Forensic Analysis · Utilities · as of Aug 11, 2026
Avista Corp (AVA)
A forensic read on Avista Corp built from its complete SEC filings — financial-health screens, earnings quality, red flags and a price-aware rating. Reproducible math, not opinion.
C · Mixed — selective
Forensic grade
Grey Zone
Financial health
1.1
Distress distance
Clean
Earnings quality
6
Forensic signals
14.4
P / E (ttm)
7.1%
ROE
$3.2B
Market cap
5.13%
Dividend yield
1.3%
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 (red flags, auditor quality, say on pay, board independence). 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.
Avista Corp earns a C (Mixed — selective) forensic quality grade, and its balance-sheet distress test reads 1.1, placing it in the Grey zone. 6 forensic signals were flagged in its latest SEC filings, led by share-count dilution.
What the filings flag
+3.5%/yr
FY2022–FY2025
Share-count dilution.Diluted share count changed +11% over the last 3 years to FY2025 (+3.5%/yr). The count is growing: more stock was issued than repurchased over this window, so aggregate results grew faster than their per-share equivalents. That's ~3.5% shaved off per-share growth every year — total profit has to grow that much just to keep earnings-per-share flat, and a stake held since FY2022 has been diluted ~10%.
FCF ($101M)
FY2025
Shareholder returns.Returned $159M to shareholders (buybacks + dividends) in FY2025, but free cash flow was ($101M) after capex — there was no free cash flow to fund the payout from at all, though operating cash flow alone was $469M — 34% of that. The entire return is coming from debt or cash reserves, not cash the business itself generated — a harder case than returns merely running ahead of free cash flow, since here there was none to run ahead of.
+18.3%
FY2024→FY2025
Accruals ratio (% of NOA).Net operating assets grew +18.3% relative to their own average in FY2025 — scaled by NOA itself, not total assets (see the Forensic Screens card's differently-scaled Sloan Accrual Ratio for that read). Accruals are building faster than is comfortable — part of profit is sitting in the balance sheet rather than turning to cash. The build is led by inventory up +22% against +1% in revenue. The cash-flow cross-check is more mixed: reported earnings ran behind operating cash by 10% of net operating assets, diverging from the balance-sheet accrual read.
40d
FY2024→FY2025
Inventory days.Days inventory outstanding moved from 33 to 40 FY2024→FY2025 (against revenue (COGS not disclosed); inventory +22% vs +1% in revenue). Inventory is building a little faster than sales — watch for markdowns.
Key fundamentals
Latest Revenue$1.96B
Revenue Growth YoY+1.3%
Revenue CAGR (3yr)+4.7%
Net Margin9.8%
Free Cash Flow-$101.0M
Return on Equity7.1%
Debt / Equity0.14x
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 Avista Corp's actual 10-K/10-Q/8-K filings?
Return on invested capital.Return on invested capital is 4.0% in the latest fiscal year and steady — slightly below its ~6% cost of capital — reinvestment is roughly a wash.
0.5% of rev
FY2025
Stock-based comp load.Stock-based compensation ran 0.5% of revenue in FY2025 — about $0.11 per diluted share. The cost of it is not in the cash flow — no cash left the business — it is in the count, and there it has run at about 3.5% a year and is falling.