Forensic Analysis · Retail / Consumer Discretionary · as of Aug 11, 2026
Cava Group, Inc. (CAVA)
A forensic read on Cava Group, Inc. built from its complete SEC filings — financial-health screens, earnings quality, red flags and a price-aware rating. Reproducible math, not opinion.
D · Weak — demands caution
Forensic grade
Safe
Financial health
13.6
Distress distance
Clean
Earnings quality
4
Forensic signals
120.9
P / E (ttm)
8.2%
ROE
$7.1B
Market cap
22.4%
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.
Cava Group, Inc. earns a D (Weak — demands caution) forensic quality grade, and its balance-sheet distress test reads 13.6, placing it in the Safe zone. 4 forensic signals were flagged in its latest SEC filings, led by accruals ratio (% of noa).
What the filings flag
+40.5%
FY2024→FY2025
Accruals ratio (% of NOA).Net operating assets grew +40.5% 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 sharply — a large slice of profit sits in operating assets, not cash; Richardson/Sloan link high accruals to weaker future returns as they reverse. The build is led by receivables up +32% against revenue +22% and PP&E up +23% against revenue +22%. The cash-flow cross-check is more mixed: reported earnings ran behind operating cash by 29% of net operating assets, diverging from the balance-sheet accrual read.
5.4%
FY2025
Return on invested capital.Return on invested capital is 5.4% in the latest fiscal year and rising from 1% — well below its ~9% cost of capital, so reinvested dollars may be destroying value, not building it.
FCF ($42M)
FY2023
Shareholder returns.Returned $3M to shareholders (buybacks + dividends) in FY2023, but free cash flow was ($42M) after capex — there was no free cash flow to fund the payout from at all, though operating cash flow alone was $97M — 3% 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.
n/m (stock split)
FY2023–FY2025
Share count (stock split).Diluted share count changed +86% over the last 2 years to FY2025, but that includes a large one-time change around FY2024 consistent with a stock split or reverse split, not gradual buybacks or issuance — a split changes the count with NO effect on any holder's proportional ownership, so the raw +36.5%/yr figure isn't a real buyback/dilution read here.
Key fundamentals
Latest Revenue$1.18B
Revenue Growth YoY+22.4%
Net Margin5.4%
Free Cash Flow$26.1M
Return on Equity8.2%
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 Cava Group, Inc.'s actual 10-K/10-Q/8-K filings?