Forensic Analysis · Utilities · as of Aug 10, 2026
American Water Works Company, Inc. (AWK)
A forensic read on American Water Works Company, 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
1.3
Distress distance
Clean
Earnings quality
4
Forensic signals
23.6
P / E (ttm)
10.3%
ROE
$26.8B
Market cap
2.66%
Dividend yield
9.7%
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 (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.
American Water Works Company, Inc. earns a B (Sound & dependable) forensic quality grade, and its balance-sheet distress test reads 1.3, placing it in the Grey zone. 4 forensic signals were flagged in its latest SEC filings, led by share-count dilution.
What the filings flag
+2.3%/yr
FY2022–FY2025
Share-count dilution.Diluted share count changed +7% over the last 3 years to FY2025 (+2.3%/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 ~2.3% 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 ~7%.
FCF ($1.1B)
FY2025
Shareholder returns.Returned $633M to shareholders (buybacks + dividends) in FY2025, but free cash flow was ($1.1B) after capex — there was no free cash flow to fund the payout from at all, though operating cash flow alone was $2.1B — 31% 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.
4.6%
FY2025
Return on invested capital.Return on invested capital is 4.6% in the latest fiscal year and steady — slightly below its ~6% cost of capital — reinvestment is roughly a wash.
0.6% of rev
FY2025
Stock-based comp load.Stock-based compensation ran 0.6% of revenue in FY2025 — about $0.16 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 2.4% a year and is falling.
Key fundamentals
Latest Revenue$5.14B
Revenue Growth YoY+9.7%
Revenue CAGR (3yr)+10.7%
Net Margin21.6%
Free Cash Flow-$1.07B
Return on Equity10.3%
Debt / Equity1.33x
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 American Water Works Company, Inc.'s actual 10-K/10-Q/8-K filings?