Forensic Analysis · Satellite & Other Communications · as of Nov 9, 2026
Cogent Communications Holdings, Inc. (CCOI)
A forensic read on Cogent Communications Holdings, Inc. built from its complete SEC filings — financial-health screens, earnings quality, red flags and a price-aware rating. Reproducible math, not opinion.
F · Poor — capital at risk
Forensic grade
Clean
Earnings quality
4
Forensic signals
-5.8%
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.
Cogent Communications Holdings, Inc. earns an F (Poor — capital at risk) forensic quality grade. 4 forensic signals were flagged in its latest SEC filings, led by cash conversion.
What the filings flag
-0.00×
FY2023–FY2025
Cash conversion.Over FY2023–FY2025, cumulative operating cash flow was -0.00× cumulative net income. Reported profit is not turning into cash. The shortfall is profit tied up in working capital rather than collected — the accrual and receivables lines below show where.Cash conversion: operating cash flow divided by net income, the share of profit that arrived as cash.
-2.9%
FY2025
Return on invested capital.Return on invested capital is -2.9% in the latest fiscal year, against -4.2% in FY2023, having run between -5.7% and -2.9% across FY2023–FY2025 with no direction held. After-tax operating profit was ($116M) in FY2023 and ($80M) in FY2025, with operating income at -13.7% of revenue in FY2023, -19.1% in FY2024 and -10.4% in FY2025. The capital base behind it went from $2.8B in FY2023 to $2.7B in FY2025 (-1%), while the revenue it carried went from $941M to $976M.
FCF ($198M)
FY2025
Shareholder returns.Returned $167M to shareholders (buybacks + dividends) in FY2025, but free cash flow was ($198M) after capex — there was no free cash flow to fund the payout from at all, and operating cash flow itself was negative or zero that year too. 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.
-21%
FY2024→FY2025
Dividend — cut.The payout was CUT ~21% in FY2025 (from FY2024). It still returns some cash, but it is NOT the dependable, rising dividend an unbroken streak implies.
Key fundamentals
Latest Revenue$975.8M
Revenue Growth YoY-5.8%
Revenue CAGR (2yr)+1.8%
Net Margin-18.7%
Free Cash Flow-$198.1M
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 Cogent Communications Holdings, Inc.'s actual 10-K/10-Q/8-K filings?