Forensic Analysis · Electric Utilities · as of Nov 8, 2026
Black Hills Corp /Sd/ (BKH)
A forensic read on Black Hills Corp /Sd/ 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
Clean
Earnings quality
4
Forensic signals
8.0%
ROE
8.6%
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.
Black Hills Corp /Sd/ earns a C (Mixed — selective) forensic quality grade. 4 forensic signals were flagged in its latest SEC filings, led by shareholder returns.
What the filings flag
FCF ($146M)
FY2025
Shareholder returns.Returned $198M to shareholders (buybacks + dividends) in FY2025, but free cash flow was ($146M) after capex — there was no free cash flow to fund the payout from at all, though operating cash flow alone was $673M — 29% of that. Capex and the payout together ran $344M past operating cash flow — a harder case than returns merely running ahead of free cash flow, since here there was none to run ahead of. New debt covered part of it: total debt rose $451M over FY2025, while cash rose $167M — $284M of the $344M. The FY2025 cash-flow statement filed $450M of debt issued; $219M from shares issued; net cash used in investing activities of $828M; net cash provided by financing activities of $322M.
4.9%
FY2025
Return on invested capital.Return on invested capital is 4.9% in the latest fiscal year and steady across FY2023–FY2025, inside a 0.1-point range. After-tax operating profit was $425M in FY2023 and $469M in FY2025, with operating income at 20.3% of revenue in FY2023, 23.6% in FY2024 and 23.3% in FY2025. The capital base behind it went from $8.9B in FY2023 to $9.6B in FY2025 (+7%), while the revenue it carried went from $2.3B to $2.3B. Across FY2024–FY2025, $1.6B went into capital expenditure against $552M of depreciation excluding $2M of intangible-asset 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.
+4.4%/yr
FY2023–FY2025
Share-count dilution.Diluted share count changed +9% over the last 2 years to FY2025 (+4.4%/yr). The count is growing — 67.1M shares in FY2023, 73.2M in FY2025: more stock was issued than repurchased over this window, so aggregate results grew faster than their per-share equivalents. That's ~4.4% 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 FY2023 has been diluted ~8%.
0.5% of rev
FY2025
Stock-based comp load.Stock-based compensation ran 0.5% of revenue in FY2025 — about $0.16 per diluted share. No cash left the business to pay it, which is why operating cash flow adds it back. Net of repurchases the diluted count still rose about 4.4% a year across FY2023–FY2025 and that rate is not falling, so total profit has to grow by that much annually before any of it reaches a share. Stock compensation is one source of that issuance; acquisition consideration, equity raises, convertibles and other employee plans also net into the count, and these figures do not separate them.
Key fundamentals
Latest Revenue$2.31B
Revenue Growth YoY+8.6%
Revenue CAGR (2yr)-0.5%
Net Margin12.6%
Free Cash Flow-$146.4M
Return on Equity8.0%
Debt / Equity1.23x
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 Black Hills Corp /Sd/'s actual 10-K/10-Q/8-K filings?