CrowdStrike Holdings Inc. (NASDAQ:CRWD)

Net Operating Profit After Taxes (NOPAT)

The NOPAT demonstrates a consistent upward trajectory from 2020 through 2024, increasing from approximately $139 million to nearly $691 million. This represents strong operational profitability growth. However, in 2025, there is a notable decline to approximately $516 million, indicating a potential operational performance challenge or margin compression in that year.

Cost of Capital

The cost of capital remains relatively stable over the analyzed period, fluctuating very slightly around 16%, with values ranging from 15.92% to 16.17%. This suggests a consistent risk profile or capital structure without significant changes in financing costs.

Invested Capital

Invested capital has shown substantial growth year over year, expanding from roughly $670 million in 2020 to over $7.6 billion by 2025. The increase is particularly steep between 2020 and 2021, as well as continuing a strong upward trend through 2025, indicating significant investment or asset accumulation supporting the company’s operations and growth ambitions.

Economic Profit

Economic profit exhibits a starkly different trend compared to NOPAT. Beginning with a positive figure of approximately $31 million in 2020, economic profit turns negative in 2021 and remains negative throughout subsequent years, reaching a significant deficit of over $710 million in 2025. This suggests that despite rising operating profits, the return on invested capital has not exceeded the cost of capital in recent years, resulting in value destruction rather than creation.

Overall Insights

The data indicates a company experiencing rapid growth in invested capital and operational profitability through 2024, followed by a decline in profitability in 2025. Despite increasing net operating profit, the persistent negative economic profit reflects inefficiencies or high capital costs that erode value creation. The stable cost of capital implies external financing conditions have remained constant, so internal factors likely drive the economic profit downturn. This pattern signals a need for strategic reassessment to improve capital efficiency and restore positive economic profit.

Net Income (Loss) Attributable to CrowdStrike

The net income figures demonstrate significant variability over the periods. Starting with a net loss of approximately $141.8 million in the year ending January 2020, the loss decreased to about $92.6 million in January 2021. However, this was followed by an increased loss to roughly $234.8 million in January 2022. Thereafter, the loss narrowed to $183.2 million in 2023. Notably, in 2024, there was a reversal to a positive net income of $89.3 million, indicating a substantial recovery. In the following year, 2025, the figure returned to a loss, though much smaller than previous years, at approximately $19.3 million.

Net Operating Profit After Taxes (NOPAT)

The NOPAT values exhibit a consistent and strong upward trend over the years observed. Starting at $139.1 million in 2020, there was a steep increase to $246.0 million in 2021. The upward momentum continued in 2022 with $389.9 million, then sharply increased to $625.9 million in 2023. In 2024, NOPAT further grew to $690.7 million before experiencing a decline to $516.4 million in 2025. Despite the decrease in the final year, the overall trend across the period indicates strong growth in operational profitability after taxes.

Summary of Trends and Insights

The financial data reveals a divergence between net income and NOPAT trends. While net income shows volatility with alternating losses and positive results, NOPAT consistently increased until 2024 before slightly declining in 2025. This suggests that operational efficiency and profitability improvements were achieved, but other factors such as non-operating expenses, taxes, or one-time items might have adversely impacted the net income figures. The significant positive net income in 2024 stands out as an anomaly compared to other years with net losses. The decreasing net loss in 2025 alongside a decline in NOPAT might indicate emerging challenges or increased costs affecting overall profitability despite strong operational earnings.

Provision for Income Taxes

The provision for income taxes shows significant fluctuation over the observed periods. From 2020 to 2021, there is a noticeable increase from approximately 2 million to nearly 4.8 million US dollars. This upward trend continues sharply into 2022, reaching over 72 million US dollars. However, in 2023, the provision declines substantially to around 22 million US dollars before increasing again in the subsequent years, rising to about 32 million and then further to approximately 71 million US dollars by 2025. This pattern indicates periods of considerable variability in tax provisioning, suggesting changes in taxable income or adjustments in tax strategy during these years.

Cash Operating Taxes

Cash operating taxes follow a somewhat similar but less volatile pattern compared to the provision for income taxes. Starting at close to 2.8 million US dollars in 2020, the cash taxes increase to around 6 million US dollars in 2021. There is a significant spike in 2022 reaching over 91 million US dollars, which is a marked increase from previous years. Following this peak, the cash tax payments decrease sharply to approximately 15.8 million US dollars in 2023, then decline further to just over 10 million in 2024, before increasing again to about 45.9 million US dollars in 2025. The fluctuations in cash taxes suggest variability in actual tax payments that may reflect changes in cash flows or timing differences relative to the provision for income taxes.

Comparison and Insights

Both provision for income taxes and cash operating taxes exhibit significant fluctuations, with peaks around 2022, followed by declines and then increases toward 2025. The provision generally exceeds the cash taxes in some years, particularly noticeable in 2022, indicating potential deferred tax liabilities or adjustments in tax accounting treatments. The volatile nature of both metrics implies an underlying variability in taxable income or strategic tax management, possibly linked to changes in operating performance or tax regulations during the analyzed periods.

The financial data indicates significant changes in the capital structure and equity position over the observed periods.

Total Reported Debt & Leases

The reported debt and leases showed a substantial increase from approximately $50.7 million in early 2020 to around $779.0 million in early 2021. From 2021 through 2025, the value of reported debt and leases remained relatively stable, fluctuating slightly around the $780 million mark. This suggests that after a sharp rise in debt, the company maintained a consistent level of liabilities related to debt and leases.

Total Stockholders’ Equity

Stockholders’ equity consistently increased throughout the period, starting from approximately $742.1 million at the beginning of 2020 and rising to nearly $3.28 billion by January 2025. The growth trend appears to accelerate over time, with a remarkable increase especially after 2022, indicating a significant strengthening of the company's equity base and potentially reflecting retained earnings growth, capital raises, or other equity improvements.

Invested Capital

Invested capital experienced a dramatic increase, jumping from about $669.5 million in 2020 to roughly $2.52 billion in 2021. This upward trend continued steadily, reaching over $7.61 billion by early 2025. The data reflects substantial investments and growth in company assets financed by both debt and equity over these years, underscoring rapid expansion or capital deployment activities.

Overall, the data reveals a period of rapid growth in invested capital accompanied by a stable level of debt and a strong expansion of stockholders’ equity. The company's capital structure appears to have shifted towards greater equity financing while maintaining a steady debt position. This trend suggests increased financial strength and capacity to support ongoing operations and growth initiatives.

The financial data reveals several significant trends over the six-year period from January 31, 2020, to January 31, 2025.

Economic Profit

The economic profit shows a distinct downward trend throughout the observed period. Initially positive in 2020 at 30,853 thousand US dollars, it turns negative from 2021 onwards, with losses expanding significantly over time. By 2025, the economic profit deteriorates sharply to a substantial loss of 710,306 thousand US dollars, indicating worsening profitability from an economic perspective.

Invested Capital

The invested capital displays consistent growth year over year. Starting at 669,497 thousand US dollars in 2020, it increases substantially to 7,614,215 thousand US dollars by 2025. This shows a significant expansion in the assets or resources allocated to business operations, more than a tenfold increase within the six-year period.

Economic Spread Ratio

The economic spread ratio exhibits a negative trajectory after 2020. Initially positive at 4.61%, this ratio turns negative in 2021 at -6.25% and remains negative throughout subsequent years, reaching an increasingly adverse value of -9.33% by 2025. This declining spread suggests that the return on invested capital is insufficient to cover the cost of capital, leading to value destruction over time.

Overall, the data highlights a scenario where the company considerably increases its invested capital yet suffers from declining economic profitability and worsening returns relative to its cost of capital. This pattern may point to challenges in generating adequate returns on expanded investments and increasing economic inefficiency through the period under review.

Adjusted Revenue

The adjusted revenue demonstrated a consistent upward trend over the entire period. Starting at approximately 762.5 million US dollars in early 2020, it increased significantly each year, reaching about 4.63 billion US dollars by early 2025. This steady growth indicates strong sales performance and expanding market presence.

Economic Profit

Economic profit showed a negative trend after 2020. Initially positive at around 30.9 million US dollars in early 2020, it turned negative in 2021 and remained below zero thereafter. The economic loss deepened particularly in 2024 and 2025, reaching approximately -710.3 million US dollars by early 2025, signaling increased costs, investments, or inefficiencies relative to the returns generated.

Economic Profit Margin

This margin, which measures economic profit relative to revenue, follows a similar pattern to economic profit. It was positive at 4.05% in early 2020 but declined sharply to negative percentages in the following years. The margin remained below zero for the entire period from 2021 onwards, with the lowest value of -15.35% occurring in early 2025. This suggests that profitability relative to revenue has deteriorated notably over time.

Overall Analysis

Despite robust revenue growth across the years, economic profit and economic profit margin reflected increasing losses. This indicates that while sales volume and revenue generation have expanded significantly, the company faced challenges in converting this growth into economic profitability. The widening economic losses and declining margins highlight potential issues related to cost management, operational efficiency, or investment returns that warrant further investigation.