# Vulcan Energy Resources (VUL.AU)

Canonical: https://gigainvestors.com/s/VUL.AU

Analysis as of: 2026-10-16T07:48:13.270Z. Financial observations: FY2017–FY2025.

Listing currency: AUD. Reporting currency: EUR.

## Verdict

Not a wonderful business

Quality tests for Buy: not passed (profit record: fail; earnings resilience is evidence only). Published buy qualification: no.

Share price: AUD 1.15 per share; close as of 2026-10-15.

## Checklist

### understandable: fail

- more than 2 net loss years

- negative average operating margin

- operating margin variation exceeds 0.35

- Financial history: 9 years

- Years with a net loss: 9

- Operating margin variation: 0.56×

Chart: Operating margin; fiscal year observations.

- FY2021: -5.00×

- FY2022: -6.25×

- FY2023: -1.01×

- FY2024: -2.40×

- FY2025: -8.10×

### moat: fail

- Years with nonpositive invested capital use equity plus debt and leases; positive earnings with no positive capital are shown above 100%.

- ROIC median below threshold

- ROIC worst years below threshold (more than 1 bad year allowed)

- ROIC, median of available years: -11.9%

- ROIC, second-lowest year: -52.8%

- Years with nonpositive capital: 1

- Capital spending / revenue: 847.0%

- ROIC including acquisitions, ten-year median: -40.1%

Chart: ROIC excluding acquisitions; fiscal year observations.

- FY2017: -52.8%

- FY2018: -154.2%

- FY2019: -10.7%

- FY2020: -1.9%

- FY2021: -20.3%

- FY2022: -11.9%

- FY2023: -4.8%

- FY2024: -6.0%

- FY2025: -12.3%

### economics: fail

- owner earnings cash conversion below threshold

- incremental invested capital return below threshold

- Cash conversion uses consolidated totals: No

- Owner earnings, five-year total: EUR -348M

- Net income, five-year total: EUR -171M

- Return on incremental invested capital: -17.7%

- Working capital / revenue, annual change: 31.4 pp

Chart: Owner earnings · five years; fiscal year observations.

- FY2021: EUR -39M

- FY2022: EUR -68M

- FY2023: EUR -28M

- FY2024: EUR -104M

- FY2025: EUR -110M

### management: fail

- Historical market-dollar context (not the management verdict): 2018 to 2025 (7 years)

- potential debt-funded buybacks (informational)

- buybacks unrelated to price (informational)

- ROIC first 3 years vs last 3 years: -52.8% vs -6.0%

- Per-share earnings: -0.00 to -0.22 (three-year endpoint medians)

- per-share value declined or ends nonpositive

- Management verdict uses per-share economic progress: Yes

- Ordinary dilution, 5-year annual growth: 9.5%

- Market cap gain: EUR 623M

- Cumulative retained earnings: EUR -180M

- Diluted shares, 5-year annual growth: 9.5%

- $1 test, starting fiscal year: FY2018

- $1 test, ending fiscal year: FY2025

- Per-share value change: EUR -0.22

- Per-share value, starting three-year median: EUR -0.00

- Per-share value, ending three-year median: EUR -0.22

- Buybacks concentrated in cheaper years (correlation): -0.80

- Average buyback yield: 0.8%

- Buyback history: 5 years

- Debt-funded buybacks: Yes

- ROIC, first three-year median: -52.8%

- ROIC, last three-year median: -6.0%

Chart: Earnings per share; fiscal year observations.

- FY2017: EUR -0.00

- FY2018: EUR -0.00

- FY2019: EUR -0.00

- FY2020: EUR -0.13

- FY2021: EUR -0.05

- FY2022: EUR -0.17

- FY2023: EUR -0.13

- FY2024: EUR -0.22

- FY2025: EUR -0.29

### accounting: pass

- Sloan accruals: -0.1%

- Receivables to sales index (DSRI): 0.94×

- Restructuring years, last five: 0

- Earnings backed by cash: Yes

- Accounting red flags: 0

- Goodwill and intangibles / equity: 0.01×

Chart: Sloan accruals; fiscal year observations.

- FY2017: 1.4%

- FY2018: -10.1%

- FY2019: -12.2%

- FY2020: -6.9%

- FY2021: 0.9%

- FY2022: -4.7%

- FY2023: -0.8%

- FY2024: -3.1%

- FY2025: -0.1%

## Holders

## Price story

Down 91% since Oct 2021 · sales -10%

Story as of 2026-10-16T10:00:13.767Z; price observation 2026-10-15.

### Sales · FY2024–2025

sales -10%; source https://eodhd.com/financial-apis/stock-etfs-fundamental-data-feeds/; observed 2026-10-16.

- FY2021: EUR 3.8M 

- FY2022: EUR 3.8M 

- FY2023: EUR 14M 

- FY2024: EUR 8.1M 

- FY2025: EUR 7.3M 

### Gross margin · FY2024

gross margin 90.8%; source https://eodhd.com/financial-apis/stock-etfs-fundamental-data-feeds/; observed 2026-10-16.

- FY2021: 33.9% 

- FY2022: 33.9% 

- FY2023: 96.7% 

- FY2024: 90.8% 

## Owner memo

Memo as of 2026-10-16T08:06:05.509Z.

### How it makes money

Operates in other industrial metals & mining; annual sales are EUR 7.3 million.

- Source: https://eodhd.com/financial-apis/stock-etfs-fundamental-data-feeds/ (filed 2026-10-16T07:48:13.270Z); FY2025: revenue 7306894; grossProfit -30129261; margin = grossProfit / revenue.

### Why customers stay

It lost 11.9% on its capital.

- Source: https://eodhd.com/financial-apis/stock-etfs-fundamental-data-feeds/ (filed 2026-10-16T07:48:13.270Z); FY2023: grossProfit / revenue = 96.7%.

- Source: https://eodhd.com/financial-apis/stock-etfs-fundamental-data-feeds/ (filed 2026-10-16T07:48:13.270Z); FY2024: grossProfit / revenue = 90.8%.

- Source: https://eodhd.com/financial-apis/stock-etfs-fundamental-data-feeds/ (filed 2026-10-16T07:48:13.270Z); FY2025: grossProfit / revenue = -412.3%.

- Source: https://eodhd.com/financial-apis/stock-etfs-fundamental-data-feeds/ (filed 2026-10-16T07:48:13.270Z); 9-year return on capital observations [[2017,-0.5275312964421013],[2018,-1.5424083822396113],[2019,-0.10653613197347003],[2020,-0.018972373158977693],[2021,-0.20327485380116958],[2022,-0.11906114766814456],[2023,-0.04840420667581161],[2024,-0.059632796683324885],[2025,-0.12302257986123796]]; median -0.11906114766814456. ROIC follows the displayed moat series; financial companies use return on tangible equity.

### Where the cash goes

Paid no dividends in 9 years; bought back EUR 14.8 million of shares.

- Source: https://eodhd.com/financial-apis/stock-etfs-fundamental-data-feeds/ (filed 2026-10-16T07:48:13.270Z); Dividend observations: [[2017,0],[2018,0],[2019,0],[2020,0],[2021,0],[2022,0],[2023,0],[2024,0],[2025,0]]. Zero only counted when supported by a complete cash-flow statement.

- Source: https://eodhd.com/financial-apis/stock-etfs-fundamental-data-feeds/ (filed 2026-10-16T07:48:13.270Z); FY2025: cash repurchases 14825000 EUR.

### Are managers owners

Insiders own 23.2% of the company.

- Source: https://eodhd.com/financial-apis/stock-etfs-fundamental-data-feeds/ (filed 2026-10-16); VUL.AU SharesStats.PercentInsiders = 23.195 percentage points; cache date 2026-10-16.

### What the price says

The price is 22.7 times annual sales; cash earnings are negative.

- Source: https://eodhd.com/financial-apis/stock-etfs-fundamental-data-feeds/ (filed 2026-10-16T07:48:13.270Z); Closing price 1.145 AUD; reporting-to-trading FX 1.6207684079673905; FY2025 annual sales per share 0.0310599384318223; price multiple 22.74489484529403. FY2025 cash earnings/share -0.46694511488560747. Closing-price date 2026-10-15.

## Monthly share-price history (AUD per share)

- 2018-05: AUD 0.26 per share

- 2018-06: AUD 0.26 per share

- 2018-07: AUD 0.26 per share

- 2018-08: AUD 0.26 per share

- 2018-09: AUD 0.23 per share

- 2018-10: AUD 0.20 per share

- 2018-11: AUD 0.18 per share

- 2018-12: AUD 0.19 per share

- 2019-01: AUD 0.17 per share

- 2019-02: AUD 0.20 per share

- 2019-03: AUD 0.17 per share

- 2019-04: AUD 0.16 per share

- 2019-05: AUD 0.16 per share

- 2019-06: AUD 0.18 per share

- 2019-07: AUD 0.20 per share

- 2019-08: AUD 0.17 per share

- 2019-09: AUD 0.19 per share

- 2019-10: AUD 0.15 per share

- 2019-11: AUD 0.15 per share

- 2019-12: AUD 0.16 per share

- 2020-01: AUD 0.20 per share

- 2020-02: AUD 0.23 per share

- 2020-03: AUD 0.17 per share

- 2020-04: AUD 0.21 per share

- 2020-05: AUD 0.36 per share

- 2020-06: AUD 0.57 per share

- 2020-07: AUD 0.45 per share

- 2020-08: AUD 0.65 per share

- 2020-09: AUD 1.18 per share

- 2020-10: AUD 1.24 per share

- 2020-11: AUD 2.32 per share

- 2020-12: AUD 2.76 per share

- 2021-01: AUD 7.90 per share

- 2021-02: AUD 6.44 per share

- 2021-03: AUD 5.79 per share

- 2021-04: AUD 8.29 per share

- 2021-05: AUD 7.64 per share

- 2021-06: AUD 7.70 per share

- 2021-07: AUD 9.80 per share

- 2021-08: AUD 14.25 per share

- 2021-09: AUD 13.03 per share

- 2021-10: AUD 12.51 per share

- 2021-11: AUD 11.03 per share

- 2021-12: AUD 10.40 per share

- 2022-01: AUD 9.19 per share

- 2022-02: AUD 8.59 per share

- 2022-03: AUD 10.15 per share

- 2022-04: AUD 8.48 per share

- 2022-05: AUD 8.19 per share

- 2022-06: AUD 5.42 per share

- 2022-07: AUD 7.80 per share

- 2022-08: AUD 8.25 per share

- 2022-09: AUD 7.50 per share

- 2022-10: AUD 7.62 per share

- 2022-11: AUD 7.21 per share

- 2022-12: AUD 6.33 per share

- 2023-01: AUD 7.13 per share

- 2023-02: AUD 6.40 per share

- 2023-03: AUD 5.66 per share

- 2023-04: AUD 5.96 per share

- 2023-05: AUD 3.66 per share

- 2023-06: AUD 4.19 per share

- 2023-07: AUD 4.44 per share

- 2023-08: AUD 3.41 per share

- 2023-09: AUD 2.89 per share

- 2023-10: AUD 2.07 per share

- 2023-11: AUD 2.52 per share

- 2023-12: AUD 2.85 per share

- 2024-01: AUD 2.14 per share

- 2024-02: AUD 2.28 per share

- 2024-03: AUD 2.87 per share

- 2024-04: AUD 3.38 per share

- 2024-05: AUD 4.74 per share

- 2024-06: AUD 3.76 per share

- 2024-07: AUD 4.57 per share

- 2024-08: AUD 3.91 per share

- 2024-09: AUD 4.52 per share

- 2024-10: AUD 5.16 per share

- 2024-11: AUD 7.10 per share

- 2024-12: AUD 5.35 per share

- 2025-01: AUD 4.63 per share

- 2025-02: AUD 3.71 per share

- 2025-03: AUD 5.08 per share

- 2025-04: AUD 4.85 per share

- 2025-05: AUD 3.88 per share

- 2025-06: AUD 3.64 per share

- 2025-07: AUD 3.64 per share

- 2025-08: AUD 4.14 per share

- 2025-09: AUD 6.00 per share

- 2025-10: AUD 6.73 per share

- 2025-11: AUD 5.03 per share

- 2025-12: AUD 4.41 per share

- 2026-01: AUD 4.02 per share

- 2026-02: AUD 3.74 per share

- 2026-03: AUD 3.19 per share

- 2026-04: AUD 3.87 per share

- 2026-05: AUD 3.99 per share

- 2026-06: AUD 3.05 per share

- 2026-07: AUD 2.55 per share

- 2026-08: AUD 2.69 per share

- 2026-09: AUD 1.86 per share

- 2026-10: AUD 1.20 per share

## Annual estimated value (AUD per share)

Historical values use today's bond yield for every fiscal year

Historical values use today's FX rate into trading currency for every fiscal year

Historical values use current restated fundamentals and current commodity classification; they are not point-in-time estimates

## Sources

Estimates depend on assumptions and are not guarantees or investment advice. Underlying data remains subject to its source licenses; public reading does not grant bulk redistribution rights.
← Companies

Vulcan Energy Resources

VUL · AU

S&P/ASX 200

Not a wonderful business

4 quality tests fail. A lower price would not fix the business.

Share price
AUD 1.15
Quality tests
Fail
Annual history
9 years
Market value
$379M

The business

How it makes money
Why customers stay
Where the cash goes
Are managers owners
What the price says

1. Is this a good business?

Evidence only; not required for Buy

9 loss years were recorded (limit 2), and average operating margin was negative (must be zero or higher), and margins varied 56.3% around their average (limit 35%).

5y median
-500.3%
Worst year
-810.0%
Latest · 2025
-810.0%

Capital return excluding acquisitions: median -11.9% (minimum 15%), and the second-worst year -52.8% (minimum 10%).

9y median
-11.9%
Worst year
-154.2%
Latest · 2025
-12.3%

Owners received -348.5 million over five years (must be positive), and new investment earned -17.7% (minimum 12%).

5y median
EUR -68M
Worst year
EUR -110M
Latest · 2025
EUR -110M

Per-share value fell from 0 to -0.22, comparing three-year medians at each end (must rise and stay positive).

9y median
EUR -0.13
Worst year
EUR -0.29
Latest · 2025
EUR -0.29

Profits were backed by cash: accruals were -0.1% of assets (limit 10%).

9y median
-3.1%
Worst year
1.4%
Latest · 2025
-0.1%

Profit record · fail 9 loss years in 9 (at most 2), mean operating margin -455.2%, three-year average owner earnings per share -0.38 EUR. 9 loss years in the last 10; at most 2 allowed. Mean operating margin over the last ten years is negative. Three-year average owner earnings per share is not positive.

RevenueEUR 7.3M
14M020172025
FY2021 · Revenue: EUR 3.8M; FY2022 · Revenue: EUR 3.8M; FY2023 · Revenue: EUR 14M; FY2024 · Revenue: EUR 8.1M; FY2025 · Revenue: EUR 7.3M
Revenue
Owner earningsEUR -110M
1.00-110M20172025
FY2017 · Owner earnings: EUR -48K; FY2018 · Owner earnings: EUR -255K; FY2019 · Owner earnings: EUR -795K; FY2020 · Owner earnings: EUR -39M; FY2021 · Owner earnings: EUR -39M; FY2022 · Owner earnings: EUR -68M; FY2023 · Owner earnings: EUR -28M; FY2024 · Owner earnings: EUR -104M; FY2025 · Owner earnings: EUR -110M
Owner earnings
Operating margin-810.0%
10.0%-810.0%20172025
FY2021 · Operating margin: -500.3%; FY2022 · Operating margin: -625.1%; FY2023 · Operating margin: -100.5%; FY2024 · Operating margin: -240.2%; FY2025 · Operating margin: -810.0%
Operating margin
Net cash / debtEUR 477M
477M020172025
FY2017 · Net cash / debt: EUR 4.0M; FY2018 · Net cash / debt: EUR 1.3M; FY2019 · Net cash / debt: EUR 2.4M; FY2020 · Net cash / debt: EUR 172M; FY2021 · Net cash / debt: EUR 172M; FY2022 · Net cash / debt: EUR 208M; FY2023 · Net cash / debt: EUR 57M; FY2024 · Net cash / debt: EUR 93M; FY2025 · Net cash / debt: EUR 477M
Net cash / debt
Diluted shares235M
235M020172025
FY2017 · Diluted shares: 150M; FY2018 · Diluted shares: 150M; FY2019 · Diluted shares: 150M; FY2020 · Diluted shares: 150M; FY2021 · Diluted shares: 150M; FY2022 · Diluted shares: 150M; FY2023 · Diluted shares: 206M; FY2024 · Diluted shares: 190M; FY2025 · Diluted shares: 235M
Diluted shares
Prices 15 Oct 2026 · FY2025