Forensic Analysis · Retail / Consumer Discretionary · as of Nov 8, 2026
Asbury Automotive Group Inc (ABG)
A forensic read on Asbury Automotive Group Inc built from its complete SEC filings — financial-health screens, earnings quality, red flags and a price-aware rating. Reproducible math, not opinion.
B · Sound & dependable
Forensic grade
Grey Zone
Financial health
1.9
Distress distance
Clean
Earnings quality
2
Forensic signals
13.3%
ROE
4.7%
Revenue growth
This free snapshot doesn't read filing or proxy text, so the auditor-quality and governance checks that can lower a grade were not evaluated (auditor quality, say on pay, board independence, going concern). Those checks only ever lower a grade, so the full analysis can land below the grade above but never above it — treat it as the most favourable reading, not the settled one.
Asbury Automotive Group Inc earns a B (Sound & dependable) forensic quality grade, and its balance-sheet distress test reads 1.9, placing it in the Grey zone. 2 forensic signals were flagged in its latest SEC filings, led by return on invested capital.
What the filings flag
8.0%
FY2025
Return on invested capital.Return on invested capital is 8.0% in the latest fiscal year and slipping across FY2023–FY2025 from 9.8%. After-tax operating profit was $717M in FY2023 and $639M in FY2025, with operating income at 6.4% of revenue in FY2023, 4.9% in FY2024 and 4.8% in FY2025. The capital base behind it went from $7.3B in FY2023 to $8.0B in FY2025 (+10%), while the revenue it carried went from $14.8B to $18.0B. Across FY2024–FY2025, $2.1B went into capital expenditure and acquisitions against $157M of total depreciation and amortisation. The base is struck net of amortisation, write-downs and the current liabilities that fund it, so it moved by less than that spending net of the wear, and this row does not say which of those absorbed the difference. FY2024's operating profit carried a $150M asset write-down and a $1M goodwill write-off that alone took about 1.5 points off that year's return; FY2024 sits between the two ends of FY2023–FY2025, so the charge shapes the path between them without moving the change across it. A non-cash write-down lowers the reported return in the year it lands.
$16M
FY2023–FY2024
Goodwill impairments.Took $16M of goodwill writedowns across 2 years (FY2023 ($15M), FY2024 ($1M)) — about 2% of net income over the span. Writedowns mean past acquisitions underperformed what was paid for them.
Key fundamentals
Latest Revenue$18.00B
Revenue Growth YoY+4.7%
Revenue CAGR (2yr)+10.3%
Net Margin2.7%
Free Cash Flow$589.2M
Return on Equity13.3%
Debt / Equity0.92x
The forensic grade and screens above are free — no account needed. Want the AI investment read on top — the 0–100 rating, thesis, bull-vs-bear, red flags and the 12-month scenario, written from Asbury Automotive Group Inc's actual 10-K/10-Q/8-K filings?