across the record, the continuity Graham prized.
How management talks about it Owner’s terms

What this means
The filing reasons in an owner’s terms — per-share, return on capital, the long term — and the record has held; the words and the results are of a piece.

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$482M

Cash & short-term investments$4M
Receivables$169M
Inventory$146M
Other current assets$163M

Current liabilities$583M

Debt due within a year$45M
Accounts payable$115M
Other current liabilities$423M

Current ratio0.83×all current assets ÷ what's due · Graham looked for 2×

Quick ratio0.58×stricter: inventory excluded

Cash ratio0.01×strictest: cash alone against what's due

Working capital($101M)the cushion left after near-term bills

Debt due this year vs. cash$45M due · $4M cash cash alone won't cover the maturities; it leans on refinancing or operating cash · both figures from the Jun 30, 2026 balance sheet

Revenue, latest quarter vs. a year ago+14.6%the freshest read on whether the business is still growing

Current ratio, recent quarters0.5× → 0.8×

Deeper floors

Tangible book value$2.5Bequity stripped of goodwill & intangibles

Net current asset value($5.3B)Graham's net-net: current assets less all liabilities

Debt incl. operating leases$3.5Bno operating-lease liability tagged this quarter, so debt alone

From the company's latest filing.

How the cash was used, 2021–2025

Over the record, the business generated $1.8B of operating cash; how management split it reads as a reinvestor, most operating cash is plowed back into the business.

Reinvested$2.6B · 142%
Dividends$743M · 41%

Returned to owners$743M
$743M as dividends and $0 as buybacks.
Source of funding−$1.5B
Reinvestment and shareholder returns ran $1.5B beyond the operating cash the business generated, so the gap was financed off the balance sheet.
Net change in share count19.0%
The diluted count rose from 52M to 62M: issuance (stock pay, deals) outran any buybacks, so owners were diluted on net.
Dividend record$2.62/sh
Paid in 5 of the years on record, the per-share dividend growing about 1% a year. It was never cut over the span.
Return on what it retained22%
Of the earnings it kept rather than paid out ($227M over the span), annual owner earnings (first three years vs last three) grew $50M, so each retained $1 added about 0.22 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.

Management, ownership & pay

read the proxy →

From the proxy: how much of the business the people running it own, and how they are paid, beside what the business earned for its owners in the same years.

Fiscal year	Chief executive	Pay, as filed	“Actually paid”	Owner earnings
2021	—	$3.4M	$2.0M	($214M)
2022	Robert Rowe	$3.4M	$2.9M	($208M)
2023	—	$3.1M	$2.4M	($78M)
2024	—	$4.8M	$5.2M	($143M)
2025	Brian Bird	$5.0M	$11.1M	($130M)

Both pay figures are the company’s own, from the pay-versus-performance table its proxy statement files. “As filed” is the Summary Compensation Table total: salary, bonus, and equity awards at their value on the day of grant. “Actually paid” is the SEC’s prescribed recalculation, which re-marks those equity awards to what they became as they vested; it can swing far above or below the filed figure in either direction, and negative years occur. Owner earnings are the whole business's, from the record above, for the same fiscal years. A dash under the name means the filing tags the figure without naming the officer.

Insider ownership<1%
The stake all directors and executive officers hold together, per the 2026 proxy: skin in the game, the first thing Munger reads.
CEO pay ratio41:1
What the chief earns for every dollar the median employee makes, per the 2026 proxy. A high ratio alone settles nothing; some businesses are genuinely top-heavy in scarce skill. A runaway figure is where Buffett starts asking whether the board is doing its job.
Stock-based compensation$7M
The slice of the business handed to employees in shares in fiscal 2025, 0.4% of revenue, equal to 2.1% 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 →

Which reported numbers are a judgment call?
Management names Pension & retirement, Income taxes 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, Multi-Utilities

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.

Company	Revenuelatest FY, USD	ROEmedian over the record	Plant growthannualized over the record	Dividend / cashmedian over the record
AEEAmeren Corporation	$8.8B	10%	—	24%
NINiSource Inc	$6.5B	8%	9.1%	27%
EVRGEvergy	$6.0B	8%	14.5%	29%
LNTAlliant Energy	$4.4B	11%	8.0%	57%
AVAAvista	$2.0B	7%	4.8%	30%
NWENorthWestern Energy	$1.6B	7%	6.0%	41%
ALEALLETE	$1.5B	8%	—	33%
UTLUNITIL Corporation	$536M	9%	8.2%	24%
Group median	—	8%	8.1%	30%

The price

What a price has to assume.

What the price implies

reverse-DCF

NorthWestern Energy 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.

Today’s price $

The assumptions Required return 9% Years to get there 10 Revenue growth 0%

Revenue, delivered4%/yr’21→’25

Mature owner-earnings margin 15%

Enter a price to run it.

Owner earnings it must reach—

Margin the price demands—

Owner-earnings margin today−11%

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.

Weigh NWE against another business →

The owners of NWE: the meeting and the votes →

Cite: Owner Scorecard, "NorthWestern Energy (NWE), the owner's record," https://ownerscorecard.com/c/NWE, data as of 2026-07-18.

Manual order: ← NWBI its page in the Manual NWFL →

Industry order: ← NI the Multi-Utilities chapter PCG →