Live Nation Entertainment
Live Nation Entertainment's revenue rose 8.8% to $25.2 billion in fiscal 2025. Its operating margin was 5.0%, up from 3.6% a year earlier. Free cash flow was $334 million, down 69.1%. It paid out $24 million in dividends and buybacks, 7% of free cash flow. The diluted share count fell 1.9%.
Operating margin is operating income as a share of revenue. Free cash flow is cash from operations minus capital spending. Return on equity is net income as a share of shareholders' equity. Market cap is the last closing share price times the latest diluted share count, so it is approximate. P/E is the last close divided by diluted earnings per share over the last four quarters, or the latest fiscal year where the quarters aren't available; there is none when the company made a loss.
What Live Nation Entertainment does
Live Nation promotes concerts, runs venues and sells tickets. It says it is the largest producer of live music concerts in the world, and that it owns, operates, has exclusive booking rights for or has an equity interest in 460 venues, including House of Blues clubs and The Fillmore in San Francisco. Its artist management companies represent music artists across genres.
The company's core businesses are the promotion of live events, ticketing, and sponsorship and advertising. It earns money from ticket sales and fees, from fans spending at its venues on food, drinks and merchandise, and from sponsors and advertisers that want to reach concertgoers. Its Ticketmaster unit sells tickets through its websites, mobile apps and retail outlets for arenas, stadiums, sports teams and other event organizers, and distributed 646 million tickets in 2025. Live Nation says it connected over 805 million fans across its concerts and ticketing platforms in 55 countries in 2025.
Live Nation says it invests nearly $15 billion a year in artist performances. It plans to expand its venues, concert business and ticketing platform, and to sell more sponsorships. It says it faces intense competition in live music and ticketing.
Its biggest risks, as it describes them
- Changes in public tastes, and its ability to secure popular artists and live music events.
- Intense competition in live music and ticketing that could stop it from keeping or growing its revenue.
- Its dependence on relationships with key promoters, executives, agents, managers and artists.
- Its ability to lease, buy and build venues on acceptable terms.
- Accidents, injuries and bad weather at its live events, which could bring claims and lower attendance.
Charts show fiscal years, from the 10-K filings.
Revenue and margins
Net income and earnings per share
From fiscal 2022 to 2024, earnings per share grew 129.5% a year and net income 83.4% a year, as new shares raised the share count by 2% and diluted each share's earnings.
Returns on capital
Cash flow
Payouts and share count
Valuation
Two ways to value Live Nation Entertainment yourself, both starting from its filings: a discounted cash flow model and the price-to-earnings method.
Discounted cash flow (DCF)
A discounted cash flow (DCF) model values a business as the cash it may generate in future, discounted back to today. The starting figures come from Live Nation Entertainment's 10-K (or, for net cash and shares, its latest 10-Q) and the assumptions are yours: start from one of three example scenarios, then change any figure to see what it implies for a share, and how that compares with the last share price.
Value per share on three example scenarios, from Live Nation Entertainment's cash from operations minus depreciation in fiscal 2025 (free cash flow before spending to grow: capital spending was 1.7 times depreciation, which holds its free cash flow down) of $756M, net cash of −$1.1B at December 31, 2025 and 232 million diluted shares, from its filings. The scenarios are fitted to Live Nation Entertainment: the base scenario's growth in years 1 to 5 is its revenue growth over the last 3 years, 14.7% a year; the cautious and optimistic ones are lower and higher, and growth in years 6 to 10 is halfway to the long-run rate. The base scenario's discount rate is 10%: 9% for a business of moderate risk (Movies & Entertainment), plus 1 point for unsteady results (a loss in fiscal 2021); the cautious and optimistic ones use a point more and a point less. Select one to load it into the calculator. These are the model's arithmetic on those assumptions, not a forecast or a price target.
- Last close, October 26, 2026
- $172.58
- Value on these assumptions, against the last close
- —
- Cash flows in years 1 to 10, valued today
- —
- Everything after year 10, valued today
- —
- Plus net cash
- —
- Share of value from after year 10
How the value changes with two assumptions
Price-to-earnings (P/E) method
Another common way to value a company is to multiply its earnings per share by a price-to-earnings (P/E) multiple: the number of years of today's earnings an investor pays for a share. A higher multiple usually means investors expect earnings to grow. Choose a multiple, for example from similar companies, to see the value it gives.
The P/E method needs positive earnings, and Live Nation Entertainment's latest diluted earnings per share were negative or zero.
Balance sheet
| Fiscal year end | FY21 | FY22 | FY23 | FY24 | FY25 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cash and short-term investments | 4.9 | 5.6 | 6.2 | 6.1 | 7.1 |
| Debt incl. finance leases | 5.7 | 5.9 | 6.6 | 6.4 | 8.2 |
| Net debt (negative means net cash) | 0.8 | 0.3 | 0.4 | 0.3 | 1.1 |
| Net debt to EBITDA | — | 0.2x | 0.2x | 0.2x | 0.6x |
| Debt to equity | — | — | — | — | — |
| Interest coverage | −1.5x | 2.6x | 3.1x | 2.5x | 4.0x |
| Current ratio | 1.0x | 1.0x | 0.9x | 1.0x | 1.0x |
| Quick ratio | 1.0x | 1.0x | 0.9x | 1.0x | 1.0x |
Insider trades
Over the 12 months between October 27, 2025 and October 26, 2026, no insider bought Live Nation Entertainment shares on the open market, and 4 insiders sold $27.0 million.
| Date | Insider | Trade | Shares | Price | Value | Filing |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Aug 24, 2026 | Brian CapoChief Accounting Officer | Sold | 2,900 | $184.00 | $533,600 | Form 4 |
| Jun 15, 2026 | Jeffrey T. HinsonDirector | Sold | 2,115 | $175.00 | $370,125 | Form 4 |
| May 8, 2026 | Michael RowlesEVP & General Counsel | Sold | 63,776 | $164.24 | $10.5 million | Form 4 |
| May 7, 2026 | John HopmansEVP, M&A and Strategic Finance | Sold | 93,078 | $166.07 | $15.5 million | Form 4 |
| Mar 10, 2026 | Jeffrey T. HinsonDirector | Sold | 944 | $165.87 | $156,581 | Form 4 |
Piotroski F-score
The F-score counts how many of nine simple tests of profitability, funding and efficiency a company passed in a year (Piotroski, 2000). The more tests passed, the stronger the year: 8 or 9 is strong, 0 to 2 weak. Companies that report no gross profit are scored on the other eight.
| Test | FY23 | FY24 | FY25 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Net income is positive | Pass | Pass | Pass |
| Cash from operations is positive | Pass | Pass | Pass |
| Return on assets rose | Pass | Pass | Fail |
| Cash from operations exceeds net income | Pass | Pass | Pass |
| Debt fell relative to assets | Pass | Pass | Fail |
| Current ratio rose | Fail | Pass | Pass |
| Share count didn't rise | Pass | Fail | Pass |
| Gross margin rose | — | — | — |
| Revenue rose relative to assets | Pass | Fail | Pass |
| F-score | 7 of 8 | 6 of 8 | 6 of 8 |
| Accruals ratio | −4.5% | −4.3% | −4.2% |
Compare
Put Live Nation Entertainment side by side with any other company we cover: revenue, growth, margins, cash flow and returns, with ten years of charts.
Similar companies
| Company | Year | Revenue growth | Operating margin | Free cash flow margin | Return on capital | Net debt to EBITDA | F-score | Compare |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Live Nation Entertainment | FY25 | 8.8% | 5.0% | 1.3% | — | 0.6x | 6 | |
| iQIYI | FY25 | −6.6% | 0.8% | 0.0% | 0.9% | 14.3x | — | Compare |
| Bilibili | FY25 | 13.1% | 3.7% | 21.9% | 17.7% | −2.9x | — | Compare |
| Spotify Technology | FY25 | 9.7% | 12.8% | 16.7% | — | — | 6 | Compare |
| Netflix | FY25 | 15.8% | 29.5% | 20.9% | 36.7% | 0.4x | 7 | Compare |
10 years of figures
| Fiscal year | FY16 | FY17 | FY18 | FY19 | FY20 | FY21 | FY22 | FY23 | FY24 | FY25 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Income statement | ||||||||||
| Revenue | 7.8 | 9.7 | 10.8 | 11.5 | 1.9 | 6.3 | 16.7 | 22.7 | 23.2 | 25.2 |
| Revenue growth | 8.0% | 23.8% | 11.4% | 7.0% | −83.9% | 236.8% | 166.1% | 36.2% | 1.9% | 8.8% |
| Gross profit | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| Research and development | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| Operating income | 0.2 | 0.1 | 0.3 | 0.3 | −1.7 | −0.4 | 0.7 | 1.1 | 0.8 | 1.3 |
| Net income | 0.0 | −0.0 | 0.1 | 0.1 | −1.7 | −0.7 | 0.3 | 0.6 | 0.9 | 0.5 |
| Diluted EPS (US$) | −0.23 | −0.48 | −0.09 | −0.02 | −8.12 | −3.09 | 0.52 | 1.34 | 2.74 | −0.24 |
| Diluted shares (millions) | 202 | 205 | 207 | 210 | 212 | 217 | 232 | 231 | 236 | 232 |
| Cash flow | ||||||||||
| Cash from operations | 0.6 | 0.6 | 0.9 | 0.5 | −1.1 | 1.8 | 1.8 | 1.4 | 1.7 | 1.4 |
| Capital expenditure | 0.2 | 0.2 | 0.2 | 0.3 | 0.2 | 0.2 | 0.3 | 0.4 | 0.6 | 1.1 |
| Free cash flow | 0.4 | 0.4 | 0.7 | 0.1 | −1.3 | 1.6 | 1.5 | 0.9 | 1.1 | 0.3 |
| Dividends paid | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 |
| Share buybacks | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 |
| Acquisitions | 0.2 | 0.0 | 0.1 | 0.2 | 0.0 | 0.4 | 0.3 | 0.0 | 0.1 | 0.1 |
| Stock-based compensation | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.1 | 0.2 | 0.1 | 0.1 | 0.1 | 0.2 |
| Balance sheet at fiscal year end | ||||||||||
| Cash and short-term investments | 1.5 | 1.8 | 2.4 | 2.5 | 2.5 | 4.9 | 5.6 | 6.2 | 6.1 | 7.1 |
| Debt incl. finance leases | 2.3 | 2.3 | 2.8 | 3.3 | 4.9 | 5.7 | 5.9 | 6.6 | 6.4 | 8.2 |
| Total assets | 6.8 | 7.5 | 8.5 | 11.0 | 10.6 | 14.4 | 16.5 | 19.0 | 19.6 | 22.9 |
| Total liabilities | 5.4 | 6.1 | 7.2 | 9.5 | 10.7 | 14.6 | 16.4 | 18.5 | 18.8 | 22.0 |
| Shareholders' equity | 1.1 | 1.2 | 1.1 | 1.1 | −0.5 | −0.6 | −0.4 | −0.1 | 0.2 | 0.3 |
| Margins and ratios | ||||||||||
| Gross margin | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| Operating margin | 2.5% | 0.9% | 2.5% | 2.8% | −88.8% | −6.7% | 4.3% | 4.8% | 3.6% | 5.0% |
| Net margin | 0.0% | −0.1% | 0.6% | 0.6% | −92.7% | −10.4% | 1.6% | 2.5% | 3.9% | 2.0% |
| Free cash flow margin | 5.4% | 4.0% | 6.5% | 1.3% | −69.7% | 26.0% | 8.9% | 4.1% | 4.7% | 1.3% |
| Return on capital | 4.5% | 3.6% | 10.2% | 10.2% | −57.5% | −22.8% | — | — | — | — |
| Return on equity | 0.2% | −0.5% | 5.3% | 6.2% | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| Return on assets | 0.1% | −0.1% | 0.8% | 0.7% | −16.0% | −5.2% | 1.7% | 3.1% | 4.6% | 2.3% |
| Net debt to EBITDA | 1.5x | 1.0x | 0.7x | 1.1x | — | — | 0.2x | 0.2x | 0.2x | 0.6x |